I’ve been reminiscing lately about the state of the 2024 election at this very time a year ago, and I remembered your segments with Sean Spicer that made me feel like we might actually pull this election off and not repeat the 2020 steal. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Who knows, maybe CBS will talk to you now that they're under new ownership and a new managing editor. Or better yet, Joe Rogan, whose interviews of Trump and Vance utterly crushed the ratings for 60 Minutes last fall. It was a watershed moment. The podcasters are gonna be big in '28.
Having put pollster Seltzer out of business, next please continue making the grey lady look like idiotic elitist imbeciles in service of putting NYT out of business, too. Between your humiliating them and DT’s $15 billion suit against them, let NYT join the NY Herald Tribune, the Daily Mirror, the NY World Telegram, and other yellow journalism outfits in the well-deserved dust of defaming dunderheads.
My answers are probably reading as if I like the NYT. I assure you that I do not. But they are not circling the bowl. Go read their financial reports. They're making money. Not just in GAAP terms, but in what counts the most: free cash flow. If you are holding your breath waiting for them to croak, you'll go first.
My assessment is purely financial. This is simply not a case of dark money. Are they lying to the SEC in their reports? I very, very, VERY seriously doubt it. That kind of thing HAS happened, but it's extremely rare and not on a scale that you are implying.
Remember when Senile Joe Biden tried to blame inflation on grocery store profiteering? I went and looked up the 10-Ks for the five largest grocery companies, and just for grins did the same for the five largest food processors. For six years, before and during covid.
Without going into the details right now, I showed that Senile Joe was full of merde. I recall that his b.s. didn't last long. Did any Dems of note read my analysis? Who knows, but they cut it out and quickly.
Of course, when I told that to liberals, and did provide details, they countered with their versions of what you just posted. Sorry, guy, I'll forget more about financials than either end of the whackjob line will ever know. The grocers and food companies did not profiteer, and the NYT is not faking the numbers. Period, end of paragraph, end of story.
My first career was in journalism, when it was an honorable calling. I loved facts then, and I love them now. There are facts, and there is whipped cream on dog merde. I go for facts, regardless of where the chips fall.
That is the point, it is not possible to see very far down the tracks with a purely financial assessment. USAID revealed hundreds of billions of grift through NGO's in less than 24 hours. Not particularly interested in the NYT's as they are the fake news intellectsia. Propaganda has a short half life.
Go read their 10-K filing. They're doing just fine. People who predict their demise are lazy. This doesn't mean that I like them, only that I recognize facts.
Here's how I called the election for Trump in early July of '24, when the June unemployment data were released. I start with the rate going back to 1948 by month:
The rule: "If the headline unemployment rate does anything but decline in the second quarter of a presidential election year, the incumbent party's candidate will lose the popular vote."
This is not mere correlation. There's a cause. The direction of unemployment is a proxy for the economy's direction as felt on Main Street. If the economy is in trouble in the spring but recovers in subsequent months, there isn't enough time for the recovery to change voter perceptions.
How well did the indicator work? Before I go there, a few more things to say.
1. I didn't invent this myself. Someone else did. When I was a financial analyst for a money management outfit in Boston, the citadel of trust fund management in America, I sat in front of a fire hose of reports. One of them in the early 1990s included that rule. I forgot about it for some years, then returned to it starting in 2012.
2. If the headline rate doesn't change, the incumbent party's candidate will lose the popular vote by a whisker.
3. The indicator does not predict the margin of victory, but only who wins. More about that later.
4. There are six unemployment rates published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, labeled U-1 through U-6. The headline rate, U-3, is the seasonally adjusted rate quoted in all the news stories. U-3's direction in the second quarter of the presidential election year, i.e. June compared to March, is the basis of the indicator.
5. The indicator predicts the popular vote, not the electoral college vote. Only twice since the Civil War did those not match. See below.
So how well did it work?
