The Liberty Papers

Before the conventions, the election was looking pretty decently to be in Obama’s hands according to Intrade, with him predicted about 60% likely to win (which was higher than Bush was predicted in 2004). After the conventions, though, I remarked how shocked I was to see the numbers come to a dead heat.

Comparing my analysis to that of the financial world, I consider myself more of a “fundamentals” guy than a “technician”. I thought it was pretty clear that the country was pretty well sick of Bush, less than impressed by McCain, and that a significant number of people would be swindled by false promises of a new hopey-changey paradigm. So I was not surprised to see Obama trending at 60% before the election.

I was surprised to see the numbers over the last few weeks, though. Intrade’s current contract has Obama trading just over 80%. Their state-by-state analysis predicts he’ll win 364 electoral votes compared to McCain’s 174.

Now, a technician with a greater understanding of futures markets would probably state that those numbers will trend closer to parity between now and the election, and I don’t disagree. But I trust prediction markets a lot more than polls, and I think it’s pretty darn clear which way this one is going to end up. And to make it worse, they predict slightly over a 90% chance for each house of Congress being retained by the Democrats.

I’ve said before that I don’t believe that either McCain nor Obama would be a positive force for liberty. But things appear to be lining up about as negative as they can go. All that in the middle of what appears to be a financial meltdown of history-making proportions, and I have my own prediction for America over the next decade.

We’re screwed.