Information Markets on Romney Running Mate Pick: Meh

With Mitt Romney's announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate for the upcoming election, the information market has answered with an emphatic "whatever".  As of Thursday, Romney's predicted chance to win the upcoming election had gone as low as 38.0%, its lowest since May 22nd.  After Romney's announcement this morning that Wisconsin State Rep Paul Ryan would be his running mate, his win percentage has increased to 39.6% (an increase of .8% on the day).  While it is doubtful the Romney campaign missed out on a home run, it at least avoided a Palin-esque disaster.

Edit: Since I posted this, Romney's .8% gain had swung into the negative for the day.

Link to Intrade for stat geeks:
Closing Prices chart - Mitt Romney to be elected President in 2012

JB = JT

Confession.  I just watched the (new? idk) Justy Biebs video.  There was a link. It said he got pummeled by a "bad-boy actor".  Either way I win. Either 1) I see Bieber get what he's got coming. Or 2) I see an out-of-work actor look stupid. Or 3) I see an out-of-work-actor redeem himself (if only in a Biebs video)  Video here:



I've been on the record for a while as saying that I don't get the whole Bieber thing. Where did he come from? Why do people like him? Etc. After watching this, I get it, kinda. He's pulling up Justin Timberlake's slack. Now I'm not saying he's lost it but JT hasn't done much in awhile aside from chase a movie role here and there. Timberlake is a talent. He can act. But don't think that his real talent isn't on the song and dance side. So back to Biebs though. Has pop music become entirely derivative?  I didn't do so great in calculus so I apologize if I am re-RE-stating the obvious. My original question though, who the frick is Justin Bieber? If you're looking for a JT fill-in, is the best you can do? Or is this just as good as you have to do?

If you read it on the internet, it must be true

Dusting off the old blog again.  This time, I got called out for calling out the verisimilitude of an article on breitbart.com regarding the declining unemployment rate and newly elected republican governors.  The article is here. It's a two minute read, I encourage you to check it out before continuing.  The "calling out" is here:

I'll begin by restating that I don't doubt any of the unemployment statistics given.  I searched unsuccessfully for the numbers because I wanted to see ALL of the unemployment stats but I have no reason to believe the ones presented aren't correct.  I do however have numerous problems with the presentation, analysis and conclusion.   

1. Flawed- The article argues that the 17 states are reducing unemployment 50% faster than the rest of the country.  The U.S average decline is .9%.  Add up the total percentage declines and divide by 17 and you get 1.35%, 50% better than the country.  If you can't see how this math is wrong, I'll offer up a baseball analogy: Say your first-baseman has been slumping all season; he is batting .200 (20%).  At some point mid-season, you bring in a pinch hitter who in his first and only at-bat gets a hit.  What is the collective batting average of your first-basemen?  By the article's math, your first-basemen are collectively batting .600 ([.200+1.000]/2).  Obviously wrong.  When I look at the list of states, I see three states that are squarely in the top half of the country by size (Pennsylvania, Florida & Ohio with possible inclusion of Michigan and Georgia).  So what we have is a collection of states dominated by the little guys.  Maine anyone?  And while those three big states did have big declines, they were already outliers with high unemployment that were reverting to the mean.
2. Lazy- If you click the link in the article to the examiner.com you'll see that this is merely a summing up of another article with most of the same problems that I am pointing out here.  The breitbart piece does manage to omit the performance of the new democratic governors.
3. Incomplete- What would make this story stronger?  Maybe the whole story.  Whatever that is.  How about looking at all the states?  States with incumbent republicans and democrats or where new leaders have taken over for the incumbent party.  How about just a glance at the numbers from the other side?  Unemployment fell in all states with new-party governors except one.  I would also point out, from the numbers provided, that 29% of the new republicans have seen unemployment drops below the national rate while democrats are a bit worse at 38%.  Clearly electing a republican over a democrat is not the sure shot to reducing unemployment... if the governor or their policies are indeed what is driving down unemployment.  Which leads me to my last point...
4. Correlation does not prove causation-  It's the cardinal rule when using statistics.  Just because X frequently appears with Y, does not mean X causes Y.  But read the last line of the story: "This is yet another example of how the so-called “blue state” model is not working." What ever that model is.  What exactly is the red-state model that IS working?  I think the issues here are a bit more complicated than an imagined cookie-cutter model of governance.  

The story certainly provides a neat and intriguing headline and a seemingly concise take-away, just as long as you don't think about it too much.  

Let's Get It On!

I've been off the blog now for *looks at watch* three and a half months. Ouch. With Summer approaching and more time to kill, I thought I'd put down a couple thoughts on today's news to get back in the swing.

The Prez finally came down on the side for same-sex marriage today. Not that he wanted to politically, but perhaps what he had long wanted to do personally [fact check needed]. His hand was forced by the vote reinforcing same-sex union bans in North Carolina. The vote showed that the topic once again would play a role in a presidential campaign. With the conservative vote obviously on the side against and the topic at the forefront, the frequency and directness of questions was only going to increase. You can't not pick a side on such an important issue in an election year. We all knew this was the side that The Office would come down on; the other side was just never compatible with Democratic party ideals.

