I have been writing about the Republican presidential race quite a bit, particularly since Ron Paul is making big waves and drawing a lot of attention.  This blog is “Libertarian Investments” and I have been paying a little less attention to the economy and investments due to my extra attention on politics.  Today, I am going to try to tie together the issues.

So what does the presidential race mean for the economy and your investments?

First, let’s talk probability.  Even though Ron Paul is doing really well, his chances are still relatively low for actually winning the presidency.  Right now, I would give Obama an almost 50% chance of being re-elected.  Since Romney has the best chance of being the Republican nominee, I would give him about a 40% chance of being elected president.  The remaining 10% goes to Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, or some wild card in the case of an unexpected event or late entrant.

If Obama, Romney, Gingrich, or anyone else other than Ron Paul wins the election, I don’t see much short-term change.  (I am assuming that a third-party candidate does not win.)  There really won’t be much of a difference between Romney and Obama.  Romney will, of course, pander to his Republican base more, but the policies won’t be much different.

Gingrich or Santorum might actually be worse if they are crazy enough to start a major war with Iran.  But then again, Romney or Obama might be just as crazy.  Who would have thought in 2000 that George W. Bush would start 2 major wars and be a huge spender?  It is hard to imagine now that Al Gore would have been any worse.  If Gore had been elected (or had won a recount), it might have been better with more opposition to big government policies coming from the Republican side.

If Ron Paul somehow manages to get the Republican nomination and go on to win the presidency, then that would be the one scenario that changes everything.  It would mean an end to the wars.  It would probably mean a drastic cut in spending.  While the Congress has to pass the spending bills, a President Paul could veto anything and force a super majority to pass spending bills.  In addition, just by him being elected, it would mean a major shift in the attitude of the country.  It would mean there would be massive pressure on Congress to drastically scale back government.

So what would a President Paul mean for your investments?  It would probably mean a quick and deep recession to start off.  This would be the cleansing needed.  It would mean a return to prosperity.  Ironically, the one investment that would probably do really poorly would be gold, along with other commodities.  The Fed would be in hiding mode and would hopefully stop the high monetary inflation.  The initial deep recession would drive down asset prices.  Oil would also likely go down, depending on what happens in the Middle East when U.S. troops head home.

There could be some analogies with the 1980’s when Reagan became president.  But interest rates and price inflation were really high when Reagan was inaugurated and the Fed had already started tightening.  Of course, Ron Paul would be a completely different president than Reagan because his policies would match his words.  Reagan talked a good game about small government, but did not actually implement much to reflect this.

If Ron Paul is not elected, then it would be wise to continue defensive positions with an emphasis on inflation hedges such as gold and oil.  We can count on more war, more big spending, and more monetary inflation.

I am a long-term optimist, particularly now with all of the support pouring out for Ron Paul from young people.  But regardless of who is elected next November, there will be short-term pain.  It is almost unavoidable due to the huge spending and huge monetary inflation that has already taken place.  The best we can hope for at this point is for the attitude of the overall population to continue to head in the direction of liberty.  We can deal with some short-term pain if we have something to look forward to in the future.

The Republican race has moved to South Carolina.  There was a debate last night (Monday) and there will be another one on Thursday.  The voting will be on Saturday.

The Monday night debate was bizarre.  There were definitely a lot of attacks on Mitt Romney.  With there only being five candidates left on stage, you would think that the candidates would get a lot of time and a lot could be revealed in two hours.  But we are talking about Fox News.  While perhaps not as bad as CBS and PBS, they still only managed to ask one question to Ron Paul in the first 35 minutes of the debate.

The crowd was also rowdy with a lot of cheers and boos.  It was mostly annoying.

It was also annoying when Ron Paul was asked about the killing of Osama bin Laden.  He was trying to answer, but he kept getting interrupted.  But the interruptions were not from the other candidates.  They were coming from the Fox News moderators of the debate.  Paul made a comparison to Saddam Hussein, saying that he was captured and at least had some kind of a trial.  Paul was interrupted by Bret Baier (with his smugness) telling Paul that he didn’t support the Iraq War.  Hey Baier, you moron, that wasn’t his point.  That is a different subject.  You can’t understand that Paul was just saying that bin Laden could have been captured without being killed (if that is what actually happened)?

