Rational expectations and betting markets vs. polls and models
I don’t have strong views on who’s going to win the election. Clinton seems more likely to win, but by how much? Earlier today I defended 538, which gives Trump a (fairly good) 35% chance. That’s more than the betting markets. Now I’ll present the opposite argument, and then try to tie it in to monetary policy, which is what this stupid blog is supposed be about—right?
To see the argument for Trump having a good chance, check out this map, from RealClearPolitics. It shows all states colored, based on poll averages, no matter how narrow the margin:
That seems like a pretty decent margin for Hillary–so why do I say it’s good news for Trump. Because (blue) Florida is really close, has 29 electoral votes, and would put Trump up to 270 if it flipped. That brings back memories of 2000, when a very close Florida put Bush up to 271. And just as in that case, if Trump narrowly wins with 270 electoral votes, he’ll likely lose the popular vote—too many wasted Hillary votes in California and New York. My hypothetical is identical to 2000, except Iowa, Virginia and Colorado flip.
I think this path to victory is semi-plausible, which is why Nate Silver’s 538 gives Trump a 35% chance. But if he loses any of these states, no matter how small, then he falls short unless he can pick up another state. And that’s where things get tougher. He’d need Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan or some place like that. Those are tougher than Florida. (I’m from Wisconsin, and have confidence in my fellow cheeseheads.)
To me, the most interesting event in the past 24 hours is the sharp fall in Trump contracts in the betting markets, to 22%. AFAIK, that’s 10 points down from a couple days ago. What’s going on? The polls have not changed dramatically. I’m not sure, but I suspect Nevada:
And now that Nevada early voting has come to a close, Ralston isn’t mincing words about how he sees Trump’s prospects. “Trump is dead,” Ralston tweeted Saturday. He elaborated on his blog that from the early voting numbers so far, the GOP nominee would need a “miracle” to win Nevada at this point.
The polls have tended to put Nevada as a pure toss-up state, and a few recent ones have even shown Trump ahead there. Accordingly, it hasn’t generally been considered part of Clinton’s swing state “firewall.”
But Nevada is a famously difficult state for national pollsters to get right. Its population is transient and many work at night. Furthermore, its population is over one-quarter Hispanic, and it’s often challenging for English-language polls to sample Hispanic voters accurately.
Does anyone know where Nevada was two days ago in the betting markets?
In the past, polls in Nevada have been less accurate than in other states:
So in previous years, analysts like Ralston have found success in reading tea leaves from Nevada’s early voting numbers instead. And all week, Ralston has been warning of danger signs for Trump. The partisan and geographic breakdown of early voting turnout has looked similar to 2012, when Barack Obama won the state by 6 and a half points. But the final day of early voting Friday was, Ralston writes, “cataclysmic” for Republicans.
. . .
Though the statewide early voting numbers aren’t yet finalized, Ralston estimates that registered Democrats will have a 6 point lead on registered Republicans among early voters. Since registered partisans tend to overwhelmingly vote for their own party, Trump probably either needs to dominate among early voters associated with neither party or else make up the gap on election day.
But how important is the early turnout? This important:
But ballots equivalent to well over two-thirds of the total 2012 turnout in Nevada have already been cast. So if Trump has indeed fallen significantly behind in the early vote, it will be very challenging for him to catch up.
Experts warn that early vote totals can be misleading. But they are not meaningless. At a minimum, we actually have some HARD DATA. We know that Dems in Nevada are turning out in large numbers. That doesn’t mean Hillary will win the state; I could image Trump doing well among working class Dems. But it tells us something–maybe that GOTV is working. It’s no longer just polls. My hunch is that 538 is ignoring this data, because early voting isn’t always reliable, but the betting markets are concluding that Hillary is very likely to win Nevada. Indeed while RCP (i.e. polls) give Nevada narrowly to Trump, the betting markets show a very strong 77% for Hillary. I know of no other state with such a huge gap.
