A Melman Minute — October 5, 2012
| By | Leonard Melman |
|---|---|
| Date | October 5, 2012 |
According to the general consensus of opinion, round one of the Presidential Debates of 2012 came off as the "puncher" versus the "punching bag", with Romney in the former role and Obama as the latter. According to many pundits, the President's performance was woefully sad.
What we really observed was that the tone of most commentators was governed by their political bias and we offer two sterling examples of the contrast; the New York Times (NYT) as an example of left-of-center commentary and the Wall Street Journal as right-of-center.
NYT editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal fired off his commentary just hours after the debate was concluded and, at first, he did admit that all had not gone well for the Democratic Party by noting, "…Mitt Romney looked and sounded presidential. President Obama failed to step in and puncture that image." However, and not at all surprisingly, Mr. Rosenthal utterly failed to give any positive credit to Governor Romney. Instead he opined that Romney gained ascendency by, "…tossing out some whoppers which Mr. Obama did not counter." In other words, he scored points by being a liar." Talk about Shakespeare's line from "The Merchant of Venice" about being "damned with faint praise."
Another tack was to attribute Romney's apparent victory not to the candidate himself, but to Obama's poor performance, including comments such as, "…This debate was perhaps most notable for what Obama left unsaid and for his many lost opportunities…Nor did the president adequately represent the situation in Washington, D.C. He did not describe to voters how the Republican Party has tried to stymie his ability to government…"
Another example of this type of comment came from a separate editorial in the NYT yesterday morning which capsulated the same kind of thinking by describing, "…Despite a few one-liners that fell pitiably flat, Romney turned in a strong performance, emphasis on the word 'performance'. He succeeded largely because he refused to be abashed in the least or cowed in the slightest by the suspicious evolutions, serious contradictions and gaping holes in his policies that President Obama repeatedly pointed out, with an air that came across as genuine exasperation."
Their summation was that if he won at all, it was because of false promises and a kind of debating boldness - but there was nothing of substance. Here is how the NYT editorial closed: "And Romney? He has promised more jobs, more drilling, fewer regulations, lower marginal tax rates. And on Wednesday he reiterated all of that with more spark than he typically musters and a confidence that Obama couldn't crack. But that didn't add up to a vision, and true boldness continues to elude him, a Big Bird still beyond his reach."
Quite naturally, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a completely different set of comments. Their lead-in stated, "…Mitt Romney met the challenge of appearing Presidential, showed a superior command of fact and argument than the incumbent, and made a confident, optimistic case for change." From their point of view, "Mr. Obama tried his familiar class warfare lines and the need for a 'balanced approach' to deficit reduction that must raise taxes. But Mr. Romney rose above by making the case that higher taxes will hurt growth and job creation and thus reduce government revenues."
After reviewing some of the economic details over the Obama Presidency, the WSJ declared, "The Republicans stitched all of this together into a frontal assault on the economic reality of the last four years…Mr. Romney went further and explained with some specificity how his policies would improve the lives and economic prospects for the middle-class Americans."
In more specific terms, they panned Obama's performance by stating, "…The President seemed off his game overall…He was out of arguments."
One can only wonder if the commentators from both publications even watched the same debate.
There will be lots more to chew on in coming weeks as we still have two more Obama-Romney confrontations plus the eagerly-awaited Ryan-Biden showdown when the VP candidates may be charged (we would hope) with the responsibility of going into details of their party's various proposals.
I found a bit of interesting after-pay left over from this morning's publications. In a WSJ column, Kimberly Strassel pointed out that Democratic Party political advisors came up with a revised campaign strategy to regain the political lead with a program that, among other items, is geared toward "…casting Mr. Romney as a liar and flip-flopper who will say anything to get elected." This new strategy was confirmed by senior Obama campaign advisor David Plouffe who told "Reuters", "…We obviously are going to have to adjust for the fact of Mitt Romney's dishonesty…"
In one of those suspicious-looking coincidences, just after suffering through a campaign set-back, the Obama camp could rejoice in this morning's Dep't of Labour report that the Unemployment Rate plunged in September to 7.8% from Augusts' 8.1%. The number of new jobs created was singularly unexciting at 114,000 and yet the Unemployment Rate plunged steeply!
Using figures obtained from the Bureau of Labour Statistics, we find that indeed there were 114,000 new jobs created, but the number of unemployed - by their definition - fell by a remarkable 456,000 in September, thereby driving the official Unemployment Rate down by the stated amount.
However, the inference of the two numbers - job creation versus reduction in the number of unemployed - is that 342,000 people simply dropped away from those actively seeking employment and are therefore no longer counted as "unemployed".
On such statistical quirks can political fortunes be made.
Please note that the six-month chart on US Treasury 30-year Bonds now shows a most interesting technical pattern of a series of 'declining tops'. These can be clearly seen near 154, then 152 and recently near 150. Generally, charting textbooks consider such a pattern to have negative implications.
I also find it very interesting that despite all the assurances from Bernanke and company that interest rates would be held at recent ultra-low levels for at least the next 2.5 - 3 years, the 'long bonds' are refusing to make new highs which, presumably, they should be doing based on the Fed Chief's comments.
Time will tell regarding this all-important indicator since we at The Melman Report believe the future direction of interest rates is vitally important to future economic performance in America, Canada and abroad.
There is something going on in gold trading that I believe is VERY unusual. Whenever I see a pattern that repeats itself with uncanny regularity, it suggests trading activity of a suspicious nature - and that is what I have seen in gold this past week.
Please note on the one-week chart of gold that every single day this week, at almost precisely the same time, there has been a sudden surge in gold's trading volume and the price of gold has been hammered downward. The specific trading ranges each day have been:
Monday - $1,794 down to $1,774
Tuesday - 1,787 " " 1,772
Wednesday - 1,784 " " 1,775
Thursday - 1,797 " " 1,784
Friday - 1,795 " " 1,774
This strikes me as being particularly noteworthy since gold has been putting on an assault against the $1,800 level and the last two such selling waves have taken place when gold appeared ready to break through that barrier.
I must state that I have no proof and make no direct accusations, but an examination of the trading chart must indeed raise my suspicions that something highly unusual is taking place within the realm of gold trading.
As of 9:45 AM PDT, financial markets in Canada and the USA are mixed with the Canadian TSX Index off by about 20 points while the Dow Industrials are up by close to 60. Precious metals remain down on the day with gold off by about $12 to $1,784 while silver is down by 25 cents to near $34.75 per ounce. Base metals are slightly lower on balance as are mining share indexes.
In other markets, the interest rate on 30-year Treasury Bonds has risen to near 3%; the US$ Index is off by 18 basis points and the Price of Crude oil is down by about $2.40 to $89.30 per gallon. It is worth noting, however, that gasoline prices are spiking sharply in the western USA and Canada due to sudden refinery product shortages. In some areas of California, the price of regular gas now exceeds $5 per gallon.
All quotes US$ unless otherwise indicated.