Then there was the topic of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which has provisions which suggest that American citizens on American soil can be detained for terrorist activity by the military and be detained indefinitely without trial.  While I find it just as outrageous that it is done to foreigners, this is obviously a horrible law.

Romney said that he supported the NDAA and that he expects Obama will not abuse it and he said that he will not abuse it as president.  Romney basically said that the legislation is ok because Americans can trust him and Obama not to abuse any power.  Hey Romney, if that is the case, then why not just advocate repealing it?  Even the crazy Santorum couldn’t defend this thing.

One of the things that Harry Browne liked to point out was a quote by Michael Cloud.  He said that the abuse of power is not the problem.  The problem is the power to abuse.  This goes to the whole point here.  The NDAA may not be used for any bad purposes for the next decade, but it is putting in place a power that will eventually be used by bad politicians for bad purposes.

Should we just give Romney power because he says that we can trust him?  Romney’s answer to that one question completely disqualifies him for being president (in case you had any doubt).  If he thinks that is the way government should operate, then it shows that he himself is a total thug who should never be trusted with any power at all (not that I would really trust anyone with power over others).

There was some entertaining back-and-forth between Paul and Santorum.  When Paul was asked about running negative ads, it was funny to hear him say that he wished he could have had longer than a minute in his commercial to expose all of the big government policies that Santorum had supported.

Then there was a bizarre exchange on gun control.  Santorum said that he supported federal gun control legislation as a “compromise”.  Yeah, that’s exactly what we need in the White House.

Then Santorum accused Ron Paul of being anti-2nd amendment because he did not support a law protecting manufacturers from lawsuits.  Paul explained that it was a jurisdiction issue.  He explained that tort law like this should be handled at a state level.  So Santorum ignored everything he said and repeated his claim that Paul is against the 2nd amendment.  Santorum was either demagoguing the issue or he is simply too dumb to understand Paul’s position on this.

Overall, I don’t think many minds were changed on Monday night.  People who love Paul will still love him.  Most of those who don’t like him will probably continue to not like him after last night.

While I think Gingrich is full of it, I think he had a stronger appeal than Santorum in the debate.  For that, I think Gingrich will emerge as the third candidate.  I had been leaving the door open for Perry because it is harder to criticize his record and because he has had significant financial backing.  However, it turns out that Perry is a complete moron who debates about as well as the last president from Texas.

My prediction for South Carolina is that Perry finishes last and drops out of the race.  Santorum will not be far behind.  Then we will have a three-way race between Romney, Paul and Gingrich.  Stay tuned.

Last week, I wrote a post on Robert Murphy (who I regard highly) and his discussions on the national debt.  I may have a rare disagreement with Murphy on this topic and I wanted to add a few points to this.

Murphy gave an example of consuming apples.  He was trying to show that future generations pay for the excesses of current generations.  But the last person on the chart was really just paying at the expense of the person right before.

The interesting thing about the example is that you could not save any apples for the future.  If you could, that may have actually given a better argument for Murphy to use.  If there is only a given amount of wealth at one particular time and it doesn’t even have the potential to increase over time, how can one generation benefit at the expense of another generation unless it is two generations that live during the same time?

If you can’t carry any wealth into the future, then how can someone living in the year 1900 consume something at the expense of someone living in the year 2000?

Murphy’s example is like a Ponzi scheme.  You will only enter into it if you think you can sucker the next group of people behind you into it.  If someone (in this case a whole generation) says “no”, then the scheme is over and the last people to buy into it are the losers.

What would happen if the U.S. government just defaulted on the whole national debt right now?  Would we still say that future generations would have to pay for the debt?  If there is a default, then no future person has to pay anything.  It is the people currently holding the bonds who have to pay.  They were the last suckers to pay up who couldn’t get another buyer behind them.  It is like people who bought real estate in 2006 in a hot market.  It came to a point where they could not find one more person after them to buy the house at a still higher price.

As I said in the last post, Murphy’s original instincts were correct.  The national debt does place a burden on future generations, but not because they necessarily have to pay for anything.  The burden is placed on them because there is less development in technology and capital investment than if there had been no national debt.

