The press didn’t see it coming. Or did they? This week, we examine the role of data – and delusion – in this election. Nate Silver reflects on the promise and pitfalls of polling, and Zachary Karabell discusses how financial indicators gloss over the gritty realities of American life. Plus: how a plan to dismantle the electoral college could make elections more democratic, and election coverage more interesting.
Read moreMaking the Most of a ‘Placid’ Market
At long last, the presidential election of 2016 is entering its final stages. In one form or another, this election has occupied an outsized place in American life since the middle of 2015, by far the longest and most extensive political campaign we’ve ever experienced. Much of this campaign season’s noise will have little impact on markets, the economy, interest rates, economic growth, or the fate of companies. In many respects, there is an inverse relationship between the furor of this election and its clear impacts—particularly if Hillary Clinton and the Democrats win.
Read moreTrump vs. Clinton: A Fundamental Clash over How the Economy Works
He sees it as zero-sum. She believes all boats rise together. Hillary is right, but a lot of people are buying into Trump’s vision.
Read moreWhy Trump, Hillary Will Not Take Down the Market
In this election cycle, will investors be winners or losers? Let’s just get this out of the way: the bulk of this year will be consumed by election noise. There is no way around that. That noise, in turn, will drive out other stories, unless there is a major disruptive event (a terrorist attack, such as the recent one in Brussels, a natural disaster, unexpected political upheaval in the world, or expectations of a possible Brexit coming to fruition). That noise also will subtly influence investors’ behavior, or at least how they view the world. There is no way to avoid that.
Read moreWhy America’s Youth Loves Bernie
This is not the 1960s. There is no war to fight; Sanders is not George McGovern. Hippies have become aging boomers, the parents and grandparents of today’s youth. The question is why an aging, rumpled socialist from earthy-crunchy Vermont is so popular right now.
Read moreHow Big Business is Lining Up With Hillary
Hillary Clinton doesn’t want to win over just the middle class. She wants to win over business elites as well. And in this tightening labor market, with business worried about losing workers to the growing demand for higher wages, there’s ample evidence that what she has started to advocate is increasingly aligned with what many businesses are beginning to do.
Read moreIs Hillary Running for Bill’s Third Term?
When Hillary Clinton announces her candidacy on Sunday, the Republicans will no doubt redouble their efforts to make the case that a vote for Hillary is a vote for Barack Obama’s third term—and the GOP believes no one wants that, for Pete’s sake. Clinton’s campaign, by contrast, will almost certainly make a very different case: If they vote for her, Americans will be getting something far closer to Bill Clinton’s third term.
Read moreHillary’s Not the Problem
For Hillary Clinton—and most of Washington—email-gate may be a relatively new issue, but it is an issue with a decades-long pedigree in American history. Once upon a time, in the era before email and whose “server” was whose, it wouldn’t have been an issue at all: Dean Acheson, for instance, lived in no fear that the public would have access to his personal letters musing about the intentions of Stalin or the presence of possible Soviet spies in the State Department alleged by Joe McCarthy, or any number of other matters of state. Long before that, presidents in particular were free to keep or dispose of their papers as they saw fit; one obscure president, Chester Arthur, sealed his obscurity by instructing his family to burn his papers after his death.
Read moreWhose Economy Will It Be in 2016?
The ugly midterm campaign season provided one area of common ground: Americans and their candidates were almost universal in their disdain for the country’s economic performance over the past six years. In exit polls on Election Day, 78 percent of voters said they were worried about the economy, and clearly the Democrats took most of the blame.
Read moreChina and the United States — a Marriage of Convenience
As the United States and China wrap up their two-day “Strategic and Economic Dialogue,” it’s more apparent than ever that the two find themselves in a marriage that neither can easily dissolve and that neither fully wants.
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