Rational expectations say that investors look at everything when making a forecast, including decisions on asset valuation. Thus while experts might have said (in the weeks after Brexit) that “it’s too soon to say how it will impact the UK economy” the markets sniffed out that the UK was holding up better than expected, and UK stocks rallied quite a while ago. Economists wait for data like GDP and employment, which comes out with a lag. As another example, I think the markets sniffed out that slow RGDP growth and “lower for longer” interest rates were the new normal long before the Fed figured that out. The Fed relies on models where 3% trend RGDP growth and 5% T-bill yields are “normal”, and it took them a long time before they downgraded those forecasts.
So while 538 is a great site, and I love their thoughtful statistical analysis, you could argue that it’s more driven by “models” than a pure rational expectations forecast would imply. That is, it might not put enough weight on tea leaves like the Nevada early vote, because of its unreliability in other contexts.
I don’t want to make too much of this difference, as 22% isn’t that different from 35%. Even after the election we won’t know for sure which approach was “right”, especially if Hillary wins. I suppose if Trump wins then 538 will look good, as its numbers for Trump have been higher than elsewhere. But even then it won’t be a crowning victory, after all, 538 is predicting a Hillary victory. Michael Moore won’t be impressed. You’d need lots of repeated tests to establish whether rational expectations beats really good models.
I believe it does, which is why I prefer NGDP futures markets to Lars Svensson’s suggestion that the Fed target its own internal forecast, based on structural models. So there, a Trump Derangement Post that actually had implications for monetary policy!
PS. Here is the betting market map:
Notice that they have Hillary winning New Hampshire and North Carolina too.
PPS. Not enough derangement in this post? I love this Matt Yglesias post on that disgusting illegal immigrant Melania:
So there’s really nothing so surprising about the Melania story. Trump doesn’t like immigrants who change the American cultural and ethnic mix in a way he finds threatening and neither do his fans. Europeans like Melania (or before her, Ivana) are fine. I get it, David Duke gets it, the frog meme people get it, everyone gets it.
But it does raise the question of why mainstream press coverage has spent so much time pretending not to get it. Why have we been treated to so many lectures about the “populist appeal” of a man running on regressive tax cuts and financial deregulation and the “economic anxiety” of his fans?
Slovenian models include anorexics, prima donnas, former porn stars, and some, I assume, are good people.
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5. November 2016 at 17:43
See; this is one more reason to not trust betting markets. Betting market participants are too often ignoramuses. If one actually looks at the Nevada polls where Trump is tied, they assume a 6-point partisan turnout gap in Nevada. The actual partisan turnout gap, you ask? Seven points. Partisan turnout gap is four points on election day, and he wins the state. That’s due to Trump getting a much larger fraction of the Nevada independent vote than Mitt did. Remember, FiveThirtyEight had Nevada a 90% chance of going for Mitt on election day. Currently, it has the state a tie.
BTW, stop lying about Melania’s immigration status. She was a legal immigrant who worked illegally.
Trump also had an assassination attempt on him in Nevada just today. I wonder how that will impact voting preferences.
By my calculations, assuming all Republicans voted Trump and Romney, all Democrats voted Obama and Clinton, and unaffiliateds made the difference, and that every unaffiliated who voted in 2012 votes this year, Trump needs only 1/3 of new unaffiliated voters to win the state. Anything less, and he’s doomed.
5. November 2016 at 17:48
BTW, if Trump’s campaign was really about racism, then why did he perform worse in the South Carolina GOP primary than the New Hampshire one? Why did he perform better in the Massachusetts GOP primary than in the Mississippi one?
5. November 2016 at 17:50
Replace “Mitt” with “Barack” above. My bad.
5. November 2016 at 17:57
Harding, to answer your primary questions, it’s because there are no black Republicans in MA, MS, SC, or NH
You have been really overselling how primary votes somehow reflect the votes in the general. Typical 96 IQ mistake.
