This from Investor’s Daily Edge:

It’s finally here.  The long awaited and hard fought election will end tomorrow (at least I hope we don’t see a repeat of 2000 where we don’t know who won for weeks).  Rather than make predictions about the election itself, I want to tell you how I think things will play out after the election.

First, I think the overall market will rally after the election regardless of which candidate wins.  There could be a knee-jerk reaction to the downside should Obama win, but this is part of the old belief that Democrats are bad for business and investing.  History tells a different story than the actual belief though.

The thing that will happen on Wednesday is that the uncertainty will be removed.  The uncertainty of the election has been weighing on the market for the past few months.  It’s been hard to tell, because of the credit crisis, but trust me the election has been weighing on the market as well.

So overall we will likely see the market rally over the next couple of months.  Historically the market rallies after elections, regardless of whether it is a Republican or Democrat that is elected.

Secondly, as I have expressed in recent articles, the market is extremely oversold and the sentiment is extremely bearish.  So even if this weren’t “the most important election of our life” we would likely see a year-end rally.

As far as each candidate and the sectors they will impact the greatest, the scenarios are very different in some areas and very similar in others.  Let’s look at the winning and losing sectors under both Obama and McCain.

The big winners with an Obama victory will be Biotechnology and Alternative Energy.  With Biotech, the fact that Senator Obama wants to give the healthcare system a complete overhaul will push for new technology that improves healthcare at a lower cost.  Look for incentives to flow into this sector whether it is with tax credits or grants, there will be a push for new developments from the group.  Senator Obama also supports stem-cell research and should he win, look for a boost to stocks in this arena.

Alternative Energy, particularly solar, will be a big beneficiary of an Obama administration.  On the campaign trail he has said he wants to direct $150 billion towards alternative energy and lowering our dependence on foreign oil.  As we all know, what is said on the campaign trail and what is done after the fact can be very different.  While he might not able to direct the whole $150 billion toward the sector, you can bet there will be money pushed that way, how much money is available will be determined later.

One sector that will certainly get hurt with an Obama administration is big-cap pharmaceuticals.  The same desire to overhaul the healthcare system that I mentioned as a benefit to biotech will be a hindrance to pharmaceuticals.  The reason for this is that he will likely push for lower drug prices at the consumer level.  This will limit what the drug makers can charge and limiting their revenues.

As for McCain, the obvious winners will be the Defense sector and oil and gas sectors.  While Obama believes a timeline should be set for withdrawing from Iraq, McCain doesn’t believe such a mandate should be put forth and the U.S. will likely continue to spend heavily on Defense should McCain win.

A McCain victory should also provide a boost to nuclear energy companies. He has made it clear on the campaign trail that he is in favor of finding alternative energy sources beyond oil, but where Obama prefers wind and solar energy, Senator McCain prefers nuclear energy.

One area that will likely lose should McCain win is the infrastructure sector.  Senator McCain wants to curb government spending, at least that is what he is saying on the campaign trail.

Like I said about Mr. Obama wanting to spend $150 billion on alternative energy sources, what is said on the campaign trail and what actually happens after the election are two different things.  Remember President Bush campaigned on less spending as well, but there haven’t been any cuts in spending over the last eight years.

Regardless of which candidate wins, they will be inheriting one heck of a mess.  The current economic environment is one of the worst I have seen in my lifetime, the deficit that we are facing is astronomical, and the job losses we have had over the last year have combined to make this a daunting task for the next administration.

Consumer confidence is at an all time low recently.  The best thing the new President could do for this country is lift the spirits of our citizens.  Consumers are not likely to open up their wallets until they see hope that the economy is improving.  Lifting the confidence level might get them to open their wallets a little.

Regardless of who wins tomorrow, I wish them luck.  They are going to need more after the election than they need it in the election.

Source: Winning And Losing Sectors After The Election

If John McCain manages to pull off a surprise victory next week, Martin says biotech stocks will get a boost from fewer restrictions on drug prices.

This from Smart Profits Report:

One week from today, America will elect its next president.

What was a hotly contested race a few weeks ago now appears to be swinging in favor of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Election Night will be much less dramatic.

The question is: How will this major event and changing of the White House guard affects the economy, the stock market – and more importantly, individual investors? Many investors are already sick to death of the drama that the stock market has tossed at them this year, so aren’t likely to welcome much more.

Let’s take a look…

The Four-Year Presidential Cycle And Its Impact On The Stock Market

Despite the current rhetoric and hype surrounding the candidates’ respective policies, measures enacted typically don’t make any serious dent on the economy for a year or two after they’re passed into law.

Yale Hirsch, one of the co-authors behind the respected Stock Trader’s Almanac has studied the effect that presidential election cycles have on the stock market. And his research indicates that the market generally follows a pattern, regardless of whether a Republican or Democrat administration wins the White House.

