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U.S. Elections: Apocalypse upon the horizon


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33 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

The moderator was really biased towards Clinton. Is that normal?

I thought they are at least to look like neutrals? He kept feeding her questions so that she was able to pounce on Trump's weaknesses, but the things she's weak on, he did not address. Trump had to try and get to those himself. He almost seemed like he was planted there by the Democrat party.

Clinton got very little on her "scandals" but then, she defused the email thing (by doing what a lot of people claimed they wanted) and just outright copped to it. What else would she be asked about? The Foundation? What's the scandal there, compared to what Holt really hit Trump on which was the birther issue (partly cause Trump didn't do what Clinton did and tried to power-lie his way through it).

 

I'm honestly a bit unclear. With the Associated Press report it seemed like the media created smoke and then declared that fire was surely there.

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1 minute ago, Castel said:

Clinton got very little on her "scandals" but then, she defused the email thing (by doing what a lot of people claimed they wanted) and just outright copped to it. What else would she be asked about? The Foundation? What's the scandal there, compared to what Holt really hit Trump on which was the birther issue (partly cause Trump didn't do what Clinton did and tried to power-lie his way through it).

I'm honestly a bit unclear. With the Associated Press report it seemed like the media created smoke and then declared that fire was surely there.

This is true. If people read the AP report, they'd realize there is absolutely nothing there. And if the Clinton Foundation comes up, the Trump Foundation will surely follow and it's been infinitely worse in all respects. I doubt Trump would enjoy that conversation.

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10 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Interesting.  Do you think, its possible to consistently make money on average?

Do you think that is because those markets are just not well developed yet, meaning there just isn't enough "smart money" to counter bets made by irrational betters who are betting primarily on emotions?

I can't answer for US political betting markets, but in the UK, the volume of betting tends to be low (much lower than sports betting), and bets made by a relatively small number of rich bettors can shift the odds markedly.  And, it seems that some rich bettors are willing to make big wagers in favour of causes they support, for very little potential return.  In the Brexit referendum, some people were betting four or five figures sums on Remain winning, at odds of 1-6.  If you care about the cause so much, why not just donate that sort of money to it?

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3 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Harakiri, I think those two quotes just summed it up. Trump has NO FUCKING IDEA what he's doing and I'm frankly amazed anyone is willing to let him anywhere near the white house. 

You and the rest of the world. I haven't been following that closely, but has there been much discussion of the mammoth amount of international credibility which the US would lose if Trump became President? I'm not saying that the US would become geopolitically unimportant or anything like that, but money and military doesn't preclude a country from becoming a laughingstock.

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26 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Except he's a Republican so highly doubt he was planted there. I think Trump got tougher questions dealing with some of his major controversies (there are so many more for him than Clinton) but just the other day with Matt Lauer, Clinton had tougher questions ("why shouldn't you be disqualified from being the President?"). 

The two topics that I was surprised didn't come up was Benghazi and immigration.

Well, I was reading this BBC report for instance.

Quote

"And for the final X factor. The Lester Holt factor. Much had been made of how the NBC presenter would handle the debate and whether he would serve as a real-time fact-checker or take a more hands-off approach. One NBC staffer said Holt wouldn't be a "potted plant" - and that was definitely the case.
In all the above points, the opening for Mrs Clinton's advantage was set by the moderator. He first brought up Mr Trump's taxes. He asked about the Obama "birther" controversy. He pushed Mr Trump on the Iraq War and brought up his comment about her "look", which led to the extended discussion of presidential temperament and judgement.

Mrs Clinton's weaknesses - particularly her use of a private email server and potential conflicts of interest in her charitable foundation - were barely discussed.
If the winner of political conflict is dictated by the ground on which it is fought, then most of the debate was contested on terrain that was favourable to the Democrat.
Some of that was her own effective strategy and preparation; the lawyer's advantage. Some of it was Mr Trump's missteps and meandering; the salesman's failure to move his product.
A lot of it, however, was Holt's doing. That will have Democrats smiling and Trump supporters howling.

