Carter (+19) vs. Obama (-2) in February of Year 4
Now this is pretty interesting.... The chart above shows the approval-disapproval ratings for President Carter and President Obama in February of their fourth year in office (1980 vs. 2012), based on the Gallup/USA Today Presidential Approval Tracker website. Carter's approval was 55% in early February of 1980 vs. 46% for Obama in mid-February 2012, and Carter's disapproval was 36% vs. 48% for Obama. Carter's Approval-Disapproval spread was +19 compared to Obama's -2 point spread.
Note: In March of 1980, Carter's ratings tanked and by the end of the month he was at -12 Approval-Disapproval.
Note: In March of 1980, Carter's ratings tanked and by the end of the month he was at -12 Approval-Disapproval.
29 Comments:
Jimmy Obama
W out polls Obama
The liberal Public Policy Polling organization asked the public “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of” each president by name ...
The poll showed 45% now have a favorable opinion of Bush 43, while 46% have an unfavorable opinion.
That’s a net of minus 1.
The poll showed 46% now have a favorable opinion of Obama, while 49% have an unfavorable opinion.
That’s a net of minus 3.
Sure, the numbers fall within the margin of error. But what a difference 3 years make. The longer Barack Obama is president, the better George Walker Bush looks. -- The Daily Mail
At this point in Carter's presidency, wasn't it early in the Iran hostage crisis? Every president polls well during a crisis like that (W polled well in the months after 9/11). Of course, the lack of resolution is part of what pulled him down. I'm just saying that you can't really compare Obama's numbers to Carter's.
Carter might have come much loser in 1980 had not Anderson taken 8% of the vote as a third party candidate.
Reagan still was slightly above 50% of the popular vote.
"At this point in Carter's presidency, wasn't it early in the Iran hostage crisis? Every president polls well during a crisis like"
Not Jimmy Carter. The hostage rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw, conducted on April 24, 1980, was a disaster, with two planes lost, eight service men dead and no hostages recovered.
After that, Carter's approval rating was around minus 25%
It may also be worth remembering that the economy was not looking good at this point for Carter. The economy is improving now.
Poll results?
A testament to the inability of the general population to pay attention to reality and remember recent history...
The proof of that is where FDR and Clinton are in this sad joke of poll...
Clinton precipitated the housing & banking crisis:
1) Origin of the Housing Bubble: “The National Homeownership Strategy”
2) Bill Clinton's drive to increase homeownership went way too far
(BTW there's more than enough blame to go around thanks to HUD under the administrations of Reagan, Clinton & Bush)
FDR gave the country a big shove down the socialist highway to hell:
1) From Ponzi to Perry: The Truth about Social Security (not Mark Perry)
2) FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
Well, Carter had the misfortune of running against Reagan. Obama and his fellow Alinskyites are surely cackling at the cast of losers the GOP is running this time around.
"Obama and his fellow Alinskyites are surely cackling at the cast of losers the GOP is running this time around"...
Exactly paul...
In fact the Republicans have made a complete hash of it all these three past years...
jon-
what would you cite as a sign the economy is improving?
the last 2 q's have had essentially zero GDP growth. they only got reported growth by shaving the deflator so badly (0.8% vs 3.2% cpi in q4).
unemployment is similarly a total farce of a number. they are just dropping people out, many at federal expense.
nearly a whole percentage point are just folks who have gone on disability, most claiming "mental problems".
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/pain_brings_gain_taZkGOAUhXALmhEEyMpmqJ
real retail sales and restaurant same store sales are going nowhere.
big, broad based folks like dow chemical are showing real contractions in sales but nominal increases in revs from inflation.
it seems to me that the evidence that things are not getting better is pretty strong.
real median incomes declined again in 2011 as did real per capita GDP.
so what's the case that it's getting better?
seems to me like they are determined to try and make it look that way, but that it's predominantly just the numbers getting fiddled and has been for 6 months at least.
not trying to be a gloomy bludgeon, you seem to be a thoughtful, informed guy, i just really do not see what you are looking at to have such an opinion.
what would you cite as a sign the economy is improving?
Good question, Morganovich. We've talked about some of these indicators, but I'll lay everything out the way I see it.
US Industrial Production is up 4.0% from the same time last year (12 month moving average basis).
