Polling Data Pointing to a Trump Landslide

Quick update on the election. First, if you haven't been around in awhile, I have been posting mainly at a Substack.

About three weeks ago, I made an election bet on Trump to win the popular vote. Here is my post-2016 post on the prior big election bet. Last week I YOLO'd the account on the bet. This is not a huge sum of money, but it's a high convinction bet and has me thinking a lot about the implications.

My default assumption is that a Trump landslide (it will be a huge landslide if he wins the popular vote) will turbocharge the stock market rally and set off a surge in the U.S. dollar. My view is the "smart money" isn't betting on a landslide. If they shift that way, we might see this rally unfold into the election. Normally, there is a dip ahead of the election that will bottom before the election actually takes place.

Why a landslide? From 5 days ago, look at the Biden and Clinton leads on this date versus Harris: Biden +9.7, Clinton +4.6, Harris +2.0 percent. Trump is also running about 4 percentage points ahead of Harris in almost all the swing states, such that he leads in most of them. In 2016 and 2020, Trump trailed in the swing states one month out. This, if history plays out as it did the past two cycles, and Trump further gains, he will win easily. I project 312 Electoral College votes. You can see my map at RealClearPolling. This is based on Trump adding a bit to his swing state totals. He actually doesn't need to gain as much as in 2016 or 2020, so if pollsters are doing a better job this time around, I think he wins.

A note on polling, which I made back in 2016. The polls have never been that bad as a whole. What happened in 2016 was "experts" interpreted poll numbers and drew very incorrect conclusions.

To wit, Republicans almost always rally late in elections because for whatever reason, more people who lean Republican will say they're independent than vice versa. That's the latest number pointing to a big Trump win that I saw yesterday. Pollsters can only go by what people tell them, and if people are shy-Republicans, the polls will always skew Democrat. Historically, Democrats have easy wins when running +8 in voter identificaiton polls. Republicans win when it's only Democrat +3. To repeat, Republicans win when the pollsters report Democrats are +3 in party identification. The current polls have Republicans at +1.

Finally, an anecdote. There are people called "low propensity voters" who don't hardly or ever show up to vote. These people do not care most of the time or all of the time. But sometimes they get motivated to vote. In Pennsylvania as of last week, there were already more than 300 votes from people who hadn't voted since 2004. It's a small number, but statistically significant. My hunch is people who haven't voted in 20 years are getting off their butts to vote Trump. Additionally, early voting by Democrats is down around the country from 2020. My hunch is the very high turnout number of 66 percent that year will head back towards the more normal level of around 60 percent.

In conclusion, all polling data points to a large Trump victory. It looks large enough that a "steal," if you believe that is possible, will have to be at a scale so large as to be blatantly obvious. Personally, I don't see anything like what happened in 2020 repeating. Going through the swing state vote data, the only state that seemed to buck the Trump rally trend was Georgia, which has been at the epicenter of claims of election fraud. As for polling, if pollsters have completely adjusted to 2016 and 2020 and are overstating Trump's support in response, then of course my interpretation will be proved wrong. If pollsters have improved a bit, but Trump still gains 1 to 2 percentage points instead of the usual 4 to 6 percentage points, then he might eke out a popular vote victory while winning an electoral college landslide. If he actually surged as much as he did in 2016 and 2020, he should win the popular vote by an easy margin.

Sign of the Top

How Stocks Became the Game That Record Numbers of Americans Are Playing

Flash-forward three years, and it’s abundantly clear: We’re living in a new age of finance. It’s never been easier to bet your money—anytime, anywhere—and meme-stock craziness is here to stay. A wave of technological advancements has coincided with new apps and platforms to create a thriving ecosystem where everyday people can trade stocks with the ease of swiping for dates on Tinder.

Clown World is ending soon.

Fourth Turning Has Arrived: Adios Western Ruling Class

EU elites promised a prosperous green future. This could be their undoing

What is embroiling Europe is deeper than a political crisis – it is approaching what can be called a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling elite. This can be thought of as a metaphysical event that precedes political upheaval, the latter being merely confirmation that such a crisis has taken place. Legitimacy is, of course, a rather nebulous concept, and it defies objective measurement.

Ruling classes throughout history have always advanced various claims about their own legitimacy, without which a stable political order is impossible. In tracing the contours of the current crisis, it’s important to establish what exactly the claims Europe's technocratic elite have put forth and how they are becoming increasingly difficult to believe.

