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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 18th, 2023

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  • It’s hard to predict this in advance, since it’s sensitive to things like voter turnout in non-competitive states. For instance, a blizzard in New England could affect the popular vote without impacting the electoral college vote. So I’ll just tell you how to calculate it.

    First, identify the tipping point state. Some guys think it might be Michigan this year. Meaning either candidate can win by winning Michigan and every state more favorable to them than Michigan. Other good guesses are Pennsylvania and maybe Arizona. Then take the difference between a candidate’s margin in Michigan verses their national average.

    2020: The tipping point state was Wisconsin. Biden won WI by 0.6% and nationally by 4.5% representing a 3.9% electoral college advantage to the Republican.

    2012: The tipping point state was Colorado. Obama won CO by 5.4% and nationally by 3.9% representing a 1.5% electoral college advantage to the Democrat.

    So the electoral college doesn’t intrinsically benefit the Republicans, but it probably will this year.




  • They’re trying to capture the consumer surplus. Normally, a seller can have either high margins and low volume, or low margins and high volume. The retailers wet dream is to get the benefits of both. If the reward program profiles you as someone who buys coffee at $4.00, but not at $6.00, you’ll get coupons for coffee that the people who buy coffee every week regardless of price won’t get.

    FWIW, I’ve found stores that don’t even have rewards cards frequently have lower prices than their competitors’ reward card sale prices.