Recently by Gary North: ‘We’re Flying Blind,’ Admits Federal Reserve President
If your answer is “not much,” then the election was peripheral. It really did not matter.
My suggestion: never take seriously the pre-election hype in any future election. Don’t watch the polls; watch Intrade betting. Don’t post comments on Facebook except to show your amusement at all the hype.
On the other hand, if your plan now is to prepare for a collapse, then you were right to be concerned. You are now going to put your money – most of your liquid capital – where your mouth was. You are consistent.
If you are somewhere in the middle, you are like the polls: “within the statistical margin of error.”
I will make no changes in my life based on Obama’s victory. That is because he is boxed in.The House is solidly Republican. The Senate Democrats cannot get a 60-vote majority to shut off a filibuster.
Washington is headed for gridlock. This is good. This is not a dysfunctional government. A dysfunctional government passes lots of laws. The laws are almost always bad laws. Then the federal bureaucracy interprets and implements these laws in the Federal Register. What little that might have been good gets bad. A gridlocked government is the best we can hope for. That was true last year, too. It was true in 1955. It was true especially in 1913.
If my assessment is accurate, then the election of 2012 was not “the election of the last century.” The election of 1964 was important, and it was a rout for Goldwater. The most important election since 1896 was in 1904. Who can recall the name of the Democrat who lost – the last “Clevelandite,” meaning the end of the Old Democracy? That defeat changed America as no election ever since did. That election gave us Wilson, Roosevelt, and Johnson.
The day after a Presidential election is like the day after the Super Bowl. The hype is over. Life goes on as before for most people.
My suggestion: start making major changes in your life’s plan. Make them in terms of reality: the unfunded present value of future federal liabilities: $222 trillion.
November 8, 2012
Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com. He is also the author of a free 31-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible.
Copyright © 2012 Gary North
