From an October 27 blog post by Nate Silver, the New York Times's star political analyst:

Still, it is misinformed to refer to Ohio as a toss-up. Mr. Obama is the favorite there, and because of Ohio's central position in the Electoral College, he is therefore the overall favorite in the election.

From the front-page news article in Sunday's New York Times by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg, also published October 27 to the Times Web site:

In the closing days of the race, seven states representing 89 electoral votes — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin — are now considered tossups.

From a front-page Wall Street Journal article on succession in Sumner Redstone's media empire: "During two telephone interviews—the second of which abruptly ended when a housekeeper rushed him reluctantly off the phone at the instigation of a spokesman in New York—Mr. Redstone said he can't predict how Ms. Redstone will ultimately react if Mr. Dauman and Mr. Moonves assume those roles."

Who was reluctant? Mr. Redstone? Or the housekeeper? And how does the reporter know if either one of them was genuinely reluctant, or if the reluctance was just professed so as to make the reporter feel better about the abrupt end to the interview?

Groton School has announced its new headmaster, its eighth since the Massachusetts private school was founded in 1884: Temba Maqubela. From the announcement: "Mr. Maqubela received a master's in chemistry and did doctoral work at the University of Kentucky; he received a bachelor's of science with honors from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Though he is a fourth generation educator, Mr. Maqubela does not hold a high school diploma because he went into exile from apartheid-era South Africa, his native country, before graduating."

I'm not a big Groton fan ("Rotten Groton," was how the students at my high school used to refer to the place when we played against them in sports). But it's hard not to find something inspiring in the way that immigrant achievement and upward mobility, dynamism, the American dream, have a way of triumphing even at the New England prep schools that have reputations as exclusive bastions of the old-money elite. How can you not root for a guy with a story like that?

Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column today says:

If you want to see how Romney's economic policies would work out, take a look at Europe. And weep.

In the last few years, Germany and Britain, in particular, have implemented precisely the policies that Romney favors, and they have been richly praised by Republicans here as a result. Yet these days those economies seem, to use a German technical term, kaput....Britain's economy is contracting this year....Britain chose Republican-endorsed austerity...America's economy is now the fastest growing among major countries in the West, and Britain's is shrinking.

There are at least three things wrong with that analysis.

Amity Shlaes has a Bloomberg View column defending the economic policies of the 1920s from President Obama's criticism of them in the presidential debate. She writes: "Presumably, the president was suggesting the 1920s represent economic failure. The decade represents just the opposite, as measured by the very goals on which the Democrats base their 2012 presidential campaign."

The CEO of the financial services firm BlackRock, Laurence Fink, is a big supporter of President Obama. "BlackRock CEO Fink Says He Supports Obama's Re-Election," was the headline over a Bloomberg News article in May of this year. Reuters blogger Felix Salmon mentions him as a second-term Treasury secretary: "Top of the list if Obama gets re-elected is Larry Fink, of Blackrock — he wants the job, and he has a pretty solid reputation in finance circles."

So it was pretty staggering to pick up the November-December 2012 issue of Harvard Magazine and find, on the inside cover, a full page advertisement from BlackRock that starts with the language, "Today's markets are as uncertain as ever. But there is one certainty — that the future is surely coming. And it's bringing a higher cost of education, healthcare and retirement. All of which means your nest egg will have to work harder — and last longer — than ever."

From a Wall Street Journal editorial on President Obama: "he didn't and still doesn't understand how the private economy works. He doesn't understand that incentives matter, or how government policies and regulation can sabotage growth. He really believes that government is the engine of economic prosperity."

I think that's about right.

Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein's weekly column says ObamaCare is a kind of rent control for health care:

This same flawed reasoning led to disaster in real estate markets, where rent controls caused a reduction in the quality of housing and a reluctance of firms to remain in the field. Similar results are already happening with respect to health care under Obamacare. Its "medical loss ratio" (MLR) imposes a maximum amount of revenues that can be spent by insurers on "administrative" cost—a term of art that has yet to be fully defined.

The consequences of this one regulatory initiative have not been trivial. Many extant insurance plans, especially those targeted to low-income workers with high turnover rates, have applied for and received administrative waivers from the MLR requirements because their actual costs are far higher than the allowable MLR.

From a Harvard Crimson article about Harvard College rules that prohibit students facing disciplinary proceedings from having lawyers accompany them to the disciplinary proceedings or from having lawyers advocate on their behalf to members of the disciplinary board: "Sundquist said the reform committee discussed the possibility of including lawyers in the process but was also wary of bringing people with a profit motive into the room."

So deeply ingrained is the suspicion of the profit motive, at least in some precincts at Harvard, that it extends even to denying a right to counsel to students accused of serious offenses. Do they think this way at the business school? At the Harvard Management Company that manages the university's $30 billion endowment?

Columnist George Will writes about the foreign policy presidential debate: "In a time when consensus is elusive, the candidates agreed on the imperative need to do something to lower Americans' standard of living by making imports from China more expensive." This site had a similar reaction.

Reuters reports: "Dow Chemical Co, the largest chemical maker in the United States, said on Tuesday it plans to cut 5 percent of its workforce and shutter 20 plants...the cuts would result in a loss of around 2,400 positions worldwide....The company will also take an unspecified charge related to its Dow Kokam LLC assets, reflecting weak demand for lithium-ion batteries."

Some context from a January 24, 2011, post at FutureOfCapitalism, "Obama's Second-Favorite CEO":

If Mitt Romney wins the presidency, expect the Democrats to complain that the Republicans bought the election — and to try to outlaw it from ever happening again. So says my column this week: please check it out at the New York Sun (here) and Reason (here).

Thomas Steyer, a fundraiser for Barack Obama who spoke at the Democratic National Convention, will step down from his job at the Farallon Capital Management LLC hedge fund, Bloomberg reports. Mr. Steyer "departs at year-end and his partners will buy his share of the firm," the Bloomberg article says, quoting Mr. Steyer, 55, as saying he will focus on "service in one form or another, including continuing participation in our community bank, in encouraging the advanced energy economy and in specific policy initiatives here in California."

Some thoughts on the final presidential debate:

•Maybe a President Romney or a second-term Obama will surprise me, but after watching three debates with these guys, one of my main reactions is that it's a little disappointing that this is the best that this generation of Americans can come up with. Sure, they both have personal stories that are in some ways impressive — Mr. Obama's rise to the presidency from unlikely circumstances, Mr. Romney's success as a businessman. But when you look back to the truly great presidents in American history — Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt (for his World War II leadership), Ronald Reagan (I'd include John Kennedy, too, but that's a longer story for another time) — it's very hard to see either Mr. Romney or Mr. Obama in that category. And it's too bad, because our country right now is in quite a pickle.

E.J. Dionne writes that it isn't true that President Obama has failed to outline a second-term agenda. He says it consists of "tax increases," "another shot at legislation to address climate change," "a comprehensive education, jobs and investment program," and "efforts to create a new campaign financing system to check the power billionaires and corporations exercise."

Mr. Dionne also mentions a tax plan proposed by Rep. Jan Schakowski, a Democrat from Illinois. It would create new federal income tax brackets as follows:

• $1 million to $10 million: 45%
• $10 million to $20 million: 46%
• $20 million to $100 million: 47%
• $100 million to $1 billion: 48%
• $1 billion and above: 49%

She'd also tax capital gains and dividend income at ordinary income rates for those with income above $1 million a year.