Between 1948 and 2024, there were 19 presidential elections. The indicator unambiguously failed in 1956, when Eisenhower was re-elected despite a 0.1% rise in unemployment rate. In 2012, UE was flat in the spring but Obama was re-elected anyway. That was a technical foul. In 2011, the BLS changed its seasonal adjustment methodology.
The recalibration made the fall of '11 look stronger than it actually was and made the spring of '12 look weaker than it actually was. If I could meet Romney, I would ask him if he began emphasizing the economy in his campaign because he had been aware of the indicator. I have always wondered.
Let's look at some other years, noting that the indicator predicts close popular votes when U-3 is flat between March and June, with the incumbent party's candidate losing. It was flat in 1960, 1968, 1976, and 2000. In each of those years, the popular vote was close, and the incumbent party's candidate lost.
How about 2016? U-3 declined slightly. Guess what? The indicator worked. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, probably because she thought she had it in the bag (true, sort of) and then neglected WI and MI by campaigning in AZ instead.
Anyway, I won't make a 2028 election call until the June unemployment rate is released in early July.
----------
Now, to the margin. I called that one last mid-October, saying that Trump would win by 1.5% to 2%. He won by 1.5%. Won a $100 bet with a liberal who then un-friended me because I'm a nazi, even though I cast a write-in vote and told him I was betting purely on the numbers. How did I do it?
I went to the Real Clear Politics poll averages, which were showing a Harris victory. I looked up the RCP historical data, which showed that Trump overperformed the poll averages in '16 and '20. I adjusted by the midpoint of the '16 and '20 numbers and gave myself some wiggle room.
Final note.
In '16, I won opposing dinner bets on the presidential election. Truly my finest hour. Wut?! In June, I bet that Trump would be elected. In October, I hedged. I bet that Hillary would win the popular vote (at the time, it didn't cross my mind that she'd lose the EC) but by less than 4%. She won the popular by 2.1% but Trump was elected. We ate well. LOL
----------
Will any of this work in '28? Who the hell knows? LOL
All of the economic stats have their own rules in politics too - before social stuff blew up so big people used to just say, “it’s the economy, stupid.” Thanks for the insight.
Say what you will about Carville, a/k/a Wally Gator From the Swamp (you're probably too young to remember the TV cartoon), but he nailed it in 1992 when he said, "It's the economy, stupid."
It's why Bush Sr. lost. Take a look at the U-3 series from 1991 through '92. In 2Q92, U-3 rose from 7.4% to 7.8% after having risen bit by bit through '91. It fell that fall, and in fact by October it was back down to 7.3%. All of which reminds me of a hit song.
Now, recall (or study, given that you're younger than me) that Bush Sr. had a job approval rating of 91% in early 1991 because of the first Gulf War, yet lost his re-election only a year and a half later because it's the economy, stupid. I learned a major lesson. I had thought Bush Sr. was a shoo-in, but nope. It's the economy. All about the wallet, baby.
So you can see why I look at what I look at, what my priorities are in analyzing presidential elections. The issues and campaigns and media horse merde determine the margin of victory, but the economy dictates who will win. In '56, that uptick didn't matter because the American economy was a-rockin' and a-rollin', and in '12 the flat number was simply a mismeasurement.
It's dispiriting in a way, because it basically tells every pundit and pollster that he or she is full of merde. I think it's why none of them ever look at the indicator. It would kinda sorta put 'em outta business. If Trump wants to ensure Vance's win in '28, he and Bessent and especially the Federal Reserve will engineer a strong early '28. It's that simple.
Your work on registrations got me to open my cynical, tight wallet. If you knew how hard that is, you'd do a second victory lap. I am genuinely intrigued, and will follow closely. I can't process it yet, because I take what you're doing too seriously to be glib about it. Keep digging. Very good stuff. You have pierced my deflector shields, and that is no small accomplishment. Worth $75, anyhow. You'll be rich! LOL
p.s.: There's some professor out there who purports to predict presidential elections with a formula that puts a bunch of economic data into a blender. I think GDP and the stock market. People told me in '24 to look at those. My reply was that the average American doesn't spend the S&P 500 or the GDP. (S)he spends what's in the wallet, and if you lose your job there's a major wallet problem. The one professor (Lichtman, I seem to recall) did what professors are wont to do and overcomplicated it. Unemployment, baby. Only that. The rest is what the statisticians call collinearity.
