Gyroscopic Investing

Leaving aside politics and ideology I would like to make the observation based on my lifetime of experience that the worse possible outcome of a presidential election in regards to the economy and the overall well-being of the country is for one party to gain complete control of the government, whether it be Republicans or Democrats.

Some of the best economic years I remember were during the Clinton administration after a Republican congress was swept to power.

On the other extreme, the election of Bush in 2000 along with control of both houses of congress turned out to be a disaster.

I therefore propose that the best possible outcome of the the 2012 election is for Obama to retain the presidency and Republicans to gain control of both houses of congress.

I completely agree with the split party control of the government.

The more barriers to governmental action that we have in place, the better.

I can see that point, but we have a one-time shot to repeal Obamacare before it takes effect.  Before it becomes permanent and politically untouchable.

Xan wrote: I can see that point, but we have a one-time shot to repeal Obamacare before it takes effect.  Before it becomes permanent and politically untouchable.

I think replacing Obamacare with RomneyCare is a crapshoot.  In case you forgot, Romney was the owner of the health insurance mandate before Obama came along.

Romney said his first act as president would be to send carriers to the gulf to prepare for war with Iran so you have to factor this into the overall cost/benefit analysis, whether he means it or not. Personally, I think that would be a disaster and Obama would probably handle the Iran situation better, especially since he won't have to worry about republican criticisms for being "weak" in his second term.

On a strictly moral basis, if you want to think in those terms, I think the body count of innocent civilians killed would probably be less under Obama than Romney though there is no guarantee. Whatever party or ideology they claim to represent they seem to be controlled by forces none of us really understand.

Just like Obama gave us almost none of the "change" that he campaigned on, I'll bet we wouldn't get much follow-through from Romney either.

Obamacare is just one of those truly bad pieces of legislation.  Whether you are in favor of a dramatic overhaul of the health care system or not, I just think that this law is terrible.  Perhaps the Supreme Court will do us all a favor and strike the whole thing down and some future President and Congress can try again, hopefully with more of a national consensus on the best way to go. 

My professional work involves discussions with employers regarding health plan design, and I can tell you that many employers simply see it as an opportunity to cut their health care costs by shifting more costs to employees in a variety of ways and blaming it on Obamacare, or just getting out of the health plan business altogether, paying the penalties and moving on.  According to Obamacare backers, none of these things were supposed to happen, and yet from my perspective it was painfully obvious that all of this was going to occur.

Overall, my assessment of Obama is that he is a reasonably well-intentioned and intelligent guy who found himself in a job that was dramatically beyond his political experience and thus he has been outfoxed by the Republicans in Congress at almost every turn.

As far as Romney goes, I think he would do anything and say anything to be President.  I don't think he gives an oink about much of anything except his own ambition and desire to summit the mountain that his father tried to climb and failed.  As President, however, I think Romney would probably be about like Herbert Hoover, trying to please everyone and ultimately pleasing almost no one.  Note that Hoover was our last President who campaigned on the idea that his executive experience in the private sector would make him a good President, just like Romney is doing now.  One of the things that is weird to me is how few people there seem to be who are true Romney supporters, as opposed to true Obama opposers.  I've actually never met one person who struck me as truly excited by Mitt Romney.  But then again, it was sort of like this back in 1988 when there weren't many true George Bush fans that I was aware of, but he was still elected President.

I think that one of the things that makes our Presidents in modern times such shallow and weak people is that when you are forced to speak in sound bites long enough you probably can't help but start thinking in sound bites as well.

MediumTex wrote:
I think that one of the things that makes our Presidents in modern times such shallow and weak people is that when you are forced to speak in sound bites long enough you probably can't help but start thinking in sound bites as well.

My pet theory is that modern polling and political focus group techniques has ruined leadership. Presidential candidates are not selected by their parties based on their experience but on favorability ratings. Underlings regularly test even the smallest campaign phrases based on what gets the most traction, and coach candidates/presidents to repeat stupid and meaningless slogans that test well.  Sadly, presidents elected under this system become so self aware that they're more actors than leaders. 

MT,

Whilte that's a pretty good description of Obama, I'd hardly say he's being "outfoxed" by congress... maybe it depends on what the fox's ultimate goals are, but if it's something beyond making buffoonish accusations and a few years of obstruction before they're voted out, I'd hardly describe their strategy as fox-like. Their approval rating is about 13%.  I think they've pushed some of their talking points so far to the right that they made Romney have to compete and comply with those positions, and are going to make him loook utterly foolish now in the general election... they're probably the biggest reason he'll lose.

Further, Obama really didn't design much of HC reform... it was almost completely handled by the dems in congress (and the republicans backing away from what they used to favor as opposed to single payer, into calling it a takeover).  I think it's a bit of a mess myself, but employers are covering employees less and less because they, in general, have the bargaining power to do so.  This is something, I believe, that falls much more into the realm of the relative collapse of the middle class & unions, as well as the effects of globalization.

The last 12 years have made me question a lot of things.  I wonder if we apologized and admitted it was all a mistake... and we asked very nicely... would the British take us back?

MT, you said "Overall, my assessment of Obama is that he is a reasonably well-intentioned..."

I'm curious what gives you this impression.

In regards to Obamacare, our small business policy comes up for renewal in July.  We found out last week that we have a 53% increase in premiums. We had some demographic shifts that would account for some of that increase, but our broker said that 25-80% annual increases is the norm for this year. 

Obamacare didn't even really solve the main problems with health care, and certainly didn't help control costs.

murphy_p_t wrote: MT, you said "Overall, my assessment of Obama is that he is a reasonably well-intentioned..."

I'm curious what gives you this impression.

I don't know, I guess I always assume that naive idealists are well-intentioned.

I may be wrong.

I would go along with split government if one half were Republicans and the other half were Tea Party members.