The real problem with the huge national debt is the massive government spending.  If the government could not borrow all of this money (or create it out of thin air with the Fed), then it would be forced to cut back spending.  Government spending automatically misallocates resources.  This misallocation leads to less growth and less advancement, and that is where future generations “pay”.

The national debt  hurts us right here and right now.  The massive government spending is one of the reasons for the high unemployment and weak economy.  It misallocates resources and it is preventing a proper correction of the previously misallocated resources.  It is taking capital away from the free market economy.

We should worry about the national debt and government spending.  We should not just worry about it because of our future grandchildren, we should worry about it because of everyone living right now.

When Rick Perry entered the presidential race, he was instantly the front runner.  Then he had to show up at the debates.  He stumbled a bit and the other candidates beat up on him and his record (and rightly so in most cases).  Some of his not-so-conservative record from Texas was exposed.  He also has the problem of a Texas swagger and a Texas accent that remind people of George W. Bush.  Bush is not all that popular these days, even in the Republican Party.

Even though he fell dramatically in the polls, I still thought he had a chance to recover.  He raised a lot of money and still had a significant backing.

He should have hired me as his campaign manager (or someone like me because I wouldn’t have worked for the man because he is horrible and I am a Ron Paul supporter).  Nobody can turn him into a great debater, but if he had been given some good advice and taken it, he could have made a comeback.

This is what Perry should have said in the last couple of debates in New Hampshire.  It is also what he should say in the upcoming debates, but probably won’t.  He should say something like the following:

“If you like Ron Paul on domestic issues, then I am with you.  I agree with Ron Paul that we need to start eliminating departments and making big budget cuts.  As far as economic issues go, I am the closest one here to Ron Paul.  But I know some of you disagree with Ron Paul on foreign policy.  I don’t agree with him either.  I believe we need a military presence in the world to defend our vital interests.  If you are looking for the anti-Romney candidate, I am your man.  I agree with Romney to a great extent on foreign policy.  I do not agree with his economic agenda of Romneycare and keeping the status quo in Washington DC.  I am the best parts of Romney and Paul put together.  For all of you Tea Party conservatives out there who want a real fiscal conservative who is strong on national defense, please consider supporting my campaign.”

Some of this would be a lie.  He really isn’t close to Ron Paul on domestic issues.  But saying all of that would attract a lot of people in the Republican Party who are not Ron Paul supporters and who are uncomfortable with Romney (which is almost half the party).

Instead, Perry used the last couple of debates to say he would march back into Iraq and that we shouldn’t support Romney because he broke apart companies.  He also said that everyone else was an insider, including Ron Paul.  Have you ever heard such a ridiculous claim in your life?

Perry has continually messed up.  He coulda’ been a contender.

I am glad that Perry and much of his campaign staff are a bunch of fools.  He would have been a horrible president and he would have given fiscal conservatism a bad name.  At least with Obama messing things up, nobody can seriously claim that it is the fault of his capitalist policies.

Today, I am going to sum up my economic outlook for 2012 (from a libertarian perspective of course).  While I don’t like to make specific predictions, I do want to lay out some possibilities.

Nobody really knows what will happen with Europe.  Can the bureaucrats keep kicking the can down the road for a while longer?  Will Greece break apart from the European Union?  Will Greece decide to default on all of their debt?  Will any major European banks go under?  Will the European Central Bank bail out the major banks?  Will the Federal Reserve bail out major European banks?

These are all questions that are impossible to answer right now.  But even if there is a big event, the U.S. economy has seemed fairly immune.  There might be blips in the stock market.  There might be some fleeing from the Euro (which has actually helped the U.S. dollar).  But until something major happens there, it seems that the U.S. is on its own clock.

I still see a major fight right now between the forces of inflation and recession (or depression).  The Federal Reserve has tripled the adjusted monetary base since late 2008.  While prices are certainly going up at the grocery store, it is mild compared to what it could be.  Price inflation has been quite tame considering the massive monetary inflation.

