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Election Watch: Muddy Political Landscape after Romney’s Debate Performance and New Jobs Report

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Wednesday night’s first presidential debate has thrown calculations about the presidential contest into some disarray, though it probably won’t be until after the weekend that sufficient public opinion surveys will have appeared to get a sense of whether Mitt Romney’s undisputed (if perhaps disputed in its extent or implications) win over the president will have any impact on the actual race, which has been remarkably stable for a very long time.

Political Scientist John Sides is one of the few to make a specific prediction: that Romney would likely enjoy a 1.25% “bump” in national polls, at least temporarily.  Some observers who had earlier thought Romney’s prospects for victory were evaporating viewed his debate performance as crucial in keeping donors from cutting their losses and focusing on downballot races.

In terms of the strategic impact of the first debate, the general view is that Romney sought and to some extent succeeded in repositioning himself to “the political center,” via his hedging on his earlier tax cut proposal, his passionate declaration of interest in public education and the protection of Medicare, his claims of possessing a viable alternative to Obamacare that would protect those with pre-existing conditions, and his assertion that he’d been more open to bipartisan cooperation than Obama.  It appears this tack by Romney threw the Obama campaign off-balance, contributing to a low-key and not terribly responsive performance by the president (who had allegedly decided against too many sharp attacks on his struggling opponent). Interestingly, after months and months of demands by conservatives that Romney run a sharply ideological “choice” campaign based on his running-mate’s budget, his very different tack in the debate drew virtually no criticism, presumably because conservatives were so delighted by Obama’s discomfiture and “defeat.”  The framing of the debate by moderator Jim Lehrer made it very difficult for Obama to bring up Romney’s vulnerabilities on cultural issues, though it’s surprising he didn’t find a way to bring up Mitt’s recently revealed remarks about “the 47%.” Continue reading “Election Watch: Muddy Political Landscape after Romney’s Debate Performance and New Jobs Report” →

Moderate Mitt Returns

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

No one should be surprised that Mitt Romney turned in a strong debate performance last night. After a string of missed opportunities and self-inflicted wounds stretching back to the Republican National Convention, his campaign had stalled and was losing altitude. Whereas President Obama merely had to avoid mistakes, Romney needed to pull himself out of a political tailspin.

Did he succeed? The commentariat says yes, but it has a vested interest in keeping the presidential race close. It will take a few days to gauge the debate’s impact on actual voters, but it’s probably safe to say Romney was won himself a fresh hearing.

Most important, Romney used the first presidential debate to reposition himself closer to the political center. This was just the opposite of what he had done during the GOP primary debates. Then, Romney worked hard to ingratiate himself with the ultra-conservative Republican base by attacking his rivals from the right — for example, by lambasting Texas Gov. Rick Perry as a softie on immigration.

Last night, in a bravura act of self-revisionism, Romney recast himself as the Massachusetts moderate he vehemently denied being during the primaries.

In the primaries, Romney had railed against regulation as a mortal threat to America’s “job creators.” Last night’s moderate Mitt sounded more reasonable, embracing the general need for regulation while singling out a few provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law he regards as going too far. Continue reading “Moderate Mitt Returns” →

PPI Unveils New Study, Rome Conference on The Data-Driven Economy”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

NEWS RELEASE 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Steven Chlapecka – schlapecka@ppionline.org, T: 202.525.3931

WASHINGTON—Government statistics don’t show it, but the production and consumption of data is the leading edge of economic growth in the United States, says a new report released today by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).

The report, Beyond Goods and Services: The (Unmeasured) Rise of the Data-Driven Economy, is by Dr. Michael Mandel, PPI’s Chief Economic Strategist and a senior fellow at the Wharton’s Mack Center for Technological Innovation. It was prepared for a transatlantic conference in Rome on Oct. 11-12 organized by PPI and John Cabot University.

Government statistical agencies, notes Mandel, traditionally divide economic activity into two categories: goods and services. Data, however, is neither a good or service:

Data is intangible, like a service, but can be easily stored and delivered far from its original production point, like a good. What’s more, the statistical techniques that have been traditionally used to track goods and services don’t work well for data-driven economic activities. The implication is that the key statistics watched by policy makers – economic growth, consumption, investment and trade – dramatically understate the importance of data for the economy. In turn, these misleading statistics distort government policy.