Ostensibly, the EU’s ruling elite has staked out the green transition as its raison d’être. They claim to have the mandate, vision and competence to see it through and have set clear targets to measure their success.

It was a good run, but when you're destroying nuclear power plants and running 6 percent deficits to prop up your Potemkin economy and financial markets, the reaper is right around the corner.

Immigration Restriction On the Ballot in Switzerland

Swiss right-wing party hands in initiative to limit immigration

The Swiss People’s Party submitted 114,600 signatures to the federal chancellery in Bern on Wednesday. It demands that a new article on “sustainable population development” be added to the constitution.

According to the initiative, the population of permanent residents must not exceed ten million people before 2050. The government should then set a limit based on the birth rate. If 9.5 million people live in the country before 2050, the Federal Council and Parliament would have to act.

For example, temporarily admitted persons would then no longer be able to obtain a permanent residence permit. Family reunification is also to be restricted. International agreements with exemption or protection clauses would have to be renegotiated. If all this is not enough, the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons with the European Union would have to be cancelled.

FT Admits Govts Have Been Scamming Western Voters on Immigration

FT: The immigration smokescreen is beginning to lift

The EU collectively, which fears losing the global competition for high-productivity workers, is similarly trying to attract skilled non-EU migrants with a “talent pool” scheme aptly nicknamed “Tinder for jobs”. But a wave of fervently anti-immigration candidates are high in the polls ahead of the European parliamentary elections this year. If Trump is re-elected in 2024, his repulsive comments about undocumented immigrants poisoning America’s blood will also create expectations of a general clampdown.

Perhaps, particularly in the UK, the tough-on-refugees, soft-on-workers game is up. Audiences have worked out the trick and are heckling the conjuror. But if the alternative is taking the risk of actually being honest with voters, governments might think it’s worth trying the well-practised ruse once again.

It has never been about high skill immigration because they've been letting in wave after wave of welfare-using migrants. High skill labor doesn't go on welfare. The average immigrant into the West is using welfare at much higher rates than natives.

Western Ruling Class Starts Reaping the Migrant Whirlwind

The open door of the West is about to slam shut.

For the past decade, Western ruling regimes pushed mass migration on a public that wanted immigration restriction. They iced out nationalist parties, calling them far-right, extremist and so on for desiring sane migration policies. After sowing the wind with this propaganda, they now reap the whirlwind. If they fail to tighten migration laws, the "far-right" wins. If they tighten migration laws, the "far-right" wins.

France seeks to break deadlock over controversial immigration law

A deal has been struck:

The latest deal also introduces migration quotas, makes it harder for immigrants' children to become French, and says that dual nationals sentenced for serious crimes against the police could lose French citizenship.

Civil War Goes Mainstream

Replacement of American Workers by Foreigners Hits Extremes

 ZeroHedge: The Real Shocker In Friday's Jobs Report: 1.2 Million Native-Born Workers Lost Their Jobs, And Were Replaced With 668K Foreign-Born Workers

Meanwhile, the number of foreign-born workers (i.e., immigrants) surged by 668K to a record 30.396 million

About 156 million people are employed in the labor force. About 1 out of 5 are foreigners and this isn’t counting illegal aliens who might run into the tens of millions. The total swung by 1.8 million people last month alone, or more than 1 percent of the workforce.

If an invasion of foreigners was good for the country, USG should be running massive budget surpluses as foreigners build companies and pay taxes. The opposite is the case: data from the Center for Immigration Studies shows foreigners use welfare at far higher rates than natives. Cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are now having political meltdowns over experiencing a small fraction of what Texas, Arizona and other border states experienced for decades. Many of these states were already on the brink of bankruptcy. They do not have the resources to deal with the problem.

It also isn’t really a result of busing from border states so much as the waves of illegal aliens finally overwhelming the United States. There isn’t enough housing, there aren’t enough doctors, there aren’t enough schools, there’s nowhere near enough money for tens of millions of new welfare cases adding to the burden of a rapidly aging society already going into inflationary-collapse over entitlement spending. If natives are quitting or losing jobs and being replaced with cheaper foreigners, they all qualify for welfare. The country is moving backwards, rapidly into Third World status.

Very short-sighted and clueless people think this is good for the country. It’s going to end up being good like atomic cornflakes, margarine and mRNA vaxxes. Unlike many problems, this one won’t get cheaper after people realize what happened. The country will first experience massive economic hardship. Only then, when natives suddenly cannot find jobs or have to take huge pay cuts amid rising inflation, or see their welfare benefits cut as is already happening in cities such as Chicago, will they realize they’ve been hoodwinked. Then we spin the roulette wheel and find out what form the dictatorship takes and how long it lasts. Even if its democratic, the man who emerges from this mess will rule as FDR and Lincoln did. Political enemies will be jailed., either the current regime hanging on or a new regime punishing the current one. Immigration will probably go negative for a time and then hit a number close to zero, staying there for a century or more.

