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18886 [lbo-talk] statisticians reject exit poll apologetics -- rank: 1000

<http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/1/emw203331.htm> Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies in New Edison/Mitofsky Report and Urge Investigation of U.S. Presidential Election Results President Bush won November's election by 2.5% yet exit polls showed Kerry leading by 3%. Which was correct? (PRWEB) January 31, 2005 -- "There are statistical indications that a systematic, nationwide shift of 5.5% of the vote may have occurred, and that we ...

Document Size:	8207
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 31 08:48:34 PST 2005

18887 [lbo-talk] housing bubble? -- rank: 1000

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >PS. If we consider hedonic valuation used in, say, the computer industry, >which takes into account changes in product quality to determine real value >- the increase of housing price is even higher due to increasingly shoddy >construction (which according to the Consumer reports is becoming a serious >problem). But houses are larger, and the hedonic model would have to take account of that too. Doug

Document Size:	4907
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 31 07:59:57 PST 2005

18888 [lbo-talk] housing bubble? -- rank: 1000

joanna bujes wrote: >If it's just about inflation, then the ratio between house/salary >would not have grown so much. Ooops, that last one got away empty. As the late FNN credit analyst Ed Hart used to say, housing inflation is the American national religion. DOUG

Document Size:	4704
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 30 11:52:39 PST 2005

18889 Secular (Re: [lbo-talk] housing bubble?) -- rank: 1000

snit snat wrote: >Does anyone know _why_, etymologically-speaking, someone thought it >made sense to use the word secular? <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=secular> [Middle English, from Old French seculer, from Late Latin saeculris, from Latin, of an age, from saeculum, generation, age.]

Document Size:	4929
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 30 10:25:53 PST 2005

18890 [lbo-talk] housing bubble? -- rank: 1000

joanna bujes wrote: >If it's just about inflation, then the ratio between house/salary >would not have grown so much.

Document Size:	4548
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 30 09:32:39 PST 2005

18891 [lbo-talk] housing bubble? -- rank: 1000

Jordan Hayes wrote: >[ I'm "against" the idea that this is a "bubble" -- I think that >word should be reserved for situations where, when it pops, it's >gone ... like a bubble. Housing isn't like that, for all the >reasons that I've said before (and Wojtek continues to misrepresent >:-) ... but parts of the housing market have gone nuts and will >correct at some point ] This is an excessively narrow definition of a bubble. The S&P 500 was in a bubble in ...

Document Size:	6803
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 30 09:31:17 PST 2005

18892 [lbo-talk] WEF: no energy shortage -- rank: 1000

PRESS RELEASE Contact: Mark Adams Head of Media World Economic Forum ENERGY SUPPLY FEARS EXAGGERATED, SAY EXPERTS AHEAD OF OPEC MEETING Davos, Switzerland, 29 January 2005 - Business and government leaders concerned with world oil and gas told participants in the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting 2005 that they consider price and supply fears exaggerated. Speaking two days before OPEC's next meeting and the election in Iraq, Nigeria's Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala declared: "T ...

Document Size:	7620
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jan 29 07:58:43 PST 2005

18893 [lbo-talk] I am addicted to India, it's magical, says Sting -- rank: 1000

Sujeet Bhatt wrote: >I am addicted to India, it's magical, says Sting What did India do to deserve this? Doug

Document Size:	4862
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jan 29 07:33:41 PST 2005

18894 [lbo-talk] SpongeBob: for the record -- rank: 1000

New York Times - January 29, 2005 Corrections: For The Record [...] An article in The Arts on Thursday about a decision by PBS against distributing an episode of "Postcards From Buster," a children's program, because it portrays children whose parents are a lesbian couple, referred incorrectly to another recent controversy over a children's television character, SpongeBob SquarePants. Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, said this month ...

Document Size:	5341
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jan 29 07:19:42 PST 2005

18895 [lbo-talk] Gates "short the dollar" -- rank: 1000

By James Hertling Bloomberg News Service Saturday, January 29, 2005 <http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aAvDTJpsO1Nk&refer=home> DAVOS, Switzerland -- Bill Gates, the world's richest person with a net worth of $46.6 billion, is betting against the U.S. dollar. "I'm short the dollar," Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., told Charlie Rose in an interview in front of an audience of about 200 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The ol' ...

Document Size:	7337
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jan 29 07:14:43 PST 2005

18896 [lbo-talk] housing bubble? -- rank: 1000

Jordan Hayes wrote: >I said there was (typically) no margin call. If you get stuck in a >limit down futures contract, you can get wiped out in ways that are >(again, typically) not possible with houses: you can't be forced to sell >your house _just because it's value goes down_ ... No, but if you've really stretched to buy the house on the joint assumptions that rates will stay low and prices will rise (and maybe that you'll keep your job) you may come to regret the decision. And th ...

Document Size:	5174
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 28 13:36:06 PST 2005

18897 [lbo-talk] housing bubble? -- rank: 1000

Dwayne Monroe wrote: >Apologies for my synaptic inefficiency this frigid morning (at least >for those of us on the eastern seaboard of the US) but I'm not quite >clear on the full meaning here. > > >By households ready to "jump into the housing market" do they mean >that people who're presently not mortgage payers are, in increasing >numbers, feeling now is the time to pull the trigger? > >And if that's the case, what are the dangers of this explosion of & ...

Document Size:	5741
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 28 08:54:51 PST 2005

18898 [lbo-talk] NYC's "City Journal" magazine? -- rank: 1000

Carl Remick wrote: >Certainly no one in print possesses more powerful suction than City >Journal Editor Myron Magnet, who sports 19th-century muttonchop >whiskers and a 21st-century weight problem. I saw him on the street >in Manhattan once, and he looked even more preposterous than he does >in the photo at this link: >http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/magnet.htm I'll confess that I once interviewed him for my radio show when he had a cold and didn't bother to edit out a ...

Document Size:	5372
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 28 08:46:57 PST 2005

18899 [lbo-talk] disability & Clint -- rank: 1000

[don't read this if you avoid spoilers] At 10:12 AM -0500 1/28/05, <newsfeed at mediabistro.com> wrote: >GROUP: CRITICS SHOULD PROTEST FILM ENDING >Disability-rights advocates think film critics should have made an >exception and given away the ending to Million Dollar Baby. >http://www.chireader.com/hottype/2005/050128_1.html

Document Size:	5006
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 28 08:33:27 PST 2005

18900 [lbo-talk] housing bubble? -- rank: 1000

[on a different topic, also from Merrill's morning memo] [C]onsider that according to the January U of M consumer sentiment survey, the share of households who believed that the time was ripe to jump into the housing market jumped to 22% in January. This share of "performance chasers" has literally doubled in the past fifteen months, and is now back to levels last seen in early 1990 when, once again, the herd followed the boom of the late-1980s and we all know how that saga ended.

Document Size:	4990
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 28 08:03:34 PST 2005