White House

• Obama First Since FDR Re-Elected With 7.9% Joblessness (Bloomberg)
• China Party Meets to Anoint Next Leader (WSJ)
• Hu Sets China Income Target for Xi as Communists Gather (Bloomberg)
• Hu Jintao dashes hope for political reform (FT)
• Spain Sells $6 Billion Debt, Placing Longest Bond Since 2011 (Bloomberg)
• Japanese Politicians Move to Steer Away From Fiscal Cliff (Bloomberg)
• Hu says graft threatens state, party must stay in charge (Reuters)
• Weidmann in Defeat Still Influences ECB Bond-Buying Plan (Bloomberg)
• Spain Said to Consider Palace Sales to Raise Cash (Bloomberg)
• First-term headwinds look set to turn (FT)
• Focus Shifts to 'Fiscal Cliff' (WSJ)
• Obama Victory Paves Way to Continue Fed Policies (Hilsenrath)
• Swiss, Greeks Begin Talks on Tax Deal (WSJ)

Memo to the Arab World: Good news and bad news with the re-election of Barack Obama to the White House. The good news is that a victory by the Republican candidate Mitt Romney would have given Israel and its current leadership a free hand at continuing a policy of arrogance that will lead the region towards greater mayhem. On the other hand, with Obama in the Oval Office, don’t expect anything drastically different to happen in the Middle East in so far as US involvement goes. And if Obama’s acceptance speech is anything to judge by, where his only mention of anything related to foreign affairs was a reference to "freeing ourselves from foreign oil," it seems obvious that the Obama administration will want to focus on solving domestic issues. At the end of the day these are issues that matters most to the average American who would rather not have to worry about the Middle East and terrorism – that is until they come knocking at our doors as they did on September 11, 2001.

Of all the hollow and uninspired elections that this country has suffered through over the past several decades, one might think that at some point long ago the American public would have finally struck a plateau of disenfranchisement; that we could sink no further into despondency, that there is a saturation limit to the corruption of our voting process.  Unfortunately, there has been no such luck.  We have to say that in all honesty we have never seen more people gut jumbled and disgusted with our electoral system than we have in 2012. In 2012, it will not be about voting.  It will not be about “winning”.  It will not even be about getting to the next election.  It will be about survival. We're sorry to say that the idea that one man will do less damage than the other is a naïve sentiment.  Democrat?  Republican?  Obama?  Romney?  The crimes and calamities wrought will be exactly the same.  Take a look into our crystal ball and see the future.  Here is how the winner will destroy America.

Ahead of today's presidential and congressional elections, Goldman provides some brief thoughts on various election-night (and beyond) events. From a viewer's guide to the poll-closing times to a discussion of the apparent 'closeness' of the race and post-election market performance, they note that equity performance post 'tight' races has been better than in elections where the winner is more clear-cut. This election has a twist though in that it will be immediately followed by debate on the fiscal cliff, and thus resolution of the election will reduce, but not eliminate policy uncertainty.

Tired of pundits with black boxes and book deals telling you the election is a done deal because some statistically-sampling, biased, Garbage In, Garbage Out model "said so" (remember when the same GIGO logic made every structured piece of toxic RMBS toxic be rated AAA simply because the rating agency models couldn't account for the improbable case of real estate prices actually going down?) Then decide for yourselves. With 48 hours left until polls close, below are the 512 permutating paths available to the two candidates on their way to the White House throne (assuming the other states vote the way they are "expected"). And with the election having crossed far beyond mere theatrical tragicomedy and now well into NCAA finals knock out fever, one can see why Florida and Ohio are really all the matter.

Mitt Romney has a credibility problem. He changes his beliefs like laundry (abortion, medical insurance, whether Bin Laden was worth killing, attacking Iran), refuses to disclose his tax returns, and won't explain how he could possibly pay for the tax cuts he proposes. But there is another scandal in Romney's campaign -- namely Glenn Hubbard, Romney's chief economic advisor, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under George W. Bush, and is now Dean of Columbia Business School. I interviewed Hubbard for my documentary film Inside Job, and analyzed his record again for my book Predator Nation. The film interview became famous because Hubbard blew his cool after I interrogated him about his conflicts of interest: "This isn't a deposition, sir. I was polite enough to give you time, foolishly I now see, but you have three more minutes. Give it your best shot." But the really important thing about Hubbard isn't his personality; it's that as an economist and an advisor, he is a total, unmitigated disaster.

