The Real Winner

If you put a gun on my head and you said you must choose either Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney, I would say, please shoot.

From Marc Faber's Blog.

For those of you battling with emotions from the election and those who lost friends based on political affiliation, listen to TAL.  Decidedly from an NPR perspective but was an interesting listen on a flawless day flying yesterday (despite the Nor’easter).

 

This American Life

Originally aired 11.02.2012

478: Red State Blue State

Everyone knows that politics is now so divided in our country that not only do the 2 sides disagree on the solutions to the country’s problems, they don’t even agree on what the problems are. It’s 2 versions of the world in collision. This week we hear from people who’ve seen this infect their personal lives. They’ve lost friends. They’ve become estranged from family members.

© 1995-2012 Chicago Public Media & Ira Glass

Without question, the biggest factor impacting the economy this fall was the Federal Reserve’s decision in September to extend its controversial quantitative easing program indefinitely, until the economy is back on track for good. This type of monetary easing is an arcane strategy that doesn’t directly impact consumers. But it can have a powerful effect on the economy that filters through to ordinary people in many important ways. And the biggest advocate of quantitative easing has been Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Consumer confidence, in fact, rose sharply in the weeks leading up to the election, even as business leaders were becoming more worried about problems such as the looming fiscal cliff. That’s one thing that pushed our Obamanometer reading onto Obama’s side. The Fed probably had as much to do with that as anything else.

US News & World Report

Washington's Blog

While Romney is as mainstream economically as Obama, he did make noises about auditing the Fed, criticized additional Fed easing, called Fed stimulus “artificial”, “ineffective” and “just making it up”, promised to appoint some monetary hawks, and said that he would challenge Bernanke’s re-appointment.

Some of it was undoubtedly attempting to appease Ron Paul supporters (and other libertarians), who hate the Fed. But at least some of it appears to have been genuine.

As such, the big winner from the election is the Federal Reserve.

Washington's Blog

 

Actually the real winner in the election was probably Nate Silver WSJ