To remedy this problem, Mandel proposes that data be added as a primary economic category alongside goods and services. After adjusting government figures to account for unmeasured data consumption, Mandel estimates that real U.S. GDP rose at a 2.3 percent rate in the first half of 2012, compared to the official rate of 1.7 percent.

Next week’s Rome conference, The Rise of the Data-Driven Economy: Implications for Growth and Policy, brings together two dozen representatives of U.S. and European companies, officials of the European Union and Parliament, and academic experts. The forum will highlight the contribution of data-driven growth to the economies of Europe as well the United States; examine the potential impact of new European Union rules on data regulation and privacy on cross-border data flows; and, explore broader Internet governance questions that will on the agenda in December’s meeting of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai.

Leading representatives of U.S. Internet and telecommunications firms will also be hand to discuss corporate responsibility for empowering customers to protect their privacy and being ethical stewards of data. These include Laura Fennell, General Counsel of Intuit; Maurice Fitzgerald, Vice President of Strategy-Autonomy of Hewlett-Packard; Carolyn Nuygen, Technology Policy Strategist of Microsoft; Anthony House, Manager of Public Policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Google; and Ed Black, President and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association.

The Progressive Policy Institute is an independent, innovative and high-impact D.C.-based think tank founded in 1989. As the original “idea mill” for President Bill Clinton’s New Democrats, PPI has a long legacy of promoting break-the-mold ideas aimed at economic growth, national security and modern, performance-based government. Today, PPI’s unique mix of political realism and policy innovation continues to make it a leading source of pragmatic and creative ideas.

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Beyond Goods and Services: The (Unmeasured) Rise of the Data-Driven Economy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

INTRODUCTION
We live in a world where ‘data-driven economic activities’—the production, distribution and use of digital information of all types—are the leading edge of economic growth. Mobile broadband, increasingly available even in poor countries, is fostering a fundamental technological and social transformation.  Big data—the storage, manipulation, and analysis of huge data sets—is changing the way that businesses and governments make decisions.  And torrents of data ceaselessly flow back and forth across national borders, keeping the global economy linked.

Yet paradoxically, economic and regulatory policymakers around the world are not getting the data they need to understand the importance of data for the economy. Consider this: The Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. agency which estimates economic growth, will tell you how much Americans increased their consumption of jewelry and watches in 2011, but offers no information about the growing use of mobile apps or online tax preparation programs.  Eurostat, the European statistical agency, reports how much European businesses invested in buildings and equipment in 2010, but not how much those same businesses spent on consumer or business databases. And the World Trade Organization publishes figures on the flow of clothing from Asia to the United States, but no official agency tracks the very valuable flow of data back and forth across the Pacific.

The problem is that data-driven economic activities do not fit naturally into the traditional economic categories.  Since the modern concept of economic growth was developed in the 1930s, economists have been systematically trained to think of the economy is being divided into two big categories: ‘Goods’ and ‘services’.

Goods are physical commodities, like clothes and steel beams, while services include everything else from healthcare to accounting to haircuts to restaurants. Goods are tangible and can be easily stored for future use, while services are intangible, and cannot be stockpiled for future use.   In theory, a statistician could estimate the output of a country by counting the number of cars and the bushels of corns coming out of the country’s factories and farms, and by watching workers in the service sector and counting the number of haircuts performed and the number of meals served.

But data is neither a good or service. Data is intangible, like a service, but can easily be stored and delivered far from its original production point, like a good. What’s more, the statistical techniques that have been traditionally used to track goods and services don’t work well for data-driven economic activities.  The implication is that the key statistics watched by policymakers—economic growth, consumption, investment, and trade—dramatically understate the importance of data for the economy.  In turn, these misleading statistics distort government policy.

SUMMARY
In this policy brief we will show that government economic statistics, stuck in the 20th century, are missing most of the data boom.  To remedy this problem, it is time to expand our economic statistics to add data as a primary economic category, just like goods and services.  Until we do this, policymakers and regulators won’t have the information they need to make good decisions.