And that Trump ‘assassination attempt’? Yeah he went right back onstage. Because it was a staged WWE wrestling pile of BS, typical Trump move.
5. November 2016 at 18:06
“Harding, to answer your primary questions, it’s because there are no black Republicans in MA, MS, SC, or NH”
You f**king idiot, msgkings.
1. This has nothing to do with my point.
2. You lie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Scott
“You have been really overselling how primary votes somehow reflect the votes in the general.”
-Because they do. Do voters magically appear and disappear in nine months? Were the Trump voters in Massachusetts not exactly the same people who voted for McCain and Romney in 2008’s primary?
“Because it was a staged WWE wrestling pile of BS, typical Trump move.”
-You f**king idiot. Trump had an assassination attempt on him in Nevada once before by a British illegal immigrant. Trump looked visibly surprised by the attempt, and the Secret Service reaction was no joke. You now saying the Kennedy assassination was also staged?
5. November 2016 at 18:29
The 35% is not due to the plausibility of close state like FL. It is actually due to possibility of correlated moves in multiple states.
5. November 2016 at 19:06
You’re exactly right. Nevada forecloses the easiest path for Trump, which is NV+NC+NH. Now he needs PA.
Also this answers your question:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-x-factors-could-affect-tuesdays-vote/
harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Well, I think the early vote, obviously. Our model doesn’t take that into account. And while it’s tough to discern trends based on the early vote in most states, it looks good for Hillary Clinton in Nevada, for example, even though the polls in that state paint a far closer race.
micah: But beyond Nevada can we really say anything? African-American turnout for Clinton seems weak, maybe?
natesilver: We could really use a voter-list-based poll of Nevada, indeed. And one of Michigan. Those are the two states where I think we have the least idea what’s going on, and they’ve both had high polling errors in the past.
5. November 2016 at 19:15
Scott, you write, “Slovenian models include anorexics, prima donnas, former porn stars, and some, I assume, are good people.”
In Cali we have a ballot measure this year ostensibly to offer bilingual education. Like many propositions the summary of the aims of the bill is not aligned with the means of the measure itself. In this case, it repeals a provision of a 1998 ballot measure which blocked the legislature from passing rules which force immigrant children into native-language instruction. (It is used to be in California that if you were Mexican, the school would not allow you any English language education because it was more important to learn the “concepts” of course material than to master english, even if this meant Spanish instruction for twelve years!)
Trump is a reactionary. His supporters see the rise of factionalism… the repudiation of the idea of having a common culture. They don’t want to this happen, but they are reactionaries so they swing wide, overwhelmed by their emotions, and hit many topics (trade being one…)
Melania very clearly is in the class of integration. Her goal was to come here and join the existing culture of America.
The kicker is that Trump’s enemies are not immigrants (many who have the goal of joining the existing culture of America — they were the ones who supported the 1998 ballot measure the strongest ). Trump’s enemies are the progressives themselves.
5. November 2016 at 19:18
In a way it would be poetic if Trump got 264 electoral votes due to losing Nevada, because Trump’s biggest mistake (both policy and rhetoric) was bashing Mexico. Trump doesn’t appreciate the important of Mexico to the SW economy, nor the ability of Latinos to assimilate well after a generation or so.
It would parallel Gore getting 266 electoral votes due to losing West Virginia’s 5 EVs. West Virginia had been the most reliable Democratic mainstay from ’32-’96, thanks to union workers, but was lost due to an environmental policy that denied industrial realities at the time and was at best premature.
5. November 2016 at 19:25
Harding, You said:
“BTW, stop lying about Melania’s immigration status. She was a legal immigrant who worked illegally.”
Like there’s a difference? Are you joking? I thought you anti-illegal people were obsessed about how “the laws must be obeyed”. Why is breaking one immigration law any different from another? Isn’t the whole point of these laws to protect American workers? So she broke the immigration law. She was an immigrant acting illegally–how is that not an illegal immigrant?
