From The Market Ticker:
It’s anecdotal thus far, but I don’t believe it will remain that way for long.
I am getting repeated reports of large layoff actions, both pending and immediate. Some of these appear to be focused on the impact of Obamacare, some are small businesspeople who are simply quitting and closing up shop due to expected higher tax rates on a forward basis, and some are firms that were hanging on by the skin of their teeth that giving up the ghost.
Many of these folks appear to have held out a “last and final” hope that the Republicans would win and somehow change the dynamic. This was a foolish premise — indeed, foolish beyond words, as the Republicans are the party of funny money just as are the Democrats.
The game of funny money has reached its terminus.
There are a number of commentators who have said that based on this model in the market or that Bernanke should be running QE at a rate that is “$X”, where the rate he’s running today is “$X – Y” (that is, much smaller.) They’re missing something important — Bernanke is many things, including being an ideologue and self-deluded, but one thing he’s not is stupid.
The fact of the matter is that he knows full well that he has become the crutch upon which the US House and Senate can and have relied to evade their responsibility to produce any budget at all — say much less a balanced one.
h/t Tom R