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37481070

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8 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I can't answer for US political betting markets, but in the UK, the volume of betting tends to be low (much lower than sports betting), and bets made by a relatively small number of rich bettors can shift the odds markedly.  And, it seems that some rich bettors are willing to make big wagers in favour of causes they support, for very little potential return.  In the Brexit referendum, some people were betting four or five figures sums on Remain winning, at odds of 1-6.  If you care about the cause so much, why not just donate that sort of money to it?

Good question.

If there are those kind of pricing inefficiencies in political betting markets, and perhaps in UK ones in particular, I think we need to come up with an algorithm to trade in those markets. LOL.

Maybe there are those kind of big inefficiencies in those markets. If so, then there is an interesting question there of why arbitrageur types aren't getting involved.

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16 minutes ago, Arkhangel said:

You and the rest of the world. I haven't been following that closely, but has there been much discussion of the mammoth amount of international credibility which the US would lose if Trump became President? I'm not saying that the US would become geopolitically unimportant or anything like that, but money and military doesn't preclude a country from becoming a laughingstock.

I thought we pretty much achieved the laughing stock mantle in 2000, doubled down in 2004 and that Trumpism would represent the return to lunacy. Dont underestimate how bad W was. Le Donald does suck, but it isnt like this is new, he's a standard nutjob from a party of nutjobs. The only difference being that previous Republicans have been less open about what they really were thinking all along. It's the same cloth since Goldwater. Nothings changed but the presentation.

edit to add: "Operation Wetback" was an actual Eisenhower policy, look that nugget up. It's been part of Donalds playbook from day one.

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49 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

I'll go one step further and say it's about making money.

Well, yeah, there is that too. Probably sees it as a wonderful way to promote Trump bottled water, Trump golf courses, Trump casinos, Trump resorts, Trump condoms, Trump brand cereal, Trump University, Trump razor blades, Trump shampoo, Trump toothpaste, and so on and so forth.

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14 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

Well, I was reading this BBC report for instance.

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37481070

I understand this and I do think Trump got some of the harder questions. But they're all legitimate. These are issues and ones that haven't been discussed enough in the public forum. On the other side, Clinton has gone through 7 different congressional investigations on Benghazi, went through a 6 month FBI investigation complete with unprecedented press conference and spent 11+ hours testifying in front of a Senate committee on the emails. As we've seen in media talking analyses, there has been exponentially more media time spent on these two issues than on Trump's issues and I'm personally glad that there were some questions designed to dig into some of Trump's controversies on the national stage.

So yea, I get the BBC's point and think it's fair in terms of Trump getting harder questions in this specific debate. When you turn on FoxNews, they're spending a lot of time talking about this. But as I said, Clinton got those types of questions and worse with Matt Lauer on national TV a few weeks ago and has been tried in the public on these issues over the last year. Ultimately, this is just the first debate, there will be more and as we've seen in the past, the next moderators will likely pivot away from what Holt did and be tougher on Clinton to balance the scales.

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Trump going into near hysterics about calling Sean Hannity to prove that he didn't support going into Iraq was entertaining.  Too bad Trump did support going into Iraq.  Perhaps his 10 year old son the 'cyber' expert can bring up some examples on the cyber to remind him of what he said.

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9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well, yeah, there is that too. Probably sees it as a wonderful way to promote Trump bottled water, Trump golf courses, Trump casinos, Trump resorts, Trump condoms, Trump brand cereal, Trump condoms, Trump University, Trump razor blades, Trump shampoo, Trump toothpaste, and so on and so forth.

Carpetbagger Trump would namestamp himself to genital wart lotion for a 6 figure check. He's just that cheesy.

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20 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Good question.

If there are those kind of pricing inefficiencies in political betting markets, and perhaps in UK ones in particular, I think we need to come up with an algorithm to trade in those markets. LOL.

Maybe there are those kind of big inefficiencies in those markets. If so, then there is an interesting question there of why arbitrageur types aren't getting involved.

