tbergs said:

This thread is like a 10 on 1 BDSM fetish circle for a certain poster. Zero substance but lots of hit and run. 

teskeinc said:

Johnny Abruzzo said:

Remember when we couldn’t buy toilet paper? Who was president then?

 Bootyjudge 

Johnny Abruzzo said:

What was that crap they had sitting out there - Maxwell House? Folgers? Who buys that crap anymore?

Johnny Abruzzo said:

What was that crap they had sitting out there - Maxwell House? Folgers? Who buys that crap anymore?

These economic indicators could spell trouble for Trump campaign

Real incomes in key swing states are rebounding

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spoke about the economy at a campaign event on Aug. 14, 2024, in Asheville, N.C.Photo: Grant Baldwin/Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris has surged in the polls and in betting markets against Donald Trump, and one possible reason is an improving economy.

Economists and political scientists who have studied past presidential elections have found that economic developments can be a critical determinant of the outcome, especially in a close race.

Justin Begley, an economist at Moody’s Analytics who helps run the company’s presidential-election model, told MarketWatch in an interview that while political factors such as candidate strength and voter enthusiasm are important, economic factors can be more dynamic and influence independent and undecided voters’ election-day decisions.

Begley and his colleagues pored over decades’ worth of economic data and election results and determined that the best economic predictors of an election outcome are gasoline prices 

RB00-1.09%

, changes in household incomes, mortgage rates and consumer confidence.

Lower gas prices and mortgage rates, along with rising household incomes and consumer confidence, tend to help the incumbent party stay in power.

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“These data are looking to be a tailwind for the incumbent party, so Kamala Harris, this time around,” Begley said.

One economic indicator that has turned in Harris’s direction in recent months is household income, adjusted for inflation.

In the swing states of Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the typical voter saw their inflation-adjusted incomes rise in the second quarter of 2024, after seeing their incomes fall for most of 2022 and 2023, Begley said. Only Arizona showed a decline in real incomes last quarter.

The unemployment rate in each swing state is also below the national average of 4.3%, save for Nevada, which has a 5.2% jobless rate.

That said, the unemployment rate is broadly rising across the U.S., putting these gains at risk.

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“Slowing in labor demand, reduced hiring and the creep up in unemployment is definitely a negative factor impacting incomes,” Begley said.

Countering a softening labor market are continued declines in inflation and stable economic growth that will cause real household incomes to rise in the next two quarters for each swing state, according to Moody’s projections.

For the U.S. as a whole, Moody’s predicts an increase of 0.72% in the third quarter and of 1.3% in the fourth.

Another troubling statistic for the Trump campaign is the price of gasoline.

Gasoline prices have trended downward over the course of the past year, falling on average from $3.86 per gallon last August to $3.44 per gallon today.

Mortgage rates have similarly fallen after sharp surge instigated by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to quell inflation. As inflation has cooled, so have borrowing costs, as markets expect the Fed to begin cutting interest rates in September.

That said, Americans are still not thrilled about the state of the economy, even as inflation has cooled and unemployment remains low by historical standards.

Economists say a likely culprit for somewhat depressed consumer confidence is the recent bout of extreme inflation and high interest rates, which has left consumers nostalgic for prepandemic price levels, even if their incomes have risen commensurately.

Relatively muted consumer confidence is one economic indicator that is not particularly bullish for Harris, Begley said.

Even with these indicators largely moving in Harris’s direction, Moody’s still sees the race as a toss-up, given Trump’s relatively high approval ratings and high Republican enthusiasm that will likely lead to a healthy turnout among GOP voters.

In a speech in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump said that as president, he would end “job-killing regulations” and roll back restrictions on fossil-fuel production. The former president pledged to lower Americans’ energy costs by as much as 70% within a year or at most 18 months.

He hedged, however, saying: “If it doesn’t work out, you’ll say, oh, well, I voted for him and he still got it down a lot.”

Now see: Trump veers off topic at campaign speech billed as major economic-policy address

There’s no guarantee that these indicators will continue to favor the incumbent party. For instance, a recession could cause unemployment to surge and real incomes to fall, or conflict in the Middle East could cause oil and gasoline prices to rise.

Moody’s estimates that an increase in gas prices to $4.09 per gallon in the coming months could tip the election decisively in Trump’s direction, as would mortgage rates rising to 8.65%.

Ultimately, all these factors contribute to what is often the single most important variable in a presidential election: voter turnout.

“We assume Republican turnout will be the same as in 2020,” Begley said, “but if that increases by just 0.8%, Trump will win the election.”

Gern Blansten said:

There is no word for how stupid this is.

gimmesometruth27 said:

Gern Blansten said:

There is no word for how stupid this is.

i didn't know a field could be gorgeous.