The Mailer That Put the Final Nail in the McCain Campaign Coffin

Close to 100 million Americans received mailers last week, or will receive them next week that will put the last nail in the coffin of the McCain Pailin campaign.

It wasn't sent by Obama, nor by 527 group, not by any non-profit or even a political organization.


It didn't mention McCain or Pailin, Obama or Biden. Didn't mention taxes or Iraq, Gay Marriage or Abortion or any other campaign hot button topic.

But the mailer, personalized, received by tens of millions of Americans, perhaps 100 million, in the past week, or in the next week, is the single envelope that will have caused John McCain and many republican incumbents to lose their seats.

I got one addressed to my youngest son on Thursday, then another addressed to me on Friday.

Then I talked to friends, members of my synagogue, fellow activists at a local fundraiser. Just about everyone had received them. The message was the same for everyone.

Th first envelope I received, for my son, was a quarterly mutual fund report-- where we have most of his college savings. The letter reported that since the beginning of the year, the savings were down 30%-- even though the fund was a "blend" fund.

more . . . http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Mailer-That-Put-the-Fi-by-Rob-Kall-081012-483.html

I was NOT happy!

of people warning about this and although I took a hit, my money is now safe in cds. I don't really care about how much it grows right now. I just want it there.

for you.

and yes, they were already down then. now...forget it.

:-(

We've been building up our retirement portfolio for over 25 years.
Well, now that the kids are mostly grown, we have a couple of extra bedrooms we could rent.

Funny, retirement was just a few years away, not any more.

This is sooo true... the mailer that nails it!

Here's another thread that hits home on this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7427248

presidents than under republican presidents.

Some basic numbers with no real analysis from Slate show the outperformance:

But Democrats, it turns out, are much better for the stock market than Republicans. Slate ran the numbers and found that since 1900, Democratic presidents have produced a 12.3 percent annual total return on the S&P 500, but Republicans only an 8 percent return. In 2000, the Stock Trader's Almanac, which slices and dices Wall Street performance figures like baseball stats, came up with nearly the same numbers (13.4 percent versus 8.1 percent) by measuring Dow price appreciation. (Most of the 20th century's bear markets, incidentally, have been Republican bear markets: the Crash of '29, the early '70s oil shock, the '87 correction, and the current stall occurred under GOP presidents.)

http://www.slate.com/?id=2071929

One well known study showing the outperformance based on a fairly rigorous statistical analysis is briefly discussed at this blog.

Should investors lean toward governments at one end of the country political spectrum to find outperforming equity markets? In their October 2003 paper entitled "The Presidential Puzzle: Political Cycles and the Stock Market", Pedro Santa-Clara and Rossen Valkanov examine monthly U.S. stock market performance versus executive branch party across 18 Presidential elections (1927-1998, 864 months) encompassing 10 Democratic and 8 Republican Presidencies. In their July 2006 paper entitled "Political Orientation of Government and Stock Market Returns", Jedrzej Bialkowski, Katrin Gottschalk and Tomasz Wisniewski investigate whether the political orientation of 173 different governments systematically affects the performance of 24 international (mostly European) stock markets. Findings are:

"The Presidential Puzzle: Political Cycles and the Stock Market" concludes that:

* The broad value-weighted stock market has beaten the 3-month Treasury bill (T-bill) rate by an average of about 11% under Democratic Presidents and just 2% under Republican Presidents -- an economically and statistically significant 9% difference. Equal-weighting of stock returns produces a difference of 16%, with small-capitalization stocks strongly outperforming large-capitalization stocks. (See the chart below.)

* The difference in returns holds for sub-periods 1927-1962 and 1963-1998, and is generally independent of business cycle explanations.

* The difference in returns is not election-centered. It accumulates gradually across Presidential terms, suggesting it is due to systematic surprises in economic policies.

* Volatility of returns is somewhat higher during Republican than Democratic Presidencies, indicating that stock market outperformance during the latter is not reward for risk.

* The party in control of Congress does not indicate significant differences in excess stock market returns.

* Given the limitations of the data, the impact of party-in-Presidency on the stock market in this study could be a statistical fluke.

http://www.cxoadvisory.com/blog/external/blog8-08-06 /

Another well known study with rigorous statistical analysis.

The Presidential Puzzle:
Political Cycles and the Stock Market

ABSTRACT

The excess return in the stock market is higher under Democratic than Republican presidencies:nine percent for the value-weighted and 16 percent for the equal-weighted portfolio. The difference comes from higher real stock returns and lower real interest rates,is statistically significant,and is robust in subsamples.The difference in returns is not explained by business-cycle variables related to expected returns,and is not concentrated around election dates. There is no difference in the riskiness of the stock market across presidencies that could justify a risk premium.The difference in returns through the political cycle is therefore a puzzle.

http://www.personal.anderson.ucla.edu/rossen.valkanov/Politics.pdf


This analysis covers the years 1927-1998 and separately examines the years from 1927-1962 and 1963-1998. Results which included the years from 1999-2008 would show an even greater difference. All studies show this difference, although there is at least one which finds the difference of a few percentage points to be statistically insignificant.

In addition to stock market outperformance, real GDP growth is higher, the rate of job creation is higher and federal budget deficits are lower under democratic presidents than under republican presidents. All or some of which may explain the stock market outperformance.

I got that, and was expecting it to be down. I looked at the date, and saw it was before the recent plunges, and just thought Fuck. Its not like I have much there to start with.

My wife was let go last year. We decided to pull her retirement fund out cash, and when the much reduced check actually arrived, I was far from sure we had made the right choice, because pulling it meant the company match was returned to the company. But if we had kept it, she would have lost just as much, probably more at this point.

I went online and looked at my 401K investments last week. It was horrible. Then I got my 3rd qtr. statement. It showed a $10,000.00 (that's 10 grand folks) loss from September 30 to October 9. My 3rd quarter loss was $8,000.00. I had already lost around $7,000.00 from the first 2 quarters in 2008.

A person might think that with this kind of loss, I had a lot of money in my retirement fund. Not true. I started out with hardly enough to retire on.

I'm almost 50 years old and this is all I have except for the promise of social security and some equity in my house. At least, God willing, I have 15 more years or so to build on whatever is left after this nightmare.

I wake up every day thankful that, at least for now, I still have my job and a fairly decent reputation for being a good worker.

I have been eligible for 18 months but can't afford to retire.

for the school son wants to go to out of state. 40k a year. wtf. how do people send their kids to school?