Free Republic

Is the GOP favored to win the 2016 election? According to a couple of economic models used to predict outcomes based on GDP and other factors the answer is yes. The Hill has an interesting piece about the models and the information they use to predict who will win: Ray Fair, a Yale professor who launched his model in 1978, told The Hill that while all elections include unruly features that an economic model can’t pick up, “this one seems particularly unusual.”“If there’s any time in which personalities would trump the economy it would be this election,” Fair said.Fair’s...

The West has reached a fork in the road. Our current models of governance and economics aren’t working. The consensus is gathering strength — both in Europe and in the United States — that we must choose a different path. The Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, the protests in Greece, and the increasingly frenetic debate over the future of Europe — all these are signs that people no longer believe in the system we’ve got and want a different one. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed (“China’s Superior Economic Model”), former union leader Andy Stern tries to show us...

Andy Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel, provocatively wrote in Businessweek last year that, "Our fundamental economic beliefs, which we have elevated from a conviction based on observation to an unquestioned truism, is that the free market is the best of all economic systems—the freer the better. Our generation has seen the decisive victory of free-market principles over planned economies. So we stick with this belief largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there may be room for a modification that is even better." The past few weeks have proven Mr. Grove's point, as...

WASHINGTON – Turning more upbeat, President Barack Obama said Friday his administration is working to create a "post-bubble" model for solid economic growth once the recession ends. He said that means the days of overheated housing markets and "people maxing out on their credit cards" are over. But first, Obama said, "We've got to get through this difficult period." There are "modestly encouraging signs" on that score, said Lawrence Summers, Obama's top economic adviser, citing indications that consumer spending had stabilized after taking a dive over the holiday season. The White House attempts to be positive matched a fourth day...

Economic models predict clear Obama win in November Fri Aug 1, 2008 11:34am EDT By Alister Bull WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It really is the economy, stupid! Economic models that have correctly predicted the winner of almost all post-war U.S. presidential elections say recession fears will secure a victory for Barack Obama in November. Three separate studies showed the Democratic presidential hopeful winning between 52 and 55 percent of the popular vote on November 4, based on current gloomy economic estimates. Any further darkening in the economic outlook -- many analysts think things will get worse between now and November --...

If we knew gross domestic product would run at 4 percent, industrial supply at record levels, basic inflation at less-than 1 percent, real disposable income at 3.5 percent, gold around $400 and the 10-year Treasury bond just above 4 percent -- and we knew these performance results would last for many years -- we would be very happy indeed. Why then is everyone suggesting that 4 percent GDP -- the just-released mark for last year's fourth quarter -- represents an economic slowdown? It's all blather. Not only is such alarmism uncalled for, but the basic components inside the GDP report...

Economist: Forget Polls; Bush Easily Wins By E&P Staff Published: August 11, 2004 NEW YORK For all you pundits and political reporters out there who think the Iraq war will have a major influence on the fall election, or who think the Bush-Kerry race is a toss-up, Yale University economist Ray C. Fair has a message for you: forget both. Iraq won't matter and Bush will win in a landslide. In an interview to be published in next Sunday's "New York Times Magazine," Fair told Deborah Solomon, "My latest prediction shows that Bush will receive 57.5% of the two-party votes...

NEW YORK For all you pundits and political reporters out there who think the Iraq war will have a major influence on the fall election, or who think the Bush-Kerry race is a toss-up, Yale University economist Ray C. Fair has a message for you: forget both. Iraq won't matter and Bush will win in a landslide. In an interview to be published in next Sunday's "New York Times Magazine," Fair told Deborah Solomon, "My latest prediction shows that Bush will receive 57.5% of the two-party votes ... the chances that Bush loses are very small." Fair, who claims to...

As a professor of economics at Yale, you are known for creating an econometric equation that has predicted presidential elections with relative accuracy. My latest prediction shows that Bush will receive 57.5 percent of the two-party votes.The polls are suggesting a much closer race. Polls are notoriously flaky this far ahead of the election, and there is a limit to how much you want to trust polls.Why should we trust your equation, which seems unusually reductive? It has done well historically. The average mistake of the equation is about 2.5 percentage points.In your book ''Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things,''...

Economic Models Predict Bush Election Win 3 minutes ago Add Politics to My Yahoo! By Alan Elsner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite an embarrassing failure in their forecasting four years ago, political scientists and economists are again predicting the outcome of the presidential election, and most foresee a win for President Bush (news - web sites). "If this election follows historical patterns, it looks very likely that Bush is going to win," said Ray Fair, a Yale University economist whose model is built mainly around gross domestic product growth and predicts that Bush will take 58.5 percent of the vote. Current...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Despite an embarrassing failure in their forecasting four years ago, political scientists and economists are again predicting the outcome of the presidential election, and most foresee a win for President George W. Bush. "If this election follows historical patterns, it looks very likely that Bush is going to win," said Ray Fair, a Yale University economist whose model is built mainly around gross domestic product growth and predicts that Bush will take 58.5 percent of the vote. Current polls show a very close race with many suggesting that Democratic nominee John Kerry may be slightly ahead. There...

Aug. 29, 2004— A well-known Yale economist has written a book using the mathematical technique of regression to predict the outcome of presidential elections. Ray C. Fair's Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things grew out of his 1978 paper that provides quite accurate descriptions of these quadrennial elections dating back to 1916. Before getting to his very surprising prediction for this November (with which I disagree), let me sketch the idea behind the technique. To see how an adult son's height, for example, relates to his father's height, first find a random collection of father-son pairs. For each pair, measure...

"Scrooge McDuck Capitalism" I’ve never quite understood the psychology of capitalist bashers. I’ve seen the images of young WTO demonstrators shattering Starbucks windows while wearing Levis and Adidas, drinking Pepsi and coordinating their protests on cell phones. Who do they think will create their favorite goodies if not capitalists? Bureaucrats? Psychic channelers? The People’s Natural Altruistic Collective Manufacturing Co-op and Poetry Center of Berkeley, California? And then there are those economic pundits with a tray of Scrabble tiles lined up behind their names who characterize the collapse of Enron as “a failure of capitalism.” But Enron is not capitalism and...