I will give Melania credit for speaking out against cyberbullying. Just out of curiously Harding, who do you think is the most famous cyberbully of all time? If you asked the average person, who would they name? How about people who cyberbully at 3am? Would that help you to come up with a name? And is this going to be Melania’s signature issue as “First Lady”?
And you didn’t mention that Obama won Nevada by 7%, so he has a lot of ground to make up. I actually don’t have strong views on the election outcome, I’m just trying to figure out what the markets are thinking.
Jason, Yes, obviously I know it’s based on more than one state. But Florida is a big part of the uncertainty. The 538 site would not think the election was uncertain if they thought Hillary would win Florida.
5. November 2016 at 19:31
Thanks for the info, Steve.
Jon, I’m not too worried about immigrants learning English. Pretty much everyone who grows up here learns English. But God knows I’m no defender of the public education establishment, indeed I want to abolish public education. Separate church and state, and separate school and state.
BTW, I’m told lots of Chinese support Trump because they hate anti-Asian affirmative action.
5. November 2016 at 19:41
I did my part, betting on Clinton at odds equivalent to a $1.00 future trading at $0.78. It was a small amount and the legality of it is questionable. If I’m right, the transaction costs eat a lot of the profit.
And I certainly wouldn’t give a large amount of money to any of the intermediaries taking these bets. The legal infrastructure if they default is probably, at best, as a general creditor. Even if I was inclined to, anybody taking the bet has portfolio limits.
So my impression of the betting odds has been they follow 538 rather than the other way around. Which makes sense as most of the players are sports bettors familiar with 538 and what I think is a model with too much variability. The liquidity isn’t there to correct it, especially as the odds get up towards the 80-90% range.
5. November 2016 at 19:44
Yes, Obama won Nevada by seven points, despite losing the caucus in 2008. Why? Because Mitt Romney, despite his popularity among Nevada Republicans, was an unreformed Bushian (and ran as such in 2008) and, thus, had zero crossover appeal. The opposite is the case with Trump, who, like Mitt, won the Nevada caucus with enormous margins. BTW, a smaller percentage of Nevadans have college degrees than Alabamans. That’s why Trump’s competitive in Nevada.
http://geof.red/m/44P
“Just out of curiously Harding, who do you think is the most famous cyberbully of all time?”
–Anonymous
5. November 2016 at 19:48
Relevant question for everyone. No matter who is elected, is it possible to “make America great again”? By that, I mean is it possible to restore wide-spread, high-growth middle class incomes ever again? Or, was the post-WWII economy a one-time fluke (for the US) where farm kids and high school educated people could enjoy good wage growth and a middle class lifestyle?
My answer is “no”. We are returning to the norm of the Gilded Age. I do not think it will not be possible to regulate or tax our way to a vibrant middle class. First it was the labor class, next it will be the professional class that is crushed by automation, trade, and immigration.
5. November 2016 at 22:41
“Does anyone know where Nevada was two days ago in the betting markets?”
PredictIt shows history of their betting markets prices by clicking on “Open Chart” button:
https://www.predictit.org/Contract/2628/Will-a-Democratic-candidate-win-Nevada-in-the-2016-presidential-election#data
Over the last 30 days, Clinton had a fairly consistent 80% chance of winning Nevada but dipped down to an intraday low of 53% on Nov. 2. She is now back up to 78%.
Yglesias: “Why have we been treated to so many lectures about the ‘populist appeal’ of Trump?”
I get the impression that Yglesias asks this as a rhetorical question, but I’m not sure what he thinks the answer is. To me, the answer is obvious: the mainstream press has a liberal bias, and they want to use Trump’s appeal as support for left-wing economic policies, most relevantly trade protectionism but also minimum wage and redistribution. It makes no difference whether Trump supports, say, a higher minimum wage. (Given his constant self contradictions, he probably did in at least one speech or interview.) Since his supporters are allegedly angry about being “left behind” by globalization, the left argues that, regardless of whether Trump is elected, the fact that he has attracted so much support means that we should adopt left-wing policies to address that anger. That’s why the press insisted that Trump did well on trade during the first debate, even if he tanked the rest. To the mainstream press and the left, everything that happens is more evidence that we need to address income inequality.