This policy brief is organized around three major arguments:

  1. We explain why data is becoming important enough to get its own statistical category. Individuals can consume data, just like they can consume soda (a good) or haircuts (a service). Businesses can invest in databases, just like they invest in buildings and equipment.  And countries can export and import data, just like they export and import goods and services. As a result, instead of breaking down the economy into goods and services, statisticians need to be thinking about goods, services, and data. Adding data as a primary economic category can give policymakers a much more accurate picture of economic growth, consumption, investment, employment, and trade.
  2. We show how the official economic statistics dramatically undercount the growth of data-driven activities.  To give a real-life example, we focus on the consumption of data by Americans.  According to statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real consumption of ‘internet access’ has been falling since the second quarter of 2011.
  3. In other words, according to official U.S. government figures, consumer access to the Internet—including mobile—has been a drag on economic growth for the past year and a half.  This is simply absurd. As a result, the official statistics are missing such important trends as the increasing adoption of smartphones and tablets, the growth of mobile broadband, and the enormous surge of usage of services like Gmail, Dropbox, Facebook, and Twitter.
  4. We adjust the official U.S. statistics to account for unmeasured data consumption by individuals. Based on our estimates, we show that real GDP rose at a 2.3% rate in the first half of 2012, compared to the 1.7% official rate. In other words, the impact of the data-driven economy on overall economic growth is being substantially underestimated. Based on these figures, the growth in data consumption in the United States accounts for roughly one-quarter of adjusted GDP growth in the first half of 2012, making  data consumption by individuals is one of the largest contributors to U.S. economic growth in this period.
  5. We assess the link between economic growth and future government privacy and data regulatory policy in the 21st century data-driven economy Given that we have shown that data powers growth, correctly measured, we discuss the possibility that excessive privacy and data regulation can inadvertently harm future growth prospects.

To put it another way, restrictive and prescriptive regulation of the Internet and the movement and uses of data could have the effect not only of constraining Internet freedom but also Internet free trade.  Such regulation could become the trade barriers of the data-driven economy, “balkanizing” access to information and innovative data-driven products and services and constraining global economic growth. That’s a highly undesirable outcome for everyone.

Download the memo.

Photo credit: Shutterstock/photobank.kiev.ua

PPI in Rome – The Rise of the Data-Driven Economy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Progressive Policy Institute, John Cabot University, the Guarini Institute for Public Affairs, the European Privacy Association, and the Centre for European Policy Studies will host “The Rise of the Data-Driven Economy: Implications for Growth and Policy” on Oct. 10-12, 2012 in Rome, Italy.

Featuring prominent U.S. and European political and business leaders, as well as economists and policy experts, the conference will explore how the growing volume of cross-border trade in digital information is becoming an increasingly important driver of economic innovation and growth, as well as a key component of international trade. This reality raises a host of new and complex questions about the “rules of the road” that should govern data storage, security and privacy, and, ultimately, the Internet itself.

The conference will grapple with three key questions: 1) How is the data boom driving economic growth in the United States and Europe?; 2) What are the economic consequences of privacy regulations, and can Americans and Europeans find compatible approaches to privacy; and, 3) How can policy-makers best balance the competing imperatives of Internet freedom and responsible internet governance?

REGISTER

Continue reading “PPI in Rome – The Rise of the Data-Driven Economy” →

Election Watch: Obama Keeps Edge With Swing State Voters

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The President’s modest but wide-ranging lead in most national and battleground state polls is no longer dismissible as a post-convention “bounce,” and is beginning to engender some serious concern in Republican circles. NBC’s First Read has a useful summary of that network’s own polling:

We’ve now released nine battleground state NBC/WSJ/Marist polls in the last three weeks, and what have we learned? President Obama is ahead of Mitt Romney in all nine, with his biggest leads being 7 and 8 points (in Ohio, New Hampshire, and Iowa) and his smallest edge at 2 points (in Nevada and North Carolina). Obama’s average percentage in these polls is 49.5% and Romney’s is 44% — which is consistent with the national polls (see below). Our state surveys also show a slight improvement in voters who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction. And they find Obama and Romney essentially tied on who would better handle the economy, while Obama mostly enjoys double-digit leads on foreign policy.

Republican reactions to these numbers have fallen into three categories. Some express no particular concerns, suggesting it remains a close race where some combination of heavy pro-Romney, anti-Obama advertising, better-than-expected debate performances, and a general realization of the incumbent’s “failure” could easily turn things around. Others are more concerned, and are offering various ideas for a Romney “comeback,” ranging from a harshly conservative comparative assault on the president (with loud-and-proud association of the ticket with the Ryan Budget and other provocative policies) to highly targeted voter appeals. And still others are attacking with considerable ferocity the accuracy of polls (other than those from the reliably pro-GOP Rasmussen firm), arguing either deliberate bias or skewed 2008-based samples, or both. Continue reading “Election Watch: Obama Keeps Edge With Swing State Voters” →

Democratic Devolution: How America’s Colleges and Universities Can Strengthen Their Communities

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In the face of a deepening economic and political crisis, the U.S. political and governing system is deadlocked. We need a new way forward. The old and tired government versus markets debate is just that—old and tired. It’s time for a broader mobilization of America’s civic resources, including the nonprofit sector and especially our colleges and universities.