It would be easy for me to dismiss Obama supporters as mentally defective but for one inconvenient fact: my mother, sharp as a tack at 92, is voting for him. And so is my sister, a San Francisco attorney who is no slouch in the brains department.  I’m not sure where my brother, a municipal employee, stands, but neither am I eager to find out. There is no bridging the political gap between us, and so we simply avoid discussing politics.  The same goes for old friends, although newer ones are another matter.  One of them walked out on our dinner together in a huff when an innocuous remark I’d made about Abe Lincoln evidently bruised his self-righteously liberal, morally perfect heart . Good riddance. It is far better friends than he that I am worried about. Will they draw the line when I let slip my support for the right to bear arms, even concealed?

First, The Economist, now the man who owns the terminal that global finance uses each day to chat with one another, and occasionally to check the real time price of ESZ2 (if certainly not quite as much this year, and last, as desired). Mike Bloomberg's driving catalyst to chose the way he did? Climate change. Because to some it is the economy, to others: the number of cloudless sunny days in St Barts. The question for employees of Bain now: do they immediately disconnect their BBG terminals, or wait until next Wednesday.

And for a second there we thought financial publications were supposed to at least pretend they are impartial. It appears that is not the case. Now we eagerly await to learn whom Playboy, the National Enquirer, and TMZ endorse...

A cyber attack does not have to be limited to a single country and its networks.  It could be used to strike multiple countries and fuel a global firestorm of systems failures.  Globalists need a macro-crisis, a world-wide catastrophe, in order to present their “global solution” to the desperate masses. This solution will invariably include more dominance for them, and less freedom for us.  A global crisis can also be used to manipulate various cultures to forget concerns of sovereignty and think in terms of one-world action.  Surely, a worldwide breakdown can only be solved if we “all work together and all think alike”, right...? Without a doubt, a cyber attack serves the interests of elitist entities and banking monstrosities like nothing else in existence.  Set off a nuke, start WWIII, turn the U.S. dollar into stagflationary dust; a cyber attack tops them all, because a cyber attack can lead to them all while maintaining deniability for the establishment.  The fact that whispers of cyber threats have turned into bullhorn blasted propaganda should concern us all.  Are we being conditioned for a cyber event in the near future?  That remains to be seen.  However, none of us should be surprised if one does occur, especially in light of the many gains involved for globalists, and all of us should be ready to dismantle and expose any lies surrounding the event before the American public is whipped into a 9/11 style frenzy yet again

Since it would appear that QEternity has ostensibly failed in its main goal of pushing the stock market higher (and mortgage rates lower), the White House seems to be scrambling. Obama administration officials have concluded that the economy, while improved (apparently), is still fragile enough to warrant another bout of stimulus. The same old kitchen sink is being thrown at the problem as they are now resorting to the same fiscal stimulus that has also failed time and time again (as we noted here). As WaPo strawmans reports the White House is discussing the idea of a tax cut that it believes will lift American's take-home pay and boost a still-struggling economy (citing people familiar with the administration's thinking). This is Keynesian-based Einsteinian madness at its very best.

The 2012-2013 election season is exceptional, with more than 100 elections in economies accounting for approximately 60% of global GDP. So far, Goldman notes that markets have navigated through elections in Russia, Egypt, Greece, France, Mexico and Venezuela, among others. The closely watched Presidential election in the US will take place shortly, followed by the culmination of the political transition in China. Later on, markets will see countries like Italy, Iran, and Japan go to the ballots too. This extraordinary election season brings several questions to the forefront: Why are elections important market events? What are the main factors affecting that market-driving impact and its seasonality? And which states are key? Critically, Goldman finds that a divided government has on average produced considerably tighter fiscal policy - not a good sign for the Keynesians.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? aka Obama Activates Skynet

Before the campaign contributors lavished billions of dollars on their favorite candidate; and long after they toast their winner or drink to forget their loser, Wall Street was already primed to continue its reign over the economy. For, after three debates (well, four), when it comes to banking, finance, and the ongoing subsidization of Wall Street, both presidential candidates and their parties’ attitudes toward the banking sector is similar  – i.e. it must be preserved – as is – at all costs, rhetoric to the contrary, aside. Obama hasn’t brought ‘sweeping reform’ upon the Establishment Banks, nor does Romney need to exude deregulatory babble, because nothing structurally substantive has been done to harness the biggest banks of the financial sector, enabled, as they are, by entities from the SEC to the Fed to the Treasury Department to the White House.