6. November 2016 at 02:08
I follow two major polling aggregators, Huffington Post and Real Clear Politics. HP has Clinton +5.3%, RCP has her +1.7%.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-clinton
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html
Both list their underlying polls.
6. November 2016 at 02:12
“the mainstream press has a liberal bias, and they want to use Trump’s appeal as support for left-wing economic policies”
If the mainstream press has a liberal bias, why is it spending more time on Clinton’s emails than any other issue in this election?
The left-wing I watch believes Trump’s appeal is racism and has nothing to do with policy, especially since, as you write, Trump doesn’t have a coherent policy and the media doesn’t cover policy. The media want a close race, because it’s good for ratings.
6. November 2016 at 03:47
Two Things:
1. RCP poll averages are trash – they aren’t weighted and incorporate partisan republican polls that everyone else throws out. Use poll averages from basically anyone else – the times, NYT, or Huffpo.
2. The betting markets are incorporating early vote data – Nate silver will probably do this in 2020. The NYT’s Nate Cohn is pretty brilliant at this stuff, and has a NC model to do this properly, and has Clinton willing NC comfortably.
3. Non-response bias is real – bad news suppressed response rates from the side with a bad news cycle – not that many people are changing their votes. Hence, averaging polls over a longer time is important. Can’t really measure non-response bias very well, , but the few studies done show that really only 1%-2% of voters are up for grabs.
6. November 2016 at 05:09
Scott, what do you have against ex porn stars?
6. November 2016 at 05:13
Wow..expectation market deeply clarify voters’ move
6. November 2016 at 06:07
Harding, You said:
“Trump also had an assassination attempt on him in Nevada just today.”
You are approaching Ray Lopez levels of stupidity.
Don, Sorry to have to tell you this, but America is great whether we grow fast or not. We are a very rich country. Slow growth means we are becoming even more disgusting rich, just at a slower rate.
foosion, I think 538 is at about 3%, which seems more reasonable. I agree about those GOP polls, I discount them. I also discount the LA Times, which is not politically biased, just has weird technique.
Nick, That’s reassuring.
Jeff, Nothing at all. That was intended to be a joke, sort of mimicking Trump’s way of talking. I also have nothing against anorexics.
6. November 2016 at 06:19
Another cut-and-paste Sumner blog post that gets it wrong. Besides what Jason Smith said, that the 35% chance closeness is due to multiple states not just Florida, a point Sumner missed, also left unsaid is whether uneducated people (IQ 95 and below) who were not going to vote for anybody since Trump was so far behind in the polls now might come out and vote Trump. Keep in mind the absentee ballot vote is running in the Democrats favor since educated (busy) people vote early.
One thing Sumner said we can all agree on: “this stupid blog”. We have a winner!
6. November 2016 at 06:31
Another factor not much commented about: who will admit to a pollster that they are for Trump? It’s like admitting you’re a racist. Likely this will make Trump more competitive at the actual voting booth than the polls predict.
It’s like being a monetarist who harbors doubts about the efficacy of monetarism. If, as Bernanke et al say in the 2002 FAVAR paper, monetarism is 3.2% to 13.2% out of 100% of the change in any real variable (like real GDP), almost trivial, no diehard monetarist wants to believe that, nor, like Sumner, even read the FAVAR paper. Push it out of their mind and deny in public the inconvenient truth. But if one were to have an anonymous vote, a lot of monetarists might admit that their public pronouncements are not the same as their private thoughts, Sumner included.
6. November 2016 at 06:55
Scott, I know. I was just poking fun as well.
It now looks as though Trump will lose by more than Romney did, against a much weaker candidate than Romney faced. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that the GOP primary voters will learn anything from the defeat, but maybe the party machinery will figure out a way to box out the anti-immigrant candidates next time around. If not, the Democrats are going to be in power for a long, long time.