The NYT will survive as long as NYC voters continue to have their heads in unpleasant places which they are surely proving now by the success of the Marxist Muslin brotherhood-supporter for mayor. One can only pray they will learn their lesson after 4 years of that disaster, but considering their past election behavior (DeBlasio, Huchell, etc.,) I don't have high hopes.
You made a good call on the '24 election, and the NYT was ridiculous as they so often are. I don't blame you one single bit for doing the victory laps. Honest, not at all. But I want to advise you not to get too cocky, and I will be rational about it.
In the money management business, there is a well-researched "hot hand" theory. It says that most winners (top performers in the business) don't last. In fact, I was part of one such team. We were in the top 2% of managers in our category in the early '90s. Then we flopped, and all of us had to find positions elsewhere. That's the rule in that business. Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch and the like are rare birds.
Same goes for rodeo. Lots of cowboys win a few buckles, but there aren't many Trevor Braziles. So don't blow too much air up your own pant legs. Cap'n, take it from someone who's been there.
In my opinion, this business (military intel techniques carefully applied to readily available data), is NOT the same as the money management business. Capt. Keshel keeps his eye on the ball and accounts for ANY changes he detects and makes allowances for POSSIBLE changes he might not be able to detect. I do not see him flopping...EVER. I only see him growing in his success and prominence, given his grounded upbringing/military background and integrity.
Of course it's not the same business. Who said it was? Not me. My point was in the form of an illustration. What I wrote was hardly new or unique, and applies to a wide range of endeavors. In any case, I think he got the point. As for predicting his future, I think that's going to hinge on how well his future analyses work out.
Unfortunately, the cap'n doesn't work for a legacy media outlet. If he did, he could follow this good call with a dozen bad ones and it wouldn't matter as long as he was a liberal or one of those unthreatening token "mainstream Republicans." The legacy media is a well-defended, if generally declining, redoubt of lazy people riding on reputations. Accuracy and standards are increasingly irrelevant there. People know it, too.
To put things differently, my message was by all means take the victory laps but don't imagine that they guarantee the future. I think he gets it. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think he was a promising source of research, information, and analysis. I am watching carefully to see if he'll conflate that good call with the list of wingnut buzzwords, the opposite of "progressive" buzzwords but brothers under the skin.
Critical thinking, Mr. Thornton. If it's actually for real, it ignores what direction it takes.
Couldn't agree more. You have every reason to take them laps. My late great dad would say, "Gotta blow your own horn, because no one's going to do it for you." He would also say, "Never forget where you came from, and no matter how well you do always remember that every man puts his pants on one leg at a time." LOL
I’ve been reminiscing lately about the state of the 2024 election at this very time a year ago, and I remembered your segments with Sean Spicer that made me feel like we might actually pull this election off and not repeat the 2020 steal. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
They’ll fade away if you don’t bring them up!
Who knows, maybe CBS will talk to you now that they're under new ownership and a new managing editor. Or better yet, Joe Rogan, whose interviews of Trump and Vance utterly crushed the ratings for 60 Minutes last fall. It was a watershed moment. The podcasters are gonna be big in '28.
Having put pollster Seltzer out of business, next please continue making the grey lady look like idiotic elitist imbeciles in service of putting NYT out of business, too. Between your humiliating them and DT’s $15 billion suit against them, let NYT join the NY Herald Tribune, the Daily Mirror, the NY World Telegram, and other yellow journalism outfits in the well-deserved dust of defaming dunderheads.
No one's going to put the NYT out of business.
Technically that is correct. NOT a ONE off.