I see two major reasons that price inflation has remained in check.  First, most of the new money created by the Fed has gone into banks and held as excess reserves.  The banks have not used fractional reserve banking for this new money.  Second, the depressed economy has led to a high demand for money.  Another way of saying this is that velocity is low.  The speed at which money changes hands has been slow.  People are uncertain about the economy and have cut back on their spending.  They are trying to pay down debt and build up cash balances.  This has had the equivalent effect of keeping prices down.

Regardless of the two points above, the monetary base has still tripled and it is almost impossible to keep prices down at this point.  Perhaps they could stay down in the electronic industry where technology is increasing at an exponential rate.  Perhaps housing prices will stay down due to the previous bubble.  But in most sectors, that money is going to leak out and cause price inflation.

In 2012, it would not surprise me to see a mini-boom occur.  This would be an artificial boom.  We have already seen stocks do well, with the Dow around 12,500.  This could very well be because of hot money.  Perhaps this is the first sign of money leaking into the system from QE2.

On the other hand, the Fed has been tight with new money since QE2 ended over 6 months ago.  With the adjusted monetary base being basically flat since then, we could see the economy tip the other way and head into another recession.  At that point, we would probably just see more money creation.

While I am bullish on gold for the longer term (5 or more years), I am more uncertain in the short term.  If we see a mini-boom cycle, then gold will most likely go much higher.  If we see the return of a recession, then I expect gold to go lower, at least until more money printing is announced.

Either way, there is more pain to come with the economy.  Even if we have a mini-boom cycle, it will eventually turn into severe price inflation or it will turn into a market crash.

There has been severe malinvestment in the economy.  The interference of the Fed and the federal government has caused huge distortions.  These were not allowed to correct in 2008 and after.  It has been made worse.  The market economy is trying to sort things out and properly reallocate resources, but the crazy laws and crazy monetary policy are not allowing it to happen.

Prepare for a continued roller coaster.

Judge Andrew Napolitano, the host of Freedom Watch, was a guest on Jon Stewart’s show (link is via LewRockwell.com).  I am a fan of Judge Napolitano, but I occasionally have my disagreements with him.

At about 3:25 into the video, Jon Stewart asks Napolitano about states’ rights.  Stewart says, “The federal government cannot infringe on your freedoms.  But apparently if the states do it, yeah, it’s ok.”  Napolitano answers Stewart by citing the 14th amendment, saying that it made the Bill of Rights apply to the states.

I’m not sure why, but Napolitano kept talking about how Republicans stand on the issue.  He should have been talking about libertarians, especially when Stewart framed the question that way.

I am not sure where to start on this, but I strongly disagree with Napolitano (and Stewart) in many ways.

First, I think the 14th amendment is a terrible amendment overall.  It was another thing done by the federal government to centralize power.  Perhaps there were good intentions with it, just as there were with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Perhaps portions of it were good.  But overall, it centralized power, regardless of the intentions (although I’m sure not all intentions were pure).

Napolitano says that the 14th amendment made the Bill of Rights apply to the states.  But that is just the way it has been interpreted by many courts, mostly to centralize power.  It is open to interpretation.  Many of the people who supported the 14th amendment did not intend for that to be its purpose.

Second, even if Judge Napolitano were completely correct about the amendment applying the Bill of Rights to the states, that still doesn’t answer the question.  Romneycare in Massachusetts has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights.  Go through the first 10 amendments.  There is nothing about healthcare.  It doesn’t say “Congress shall make no law regarding healthcare.”  Just on that alone, his argument fails.

Third, he really doesn’t answer the question in regards to jurisdiction.  Just because you don’t think the federal government has the authority to do something, it doesn’t mean that you have to agree or disagree with it.  I don’t think the federal government or U.S. Supreme Court should strike down Romneycare in Massachusetts, but that doesn’t mean that I think it is good policy.  I also don’t like it when the Chinese government infringes on property rights and freedom of speech in China, but that doesn’t mean I want the U.S. government to tell the Chinese government what to do.

It is hard to believe that a libertarian judge could not address the issue of jurisdiction (as well as decentralization) in regards to this question.  There are a lot of things that state and city governments do that I don’t agree with, but it doesn’t mean that I think the federal government should do anything about it, even if it were seemingly good.