The US Leading Indicator has risen and is 3.4% above the same month last year (this one we've had cone disagreement about, but it is an indicator I look at anyway).
The PMI is 54.1, the highest reading in 6 months and above 50.0 for the 30th consecutive month, signaling expansion.
Nondefense Capital Goods New Orders (adjusted for inflation), a measure of business-to-business activity are 10.0% above last year (12 month moving total basis)
Retail Sales are at their highest level in over three years and 1.6% above last year (12 month moving total basis)
Housing is up 4.5% from last year (12MMT). Granted, the growth is still very mild and well below pre-recession levels, but to see it gorwing is a good sign.
Corporate bond prices are up (again, some controversy surrounding this one).
Wholesale Trade has surpassed pre-recession levels and grew 13.9% in 2011.
Manufacturing New Orders are up 12.1% in 2011 from 2010.
Private sector non-seasonally-adjusted employment has increased by 2.2 million over the past 12 months (that's including January's drop which was one of the mildest on record).
The stock market is growing (not a fantastic indicator, but not showing any bad signs, either. Although there is, again, controversy here).
These are the big things that come to mind. I track some of these things closer than others, but they are the big ones.
Let me be clear: I don't want it to sound like I am saying everything is perfect and let's all go sing and dance in the streets. We do still have a long way to go. Likewise, this isn't robust growth by any stretch of the imagination. But it is growth. Things are improving, albeit slowly. We are head-and-shoulders above 2008-2009. But we still have some ways to go before we hit 2007 or 2006.
That's all I am saying.
Joshua, you are right about the Iran Hostage Crisis. Carter initially got a big bump out of it that quickly evaporated. In the time line, Carter at this point in his presidency is still getting the bump.
I am thinking that Obama has learned from this, and is trying to put off his Iran crisis as long as possible so that it happens soon before the election rather than now. Syria is a back up plan, I suspect. One of the two is sure to go off right off in October somehow.
As for the economy improving, we are not seeing the Obama Recovery, we are seeing the Recovery from Obama that is caused by Republicans keeping him from doing more harm the last two years. Republicans should be shouting this from the rooftops but seem unable to get a coherent message together. Bummer.
"US Industrial Production is up 4.0% from the same time last year (12 month moving average basis)."
is that a real or a nominal number?
if it's nominal (as i think, but am not sure it is), then it's almost all inflation. folks like dow are contracting in real terms but putting up prices by more to get nominal increases.
"The US Leading Indicator has risen and is 3.4% above the same month last year (this one we've had cone disagreement about, but it is an indicator I look at anyway)."
but this is up entirely due to bonds and equities. absent those 2 (registering inflation and market manipulation) it would be down significantly from a year ago. those 2 factors account for 150% of the rise.
"The PMI is 54.1, the highest reading in 6 months and above 50.0 for the 30th consecutive month, signaling expansion."
the PMI is a really flaky index as it's not really revenue weighted. it's also a nominal, not a real measure and does not really separate inflation from real growth.
"Retail Sales are at their highest level in over three years and 1.6% above last year (12 month moving total basis)"
again, this is a nominal number. a 1.6% increase nominally is a decline in real terms.
"Corporate bond prices are up (again, some controversy surrounding this one)."
this seems like just fed manipulation driving spread convergence.
"Private sector non-seasonally-adjusted employment has increased by 2.2 million over the past 12 months (that's including January's drop which was one of the mildest on record)."
this is very tepid growth. that's essentially just population growth. also, the gallup numbers for feb show unemployment jumping back to 9% from 8.3.
we also have the largest group on long term unemployed since the depression.
it seems to me that nearly every metric you cite is inflation based as opposed to real growth.
deflate the nominal figures with CPI and i think you get a very different picture.
is there a reason you are using so many nominal figures?
Actually, both Retail Sales and USIP are deflated. I forgot to mention that. Wicked sorry about that.
The others (New Orders, Wholesale Trade) are not deflated.
Generally speaking, I haven't been using inflation-adjusted recently because inflation has been so...blarg. Just not really doing anything, so the adjustments from nominal to real haven't been yielding much of a difference in terms of y-o-y growth.
I wish I lived out in CA. You seem like someone who would be fun to have a drink and discuss these things with.
jon-
ah, gotcha.
however, if you take gas stations out of retail sales, it takes about a point off the growth.
they were up maybe 10% yoy and that was all price.
that gets you down to sub 1% retail sales increases, which, given population growth, is pretty much zero per capita.
