By all indications the next 14 weeks will be mean, grueling, and infuriating. In the interest of preserving comity if not sanity I want to propose a couple of guidelines.
First, avoid name-calling. Either of the candidates, other commenters, or me.
Second, present evidence for your claims, preferably from reliable sources. WND, Breitbart, HotAir, Democratic Underground, Media Matters, and the Daily Kos are not reliable sources. Major media outlets are reliable on some subjects but not on others, particularly politics. It’s getting darned hard to find consistently reliable unbiased sources.
The same is the case with government data sources. They’re reliable on some subjects but not on others. It’s helpful if you understand the limitations of the data they present and the constraints under which they operate.
Some individuals are authoritative on some subjects but not on others. Noam Chomsky is an authority on linguistics but not on politics or history. Paul Krugman is an authority on certain aspects of international trade and international finance and less so on other economic subjects but not an authority on politics. And so on.
I pledge to do my best to conform to those guidelines myself. It’s going to be darned hard to write about either candidate and remain within those constraints but I’ll do my best.
“By all indications the next 14 weeks will be mean, grueling, and infuriating.”
I think that every four years.
The one thing I think has been disappointing this electoral cycle, at least as far the political blogosphere is concerned, is the failure to quote. I’ve never seen a candidate whose positions are analyzed so voraciously based upon third-hand characterizations of those positions.
That would be candidate Trump, but there was a story last week that appears to have been similarly misleading about Clinton’s campaign manager that Politico summarized as him saying “the American people will have to observe Hillary as president before fully trusting her.” That summary was then quoted by Breitbart and other right-leaning groups as if that was what the campaign manager had said.
He actually said something boring/ cliche-ridden that predicted people will be more appreciative of her as President when they see how much of a work horse she is, as someone who gets results, etc. , etc. Somewhere else he says Clinton is seeking to earn the trust of voters, but this is partly blamed on the bad-faith of the Benghazi hearing.
Sounds good, though we should be able to make fun of Drew. I would suggest that folks just show where they get their data.
Steve
I don’t quite get this reliance on “authority.” Trump, like Jesus, wants us to trust him on the basis of his claimed authority alone. I’m enchanted by Christopher Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and others because of their erudition, command of English, logic and reason, not because of their authority. What would authority in atheism look like, anyway? Anointing by the god of atheism?
I think that’s an excellent idea. Here would be a good first example of one of the most fundamental measures of economic performance around. Oddly, it contradicts the current President and Democrat candidate’s assertion of strong economic performance, and supports the opposing candidates alternative description, dystopian as it might be. And it doesn’t even count the modification to historical GDP measurement standards. The source is the BEA; of course I’m waiting to hear the assertions of imaginary Tea Party associates. This is actually going to be fun.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
Since I’m at it. Here’s some data on the full vs part time employment situation. The source is obvious. That the quality (income producing capability) of jobs created has been, um, less than stellar should be obvious to all but the most partisan. Oddly, that contradicts the portrayal of the President and the Democrat candidate for president.
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Full-Time-vs-Part-Time-Employment
Hmmm. Only five minutes work and growth and employment not looking so good. Maybe things will look better when we get to well sourced data on income growth, income disparity, net worth, reliance in income support programs, minority employment, labor force participation, inner city crime, inflation in commonly purchased goods and services, home ownership….. Well, don’t hold your breath. But at least it will be well sourced.
Your second graph is a good example of innovative graphing, and not in a positive sense. Anyway, what it shows is a slow steady decrease in PT jobs and steady increase in FT jobs. Reinhardt and Rogoff showed that we should expect 5-8 years to see recovery after an international banking crisis. We are right on schedule.
Of more interest is the left side of the graph. After the Bush tax cuts, including capital gains taxes, PT continued to increase and FT decrease, until about 2005. At any rate, we are essentially back to 2005 according to your graph.
Steve