However the NYT's circles the bowl like other fake news...
My answers are probably reading as if I like the NYT. I assure you that I do not. But they are not circling the bowl. Go read their financial reports. They're making money. Not just in GAAP terms, but in what counts the most: free cash flow. If you are holding your breath waiting for them to croak, you'll go first.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/71691/000007169125000047/nyt-20241231.htm
I fully realize you do not like the rag. However your assessment is purely economic. Left dark money flows freely, until it doesn't.
I do not hold breath except swimming in the ocean...
My assessment is purely financial. This is simply not a case of dark money. Are they lying to the SEC in their reports? I very, very, VERY seriously doubt it. That kind of thing HAS happened, but it's extremely rare and not on a scale that you are implying.
Remember when Senile Joe Biden tried to blame inflation on grocery store profiteering? I went and looked up the 10-Ks for the five largest grocery companies, and just for grins did the same for the five largest food processors. For six years, before and during covid.
Without going into the details right now, I showed that Senile Joe was full of merde. I recall that his b.s. didn't last long. Did any Dems of note read my analysis? Who knows, but they cut it out and quickly.
Of course, when I told that to liberals, and did provide details, they countered with their versions of what you just posted. Sorry, guy, I'll forget more about financials than either end of the whackjob line will ever know. The grocers and food companies did not profiteer, and the NYT is not faking the numbers. Period, end of paragraph, end of story.
My first career was in journalism, when it was an honorable calling. I loved facts then, and I love them now. There are facts, and there is whipped cream on dog merde. I go for facts, regardless of where the chips fall.
p.s.: Numbers talk, and bull merde walks.
That is the point, it is not possible to see very far down the tracks with a purely financial assessment. USAID revealed hundreds of billions of grift through NGO's in less than 24 hours. Not particularly interested in the NYT's as they are the fake news intellectsia. Propaganda has a short half life.
Not questioning the current solvency.
Except maybe the NYT.
Go read their 10-K filing. They're doing just fine. People who predict their demise are lazy. This doesn't mean that I like them, only that I recognize facts.
A ten % decline in readership buys an admission ticket to ruin.
As with other companies when top brass exit or are terminated, the end draws near. Filings do not take this consideration into account.
Okay, so you don't want to listen. If you're this convinced, then go buy some LEAP puts on their common stock. Put your money where your mouth is.
Slow down Jimmy. The fake news echo chamber circles the bowl.
No one knows when the final flush occurs however there are lots of precedents and occur very quickly.
In this case, AI stands for Amazing Intelligence — yours, Seth!
And…Astute Insights.
👏👏❤️
"On blast" well deserved, Sir!
Always fair and admissable to remind patriots and naysayers about solid factual
evidence, once predictions.
You are DA MAN!!!!!
"I don't think he hits below the belt" No, he went straight for the head. And missed.
Congratulations on the publicity! You're one of a kind. 🇺🇸👍💪
Outstanding. Thank you!
Fantastic.
Here's how I called the election for Trump in early July of '24, when the June unemployment data were released. I start with the rate going back to 1948 by month:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000?years_option=all_years
The rule: "If the headline unemployment rate does anything but decline in the second quarter of a presidential election year, the incumbent party's candidate will lose the popular vote."
This is not mere correlation. There's a cause. The direction of unemployment is a proxy for the economy's direction as felt on Main Street. If the economy is in trouble in the spring but recovers in subsequent months, there isn't enough time for the recovery to change voter perceptions.
How well did the indicator work? Before I go there, a few more things to say.
1. I didn't invent this myself. Someone else did. When I was a financial analyst for a money management outfit in Boston, the citadel of trust fund management in America, I sat in front of a fire hose of reports. One of them in the early 1990s included that rule. I forgot about it for some years, then returned to it starting in 2012.