We see government as a catalyst that stimulates new forms of interaction and partnerships between all sectors of society. Based on our experience at the University of Pennsylvania, we believe government should challenge all institutions of higher education (public and private; community colleges, colleges, and universities) to contribute systematically to improving the quality of life and learning in their local communities.

When called to service (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) young people have answered the call. Each year, more than 75,000 citizens serve through AmeriCorps alone. But it is not enough to simply call upon college students to serve. Rather, government should challenge institutions of higher education, as well as students, to make a greater contribution to the public good.

America’s colleges and universities represent immense concentrations of human and economic capital (with nearly four million employees, 20 million enrolled students, $400 billion in endowments, and $1 trillion in annual economic activity). As “anchor institutions,” they have the potential to be sources of stability and permanence in civic partnerships with government and the private sector to revitalize local communities. For colleges and universities to fulfill their great potential and more effectively contribute to positive change in their communities, cities, and metropolitan areas, however, they will have to critically examine and change their organizational cultures and structures and embed civic engagementacross all components of the institution. Through more effectively targeting existing resources, as well as utilizing both modest financial incentives and the bully pulpit, the federal government can stimulate colleges and universities to realize their stated—but not fully realized—mission of service to society.

To realize this potential, we recommend a five-part strategy:

First, Congress should create a new federal commission—comprised of local, state, and national government officials along with leaders from the private sector and higher education—to forge civic partnerships with the nation’s institutions of higher education;

Second, the commission should develop innovative strategies for integrating federal programs and funding streams, as well as aligning federal efforts with these new local civic partnerships that involve colleges and universities;

Third, the commission should promote regional consortia of higher educational institutions to significantly and effectively improve schooling and community life;

Fourth, the federal government should create prestigious Presidential Awards for outstanding Higher Education-Civic Partnerships, and;

Fifth, government should provide support to colleges and universities based on the “Noah Principle”—funding given only for building arks (producing real change), not for predicting rain (describing the problems that exist and will develop if actions are not taken).

Download the memo.

Young Workers’ Salaries Continue To Decline

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Huffington Post picked up PPI Economist Diana Carew’s new numbers showing the fall in real average earnings of young college grads.

Data analyzed by the Progressive Policy Institute reveal that college grads from ages 25 to 34, working full time, earned an average of $54,500 in 2011 — about 15 percent less than in 2005. The drop is equivalent to about $10,000 in salary adjusted for inflation.

The survey comes as a rising number of students and their families question whether the high cost of college is worth it. A 2012 Pew study found that only 55 percent of those with undergraduate degrees felt that college helped prepare them for a job.

Part of the reason for this is that middle-skill positions, like white collar sales representatives and entry-level analysts, were some of the first to disappear when the economy collapsed in 2008. That forced recent graduates to take lower-skill jobs, such as customer service or low-skilled health industry positions. Those positions would likely have gone to people with high school degrees in a stronger economy.

Read the full article here.

Election Watch: Romney’s ’47 Percent’ Gaffe is Trouble for Campaign

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Twas another week when negative attention to comments by Mitt Romney combined with relatively strong poll showings by Barack Obama made observers wonder if the incumbent is still enjoying a post-convention “bounce,” is actually opening up a serious lead, or is fundamentally still in a very close race with the challenger.

As surely everyone has heard by now, a neglected videotape (unearthed and publicized by Mother Jones’ David Corn) of a May appearance by Romney at a Boca Raton fundraiser showed him embracing a Randian view of American society in which the 47% of households who don’t (currently) owe federal income taxes are locked into “dependence on government” and are sure Obama voters of no concern to the candidate and his virtuous coalition of productive folk. Aside from exposing Romney to Democratic criticism and media ridicule, the incident immediately set off an extended intramural debate among conservatives over the accuracy and political wisdom of his “47%” characterization (called, for example, “libertarian nonsense” by conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson).

