Presidential affect on markets....

[Kingwizz]

Sorry, I think this is a more appropriate place for this thread.

With Obama promising America that they will be foreign oil free within 10 years (& him seeming an honest bloke) & also being the 1/2 favourite for being the next president (or in terms of true value I would say he has around a 60% chance of winning). Is it time to speculate on the price of oil in the assumption that the price will fall through the floor & send Dubai back into the stone age?

I hope I haven't missed the band wagon here & this factor of-course may already be priced into the market, still in any case I think I'm going to go ahead & sell (Well I already have). On top of the fact that the completion of these massive projects in Dubai are still completely reliant on oil, & if Obama manages to avoid assasination then the time for all things emirates has come to an end.

I know that this must be completely obvious to most traders & in-fact I have already taken my position. Still would be an interesting to see what others think of the electorial run on the markets.........

 

[Free_to_Trade]

Sorry, I think this is a more appropriate place for this thread.

With Obama promising America that they will be foreign oil free within 10 years (& him seeming an honest bloke) & also being the 1/2 favourite for being the next president (or in terms of true value I would say he has around a 60% chance of winning). Is it time to speculate on the price of oil in the assumption that the price will fall through the floor & send Dubai back into the stone age?

I hope I haven't missed the band wagon here & this factor of-course may already be priced into the market, still in any case I think I'm going to go ahead & sell (Well I already have). On top of the fact that the completion of these massive projects in Dubai are still completely reliant on oil, & if Obama manages to avoid assasination then the time for all things emirates has come to an end.

I know that this must be completely obvious to most traders & in-fact I have already taken my position. Still would be an interesting to see what others think of the electorial run on the markets.........

I am not at all convinced that he will win. Another Georgia type or a terrorist event will sink him. Many people do not trust him. He is a product of the corrupt Daley Chicago political machine and really only became a senator because his original opponent was involved in a sex scandal. He worked his way as a patronage worker and became an Illinois state senator because he worked in patronage with the sponsorship of Emil Jones -- and ran unopposed because he knocked his opponent's electoral petitions off of the ballot. And he never met a tax increase he didn't like.

Yes, he is young and eloquent. Honest, I don't think so. He was supposed to be "above" racism, but encourages that in his own community by calling anybody who disagrees with him "racist". He claims to "abhor" statements his radical supporters make -- but he doesn't exactly disavow them.

Finally I am afraid with the huge financial damage to our markets that these many moves have had, and the virtual "nationalization" of the finance industry in the US, increased government regulation will only appeal to Obama's socialist tendencies.
Could the SEC merge with the CFTC and hugely raise required margins? Will that cause the complete "offshoring" of the futures and forex businesses? Would the CME literally die because of over-regulation?

Europeans seem to love him -- but they loved John Carey, too. That only reduces his standing in the US. If he lost, he would try to claim that his race prevented him from winning. But people seem to forget that there are quite a few very influential and important African Americans here. I would vote for a conservative African American in a heartbeat if I thought his views reflected my own.

Market affects of Obama? Much higher inflation. We would be unable to do more drilling, so ethanol production would likely increase, further driving up food prices.
Oil and metals prices are going down (LT), not because of anticipated price action, but rather because we might enter a period of a prolonged slowdown. And taxes be hugely increased to pay for all sorts of things we cannot afford --- like governmental-provided medical care. Borrowing will increase so we will have higher rates. So in a nutshell, we will be at 1976 redux -- stagflation. Obama would be a Jimmy Carter.

I am not thrilled with McCain, either. He will also mean much more regulation. But if both legislative house re-elect democrats as is predicted, Americans historically are loath to allow all three branches of government be controlled by one party -- or the other. So I would not necessarily conclude that Obama will win necessarily.

I think Argentina might be a nice place to live. At least I wouldn't probably have police cameras on my corner as I do in Chicago! I'd go back to Capetown, but that might be like coming home to Chicago. We need freer markets and freer trade, in any case.

 

[Tenapenny]

FtT, From an American perspective, how do you think things would play out should McCain win, then not survive his term in office, putting Palin in the Oval Office?

 

[Free_to_Trade]

From my perspective, McCain would probably result in a milder form of what an Obama election would render.

I think the country has been "tricked" into believing that the investment banking and Wall St. types "caused" this financial crisis, Yet, from my view, packaging these toxic mortgage loans as highly levered components and then trading them as mortgage backed securities, was only the taking over of
being "short the butterfly wings" with little or no collateral. This is just another form of a big group getting stuck with the bad end of the inverse-floater market. It was as if nobody learned anything from the Orange County debacle in the 1980s.

The culprits were mortgage writers or brokers. And they were responding to the big push to provide
lower collateral requirements for lower income people -- bypassing the conventional 20 year fixed rate mortgage requiring 20% down. Interest-only loans and financing those who could not afford housing was a relatively new phenomenon. The effort was pushed through largely by our democratic congress. Wall St. was only the device that took on the heavy risk. So now we have entire empty subdivisions around cities like Las Vegas and Sacramento.

McCain claims to be a maverick, and he pushes through "populist" stuff. So he rails for increased regulation, as well.

As for Sarah Palin, are you so sure Obama knows much more about anything than Palin? Except for visiting Kenya, before Obama's recent trips to Europe and Iraq, he was largely untraveled as an adult. He can try to sound eloquent, but I can detect BS when I hear it. All politicians spew it. But Obama spews more of it. Having a grad degree from one place where Obama claims to have served as a "law professor", I know there were "limitations" to the extent of Obama's supposed genius.

Does Palin have a hell of a lot to learn? You bet. If McCain were president and died in office, her learning curve would be pretty steep. She doesn't have a grad degree. But she does run an 11 billion dollar economy and has many thousands of employees reporting to her. World leaders can be pretty nasty and tricky. But so can state politicians. How experienced was Margaret Thatcher? Or Golda Meier? Reagan? Or the jerk who currently runs Iran ? Compared to Obama, Palin has much more responsibility currently. She is definitely "plain speaking"... but that enhances her in many peoples' eyes because right now most everyone rails against the establishment -- of both parties -- which have failed us so miserably. Obama was a "fresh novelty". But now he's old-hat compared to Palin, I guess.

Winston Churchill wrote," the best argument against democracy is spending five minutes with the average voter". But what is the alternative to democracy???

"The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it."
-- Harry Browne


As for McCain's mortality, Reagan was over 80 when he left office. And, it is not necessarily the case that Vice Presidents are always nominated by their party for the lead at the campaign for the the next term.