2. If the headline rate doesn't change, the incumbent party's candidate will lose the popular vote by a whisker.
3. The indicator does not predict the margin of victory, but only who wins. More about that later.
4. There are six unemployment rates published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, labeled U-1 through U-6. The headline rate, U-3, is the seasonally adjusted rate quoted in all the news stories. U-3's direction in the second quarter of the presidential election year, i.e. June compared to March, is the basis of the indicator.
5. The indicator predicts the popular vote, not the electoral college vote. Only twice since the Civil War did those not match. See below.
So how well did it work?
Between 1948 and 2024, there were 19 presidential elections. The indicator unambiguously failed in 1956, when Eisenhower was re-elected despite a 0.1% rise in unemployment rate. In 2012, UE was flat in the spring but Obama was re-elected anyway. That was a technical foul. In 2011, the BLS changed its seasonal adjustment methodology.
The recalibration made the fall of '11 look stronger than it actually was and made the spring of '12 look weaker than it actually was. If I could meet Romney, I would ask him if he began emphasizing the economy in his campaign because he had been aware of the indicator. I have always wondered.
Let's look at some other years, noting that the indicator predicts close popular votes when U-3 is flat between March and June, with the incumbent party's candidate losing. It was flat in 1960, 1968, 1976, and 2000. In each of those years, the popular vote was close, and the incumbent party's candidate lost.
How about 2016? U-3 declined slightly. Guess what? The indicator worked. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, probably because she thought she had it in the bag (true, sort of) and then neglected WI and MI by campaigning in AZ instead.
Anyway, I won't make a 2028 election call until the June unemployment rate is released in early July.
----------
Now, to the margin. I called that one last mid-October, saying that Trump would win by 1.5% to 2%. He won by 1.5%. Won a $100 bet with a liberal who then un-friended me because I'm a nazi, even though I cast a write-in vote and told him I was betting purely on the numbers. How did I do it?
I went to the Real Clear Politics poll averages, which were showing a Harris victory. I looked up the RCP historical data, which showed that Trump overperformed the poll averages in '16 and '20. I adjusted by the midpoint of the '16 and '20 numbers and gave myself some wiggle room.
Final note.
In '16, I won opposing dinner bets on the presidential election. Truly my finest hour. Wut?! In June, I bet that Trump would be elected. In October, I hedged. I bet that Hillary would win the popular vote (at the time, it didn't cross my mind that she'd lose the EC) but by less than 4%. She won the popular by 2.1% but Trump was elected. We ate well. LOL
----------
Will any of this work in '28? Who the hell knows? LOL
All of the economic stats have their own rules in politics too - before social stuff blew up so big people used to just say, “it’s the economy, stupid.” Thanks for the insight.
Say what you will about Carville, a/k/a Wally Gator From the Swamp (you're probably too young to remember the TV cartoon), but he nailed it in 1992 when he said, "It's the economy, stupid."
It's why Bush Sr. lost. Take a look at the U-3 series from 1991 through '92. In 2Q92, U-3 rose from 7.4% to 7.8% after having risen bit by bit through '91. It fell that fall, and in fact by October it was back down to 7.3%. All of which reminds me of a hit song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkKxmnrRVHo
Now, recall (or study, given that you're younger than me) that Bush Sr. had a job approval rating of 91% in early 1991 because of the first Gulf War, yet lost his re-election only a year and a half later because it's the economy, stupid. I learned a major lesson. I had thought Bush Sr. was a shoo-in, but nope. It's the economy. All about the wallet, baby.
So you can see why I look at what I look at, what my priorities are in analyzing presidential elections. The issues and campaigns and media horse merde determine the margin of victory, but the economy dictates who will win. In '56, that uptick didn't matter because the American economy was a-rockin' and a-rollin', and in '12 the flat number was simply a mismeasurement.
It's dispiriting in a way, because it basically tells every pundit and pollster that he or she is full of merde. I think it's why none of them ever look at the indicator. It would kinda sorta put 'em outta business. If Trump wants to ensure Vance's win in '28, he and Bessent and especially the Federal Reserve will engineer a strong early '28. It's that simple.