The U.S. has been in similar situations before, but it was never pushed to this extreme. Foreign born population was high enough to warrant a major reduction or even near total ban on immigration back in 2000. Policy has gone in an extremist direction since then. The three prior periods: heading in the 1770s, the 1850s and the 1920s. Two out of three sparked wars and the third came ahead of World War II. Nothing good is coming in the short-term.

Real Estate Rage is Back

The price was cut 22 percent and it triggered pissed off buyers who paid higher.

房价从1.8降价4千，泰州“华樾花园”交付维权pic.twitter.com/N88XQBLqdZ

— 财经数据库 (@caijingshujuku) August 31, 2023

I could not confirm via news, although a search for the city and project did turn up listings at the 18,000 yuan/sq ft price. This type of news would get covered years ago. I don't know for certain, but suspect this will run afoul of the new guidelines. In that case, take everything with a bit of salt until you see some confirmation because there are anti-CCP forces in the West that hype this type of news, show old videos claiming it is new and so on. I am fairly confident this is real because a busy season is coming in late September as both Mid-Autumn Festival and the Golden Week align. It would make sense for some developers to try discounts now to beat what all signs say will be a disappointing season.

Here is a post from 2019 speculating on this very timing: Will Real Estate Rage Return in 2019? Developers Slashing Home Prices Ahead of Mid-Autumn and National Day

Here's a protest from 2014. Link is dead now unfortunately, but I grabbed a picture: Real Estate Rage in Wuxi

Here's 2014, when it looked like the bubble might finally burst. Everything has been pushed back a decade and made far, far worse if this is indeed the bust: China Real Estate Rage Is Back; Ghost Cities Everywhere; Offshore Yuan Plunges; Talk of Falling Real Estate Prices Across China

This was my first real estate rage post from 2011. Home buyers in Shanghai angry at massive price drops, smash offices

More than a decade of this behavior thanks to the housing bubble requiring ever higher prices, insanely unaffodrable homes and developers need to move inventory to meet debt payments. Incredible to me that they did not deal with this in the interim. Instead here we are with the world economy holding its breath. Or at least, those in the world who are paying attention. Judging by the Nasdaq and social media, most of the U.S. doesn't care.

Systemic Racism is Fake

If systemic racism was real, people wouldn't have to fake studies to prove it.

NYPost: Professor fired for ‘faking data to prove lynching makes whites want longer sentences for blacks,’ 6 studies retracted

Florida State University criminology professor Eric Stewart was a guru of the claim that “systemic racism” infests America’s police and American society.

Now he’s out of a job on account of “extreme negligence” in his research.

The academic was fired after almost 20 years of his data — including figures used in an explosive study, which claimed the legacy of lynchings made whites perceive blacks as criminals, and that the problem was worse among conservatives — were found to be in question.

Bear Rally Over? Yield Curve and VIX Turn Higher

It has been a long and winding road in this bear market. Yes, I still believe a bear markert is underway until new highs are made. I haven't been tactically bearish on the market over the preceding months, onyl taking some small swings when setups looked good. Until those old highs are taken out, my bear market call from November 2021 remains intact.

First, the classic bubble chart pattern hasn't been violated:

A double-top is a valid expression of the "return to normal" phase. Bullish sentiment and speculative behavior return to near peak levels, propelling the major indexes or stocks into double-tops. Anecdotal, but cryptocurrency speculators believe a new bull market is underway. Bitcoin BTC has a pattern that is consistent with the classic top though:

Tesla, Google, Amazon and Meta all sport the classic pattern with no hint of an imminent double-top. The paradox stocks are Apple and Microsoft. Both have achieved new all-time highs. Their massive weight in the S&P 500 technology sector (nearing 50 percent at times) propelled that sector to a new all-time high in July. If I'm correct in my assessment, this will turn into an overthrow of a double-top pattern and not an extension of the bull market.

Industrials also achieved new all-time highs this year. Energy and materials made new highs in the second-quarter of 2022 and remain within striking distance of new highs.

