Thursday’s John Kerry/Bruce Springsteen Rally Video & Photos (intrepid photographer John Stathas took these great images):
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Click to view larger images.
Category: Politics
Bear Creek’s Bill Lorge on Campaign & Media Reform
Bill Lorge (LorgeforSenate@aol.com) email his list of Political & Media Reforms (a very useful list it is):
- Campaign Reforms
- $100 Limit
- Eliminate $1 Check-Off
- Matching Grant Money
- State Contractors Cannot Donate
- Eliminate PAC’s
- Ballots mailed out with Tax Forms (timing challenge, I think)
- Online Voting (more challenges)
- Term Limits
- High School Seniors can vote
- Eliminate the State Elections Board
- Media Reform
- Balanced Print Media Reporting (! – I like this: “A better solution would be to have the State put legal ads on the Internet and avoid putting them in the papers altogether. This would save a ton of taxpayer money and lower our local property taxes; As one Town Board Chair once told me his biggest expense is paying the local weekly paper for legal ads.)”
- We (the public) own the airwaves and should be free to use it.
I’m not sure my synopsis did justice to Lorge’s document. Print and read it yourself here: 155K PDF. Or read it by clicking below…
The Great Circle: Wisconsin Manufacturing Jobs, Leadership (or not) and Competition
Yesterday’s news that GM would temporarily idle five SUV and pickup plants in early 2005, including Janesville amplifies the importance of:
- People that run large organizations thinking and planning ahead. The era of large pickup truck based SUV sales & profits is apparently drawing to a close (not a big surprise with high gas prices and a recent change in the absurd large vehicle tax deduction).
- The Japanese have a years ahead leadership position in the emerging hybrid vehicle market (gas/electric powered vehicles such as the Prius, Accord and the Toyota based Ford Escape (!) Hybrid components will likely not be coming from Wisconsin companies….
- Peter DeLorenzo reports that Porsche has approached Toyota to purchase/license hybrid components for their 5,000lb SUV.
From the “Hell Freezes Over” File, Automotive News Europe reported that Porsche is considering building a hybrid version of the Cayenne – using a Toyota powertrain. Readers of this site know exactly what we think about the Cayenne, but it’s clear that this is a new low in Porsche history. The company that was founded on building lithe little sports cars that bristled with innovation and the visionary thinking of its founder has now openly admitted that they have given up on the innovation game altogether.
- Wisconsin subsidizing some of these large businesses may not pay off at all…. Jim Doyle supported $5M in state training dollars for GM Janesville recently.
Once again, the big three are behind the curve, with broad implications for Wisconsin jobs….. (it should be noted that the big three have all invested in hydrogen power, which still seems to be a long way away).
Badnarik in town: talks Government & Constitution
Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik visited Madison yesterday. Rachel Patzer summarizes the visit. Kudos to Rachel for covering this visit.
Phone spamming at the Kerry Rally…..
Sources tell me that Kerry Rally attendees (West Washington; from the Capitol to Bassett) have been given phone numbers to call and a script to read with their personal cell phones.
In addition, the rally is evidently made up of two classes, those with “blue” tickets are next to the stage while those with “white” tickets (internet registrations) are farther away. Inside sources tell me that several “white” ticket guests have attempted to jump the barrier – and were immediately dealt with by campaign volunteers…..
In any event, I hope the music is good!
www.cnn.com has the best video stream (300kbps). Locally CBS affiliate channel 3 is also trying to stream the event, but doesn’t appear to have the servers or bandwidth that cnn does.
Where do I Vote?
Early Voting
I voted early – Monday. There was a short line at the city clerk’s office. No ID checks (I don’t think this is required in WI, but it’s easy to see how this could be a real problem). I do applaud the City’s decision to extend the clerk’s office hours, BUT it should be consistently open into the evening, rather than just tonight…. Megan Costello WSJ Editorial (this link will likely not work shortly)
Senate Stock Trading – or Why they outperform the rest of us…
A study suggests that U.S. senators possess stock-picking skills that even the most seasoned money manager would envy. During the boom years of the 1990s, senators’ stock picks beat the market by 12 percentage points a year on average, according to the study. Corporate insiders, meanwhile, beat the market by about six percentage points a year, while U.S. households underperformed the market by 1.4 percentage points a year on average, according to separate studies. The final details of the study will be published in the December issue of the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.
The study’s authors, relying on financial-disclosure forms from 1993 to 1998, looked at about 6,000 common-stock transactions of about a third of the senators each year. The researchers then mimicked the senators’ transactions, buying the stocks the senators bought and selling the shares they sold. Over a six-year period, that “superportfolio” essentially beat the market by about one percentage point a month, or 12 percentage points a year.
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Looking at the timing of cumulative returns, the senators also appeared to know exactly when to buy or sell their holdings. Senators would buy stocks just before the shares suddenly would outperform the market by more than 25%. Conversely, senators would sell stocks that had been beating the market by about 25% for the past year just when the shares would fall back in line with the market’s performance.
Russ Feingold Tim Michels US Senate Debate
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We the People Wisconsin sponsored Friday evening’s debate between challenger Tim Michels and incumbent US Senator Russ Feingold. Click on a photo above to view additional images from Friday’s event.
13MB MP3 Perfect for your iPod.
Quicktime Video [110MB]
Thanks to everyone at We the People for organizing this (and other events), especially Tom and Deborah Still.
I’ve posted campaign links and fund raising information here for this US Senate race.
Nobelist Edward Prescott’s views on Tax Cuts
An intresting yin to the professor’s yang on the Bush Tax Cuts:
Russ Wiles:
Prescott, speaking from Minnesota, where he advises the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, described Kerry’s plan to roll back tax cuts for top wage-earners as counterproductive.
“The idea that you can increase taxes and stimulate the economy is pretty damn stupid,” he said.
Bush’s campaign on Monday released a letter signed by Prescott and five other Nobel laureates critical of Kerry’s proposal to roll back tax reductions for families earning $200,000 or more.
In The Republic interview, he said such a policy would discourage people from working.
“It’s easy to get over $200,000 in income with two wage earners in a household,” Prescott said. “We want those highly educated, talented people to work.”
Prescott also gave Bush the nod on another controversial campaign issue, dismissing Kerry’s claims that outsourcing of jobs is damaging the economy. . . . Prescott also backed the idea, espoused by Bush, to reform Social Security by allowing some workers to place a portion of their payroll taxes into private savings accounts.
Personally, I’d rather see a more straightforward approach to taxes, than the ongoing deals with special interest groups that Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl supported recently. via instapundit