IT Industry Presidential Poll: 'Not Sure' Beats Both Obama and Romney

CIStud writes "A new poll conducted of IT industry executives and integrators shows a divided and unsure industry regarding which presidential candidate is better for Information Technology to prosper. The poll, conducted by JZ Analytics on behalf of CompTIA, shows 'Not Sure' winning in four out of five areas. President Obama holds and edge over Mitt Romney in every category, including which person is best for the IT industry in terms of tax policy (remarkably), access to capital, tech exports, education and privacy."

Comments

Preference cascade

[jmorris42]

It is called a preference cascade. Once you have made the big choice and decided you are going to vote for someone your opinion on their suitability on all of the sub questions tend to fall into line to confirm that major decision. Happens lots of other places as well, nothing unusual.

And we know most of the IT industry is in very blue areas and just from reading /. any outsider can quickly see which way the groupthink goes. Most It types are progressive in their political leanings, favor Obama's redefinition of marriage, attacks on traditional morality and religion and are just waiting on him to legalize weed, probably as soon as the convention. So of course they are chomping at the bit to pull the lever again. Of course they also live in constant fear of being outsourced or rightsized and totally fail to connect their political views to the economic consequences they cause.

Those aren't the only choices

[intertrode]

Most of the people choosing "Not Sure" probably wanted to pick Ron Paul or Gary Johnson but weren't given the choice. They need to recognize that those aren't the only choices!

False choice

[roman_mir]

That's not a choice, that's lack of options, that's false choice.

Obama and Romney differ very little when it comes to the actual issues, the difference is that Obama is a convinced Marxist basically, he is completely convinced that the free market capitalism is the root of all evil. Romney on the other hand simply doesn't understand free market capitalism.

Both of them will do the same thing - spend more and more on government, will not do anything to reduce the actual size of government, will do nothing to reform SS, Medicare and will not stop wars (will have more of them) and will do nothing about the growing problem of the real interest rates.

The real choice is not between Romney and Obama, it's between both of them and people like Gary Johnson (Libertarian ticket in these elections) or Ron Paul (you can write him in if you want).

There is no difference otherwise, it's going to be more destruction of the real economy, bigger government, eventual destruction of US dollars and all dollar denominated credit.

I know that on /. this is going to be met with a huge outcry from all sides, there will be more funny kind of moderation, as if this is a 'troll' or 'overrated' or 'flamebait', but as far as I am concerned this is just the reality.

Re:False choice

[roman_mir]

Obama does not believe in private ownership and operation of means of production and he has displayed this in practice, GM was confiscated from its rightful owners, the non-union labourers also lost their share and the company was given away to the labour union.

I don't need Obama to be theoretically a Marxist, he is practically a Marxist.

Re:False choice

[roman_mir]

Obama has shown what he is very clearly when he confiscated GM from the owners and handed it over to the union labour (in fact the non-union labour was also left out to dry). He does not believe in ownership of means of production. As to him being a socialist, it is you, who must be kidding.

One pushed through a big health care reform which will cover millions of uninsured people while the other is moving as far away from his (mostly identical) program as possible.

- They are identical on this topic. First of all Romney's plan is Obama's plan. Secondly Romney is not going to cut anything from either Medicare or SS. It's not his plan.

Paul Ryan is a complete joke, total sell out, a fraud. His 'plan' makes rosy assumptions that will never come true about the interest rates and growth of economy and he never cuts anything from any budget.

Even his supposed cuts to the rate of growth of the government are nonsense, they can't start for another 10 years, that's what the point is that he is bringing across - if you are 55 or over, you will not be affected by his cuts.

But there are no cuts. No cut is a cut unless it's done in the first term of presidency, everything else is a funny game they like to play. Even the so called 'sequestration', or automatic cuts that were the deal to avoid the US rating from being cut further by the rating agencies (political beats, not real rating agencies), even this is not going to happen and this was the agreement just 1 year ago.

Why would anybody care what anybody says about any cuts 10 and more years into the future? USA doesn't have 10 years, the US dollar and bonds will be destroyed much earlier than that.

One believes that progressive taxation is essential to prosperity. The other has done everything he can to make the tax system regressive.