I'll digress here and give the bullish argument over the longer-term. Assume for a moment the U.S. was primed for a recession around the time the coronavirus hit. The government then wrecked the economy and then flooded it with far too much stimulus. Even though there's no official recession in 2023, the U.S. government is running deficits on par with the fallout from 2008:

There's nothing bullish about that chart long-term. Growing deficits will increase inflationary pressure. Falling deficits could trigger deflationary pressure. Since stocks are priced for perfection, deviation out of the Goldilocks Zone will trigger price declines in all sectors at least for a time, barring an explosive move higher in energy as we saw in early 2022.

I don't want to belabor the valuation topic, but here is the price-to-earnings ratio divided by the growth rate (PEG) and the spread between investment grade corporate bonds and the Federal funds rate.

Going back the to the bull thesis: what if the government front-loaded stimulus and the bear market/recession doesn't materialize? In that case, either an extension of the bull unfolds or the transition occurs without the bear move. Both EFA and EEM, the developed and emerging market ETFs, bottomed in October 2022, with EEM having a little overthrow this year:

To wrap up the bull case: the government flooded the economy with stimulus, triggering a temporary inflation surge. Inflation settles back into the Goldilocks Zone, as does GDP growth, sub-2 percent for both. In the short-term bull scenario, stocks enjoy an extension with tech and other speculative assets resuming leadership. In the longer-term scenario, the transition to new leadership such as industrials, energy, commodities and foreign markets takes place without a major bear.

Back to the bear scenario, one of the strongest signals for a recession has been the inverted yield curve. It doesn't indicate an imminent recession, rather it signals the pre-recesesionary stage. The actual recession comes when the yield curve steepens. Going back the past four decades, this has always occurred when the Federal Reserve slashed rates. Right now, the yield curve is steepening because long-term bond yields are rising faster than short-term yields. It is a small move at the moment, but the spread has made a higher low, indicating the final low might be in.

The 10-year treasury yield has a bullish formation that may or may not complete. If it completes, then higher long-term rates will sink financial asset valuation and could indicate a stagflationary recession. The 30-year mortgage would be on its way towards 10 percent, a level that would almost assuredly kill home prices too. On the flip side, a traditional steepening via Fed rate cuts would be another bear market and recession like we've seen in 2000 and 2008.

The decline in the VIX has been a hallmark of this bull market. The VIX has fallen below the level reached at the November 2021 peak, indicating fear is gone. Here's the VIX overlaid with the 2s10s spread:

VIX isn't a great indicator in that it tends to be coincident with the 2s10s, but a rising VIX indicates rising fear, likely because there's bearish action in parts of the market ahead of the full-blown bear. Here's a look at when the VIX bottomed ahed of prior bearish periods:

There will be bearish trades emerging very soon if the yield curve has finished inverting and moved into steepening. Ditto if the VIX follows it higher. With September and October coming up, the calendar supports a market top scenario here. New highs on the major indexes will invalidate the bear scenario, as will a falling VIX. If the 2s10s inverts further or moves sideways, it will indicate no imminent economic pressure. If the 10-year yield fails a breakout for instance, the yield curve might invert further while the broader stock market interprets the falling yield as disinflationary and therefore bullish.

1999 All Over Again?

I started looking at rabbit years because for some reason they have a 12-year pattern of alternating boom-bust, and I've been thinking about how AI is like the 1999 New Economy, and then I looked into the Fed's liquidity pump and...Oops They Did It Again: Fed Repeats 1999

French Torch Pro-Immigration Politician's Home

Remix: French mayor in support of new asylum center in seaside town has his house burned down

The house of a left-wing mayor in France, who supports a controversial plan to establish an asylum center in the small seaside town of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, has been burned down in a suspected arson attack.

Immigrants to the USA are probably the safest because the USA considers itself "a nation of immigrants," but there will probably be some rough goings for those who are openly unassimilated and also observably anti-American. In Europe, I'm expecting things won't turn out very badly for the migrants and it'll spark a backlash that will hit long-term citizens such as Turks in Germany.

The Horror!

I have a post at the Substack looking at socionomics and the market. The culture, politics and economics have been suggesting a depression for years, but the markets only broke lower when the Federal Reserve stopped doing quantitative easing. Might the wheels finally be falling off and no more rescues possible? Will stocks finally fall to meet the broader social mood?

Secession Accelerates in America

The Idaho House has passed a bill in favor of Greater Idaho. Parts of Oregon have voted to join "Greater Idaho" and the Idaho House welcomes them.

