Friday, October 29, 2004

Why Kerry won't win

Polls are quite useless, but they're not completely useless.

The most useful message they provide is one of voter apathy.

In large, this isn't apathy towards George W. Bush, but towards John Kerry.

After all, Kerry is the one who has the mountain to climb. He's the one trying to dislodge the incumbent.

If there were even the slightest indication that Kerry were about to become the next U.S. president, you would expect the polls to have caught some whiff of it. They haven't.

What the polls are telling us is that a lot of people do not see John Kerry as someone for whom it's worth taking an hour out of their working day to go and vote. (Note: why does this election have to fall on a Tuesday? When an election is this close it makes sense for the largest number of potential voters to have the chance to go and cast their vote.)

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Politicians thrive on momentum.

John Kerry needs more time to build enough momentum to win.

For John Kerry time is running out.

Only a miracle can save him now...

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Oil & the bigger picture

In case you were wondering, oil prices will stop rising... eventually.

Now more than ever it's looking like only one thing can stop this uncontrollable rally.

A recession in the U.S. economy.

While this is not likely to happen soon, it will become an ever-growing reality by early 2005.

A global economic slowdown has been in the works since the start of 2004.

Rising oil prices will likely be the last straw.

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The idea of a confluence of factors giving rise to the recent surge in oil prices is a very worryng predicament.

You would think the world has managed to figure out how to prevent oil prices from rising too rapidly.

It hasn't.

It seems we're just as vulnerable now as we were 10 or even 30 years ago.