- ha, the ONLY difference between Romney and Obama in this is that the top earners will have the SAME CUTS as the rest of them under Romney's plan, and Obama, as the Marxist that he is, is leading the class warfare, so he is going to give tax cuts to everybody except the top 1% (that's his platform).

(As to 'believing in progressive taxation' - what a stupid idea. Progressive taxation is simply theft, nothing else, it cannot grow anything by definition, it removes the investment funding from the productive part of society and moves it to the unproductive part).

One believes we need to regulate the financial sector to ensure stability. The other has pledged to tear down what little regulation we have.

- USA has over 100,000 regulations of financial institutions in place, that's first. Secondly - Obama is not going to do anything more than than Romney.

Here is the real problem - the financial sector is the symptom of the dying economy, it's not the cause of it. It doesn't produce anything on its own, it can only discover prices and allocate resources, the production is dying not because of the financial sector, but because of the size and power of government, that destroyed the savings, investments and incentives to create the welfare state. Regulating or not regulating the financial sector will do absolutely nothing to fix the economy, this is about as meaningful as your idea on progressive taxes.

By the way, James Calaghan was one of the PMs in UK, here is what he said at the 1976 Labour Party conference, when UK was doing what US is doing now:

"We used to think you could spend your way out of recession and increase employment by boosting government spending, I tell you, in all candour, that that option no longer exists. And in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion⦠by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next stepâ¦

As to the energy sources, this is again, a market decision, not government decision to make and it will not be.

There is no difference between Romney and Obama.

Re:False choice

[roman_mir]

On what basis do you claim that GM was "confiscated"?

The bankruptcy was challenged from the start by bondholders, who held $27 billion in GM debt. Senior bondholders, by law, are supposed to receive 100% of assets before anyone else gets anything. However, the bankruptcy judge gave them a minor 10% stake of the company. In contrast, the union, for $20 billion owed to its health trust, received 17% if the stock, $2.5 billion in cash and $6.5 billion in preferred stock. So the union received over three times in value what the secured debt holders received and they should have been behind them receiving anything at all. The government, for $50 billion, received 61% of the company, also disregarding the senior bond holder's first-place position.

Many bondholders were furious, and rightfully so. There is anecdotal evidence that there was threats and strong-arming that eventually had them back down. Here is a clip of the transcript of a radio interview of Thomas Laurie, the attorney representing the Chrysler creditors at the time:

Lauria: "Let me tell you it's no fun standing on this side of the fence, opposing the President of the United States. In fact, let me just say, people have asked me who I represent. That's a moving target. I can tell you for sure that I represent one less investor today than I represented yesterday. One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That's how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence."

This administration's actions in designing the GM bankruptcy was gangster-like and an outrageous disregard of bankruptcy law. The Obama administration essentially confiscated the assets of the bondholders and gave them to the union; wealth distribution at its finest! If this is what it took for GM to remain alive, should it be alive..."

read more

The company was confiscated against by the government from the rightful owners against all judicial precedent.

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As to FDIC - this is just another policy, designed by the government to ensure that the banks do not lose their business and in the process of doing it, the government has created the very moral hazard that was responsible for the banks behaving like the casinos, which coupled with the government fake insurance and fake money created the housing bubble and it is now creating the dollar and bond bubble.

Re:False choice

[roman_mir]

I guess my point, that by your standard, every politician on Earth is a Marxist, is basically conceded?

- not so. Almost politicians on this planet are using socialist agenda to stay in power and under the covers they use fascist methods to stay in power.

The socialist agenda is the promise to steal from the productive part of the economy and to subsidise the unproductive.

The fascist agenda is to create the rules, laws, regulations and taxes to ensure survival only of the monopolies in the market and then to milk those monopolies for support money.

Marxists are not as common as socialists and fascists, Marxists are the true believers that there is class warfare, that ownership of means of production is the wrong idea, socially, economically, politically. That's Obama.

If you actually did read my comment, and if you understood it, then you should realise that what was done was not a normal bankruptcy procedure, it was confiscation of means of production and transfer of those means of production to the labour union.