Even if this bill passes the Senate and is approved by the Governor, and even if Oregon agrees, it then goes to the Congress. There's reason to think this can pass Congress though: it won't affect the Senate. A lot of secession plans won't get off the ground because they change the make-up of the Senate, but this plan is mainly moving lines on a map.

Another factor working in favor of this secession attempt is that, as the vote shows, the neighboring state welcomes the addition. Adding a huge rural area doesn't bring much to Idaho, but because Oregon has permissive drug laws, it would move the border from under an hour from Boise to more like 5 hours away.

HOUSE JOINT MEMORIAL 1

OREGON AND IDAHO BORDERS – States findings of the Legislature and resolves that the Idaho Legislature stands ready to begin discussions with the Oregon Legislature regarding the potential to relocate the Oregon/Idaho state boundary.

If Greater Idaho succeeds, it leaves a small rump of a state of Oregon with under 4 million in population. There are many places such as New York where a split is far more compelling with larger populations and economies at stake.

The problem for most secession plans is the local economy and national politics. Rural areas are poor. Most are subsidized by urban (corporate) taxpayers. As noted with the New York plan, instead of foregoing Wall Street revenue, upstate wants some type of reveue share. If a tax-eating area offers to leave, it has a far stronger offer for the rest of the state. At the national level, any plan that causes a shift in the U.S. Senate will meet resistance. Democrats push for DC statehood while in power because it gives them 2 more Senators. With the country split nearly 50-50 at the moment, any plan that gives one party an advantage will be opposed. Secession movements have to plan for this or they will go nowhere. With Greater Idaho, the main opposition will come from Oregon itself, followed by Congress who might oppose it simply because people fear "who's next?" If Oregon and Idaho can redraw the map, why not every state where there is agreement?

Peak FBI

American Greatness: Planned New FBI HQ Is Twice the Size of the Pentagon

If you're familiar with Socionomics, you know that many economies peak around the time the "world's largest skyscraper" is being built. Major new HQs for corporations can also mark a top. In essence, these are prideful projects that also distract from core missions or show it believes the core mission is in hand. The FBI is spiking the football after subverting the Trump presidency, interfering with the 2020 election and jailing enemies of the Deep State. A new HQ doesn't mean it will peak like a business or country though. Government institutions don't really have competitors. They expand and expand and expand over time. They will only be stopped by a willful effort by their opponents.

The FBI should cease to exist. All their functions can be farmed out to the state police with an overarching cooperative body run by the states. Everything the FBI does can be done by other agencies and institutions such as Secret Service, federal marshalls and state police. They plan on turning America into a total police state with their agency at the center. A new HQ is their way of announcing their power to the nation. Let's see if anyone can knock them off their perch.

The 40-Year DJIA Chart Resembles 1928-1929

Tesla too! I don't take this too seriously. Bears are depressed and I noticed some similarity between 1900-920 and 1960-1980, and then wanted to see if the bull markets looked similar. Markets are fractal though, with similar patterns at larger and smaller time scales. Human nature doesn't change either. Maybe there's something to it?

Bullish Reasons Stocks Can Rise in 2023

Here's the answer to them: Social mood rules all. The GOP can't even elect a speaker.

Within the past hour: McCarthy not backing down from speaker bid after heated meeting with GOP: 'I'm not going anywhere'

China will open pandora's box in 3 weeks.

Denmark's Identity Program in Focus

Quality immigration becoming a little more of a rare commodity every day, the key to success for Western countries will probably be like Denmark: being able to raise the birth rate, to accomplish the transition to modernity in a sustainable, to resolve the errors of past immigration policies, to propose a viable social model for active couples, to be able to preserve the identity and integrity of the population of origin.

Overview of Denmark's identity model

Dominicans Cracking Down on Haitians Again

Guardian: US warns its ‘darker-skinned’ citizens of Dominican Republic’s migrant crackdown

US officials in the Dominican Republic are warning “darker-skinned” Americans they are at risk of being swept up in the country’s crackdown on Haitian migrants.

The advice from the US embassy in Santo Domingo suggests that authorities there are using a person’s appearance as a criteria for detention of those suspected of being in the country illegally.

The Dominican Republic says it has deported 43,900 migrants, mostly Haitians, between July and October in an operation it insists is necessary for national security amid growing unrest, gang crime and a fuel blockade inside its only neighbour on the island of Hispaniola.

This will eventually come to Europe. Probably not the United States because it isn't an ethnostate. The odds are near zero in the U.S., but they rise with the degree of collapse that unfolds. It is possible that all illegal immigrants are eventually deported if there's no amnesty.