I think the main things keeping political prediction markets from being efficient are that the same event doesn't happen often enough and there's just not enough money being moved.

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28 minutes ago, Arkhangel said:

You and the rest of the world. I haven't been following that closely, but has there been much discussion of the mammoth amount of international credibility which the US would lose if Trump became President? 

Unfortunately, historically when Americans become aware of this aspect they tend to stubbornly/childishly double down. Think Dubya, think Iraq, think Freedom Fries.

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From the Onion

Quote

 

When asked by reporters after the event what he thought of moderator Lester Holt's performance, Trump said: "I felt he was fine."

But he then lamented having a "defective mic."

"My mic was defective within the room," Trump told reporters.

He added: "I wonder ... Was that on purpose? Was that on purpose?"

 

Oh no wait, he actually said that

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

The best recent case of this was over the Brexit vote in the UK.  Remain was solid favourite throughout, in the face of opinion polls showing that the race was essentially a coin toss.  When polls closed, some bookmakers were offering 11-1 against Leave winning the vote!  I made a fair sum, because of the crazy odds being offered against Leave.

I think the issue there is that the conventional wisdom was wrong. People weren't betting on Remain because they wanted Remain, but rather that (when the chips were down), voters were expected to favour the safe status quo option over the unsafe change option. The analogy being the Scottish Independence Referendum.

Also, the odds reflected the amounts bet over the long term, and had you told someone six months before the Referendum that Leave would win, they'd have laughed at you (indeed, neither Nigel Farage nor Boris Johnson actually expected to win). The swing to Leave came comparatively late.

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Clinton clearly won, even with Trump's lowered expectations. She basically pitched a perfect game, while Trump failed to do the three things he had to do to win (not look like a bully, avoid saying something racist and show a minimal grasp on policy). 

1 hour ago, Arkhangel said:

You and the rest of the world. I haven't been following that closely, but has there been much discussion of the mammoth amount of international credibility which the US would lose if Trump became President? I'm not saying that the US would become geopolitically unimportant or anything like that, but money and military doesn't preclude a country from becoming a laughingstock.

It's kind of insane how the Republican Party always talks about raising America's standing in the world and then proceeds to nominate a total clown. For example, if Trump were to back out of the Paris Climate Change agreement, he would completely destroy the credibility of the U.S., and that's just one of many examples in which he could ruin our standing for a generation to come. 

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1 hour ago, Mexal said:

 

The two topics that I was surprised didn't come up was Benghazi and immigration.

To be certain, Trump did waste a lot of time.  Immigration surely would have come up if time had permitted.  I don't think Lester Holt was going to go near Benghazi. I do think he is savvy enough of a journalist to know when the story isn't an issue any more.

As expected, if you see a Trump supporter talking today, it's nothing but the idea that the debate was rigged and their candidate wasn't allowed to shine.  The sheer inability to give a single, solitary inch to the idea that Trump did not do well, that perhaps he could actually work a little at things is so infuriating.  I know you can't change a true Trump believers mind, but it's like dating the bad boy, you know he's not really an good, but if anyone can redeem him, it's you...so you keep trying and hoping...

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17 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

I think the issue there is that the conventional wisdom was wrong. People weren't betting on Remain because they wanted Remain, but rather that (when the chips were down), voters were expected to favour the safe status quo option over the unsafe change option. The analogy being the Scottish Independence Referendum.

Also, the odds reflected the amounts bet over the long term, and had you told someone six months before the Referendum that Leave would win, they'd have laughed at you (indeed, neither Nigel Farage nor Boris Johnson actually expected to win). The swing to Leave came comparatively late.

You're right about the conventional wisdom, but the conventional wisdom ignored the polling in the Brexit case.  Even some pollsters rubbished their own polling, or adjusted to favour Remain, because they didn't believe their own figures.

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Just now, OnionAhaiReborn said:

"No wonder you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life!"

Clearly the best line of the night. I want to find a way to work this in as a comeback at some point in my life. 

Hilary has been fighting ISIS her whole life because Donald has the better temperament.  LOL

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