In conclusion, I am still a fan of Freedom Watch and Judge Napolitano, but I am disappointed with his answer on states’ rights.

As I write this, the results are not final, but it is evident that Mitt Romney will win the New Hampshire primary.  Ron Paul will easily take second.  Jon Huntsman is third.  Gingrich and Santorum are essentially tied for fourth.  Perry gets last.

The two winners tonight are clearly Romney and Paul.  Huntsman certainly had a good showing, but it is hard to imagine him surging at this point, particularly with South Carolina being next.

The voters have somewhat soured on Gingrich and Santorum.  Everyone is talking about who the anti-Romney will be, but it doesn’t look like either one of them at this point.  Ron Paul is truly the anti-Romney, both in principle and in politics.  Gingrich and Santorum are just as much pro big government as Romney and the voters are starting to figure this out.  They just have some small government rhetoric that Romney doesn’t have.

Ron Paul is clearly the most likely person to challenge Romney at this point.  South Carolina will determine a lot.  Santorum, Gingrich, and Perry will be fighting it out just to stay alive.

The Paul campaign has basically said that they do not plan on spending a lot of money in Florida.  I think this is a wise move.  It lowers expectations there.  Paul is not likely to win Florida and the size of the state does not make it worth it.  He will focus on the smaller caucus states where he can win and also win significant numbers of delegates.  He certainly has a great chance at taking Nevada and some of the midwestern states.

Everyone is wondering why Paul has not gone on the attack against Romney the way he has against many of the other candidates.  I think one reason is, just as mentioned above, some of the other candidates pretend that they are these great fiscal conservatives and many people buy it.  Paul is simply exposing them for what they are.  When Romney talks about fiscal conservatism, nobody really believes him.  He has the backing of the establishment and Paul probably figures that he can more easily persuade people who are falling for Gingrich or Santorum.

To put this in context, Ron Paul received less than 8% in New Hampshire 4 years ago.  Paul and the entire libertarian movement have made great progress in such a short time span.  We should continue to be optimistic about the long-term future for liberty in America.

If you read Robert Murphy’s blog, he has had several posts on this one particular topic.  Paul Krugman originally made a claim that, essentially, the national debt does not matter because we owe it to ourselves.  Krugman does not think that increasing the national debt leaves a burden to our children.  Murphy was ready to defend Krugman in the sense that future generations do not actually pay off the national debt in terms of real wealth.  But then Murphy listened to a couple of people and had a revelation.  He now believes that future generations do pay for the debts being run up now.

In one of his latest posts (last time I checked), Murphy uses an example of consuming apples.  He assumes that, on average, a person can only consume 100 apples when they are young and 100 apples when they are old.  People can not save apples and use them in the future for their old age.  The number of apples don’t grow.  If someone consumes more than his share of 100 apples, then this is at the expense of someone else.

Murphy comes to the conclusion that future generations do pay for debts run up now.

I am not sure I completely agree with his assessment on this, unless I am misunderstanding something (which is possible because I have a high regard for Murphy as an economist).

I think a better analogy for the apples is the Social Security program.  If someone does not consume their full total of 100 apples in their young age, they expect to get more than 100 in their old age.  But this is a Ponzi scheme.  The first participants in the Social Security program received more than they originally put in.  At some point, somebody is going to have to get less than what they originally put in.

The last person in Murphy’s chart is the loser (Iris).  That person did not get to consume 100 apples while younger, but did not gain anything in old age.

But that person is not really paying off a national debt.  That  young person was paying for someone else’s excesses.  Basically, every generation depends on the next generation to keep the system going.  Once a generation says “no” or is simply unable to pay, then the generation before them will take the greatest loss.

The last person (both young and old) in Murphy’s chart (Iris) could have said “no” and not paid in her younger years.  This would have stiffed the second-to-last person on the chart (Hank).  If the second to last person on the chart had said “no” during his younger years, then it would have been the person just above him who would have taken a loss.  You can backtrack all the way up the chart.

The people who are getting stiffed the most right now from the national debt are the people who are working and paying taxes (or those holding money and having it devalued through inflation), but not receiving the benefits now or in the future.  They are giving up extra capital right now to pay for the national debt, but they will not receive that same amount of capital in return (not even including interest).