6. November 2016 at 07:15
There’s a yuge difference. Melania was here illegally and at worse did a photo shoot in the 2 months she was here but didn’t have a work visa, which may or may not be true, which Melania may or may not have even understood.
That’s a lot different than people who have no right to be here crossing the border or overstaying their visas and setting up shop like they own the damn place.
It’s the difference between a hungry kid stealing a piece of bread and the guys who ran Enron.
Melania is also now an American citizen, through the legal process, not through hand-waved amnesty because by-golly we need more Democrats.
Also, for those 99% of Americans who do not believe in open borders, we probably prefer immigrants who have a better chance of succeeding, who are more like us, or who have family already in the nation. Though I would add, in this specific case, Slovenia is NOT like the US. It’s more, like, the West Virginia of the former Yugoslavia.
6. November 2016 at 07:26
Also, those who think there is no discrimination against Eastern European immigrants, just because they are white, are delusional. My Great-Grandmother, God rest her soul, hated Russians. My Sister and Brother-in-Law are quite upset the their local school-district has a huge number of Russian-language ESL teachers (a consequence of the large number of Russian immigrants in the area, which is why they were able to buy their house so cheap).
My Dad was not fond of Polish construction-workers, never mind the fact that my Mother is Polish.
Historically, Catholics of all stripes in this nation faced a ton of discrimination.
Whites can hate other whites just as much as they hate browns and blacks. I think Yglesias lives in a bubble, though, so he probably never hears any of this. I am one generation removed from farmland and coal country and have plenty of exposures.
6. November 2016 at 07:37
@Nick Bradley & others: I understand that you want to dismiss obviously pro Rep-polls. Fair enough. I do not get why you would keep all the pro-Clinton biased stuff in, though. That is, if you really wanted to get an accurate picture and not just some reassurance from a self-constructed polling bias.
We have read in the wikileaks emails how Podesta explcitly called for oversampling of polls (along with a 28 pager of how-to). We have learnt of a plethora of instances when mainstream mass media colluded with the clinton campaign big time, virtually coordinating their editorials and stories with the Clinton Campaign. Given these FACTS (as opposed to soime fringe conspiracy theories) it is really strange how you could take most of the polls from Wapo, Cnn, NYT, MSNBC etc at face value. (Regarding Wapo/ABC: ANY poll that swings double digits in either direction within a week or two cannot be taken serious anymore, regardless who it favors. It has exposed itself as pure trash and garbage. whether by design or just by methodological flaws is totally irrelevant).
Back to NV: Let’s assume that, indeed, after 66% of the likely votes already cast HRC carries a 5 % lead versus DJT. And let’s further assume that voter turnout will roughly match 2012 among Dems and Reps. About 20% of NV registered voters are independents. And DJT seems to have quite a lead among indies throughout the nation (even most polls that are seeing Clinton win agree on that issue). Suppose he gets 50 % of the indie vote and clinton gets 30 and others the remaining 20. That would narrow HRC’s lead down to barely 1%. Which would mean that even very slight differences in party crossover ratios could become cruicial.
All in all, I’d call it prepostorous to declare NV virtually in the bag for HRC. It smells of either a cheap attempt of grabbing headlines or an equally cheap attempt of trying to discourage Trump voters. But given the self-reinforcing complacency of many Clinton fans (after all the top 100 US media outlets are ALL for her!) there may be more nasty surprises in store for them come Tuesday, not just “surprisingly” losing NV.
Unless, of course the Soros-owned voting machine company takes care of a sufficient number of Trump voters, as it has already attempted in TX, where counties shited to emergency paper ballot after “glitches” in the voting machines falsely registered Trump votes as Clinton votes. Another FACT, btw, as a simple google query will show you beyond doubt.