Your work on registrations got me to open my cynical, tight wallet. If you knew how hard that is, you'd do a second victory lap. I am genuinely intrigued, and will follow closely. I can't process it yet, because I take what you're doing too seriously to be glib about it. Keep digging. Very good stuff. You have pierced my deflector shields, and that is no small accomplishment. Worth $75, anyhow. You'll be rich! LOL
p.s.: There's some professor out there who purports to predict presidential elections with a formula that puts a bunch of economic data into a blender. I think GDP and the stock market. People told me in '24 to look at those. My reply was that the average American doesn't spend the S&P 500 or the GDP. (S)he spends what's in the wallet, and if you lose your job there's a major wallet problem. The one professor (Lichtman, I seem to recall) did what professors are wont to do and overcomplicated it. Unemployment, baby. Only that. The rest is what the statisticians call collinearity.
🤌
I'm putting some cash into my Kalshi betting app.
I eagerly await your 2026 predictions.
Knowing "past performance is no indication of future gains." In other words, Democrats CHEAT!
But I have faith and a bit of disposable income.
👌
The NYT will survive as long as NYC voters continue to have their heads in unpleasant places which they are surely proving now by the success of the Marxist Muslin brotherhood-supporter for mayor. One can only pray they will learn their lesson after 4 years of that disaster, but considering their past election behavior (DeBlasio, Huchell, etc.,) I don't have high hopes.
People read it because they sound smart citing it.
I read it mainly for the same reason Soviet subject would read Pravda back in the day: to see what the rulers will come up with next.
You made a good call on the '24 election, and the NYT was ridiculous as they so often are. I don't blame you one single bit for doing the victory laps. Honest, not at all. But I want to advise you not to get too cocky, and I will be rational about it.
In the money management business, there is a well-researched "hot hand" theory. It says that most winners (top performers in the business) don't last. In fact, I was part of one such team. We were in the top 2% of managers in our category in the early '90s. Then we flopped, and all of us had to find positions elsewhere. That's the rule in that business. Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch and the like are rare birds.
Same goes for rodeo. Lots of cowboys win a few buckles, but there aren't many Trevor Braziles. So don't blow too much air up your own pant legs. Cap'n, take it from someone who's been there.
I’m well aware…but gotta raise the flag when you win because you never know when you’ll eat crow later.
In my opinion, this business (military intel techniques carefully applied to readily available data), is NOT the same as the money management business. Capt. Keshel keeps his eye on the ball and accounts for ANY changes he detects and makes allowances for POSSIBLE changes he might not be able to detect. I do not see him flopping...EVER. I only see him growing in his success and prominence, given his grounded upbringing/military background and integrity.
Of course it's not the same business. Who said it was? Not me. My point was in the form of an illustration. What I wrote was hardly new or unique, and applies to a wide range of endeavors. In any case, I think he got the point. As for predicting his future, I think that's going to hinge on how well his future analyses work out.
Unfortunately, the cap'n doesn't work for a legacy media outlet. If he did, he could follow this good call with a dozen bad ones and it wouldn't matter as long as he was a liberal or one of those unthreatening token "mainstream Republicans." The legacy media is a well-defended, if generally declining, redoubt of lazy people riding on reputations. Accuracy and standards are increasingly irrelevant there. People know it, too.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/695762/trust-media-new-low.aspx
To put things differently, my message was by all means take the victory laps but don't imagine that they guarantee the future. I think he gets it. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think he was a promising source of research, information, and analysis. I am watching carefully to see if he'll conflate that good call with the list of wingnut buzzwords, the opposite of "progressive" buzzwords but brothers under the skin.
Critical thinking, Mr. Thornton. If it's actually for real, it ignores what direction it takes.
Couldn't agree more. You have every reason to take them laps. My late great dad would say, "Gotta blow your own horn, because no one's going to do it for you." He would also say, "Never forget where you came from, and no matter how well you do always remember that every man puts his pants on one leg at a time." LOL