re: #45 Talking Point Detective

Skew this pole, mothefuckers.

Aw gee. I’ve been predicting the same as Nate Silver all along. (Not that I’m smarter or better informed. I just figure he’s smarter or better informed, so I’ll go with his predictions and those of the election betting markets.)

Now, we get to see whether this next four years will be any improvement on the last four. My predictions:

(1) Economically, yes. The economy has some native resilience and that will make itself felt. Fracked natural gas may not be good for the environment, (it’s less bad than coal, anyhow) but it won’t be banned and cheap fuel won’t hurt the year-by-year economic stats. The de-facto ban on coal will be moot. With any luck, by the time the gas runs low, we can have a lot of wind and solar up and running. But that’s all for later, decades later probably.

(2) Socioeconomically, no. The hollowing out of the economy will continue. The top 20% will gather up most of what economic gains there are. The working poor will find full time jobs much harder to get, courtesy of the insurance mandates of Obamacare. If an employee is just part-time, the company doesn’t have to offer health coverage. The coverage mandated is hugely expensive relative to entry-level middle class jobs, which makes it hugely more expensive to hire moderate-wage workers to full time positions. But that’s not the only reason. Educationally, the nation is also hollowing out. We have good universities, some good private and charter schools, a few good public school systems, and an enormous mass of dysfunctional public school systems. Any chance of reforming the latter went out the window.

(3) Militarily, yes. The war in Iraq is over. The war in Afghanistan will wind down, the Taliban will take it back, and we will shrug. It’ll be over. Our technology will improve, our soldiers will get a break from long tours of duty, and the money now going to operations can go to readiness and innovation.

(4) Fiscally, no. The new taxes Obama will get, and he can get them just by driving us over the fiscal cliff if the Republicans don’t blink, will not begin to cover the spending rate he’s already put in place. There will be inflation, our bonds will be downgraded, and the interest rate the nation must pay will rise.

It’s hard to be insouciant about this scorecard. Item (2) is a downer. Item (4) was looking to materialize in some form whoever won. But opinions can differ over whether all this will come to pass. We shall see.