6. November 2016 at 08:56
Jeff, Sorry I missed that. I’ve got so many crazy commenters I can’t tell what’s satire anymore. I don’t know if he will lose by more than Romney, but any loss is far worse, as Hillary is a dramatically weaker candidate than Obama in 2012.
Beta, You said:
“It’s the difference between a hungry kid stealing a piece of bread and the guys who ran Enron.”
I have far more sympathy for the poor illegal Mexicans, who are much more like your hungry kid than is a rich fashion model. If I were a Mexican I’d sneak into the US too—it’s no worse than jaywalking. Yes it’s illegal, but not immoral.
You said:
“I would add, in this specific case, Slovenia is NOT like the US. It’s more, like, the West Virginia of the former Yugoslavia.”
No it’s not, it’s the richest part of the former Yugoslavia, by far.
foxx, You said:
“Unless, of course the Soros-owned voting machine company takes care of a sufficient number of Trump voters”
And so it begins . . .
6. November 2016 at 15:24
You shouldn’t feel sympathy for either the Mexican immigrant family or Melania Trump: they broke the law or they did not.
My point is less about sympathy and more about the severity of the crime. If I find out 20 years later that a current American citizen did some modelling gigs for a few months while legally here but prior to having legal authorization to work here, I am really not going to get too worked up about it.
For the 99% of us who believe in national sovereignty, crossing a border willfully is in an entirely different category.
The repetition of the crime concerns most of us too: I also wouldn’t care so much about it if it were a few thousand, but we’re talking about millions of people (north of 10 still, right?)
Any crime can become serious if enough people ignore the law, including jaywalking. And to preempt the obvious retort, whether you care if the problem is serious does not affect whether America cares if the problem is serious, and this is a collective decision.
7. November 2016 at 14:47
Beta, There’s no victim with illegal immigration. Yes, it’s a crime, but similar to jaywalking. No big deal. If you are so worried about illegal immigration, why not dramatically increase the amount of legal immigration?
7. November 2016 at 16:32
@foxx, please explain what you think “oversampling of polls” means.
8. November 2016 at 09:15
Though I would add, in this specific case, Slovenia is NOT like the US. It’s more, like, the West Virginia of the former Yugoslavia.
No, that would have been Macedonia prior to 1988. Slovenia was the most affluent section of Yugoslavia, though it’s cities are of very modest size. Slovenia is still the most affluent section of the former East Bloc, surpassing the Czech Republic and surpassing Portugal.
8. November 2016 at 09:19
Beta, There’s no victim with illegal immigration. Yes, it’s a crime, but similar to jaywalking. No big deal. If you are so worried about illegal immigration, why not dramatically increase the amount of legal immigration?
If you don’t control your border, you have no immigration policy. You have the policy imposed on you by turnstile jumpers.
The reason we should not have more legal immigration is that there is scant material benefit for extant residents in having such immigration, the benefit is distributed to the already affluent, and larger pools of foreigners cause social and political problems. Diversity is not strength. Any fertility deficits we now experience can be addressed with an immigration stream one-third the dimensions of the current stream, and screened so as to minimize frictional costs imposed on local communities (e.g. requiring English proficiency).
8. November 2016 at 09:25
Historically, Catholics of all stripes in this nation faced a ton of discrimination.
Which Catholics when? Disabilities imposed on Maryland Catholics were dismantled around 1830. Maryland had the most severe regime during the colonial period. That’s a while ago.
My great-grandfather and his brothers were very much a part of the local establishment in their day, as was his father-in-law. He died in 1927. Just a thought. Make of that what you will.
You could offer that the method of school finance and provision was abusive to Catholics (as it was to other cultural minorities). It still is. It’s not run by old school WASPs anymore. It’s run by the legal profession and Democratic Party clients like the teachers’ unions.
8. November 2016 at 09:30
I think Yglesias lives in a bubble, though, so he probably never hears any of this.
He admitted a number of years ago that his grandmother taught him that WASPs don’t love their children, as can be seen in them making use of boarding schools.