Doctor Fate wrote: another as with an innuendo-filled pseudo-tramp talking about her "first time.".

Whoever wins America’s presidential contest Tuesday, the U.S. is poised for a powerful economic rebound over the next few years. That’s in sharp contrast with the slow-growth recovery since the start of the Great Recession.
• U.S. job-creation numbers have been improving for months, much faster than one would expect given the severity of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It’s noteworthy that even construction, the hardest-hit employment sector, added a surprising 20,000 new jobs in October. All sectors except government have been posting increased job-creation numbers since the summer. Indeed, the weak jobs numbers of the summer have since been revised sharply upward. (Initial government statistical reports, in the U.S. and elsewhere, are always subject to revision.)

• The U.S. housing market is recovering and with increased momentum. This is surprising, given the record “overhang” of unsold new and existing homes circa 2009 that economists feared would take a decade for the market to absorb after the record over-building of the 2000s. That in turn is promising sign for Canadian raw materials exports.

• U.S. consumer confidence, as measured by the University of Michigan and lesser-known pulse-takers, has been rising for months. There is tremendous pent-up demand for new vehicles, appliances and other “big ticket” items – purchases that have been long delayed due to consumer worries over job security. Demand for big-ticket and other goods and services will begin soaring, in contrast with today’s tepid rate of growth, in 2014 if not earlier. That will boost Southern Ontario auto production, 85 per cent of it destined for the U.S. market.

• Obamacare is here to stay. Democrats will successfully thwart any effort to revoke it, as GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney vows to do, simply by filibustering to death any bid to scrap it. Again by 2014, the cost-efficiency provisions of Obamacare will begin to have their impact in reducing the frightful increase in state healthcare spending.

• By the same means, a President Romney would be denied his proposed ruinous $5 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade. That will further improve America’s fiscal condition, as will increased income and payroll tax revenues from steadily higher job creation.

• Foreign capital inflows, for new-plant construction in the U.S. and a continued high level of U.S. Treasury and other debt sales to offshore investors, will rise as the Eurocrisis and the Asian economic slowdown continue. This will keep the U.S. dollar strong, and capital- and consumer-goods imports cheap, lowering the expense of U.S. business expansion and consumers’ cost of living.

• Fears of a “fiscal cliff” immediately following the election are exaggerated. Cohorts of a President Romney, who control the Congress, would not play chicken with Romney as they did last year with President Obama, causing the U.S. to lose its Triple A debt rating. A re-elected Barack Obama would finesse the issue of rolling over America’s debt, partly with a trade-off (backing away from his proposed defence-budget cuts, for instance) and partly because the GOP doesn’t want a replay of international black eye it got for playing partisan politics with the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. for the first time in the country’s history.

• In modern times, U.S. presidents who have inherited dreadful economic conditions yet secured re-election have overseen economic booms in their second terms. That was the case for both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. As it happens, Clinton’s unprecedented job-creation record of 23 million is precisely the number of Americans currently unemployed and “under-employed,” working temp or part-time jobs.

It’s worth noting that at this time last year, BMO Economics’ survey of Canadian business owners found that stagnant U.S. economic conditions was their top worry. In this year’s poll, released Monday, the U.S. economy ranks a mere 6th among Canadian business owners’ worries.

And who will win?

As noted in this space since Aug. 13 (“Obama presidency looks secure”), Obama has been the Electoral College favourite and the leader in most “swing states” for months, albeit by a small margin. What is still at this late date described as a toss up – “U.S. election hangs on a knife edge,” says the U.K. Financial Times – would be close to a lock for the president even if voters didn’t traditionally move toward the incumbent in a contest’s closing days. The New York Times electoral blog FiveThirtyEight.com on Monday gives Obama an 83.6 per cent likelihood of winning.

Reagan won re-election with a 7.5 per cent jobless rate, just shy of the current 7.9 per cent - itself a major improvement over the Great Recession peak of close to 11 per cent. Today might not be 1984’s “Morning in America,” but Americans finally can see sun through parting clouds.

danivon wrote:DF was predicting the end of the US as a superpower if Obama won in 2008. In fact, looking around the internet, the predictions from various Republican supporters as to what the US would be like by now are hilarious. The joke clearly gets better with repetition, as it's been going on again.

Some people just have no faith in their nation.

dag hammarsjkold wrote:Once again, I am right.

It looks like Steve you've perhaps placed a little too much credence in the all knowing polls.

The GOP is no longer necessary. They've become redundant. The GOP main players have yet again been undressed for the world to see.

And by the way, it's early. THE ONE will reach 325 electoral votes. What will be interesting is to see how bad he beats Blip Romney on the popular vote.

As I predicted long ago, Blip Romney is now a forgotten blip on the screen of history.