Obama's Re-election

This is the most seminal piece of news in 2 years regarding the presidential race. From Bloomberg this morning about the monthly non-farm payroll numbers:

U.S. stocks advanced, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average toward its highest level since May 2008, after a report showed that employment growth topped estimates and the jobless rate unexpectedly fell to 8.3 percent.

[snip]

"Spectacular," Ron Florance, managing director of investment strategy for Wells Fargo Private Bank, said in a telephone interview from Phoenix. His firm manages $169 billion. "It's a very, very strong jobs number. It shows that companies have confidence that they see global demand growth through their products and services. The numbers indicate continued economic strength. That will support risk assets."

It's about the unemployment number, stupid. Not Gingrich's three wives, not Romney's 16 summer homes, not FOX News' high ratings number. Only one number matters.

Is everything fixed?  Hardly, but presidential elections wrest on economic pain or lack thereof and we are much better off than Jan 2009 when we were in free fall.  Can we really forget the President of the United States saying something like "This Sucker Could Go Down" so easily? What do you think Bush meant by that?

Structural difficulties exist in the job market, but they are structural, ie, they've been percolating for a generation and will take a generation to fix. We haven't trained enough technicians and engineers; we haven't addressed our escalating health care and defense costs, but on the whole the last 39 months have seen an unwinding of the certain disaster the world faced when President Obama took office.

Has Obama done everything exactly the way I would have? Hardly. There is no way I would have been as civil under the circumstances we faced. The constant inane drumbeat of questions about his citizenship, his faith, his patriotism, his alleged socialism, his appeasement of terrorists, etc.  It has been like he's the Dad of a huge dysfunctional family gone bankrupt, screaming for toy guns and Happy Meals while he struggles to make sure everyone is healthy and educated. 

There is a long way to go, no question, and we may not make it. The problems in this country--and the world-- are serious. We need serious people to address them.  As long as al Qaeda isn't patrolling our city streets , nothing matters in the US Presidential election more than the US economy, and the main indicator we look at--right or wrong-- is the unemployment rate. It's lower, the market is improved. 

Obama will be re-elected. 

Now turn off the TV and help your kids with their math homework.


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h/t to Jim Ku for the cartoon:

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