In terms of the state of the race, the consensus seems to be that Obama currently enjoys about a 4-point lead among likely voters, though the major dissenter, the Gallup Tracking Poll, which shows Obama’s “convention bounce” gone and the race tied, is unusually prestigious. Another consensus finding is that the “enthusiasm gap” between Republicans and Democrats has largely evaporated, which means Romney is not getting the polling “bump” long expected when pollsters started applying LV “screens” to the respondents. A heavy battery of battleground-state polls have been coming out this week, most providing good news for Obama (he’s led in all 21 post-convention polls of the ten closest battleground states that were conducted by traditional, phone-interview methodologies; robopolls have been somewhat less favorable), particularly in Virginia, Iowa and Colorado; Florida and (especially) North Carolina are dicier for the president. A closer national race, of course, would be reflected in closer battleground results, though the playing field is somewhat tilted to Obama so long as he looks strong in Virginia, Ohio and Iowa. Continue reading “Election Watch: Romney’s ’47 Percent’ Gaffe is Trouble for Campaign” →

Younger workers earn $10K less than in 2005

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Fortune interviewed PPI’s Diana Carew on the fall in real earnings for young college grads, and the effect of the “Great Squeeze” on the younger population

Fall has arrived. Across U.S. college campuses, thousands of students are deciding on majors that will hopefully prep them for the job they’ve dreamed of. But they’re probably also pretty discouraged, having heard that so many graduates from a few years ago are spending their days as baristas earning a measly wage.

Indeed, it’s tougher out there for America’s young people. For the sixth year in a row, real earnings declined for 25 to 34-year-olds with a bachelor’s degree working full-time, according toProgressive Policy Institute’s look at the latest U.S. Census data. In 2011, they earned $10,000 less than they did in 2005, falling from an inflation-adjusted $64,500 to $54,500.

What’s most perplexing isn’t what happened last year or even the year before. Fortune asked the Washington, DC-based think tank how the slide in earnings of young college grads compares to most other full-timers. Economist Diana Carew crunched the numbers and found that in 2009, earnings for young graduates fell below all other workers 18 years old or older, regardless of education, for the first time. Young college-educated workers saw their earnings rise in 2004 amid the height of the U.S. housing market boom, while wages and salaries for all other full-timers continued to stagnate. As the market started showing signs of cooling in 2005, young graduates saw earnings immediately plunge from their $64,500 peak to $56,500 by 2009.

Read the entire article here.

The Graph That Should Accompany Every Article About Millennials and Economics

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Atlantic called PPI Economist Diana Carew’s graph on the fall in real average earnings of young college grads “The Graph That Should Accompany Every Article About Millennials and Economics”:

The Atlantic has been on the Millennial beat for a long time, explaining why 20-somethings aren’t buying cars or houses or cable subscriptions, not getting married, not having children, and sometimes not even moving out of their parents’ basements. The answer, again and again, is the economy.

Unemployment for adults between 20 and 24 is 14%, compared to the national average of 8.1%. But even those with jobs are facing something without modern precedent: Steadily falling annual earnings (graph via Progressive Policy Institute).

Read the full article here.

Rising Home Prices May Not Spell Recovery

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In recent months, a slew of new data from several major indices suggests home prices have found a floor nationally and are now slowly rising. While that may be welcome news to homeowners and a real estate industry battered by years of lost equity and sluggish sales, they might want to keep the champagne on ice for now. This is not to suggest the data is wrong and house prices aren’t going up, it’s just worth taking a closer look at the fundamentals behind the recent price trends and asking if there is a corresponding “housing recovery.”

Here are four reasons to temper optimism with caution:

  1. Investors drive a significant share of home buying. Many former homeowners and new households have chosen the safety of renting over the risks (and potential benefits) associated with homeownership. This increased rental demand, combined with home prices that are only now getting back up to 2004 levels, have driven residential rental rates to all-time highs.

    Naturally, this combination has attracted the attention of investors. These include seniors looking for income opportunities at a time when near-zero interest rates are punishing savers, to large investment funds and international speculators that see an attractive real estate opportunity.