Now there is one way that future generations pay and Murphy already identified this in a previous book he had written.  With a higher national debt, the government is spending more and thus misallocating resources more.  This causes less savings, less investment, and less capital accumulation over time.  It leads to less technology being developed.  This all hurts future generations.

If the U.S., along with the rest of the world, had been socialist over the last couple hundred years, then we probably wouldn’t have many great things that we take for granted today.  We wouldn’t have big televisions and cell phones.  We certainly wouldn’t have iPads and digital cameras.  If things were really bad, we might not have air conditioning or even electricity.

In a society with strong property rights and relative free markets, there is economic growth that compounds over time.  Future generations benefit enormously from this.  In that sense, our future grandchildren are paying for the current national debt because of our lack of savings and capital investment today.

In conclusion, I’m not sure if I have a disagreement here with Murphy or not.  The last person on his chart certainly did pay at the expense of others.  But it was done in the younger years.  With Social Security, at some point the younger generation is going to say “no” to the older generation.  They will decide that they do not want to participate in the Ponzi scheme.  They will not be the ones paying.

At any given time, there is a certain amount of wealth.  Some of it can be saved and some of it cannot be saved (like milk) for the future.  We cannot consume wealth that hasn’t been produced yet.  We cannot consume the vegetables that will be grown thirty years from now.  What we can do is save less and invest less.  This might mean that there is less good machinery in the future and that they might not be able to grow as many vegetables in the future or that it will require more labor to grow vegetables than if there had been more capital investment.

I think Murphy’s original instinct was right.

There are two New Hampshire debates for the remaining Republican candidates.  One is tonight and one is tomorrow morning on Meet the Press.  If you are reading this, they may have already happened.  Then the big primary will happen on Tuesday.

I usually provide commentary after a debate.  I am doing it in reverse this time.  Personally, I will be flipping back and forth between the debate and football tonight.  I suspect there will be millions of others doing the same.  The Sunday morning debate may end up with higher ratings.  I will watch all of the Ron Paul clips on Youtube, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

If there is anything significant or game-changing in either debates, I will post an update on this post.  I expect that things will be similar to past debates.

I expect Romney will easily win the New Hampshire vote.  Ron Paul will probably take second, but it is possible that Jon Huntsman may slip in there.  It will actually be more significant to see how Gingrich, Santorum, and Perry finish compared to each other.

Do you know who the biggest loser in the Republican primaries is right now?  The answer is Tim Pawlenty.  Does anyone remember him?  He was the governor of Minnesota.  He was in the early debates.  He dropped out after finishing third in the Iowa straw poll back in August.  Bachmann was first and Paul was second.  It obviously meant very little, since Bachmann plummeted right after that.  Just about every candidate has had their day in the sun now.  Pawlenty may have gone up in the polls just by default at this point.

Perry made a good choice in not following in Pawlenty’s footsteps and not dropping out too early.  Michele Bachmann was done after Iowa (that was supposed to be her state) and she made a good choice dropping out.  Perry gave a head fake that he might quit, but he has decided to press on.  I think Perry still has a good chance of doing well.  If I were betting on Intrade, I would put my money on him, given the odds.  I think Romney is the favorite to win, but Perry is being written off by too many.  Let me explain further.

The Tea Party people, who do not agree with Ron Paul on foreign policy, are still looking for their anti-Romney candidate.  They have given an opportunity to Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and Gingrich.  The more they found out about these candidates, the less they liked them.  Now Santorum is the flavor of the month.

They are going to like Santorum even less.  He cannot beat Obama.  He wants to shove his religion down other people’s throats.  He has a horrible record of supporting big-government Bush policies.  He supported raising the debt ceiling numerous times.  He supported expanding federal education.  He supported the Medicare prescription drug plan.  He also supported Arlen Specter (an outspoken supporter of big government).  I can promise that Santorum will not be the Republican nominee.  If for some reason I’m wrong, Obama will have a walk in the park.

So where are Tea Party people going to turn?  Some will go to Ron Paul if they can accept his anti-war views.  A few will go to Romney, only because they think he can beat Obama.  But a lot of people who call themselves conservatives are still looking for an anti-Romney candidate.  They should support Paul, but they are too militaristic.