"so the adjustments from nominal to real haven't been yielding much of a difference in terms of y-o-y growth."
that surprises me. seems like i have seen a lot of areas showing nominal but not real growth.
fwiw, i'm not in CA, but in park city UT. if you ever find yourself out here skiing or whatnot, beer is on me.
also:
why use ttm avg on IP?
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/Current/
i see ttm at 3.4% and january as 0 growth.
that seems like a good gauge of the past year. why use a MA?
Moving averages/totals help smooth out seasonal movements and one-month anomalies.
what are you using a MA of?
simple average of the last 12 month % changes from a year ago?
that seems like it creates its own significant issues.
it gives april the same weight as december.
not sure that isn't a bigger source of distortion than ST fluctuation in months views as a TTM figure.
or are you doing it differently?
also makes it seem like a very slow indicator to react to change.
such a metric would not show a ball was falling until well after the peak of the parabola (or possible not at all if the period of trend was less than the MA)
doesn't using trailing 12 month data (gain yoy) do the same thing in terms of eliminating seasonality?
SO, the methodology is this:
When using an Index (like Industrial Production), I take the past 12 months (in this cast Feb 2011-Jan 2012) and calculate the average. Then, to get the y-o-y, I take the 12MMA from Jan 12 and divide it by the 12MMA from Jan 2011. That way, we are always looking at the same time frame and comparing it to a comparable time frame from one year ago.
When using things such as retail sales, where it makes sense to add them up, it's just the past 12 months added up. No average. It's a 12 month moving total. Then the y-o-y comparison stays the same.
I also look at 3MMT/A year-over-year comparisons. These provide an indication of where the 12MMT/A trend is going. For example, if the 3MMT is -3.7% below the same time last year, but the 12MMT is 5.6% above the same time last year, you can see that the 12MMT growth will begin to slow and, assuming the 3MMT remains below zero, possibly slip below zero itself.
juandos: "1) Origin of the Housing Bubble: “The National Homeownership Strategy”" (link)
And of course the original CRA which Clinton put on steroids, was the brainchild of...Carter.
This isn't a good analogy because Carter and Obama are two very different personalities and will be facing opposite types of challengers.
Carter had very little of a personal following but his opponent, Reagan, had a large cadre of fans.
Obama has a large personal following (forget about his detractors in this analysis) and in all likelihood he'll be facing a nobody. Santorum is a nobody and Romney is a 'suit' without any Romneyites.
The only way to defeat Obama is to drag him down into the dirt. I suspect that only Santorum is even capable of doing this.
jon-
not sure i follow you.
are you taking the last 12 ttm figures, or the last 12 sequential figures?
and doesn't that assume that all months are equal?
if april is seasonally low and dec high, shouldn't a 5% increase in dec carry more weight than a 5% increase in april?
your retail sales method makes more sense to me, but even so, isn't it very slow to adapt to changes?
it sounds like you are using MACD to try to mitigate this a bit, which seem like it would work, though only in a trending situation. i once had the misfortune to help write a bunch of technical analysis software for currency trading, and i seem to recall that MACD was really only valid in a trending situation and tended to give almost entirely false signals in a rangebound market.
how do you deal with that?
Ron,
Don't forget the community organizers at ACORN who orchestrated the "turbocharging" that extended CRA and other lower lending standards schemes across the financial system.
Community organizer...hmmm, where have I heard that term before?
I should mention that, in my particular job, I am more concerned with trends. Our forecasters do more with the numbers than I do, but what I am concerned about is where the market is and where it's heading.
This video will do a better job explaining than I can: http://youtu.be/c51IzhsE1to
This is a video my company sends to new clients.
It's about 5 minutes long, if you have the time.
Sorry to resort to the "watch this and shut up" method. I'm not that great explaining things in writing.
Paul: "Community organizer...hmmm, where have I heard that term before?"
Oh Yeah! We now have a Community Organizer In Chief - a COIC.
2) FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, revisionists bent on corrupting FDR's history calculate
FTFY.
As for the rest of your comment, you want people to be enslaved to landlords that get outright feudal with people.
Marko:
No, it's the non-recovery that's happened because business wants people to suffer for him being in office. That is something that needs to be stopped.
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