Andrew Busch

Highly recommend people take the time to read this string. It’s why many voters felt that corruption was one of the major issues for them in the midterm elections.

Wondering what a Democrat-led Congress could do? Lot's of talk and ideas kicking around bordering on good to a please-don't kind.

@NYTopinion has their list. Some are good like making the AI models responsible for the havoc they could produce and building housing (not great, but adds to the ROAD to Housing Act).

The bad? How about the really bad: expanding the Supreme Court. Guess NYT doesn't understand history (FDR!) or the likely reprisals when/if Republicans take back control to do the same thing. Geez.

The others are performative like stopping Musk from making political contributions (BTW his choices lost) to creating an Affordability Act.

My own to dos would focus on 5:

1. Limit pardons to 5 per year.

2. Eliminate Congress from trading securities.

3. Investigate corruption on both sides of the aisle, but with a heavy focus where things smell the worst on quid pro quo policy or legislation.

4. If you want to do something about SCOTUS, do either an age limit (80) or a time limit (twenty-five years).

5. Take a hard look at either raising revenues, cutting spending or both. Trouble is coming for the next president with both Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds running out around 2032 or sooner. We've had too many politicians do nothing/make it worse with a bond market reckoning likely. At minimum, higher rates for longer.

Take a read and share your thoughts.

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Greg Ip (@greg_ip) is one of my favorites at WSJ. For those concerned that the blunami is going to produce far left policies, you may want to think again.

"The startling rise of candidates backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, both Democratic socialists, may leave the impression that the incoming Congress will be hellbent on a far-left agenda of wealth taxes, Medicare for All and a Green New Deal."

"Not so fast. Judging by the candidates who delivered their majorities, Democrats may be moving toward the center."

As an economist, the worst thing Dems could do would be to try to reverse all of the positive economic policy by the Trump administration (yes, there are some) & increase uncertainty for US businesses.

We'll see if Schumer and Jefferies can surf the blunami wave without wiping out.

BTW, I'm putting together my outlook on the election and it's impact on the economy, policy & markets. Will send after some of the House races finish and dust settles.

wsj.com/politics/elect…

Midterms on Tuesday! This will be one of the largest turnouts in our history of midterm elections.

Hard to say how it will turn out, but there's a significant amount of polling suggesting a "blue wave." Maybe, but let's see if the traditional "red wave" of voting on election day materializes.

Here's a great article on "be careful what you wish for" on Republicans redistricting prior to 2026 to make 15 districts red. It appears to be backfiring especially in TX.

"But the GOP failed to calculate a few things — like the impact of Trump’s tariffs, or his war with Iran or the negative pull of the administration’s aggressive ICE raids and immigration crackdowns on Latino families. They also didn’t consider the backlash from Black voters angry about erasing the congressional districts that had given voice to their communities for decades."

Yes, not sure why Rs thought Hispanics would continue to support them given the Trump administration's aggressive immigration policies. Go figure.

Last lines to the article point out the might-have-beens for Rs had Trump focused on affordability.

"Imagine what the landscape would have looked like if Trump put his political capital into a more popular agenda instead of new maps."

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Zandi and his team are gifted economists. I continue to enjoy their podcast and have been an active listener since 2025.

But they have been overly pessimistic and questioned the strength of the economy over that rime frame.

Could they or he be right now?

Q3 GDP running over 3% and both manufacturing & services pmis solidly above 50.

If Zandi is going to be correct, it’ll happen much later in 2027 due to the forward economic momentum.