This leaves Perry.  His record is not as bad.  Santorum and Gingrich have many years of votes in Washington DC.  Perry’s record is all around state politics.  Perry also has money.  While he has not been good in debates, he seems to be more likable than Santorum and Gingrich, at least for independents.  I think he could still emerge as the anti-Romney and anti-Paul candidate, if he stays in it long enough.

I still believe this is a three-person race.  I’m just not sure who the third person is yet.  Romney and Paul are going to the end.  I think Perry may emerge as the third person.  If not, it will be a toss up between Santorum and Gingrich for the third slot.

UPDATE:  Ron Paul took Gingrich and Santorum to school, particularly in the Saturday night debate.  Where will the pro-war tea party people (a bit of a contradiction) turn to now?

James Altucher is bullish on the economy in 2012, according to one of his recent posts.  If you haven’t read him yet, I would certainly recommend reading some of Altucher’s material.  I sometimes don’t agree with him (and I’m sure most others feel the same), but he is good at stimulating the mind.  If you feel stuck in life or if you are feeling depressed, reading some of Altucher’s material might help you get out of your funk.

So Altucher is bullish on the economy for this year.  I am not as optimistic.  The Fed has tripled the monetary base in just over the last three years and the federal government has accumulated almost $5 trillion in new debt over that same time.  Things were really bad under Bush and (at least economically) they are actually worse now.  The Fed and the governments have not allowed a correction to take place from the previous bubbles they created.  Instead, they have delayed the correction by continuing and adding to the malinvestment.

While I’m not bullish on the economy, there is a possibility that we go through a mini boom cycle this year, due to the loose monetary policy of the Fed, along with the low interest rates and big government spending.  While I think things could tip either way, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the stock market continue to do well for a while longer.  A mini boom might make things appear like they are better than they really are.

While I’m not bullish on the economy as a whole right now, there are some positive things.  Altucher does a good job of pointing out some of these positives.  I will discuss some of his points.

On housing, I’m not sure how much inventories are really down because there are still a lot of houses owned by banks.  However, new housing has slowed down considerably and this is actually good news.  This will allow the remaining inventory to clear and it is necessary to set the stage for a rational housing market.  Prices went up way too fast in the early to mid 2000’s and they have gone down way too fast in the last 5 years.  We need a normal housing market where prices are somewhat stable and just going up with the inflation rate (although that isn’t always that stable).

On corporate profits, I wouldn’t get too excited.  Things can change quite quickly.  We saw that in 2008.

On corporate cash, I think you can look at this two ways.  The reason that businesses have so much cash sitting around is because they are still scared about the economic environment and they don’t want to grow and take risk right now.  On the other hand, it is good because it is a form of savings and it means that businesses are not going into debt as much.

Consumer spending can be good or bad.  It may be a good sign that people are feeling more comfortable with their financial situation and feel like they can spend a little more now.  It may be bad in the sense that people are being duped into thinking their financial situation is better than it really is because of the low interest rates and loose money.  People felt good and were spending money like crazy back in 2005.

Household debt is down and that is a good thing.  Households manage their debt much better than government.  Less debt and increased savings are necessary for economic growth.

On Europe, it is a mess and it will have its effects in the U.S.  We should also pay attention to what is happening in Europe as it could be a sign of what is to come here.

Altucher mentions bank cash and says that the Fed never should have done QE2.  But this is a reason to be bearish.  If the bank releases all of those reserves, it might be good news for a few of the people who see the money first.  For most people, it will mean much higher prices at the grocery store and gas pump.

On his last item, he mentions technology.  I completely agree that this a reason for optimism.  I don’t think it will be enough to overcome the huge barriers put in place by the government.  But the major advances in technology have made our lives better and it will continue to be that way.  Technology will help us overcome many obstacles in the near future.

In conclusion, I am not bullish on the economy like James Altucher.  I am somewhat pessimistic because of all of the distortions caused by the government and Fed.  However, there are reasons for optimism and I think he got some of these right.  Altucher needs to learn some Austrian economics.  However, Austrians should also listen to Altucher, as not everything is doom and gloom.