    As of May 2012, investor purchases made up 25.3% of all real estate transactions. That’s simply unsustainable.As prices continue to rise, the opportunity for investors to reap sweet returns begins to fall. In fact, we’re already seeing signs of diminished demand as investor purchases fell to 21.9 percent of all real estate transactions in July, down from 23.5 percent in June and 25.3 percent in May. Continue reading “Rising Home Prices May Not Spell Recovery” →

Young College Grads: Real Earnings Fell in 2011

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The latest Census figures show real earnings for young college grads fell again in 2011. This makes the sixth straight year of declining real earnings for young college grads, defined as full-time workers aged 25-34 with a bachelor’s only. All told, real average earnings for young grads have fallen by over 15% since 2000, or by about $10,000 in constant 2011 dollars.

This statistic is fundamental to our understanding of the current economy. College graduates have jumped through the hoops that were supposed to give them a better life. They are supposed to have the skills that enable them to compete on the global economy. But something is going wrong. The fastest growing jobs now for young college grads include dental assistants, hairstylists, and bus drivers.

The middle-skill jobs that young college grads generally take (think sales agents, teachers, and financial analysts) continued to shed workers in 2011. And for the few high-skill jobs actively hiring (think engineers, web developers, and computer support specialists) most college graduates still lack the necessary training. That leaves many young grads taking jobs that don’t require a college degree for less pay. I call this “The Great Squeeze” – as college grads take the lower-skill jobs, they squeeze out those with less education and experience from the labor market. Nobody wins.

Given the prospect of falling real wages, coupled with rising college costs and debt, many young people are beginning to question the value of a college degree altogether. That means it’s essential whoever wins the election make the plight of young college grads a priority. Not making the investment in education is not the answer; ensuring there are better jobs upon graduation is.

WTO Filing a Step Toward Enhancing Competitiveness

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Are U.S. manufacturing jobs gone for good? Many so-called experts have mocked the Obama Administration’s latest trade action against China as being fundamentally useless, the economic equivalent of spitting into the wind. After all, factory job seem like a relic of the past.

Yet by our calculations, the U.S. could regain 4 million jobs in manufacturing at relatively low cost – if we follow the right policies. PPI does not advocate a trade war with China, or a tit-for-tat exchange of trade actions. But taking legitimate disputes to the WTO is the right way to enforce the rules – and in most cases to date with China the U.S. has had success. Such carefully targeted actions, back by accurate data, could make a big difference in boosting the economy.

That’s because we are fighting to recapture competitiveness that may have been disingenuously lost. When countries like China provide non-market financing or other subsidies to industries like automobiles, it gives their companies an advantage that wouldn’t be there absent government support. Such an advantage negatively impacts U.S. companies trying to compete, even if China does not export directly to the U.S. As the NYT explains, “While China exports virtually no fully assembled cars to the United States, it has rapidly expanded exports to developing countries, and those exports compete to some extent with cars exported from or designed in the United States.”

Monday’s WTO filing may be a small first step, but we must start somewhere. We are in a slow-growth economy with an anemic labor market. If we want U.S. companies to keep and increase production (and jobs) here, if we want to close the non-oil trade gap, we must be competitive. And it would help if we gave U.S. companies a level playing field to fight on instead of an uphill battle. Continue reading “WTO Filing a Step Toward Enhancing Competitiveness” →

Election Watch: Obama’s Post-Convention Bounce and Romney Presses on in Shrinking Battleground

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The week after the conclusion of the two national political conventions has been lively, to say the least. Amid signs of a modest post-convention “bounce” for Obama, augmented by some favorable economic signs, the Romney campaign seems to be undergoing one of its periodic mini-crises, launching risky personal attacks on the president even as intraparty criticism reemerges about his campaign strategy and execution.

The Obama “bounce,” initially measured at around five points (after a one-to-two point bounce for Romney), seems to mainly involve renewed enthusiasm among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (as reflected in relatively small “gaps” between Obama’s standing in registered-voter and likely-voter polls, with the latter beginning to be deployed by most of the major polling firms). Aside from taking a small but significant lead in virtually all of the “horse-race” polls (and in polls of most battleground states), the president’s job approval rating in the much-watched Gallup tracking survey has broken the crucial 50% barrier. Moreover, the positive feelings emanating from the Democratic convention seems to have obscured any backlash to a tepid August jobs report. Subsequent positive market reactions to a Eurozone “rescue” plan and just today to the Federal Reserve Board’s announcement of a third—and this time, open-ended—round of “quantitative easing,” help boost a shaky but very real aura of economic optimism that could be critical for the incumbent.
Continue reading “Election Watch: Obama’s Post-Convention Bounce and Romney Presses on in Shrinking Battleground” →