The past week witnessed significant developments that will have long term consequences for the world economy and social norms. In Europe the votes in France and Greece signaled that many people are not in favor of austerity as a cure for the debt woes that plague not only Europe by the USA as well. Consequently global markets have reacted poorly and all the major stock market indexes are off badly for the week. At this point the future of the Euro Currency has to be considered in doubt and as long as this doubt remains markets will falter. Not an easy time to be an investor.
Domestically, the revelation on Wednesday that Barack Obama favored same sex marriage has triggered a tidal wave of discussion about the political consequences of this move by the president. First off, can anyone with any smarts at all have doubted that Obama was in favor of gay marriage? He was just being coy about it owing to political calculation. However, his hand was forced by Joe Biden's big mouth and at that point there was no way Obama could remain silent. So he was forced into it the day after the voters of North Carolina approved a ballot issue to ban gay nuptials via a constitutional amendment. Indeed, in the 30 states that have voted on gay marriage in every case voters rejected the concept. The president was likely well aware of the political land mine he was walking into but nevertheless made the decision to take his position. On the other hand much of Mr. Obama's support is centered in the gay community and significant financial backers are gay. However, I would like to think that one of the benefits we received when we elected Obama in 2008 was that he was "hip". For many of us the fact that he was an educated youthful fellow made us more comfortable with him being in charge. I like to believe that the president really came to understand that gay marriage was becoming more widely accepted particularly by the country's youth and that not withstanding moral objections it was a civil right above all else. I particularly enjoyed the word's from the Declaration of Independence,"the pursuit of happiness" that were often quoted this week. That sort of sums this up.
Of course the new darling of the right, Willard Romney, declared that he opposes gay marriage or civil unions. He defines marriage as the union between an man and a woman. In the case of some of his distant relatives this meant the union between many men and many women!! Now the story emerges that as a teenager Willard engaged in anti-gay bullying at an exclusive boarding school and that it went so far as Romney organizing an attack on a student believed to be gay which involved Willard cutting the boy's hair while the poor fellow was pinned down by other rich brats. True to form Willard can't remember the incident. This man is a pathological liar. Now this is the man who enjoys firing folks and doesn't care about the poor. He is a rotten human being.
Have a good weekend folks.