Archive for November 4th, 2008

For the Record: Ken’s Election Predictions

November 4, 2008

OK, here’s what I think is going to happen.  What do you think ?  Post your predictions.

The Election

  1. The popular vote will be fairly close — at most a 3 point differential  — probably 51% Obama to 48% McCain, with 1% to the nuisance candidates.
  2. Of course, the electoral college will be determined in the battleground states.  I think one of two “all or nothing” scenarios are likely : (1) McCain comes up an inch short in most battlegrounds and Obama wins by a landslide, or (2) McCain eeks out wins in all battlegrounds — excluding Colorado, but including Pennsylvania — and McCain wins it. On Saturday Nov.1, I was leaning towards scenaio (1) — an electoral landslide for Obama. Today I’m officially declaring that I think scenario (2) will materialize and McCain will win an upset victory. Why ? Last week’s mini-rally eased some of the Wall Street angst, Catholics are breaking for McCain, “bankrupt the coal industry” woke up Pennsylvania and Ohio, Obama’s Hispanic lead is big but dissipating some,  rurals and white men are coming out of the woodwork, both the NRA and Chamber of Commerce are rallying troops under the radar for McCain, and the GOP’s well-honed micro-marketing turnout machine is quietly at work. 
  3. Dems will get to 57 Senate seats. Al Franken & Elizabeth Dole will both lose.  Ted Stevens will win.

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The Stock Market

  1. If McCain wins, the Dow will close over 10,000 on Wednesday. 
  2. If Obama wins and the Dems reach 60 Senate seats, the Dow will fall more than 1,000 points on Wednesday — the largest 1-day stock market drop in history — closing below 8,000.
  3. If Obama wins, and the Dems fail to reach a 60 in the Senate, the Dow will close Wednesday below 9,000 — will hit 7,500 before the end of the year — will fight back to around 10,000 — and will hover around 10,000 for a long, long time.

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Sure Shots 
  1. If McCain wins, the World will shake its collective head in disgust and  liberals will claim racism, pointing to McCain’s 60% of the white vote while conveniently ignoring Obama’s 90% of the black vote.
  2. If Obama wins, the World will rejoice and the GOP will claim ACORN-induced voter fraud
  3. Regardless who wins, the country will be split down the middle and political  rancor will run high.
  4. Regardless who wins, they’ll claim that Bush left an even worse economic mess than they expected and will start watering down campaign promises.
  5. Regardless who wins, government spending will continue unabated, the deficit will loom large, and the national debt will continue to grow by leaps and bounds.
  6. Regardless who wins, all U.S. combat forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2009; Afghanistan will be an escalating quagmire ; Osama Bin Laden will not be captured (though he may die of old age).
  7. Regardless who wins, Warren Buffett  will pay a lower tax rate than his secretary in 2009.

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Random Stuff

  1. If Obama wins, the IOC will give the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.  (thanks to Jamie Estrada, MSB MBA alum for the tip)
  2. If Obama wins, Hillary Clinton will get her coveted Supreme Court seat; if he loses, she’ll be the 2012 Dem candidate for President and win it all.
  3. If Obama loses, Bill Richardson will move to Mexico.
  4. Ted Stevens will resign his Senate post in a plea deal, and — if McCain loses — Gov. Palin will self-appoint to the Senate after punishing the folks who thought  trooper-gate was a clever campaign tactic.
  5. Joe the Plumber will make more that $250,000 — just off his book rights and TV deal.
  6. The 2012 campaign will start tomorrow …

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Posted in Government & Politics | 4 Comments »

Poor old Warren Buffett

November 4, 2008

Excerpted from AP, “CEOs, famous investors hit hard by market plunge”, Nov. 2, 2008

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The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, has lost about 36 percent since January, with every single sector – including once thriving energy and utilities – seeing declines of about 20 percent or more.

Such losses in the last year have wiped out an estimated $2 trillion in equity value from 401(k) and individual retirement accounts, nearly half the holdings in those plans. Similar losses are seen in the portfolios of private and public pension plans, which have lost $1.9 trillion, the researchers found.

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Here’s something that might provide a bit of solace amid the plunging values in your retirement accounts: Warren Buffett is losing lots of money, too. So are Kirk Kerkorian, Carl Icahn and Sumner Redstone.

And they can’t just blame the market’s downdraft – some did themselves in with badly timed stock purchases or margin calls on shares bought with loans.

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The average year-to-date decline is 49 percent for the corporate stock holdings of CEOs .

Topping that list is Buffett, who has seen the value of equity in his company, Berkshire Hathaway, fall by about $13.6 billion, or 22 percent, so far this year, to leave his holdings valued at $48.1 billion.

Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison has seen his equity stake fall by $6.2 billion, or about 24 percent, to $20.1 billion.

Rounding out the top five in that study were Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, whose company equity fell by $5.1 billion to $9.4 billion; Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, whose equity fell by $3.6 billion to $5.7 billion; and News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, with a $4 billion contraction to $3 billion.

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“Fishing isn’t called catching, and investing isn’t just called making money,” Hansen said. “We have to remember that things can go down by a lot.”

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Full article:
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/11/02/ap5636866.html?partner=alerts

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An Oprah Endorsement ROI – Kindle Gets a Bump

November 4, 2008

Excerpted from Ad Age “Kindle Offers Glimpse of ROI on Oprah” by Abbey Klaasen, November 3, 2008 

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Since Amazon launched the Kindle, its electronic reader, a year ago, it has created a swarm of dedicated customer advocates. But on Oct. 24 it snagged the most important evangelist in Oprah Winfrey, who said, “I’m telling you, it’s absolutely my new favorite thing in the world.”

Oprah’s Midas touch when it comes to selling books is well-documented, so it seems reasonable that the same would be true for Kindle.

6%: The amount Amazon’s visits were up the day Oprah endorsed Kindle on her show…Amazon is a top-20 internet site — so a 6% bump can translate into hundreds of thousands of visitors.

3.1 MIL: The number of unique visitors to Oprah.com in September, according to Compete. The Kindle endorsement also drove traffic to her site.. 

80%: The percentage of blog posts about Kindle since Oct. 23 that have mentioned Oprah’s endorsement, according to BuzzLogic. About half mentioned the discount Amazon was offering until Nov. 1 — the discount code being oprahwinfrey.  

479%: The bump in search traffic for the word “kindle” the day Oprah threw her support behind the product, according to Google Insights. 

15,458%: The bump in U.S. web traffic from Oprah.com to Amazon.com, per Hitwise, between Oct. 23 and Oct. 24. 

$35.90: How much an Amazon affiliate can earn per Kindle sale, if it is part of the program that shares revenue when a consumer clicks through those links and buys on Amazon. That’s 10% of the purchase price. Oprah could be making a pretty penny on Kindles if she was part of the affiliate program — but she isn’t.  

Edit by SAC  

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Full article:
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=132194

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