2024 Elections Thread

[dismalist]

How accurate have election odds been in past presidential elections?

The betting favorite has only lost twice since 1866, according to the Conversation, a nonprofit news organization – in 2016 when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was favored over Trump throughout the campaign, only to lose and in 1948, when Democrat Harry Truman beat 8-to-1 odds to defeat Republican Thomas Dewey.

--Delaware on-line, Oct. 17.

[jimbogumbo]

Prediction markets are showing a Trump victory.

I'm scoping out possible retirement locations in Canada.

Trump may win, but prediction markets are meaningless. The folks betting have no idea what will happen and they are far from a representative sample. Polling is a better guide, but even that should be taken with a grain of salt given tendency for polling error - sometimes favoring Rs and sometimes Ds.

Plus, there are way more "fake" polls now. By fake, I mean just that. They don't follow best practices, and are by design meant to influence the polling averages rather than try to accurately reflect the situation.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Prediction markets are showing a Trump victory.

I'm scoping out possible retirement locations in Canada.

Trump may win, but prediction markets are meaningless. The folks betting have no idea what will happen and they are far from a representative sample. Polling is a better guide, but even that should be taken with a grain of salt given tendency for polling error - sometimes favoring Rs and sometimes Ds.

Plus, there are way more "fake" polls now. By fake, I mean just that. They don't follow best practices, and are by design meant to influence the polling averages rather than try to accurately reflect the situation.

All we know is that the race will probably be close. Looking at polls or betting markets can be fun, but they aren't telling us anything more than that.

[pgher]

Great analysis of the situation by David Brooks, probably paywalled: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/opinion/harris-trump-close-race.html

[Parasaurolophus]

Prediction markets are showing a Trump victory.

I'm scoping out possible retirement locations in Canada.

I'm sorry to say, you probably don't have enough points. Ours is not a particularly compassionate immigration system.

I checked a few years back and made it over the line by a hair. And my wife has a useful job so she cleared the bar pretty easily.

Not looking to move to Canada, but just saying.

The sooner the better, then! Age reduces the value of your points.

Plus, we're going all-in against immigration at the moment, because apparently immigrants are to blame for the housing crisis.

[marshwiggle]

Prediction markets are showing a Trump victory.

I'm scoping out possible retirement locations in Canada.

I'm sorry to say, you probably don't have enough points. Ours is not a particularly compassionate immigration system.

Au contraire! Canadians generally have a pretty good attitude to immigrants, because our system is careful about how people are selected, so that people who are accepted have a good opportunity to integrate and thrive. (As the exception that proves the rule, see how the sloppiness over the last few years regarding visa for international students and temporary foreign workers has generated a lot of frustration. In both of those cases, part of the problem is that it's clear people are being exploited and aren't set up to do well in the long run.)

[Sun_Worshiper]

Prediction markets are showing a Trump victory.

I'm scoping out possible retirement locations in Canada.

I'm sorry to say, you probably don't have enough points. Ours is not a particularly compassionate immigration system.

I checked a few years back and made it over the line by a hair. And my wife has a useful job so she cleared the bar pretty easily.

Not looking to move to Canada, but just saying.

The sooner the better, then! Age reduces the value of your points.

Plus, we're going all-in against immigration at the moment, because apparently immigrants are to blame for the housing crisis.

I applied to a few jobs in Canada over the years - never got to the shortlist though. Oh well. I'm planning to ride it out in the US, for better or worse.

[kaysixteen]

I read something recently that part of the political probs Trudeau is having howadays concerns a significant shortage of available housing, esp new housing, which is also causing an anti-immigrant backlash north of the border, even amongst traditionally immigration-friendly Canucks?

[Parasaurolophus]

I read something recently that part of the political probs Trudeau is having howadays concerns a significant shortage of available housing, esp new housing, which is also causing an anti-immigrant backlash north of the border, even amongst traditionally immigration-friendly Canucks?

Mostly, his problem is that he's been in power for ten years (well, nine, but ten by the time we have an election next year), and that's just about the natural life expectancy of a federal government.

But yes, the housing crisis is out of control here, although there's not much that the federal government can really do about it. It's been slowly gaining steam for twenty years, though; the difference is that it's accelerated sharply in recent years, and it's spread beyond metro Vancouver/Toronto to infect pretty much the entire country, including places that used to be very, very affordable, and it's consumed not just the housing market but the rental market too. And it affects not just people with low incomes, but those with relatively high incomes as well. So you have a whole class of people (including yours truly, now) who pay more than a mortgage in rent, could easily afford to buy a very fancy car, but can just barely afford a too-small condominium, and can only qualify for a 25-year mortgage for 0.5-0.75 of a house.

The causes are pretty complex, but a major contributor where I am is just the history of zoning, which is and has been for single-family homes. That's not how real major cities work, especially those facing geographic restrictions. So what ends up happening is you get a sprawl of houses nobody can afford and a growing chunk of high-rise condominiums that nobody wants, instead of the kind of low-rise buildings you see in New York, Montréal, etc. Another big contributor is just speculation, with much of the housing and rental markets getting bought up by investment trusts and stuff (IIRC it's as high as 40% here), a big chunk going to AirBnB, etc.

And without meaningful rent control, the rent just goes up and up. And to get around existing controls, landlords resort to no-fault evictions, which have been going up and up (and screwed us over, too).

So, yeah. The federal government for some reason decided that the best way to address the issue was to blame immigrants, especially international students, even though the problem is a long-standing one. I guess they figured that since most of the international students come from India, and since India is in the hot seat for election interference and targeted assassinations, we'd be happy to take the bait.

[marshwiggle]

The federal government for some reason decided that the best way to address the issue was to blame immigrants, especially international students, even though the problem is a long-standing one. I guess they figured that since most of the international students come from India, and since India is in the hot seat for election interference and targeted assassinations, we'd be happy to take the bait.

From Wikipedia:

Reported total student population by year
Year   IRCC   GAC
2014   326,120[17]   -
2015   350,130[17]   457,828[18]
2016   410,400[17]   523,971[18]
2017   494,525[17]   -
2018   558,957[19]   721,000[5]
2019   642,480[19]   -
Figures for the international student population in Canada vary

Note the doubling in 5 years, and the pace has continued or accelerated since then.

Housing in student communities has not doubled in that same time.

Ironically, there are stories in communities with a huge increase in students that the scarcity of housing has produced skyrocketing rents so that some of these students are skipping classes to work part-time jobs to pay the rent. They can't actually do the studies they came here for becuase of the lack of housing. This IS the government's problem for allowing so many visas.



Another interesting comment:

The notable growth in international students from India has led to escalated tensions with Canada's large Indian Canadian community, who claim that students are "stealing their jobs" and "causing violence" within the established Indian enclaves of the country.

So much for it being easily described as racism.

[dismalist]

We see the immigrants; we do not see the houses not built.

[nebo113]

Morgan-Stanley predicting Harris will win and Senate will flip.

[ciao_yall]

We see the immigrants; we do not see the houses not built.

And the homeless.

[dismalist]

We see the immigrants; we do not see the houses not built.

And the homeless.

At least in part, it's the same phenomenon.

[dismalist]

We see the immigrants; we do not see the houses not built.

And the homeless.

At least in part, it's the same phenomenon.

By chance I came across this cutie:

Walmart House

At the time I read it, there was one only one comment, but it was prescient:

Check local zoning laws.

The point being that building housing is cheap. Getting land to build on is expensive. Canada and the United States are like Hong Kong? Really?