I have been following the news all day and the way it has played out has been pretty sweet. The day began with the reports on the outcome of the vote in NC. Disappointing for sure, but a victory for the right? Certainly not in the long-term. The practice of restricting one group's rights has quite the tradition down there but things eventually move forward, if slowly. Later on, in an obviously hastily called interview, The Prez made his announcement (finally). Did he just make up his mind on it that morning?  It feels like it could have been more definite but given the timing, it looks like a signal that this new campaign is fully prepared to defend the rights of same-sex couples from Mitt Romney and other social conservatives and also feels like a long awaited step towards inevitable progress. To end the news day, Romney told reporters that he is still against same-sex unions just in case we weren't clear on that. Romney's reaffirmation along with his taking credit for the auto-bailout are definitely starting his campaign out on a kind of "me too!" tone.

Coincidentally while I was writing this I got an email from POTUS on the same topic.  It included a link to stand up in support with him. Which is here: Stand up with The Prez!

Feckless in Florida

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work today and they were discussing the GOP primary in Florida. Skip ahead to 38:10 and listen to the gem comment from one caller.
 

Caller: "...I've always voted Republican. And I'm going to stick with Rick Santorum because I believe he is the one that's got the cleanest slate. He doesn't have all the baggage that Romney has with his IRS issues and that um, Gingrich has with his wife issues. So I think uh, I think it's safe to say that Santorum would have the least ammunition to uh, to go against with Obama. Obama would probably have not much to fire at him. So uh, I am going to go safe and go Santorum."

I mean, let's keep this in perspective, this is just some guy that happened to get his call answered but I really feel that many, many conservatives (to be as least judgmental as possible) share at least one of these sentiments. Let me count the fail:

1. Total allegiance to the republican party.  OK, I give a marginal pass and an "Agree to Disagree" on this.
2. Voting for the least dirtied candidate.  Santorum only seems so safe to this guy because he hasn't drawn any attention from the others.  It's not like he doesn't have any skeletons, which I'll get back to in #4.
3. Complete confusion on the actual issues.  Romney's IRS issues?  If making a ton of money and paying a low (legal) tax rate on it were IRS issues, I'd like to shoulder some of that burden. Come on, Guy!
4. Complete ignorance of the actual issues.  Maybe it's selective memory, illiteracy or something else but Santorum has got some really shady stuff in his past regarding dead babies.  Maybe I am being hypocritical but I really don't care enough to find out exactly what the facts are.
5. Going "safe".  Yawn. And so on.

Gingrich primary win good for the country?

With football in the rearview mirror (save for the Super Bowl, yawn), the recent surge in politics in the news has caught my attention lately. The republican primary has been pretty hilarious to say the least.  A recent news article (thanks to Yahoo!'s The Signal) was especially interesting.  Basically, it was analysis of some data from an information market (links to the wikipedia entry) in which trading indicates that Gingrich's recent success in South Carolina (and throughout the primary) was correlated to an increase in the likelihood of Obama winning the general election.  It kind of tells us something we already know but it's always nice to see some simple data backing up our intuition.  I feel like a fourth seed in the NCAA tournament rooting on the twelve-seed over the five because it gives me a better chance of advancing. To use a sports analogy...

Good Football in Our Great State

It's been a month since I posted last and because I was posting so much on football, I wanted to do a season wrap-up now that the Spartans, Wolverines and Lions are all done playing.  My plan was to post a few links and make a few comments for each team but as I curated some reading material, it became evident that there was a lot more to be said about the Wolverines.  So just a couple links for the good guys and a bunch of links for the bad guys.  Did you think this would be unbiased?

The Lions

This season, my dad started DVR'ing the Lions games.  For me that says it all.  Before 2011 he watched exactly one half of one NFL game per year, the second and third quarters on Thanksgiving.  Just enough to make a few comments about the long-term patheticness of the team.  I saw many people join the Lion bandwagon in a big way on Facebook too... not to criticize either my FB friends or my dad.  I think it says a LOT that so many people still care, at all.

So now that the season is in the books what's next?  Some guy at ESPN says "the Lions have earned themselves big boy treatment".  Fair enough.

The Spartans

Well, it was a great season for the Spartans and their fans.  I won't go too much into it but as ESPN B1G blogger, Adam Rittenberg, points out: keeping their defensive coordinator, Pat Narduzzi, is a good indication that the program is headed where it wants to go.  Agreed.

The Wolverines

You can't argue that the Wolverines didn't have a successful year.  But as DFP columnist Michael Rosenberg points out, it was just one of those years where everything went their way. Rosenberg: For Michigan, an honorable end to lucky season

Not many people outside of Ann Arbor were too high on the Wolverines (and Hokies) selection to the Sugar Bowl.  Rittenberg says that the game diminishes the league's aspirations of being perceived as equal to the SEC.

Some dude from Fox Sports takes it a step further, calling it a fraudulent bowl game.  Another writer from CBS Sports basically says the same thing. Comparing the game to a puppy falling down the stairs.

This is the one that gets me.  All this talk of "Is Michigan Back?".  Granted, much of it is prompted by the media who think it's a great story line. And when asked if they're back, the players have little choice on how to respond... Coach Hoke finds a way to turn it on its ear a bit by saying that "Michigan never left".  But where is it that Michigan Football is back too (or never left, depending on whom you ask)?  Why not acknowledge the hard work and fortuity that lead to a surprisingly successful season and let the winning speak for itself?  It is this sense of pre-destination or responsibility or entitlement to greatness that people outside of the Michigan fold really detest.  But I guess it's also what draws many people to the program... and gets them into games like the Sugar Bowl.