According to the theory, here are the stock market returns between 1948 and 2007…

• The first post-election year is typically the worst performer in the presidential cycle, with the S&P 500 posting a 7.3% return
• The second year sees the highest record of bear market bottoms, with the S&P recording a 10.1% advance.
• In the third year of the presidency, the market picks up dramatically, notching up a 22.9% gain.
• The final year of a presidency sees more uncertainty creep into the market, with a 12.1% gain. That’s still above average, though.

While the past four years haven’t followed the above trend, this is an entirely different time, with the U.S. experiencing an epic financial crisis right on top of the presidential election.

And the market could easily fall back into this pattern… because right on schedule, economists foresee recession conditions over the next two years.

The Post-Election Healthcare Environment

As an investor, if you’re looking for a map of how the next cycle will play out – and who could be affected the most – a lot depends on whether the winning candidate can live up to his promises. But that can depend largely on who controls Congress and the importance of the sector.

For example, areas like healthcare, energy, education, and defense are always going to be pretty heavily funded, no matter who is running the show.

With regard to healthcare, this election is once again filled with candidates’ promises of how they’re going to create affordable healthcare for all Americans – a task that always seems to be easier said than done.

According to the International Strategy and Investment (ISI) research firm, a McCain administration would probably represent good news for firms like Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Genzyme Corp. (NASDAQ: GENZ) and Genentech (NYSE:DNA), since they’d be less likely to face restrictions on drug prices.

In addition, McCain may not opt for as much of an overhaul of healthcare as Obama, so managed care firms could see an advantage. Obama would seek changes to Medicare and crack down on medical malpractice areas, so look for managed care and insurance companies respectively to undergo Obama’s favorite word… change.

Since both men have espoused unique alternatives to our current system, the healthcare sector will see changes regardless though.

Look To Renewable Energy Firms… No Matter Who Wins

As for energy – one of the hottest spots on the market – both Obama and McCain support crucial efforts to explore alternative energy in order to relieve some of America’s dependence on getting energy from volatile nations.

Earlier this year, McCain even went so far as to offer a $300 million reward for anybody who could design a “battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.” And both men attended former president Bill Clinton’s National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, back in August.

McCain has also thrown his weight behind greater offshore drilling and “clean coal” production, right alongside ethanol production from corn. Obama has expressed more interest in other forms of alternative energy, such as wind and solar power – two areas that could receive more subsidies and mandates under his administration.

In this respect, ISI says solar leader like First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR), wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems (CPH:VWS) and waste-into-energy firms like Covanta Holding (NYSE:CVA) could see benefits.

The Battle For Headlines: Economy And Market vs. Obama And McCain

The bottom line here is that while both candidates are busy championing their ideas and policy proposals to the country and certain sectors and stocks will benefit more than others from a regime change, the overall stock market isn’t going to be as affected as some people might think.

According to John Merrill, chief investment officer of Tanglewood Wealth Management, the market isn’t really paying that much attention to the candidates, no matter how much both like to speak out. “Today, the market and the economy are shaping events much more than the presidential election.”

Source: The Presidential Election Cycle… What The Obama-McCain Battle Means For Stocks

This from The Daily Reckoning Australia:

Around noon yesterday here at the Old Hat Factory, a little daemon whispered in your editor’s ear, “The bottom is in for the year of the ASX.”

“Huh?” We looked around to try and spot the little green devil. He’s been in our ear before. But he was nowhere to be found. We could still hear his voice.

“Think about you fool. It is now safe to be dogmatically bearish on the front page of the newspapers. The hedge funds have been forced to liquidate. The mob followed on the fund industry’s heels, sold everything, and headed for the hills. The hills are full! Can’t you see what this means?”

“No.”

“The selling has exhausted itself for the year you moron! Roubini recommends a $400 million stimulus package. It’s a sign. The liquidation of the long commodities/short dollar and yen trades has got to be nearly over. The moves in the currency markets have been massive. It can’t go on. And if it does…well if it does then this is the second Great Depression and you’ll have other things to worry about.”

But what if you’re wrong?

“Then I’m wrong. If you’re going to be in the equity markets at all for the next year, you should own the world’s best businesses. You’re not going to see them this cheap again for awhile. If you don’t want to own theses businesses, why bother being in the market at all?”

God may not whisper in everyone’s ear. But we find daemons more than willing to have a chat, usually when our judgement is most in doubt. Still, we couldn’t help following through the thoughts of our little green devil to their logical conclusion. And in his own way, he makes perfect sense.

Bob Prechter and the Elliott Wave theorists (if we’re not mistaken) believe that ’social mood’ is what determines the direction of the stock market. And the market then leads the economy. But what leads the social mood?

Well, that’s a tough one. At the Border’s on Chapel Street this weekend, we noticed that Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva’s book, Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets had moved up to number seven on the hardback best seller list. People are trying to understand why investors act like a flock of birds or a school of fish, all seeming to move in the same direction at once, without cause or explanation.

People are wacky. The great mistake of market analysts (and most socialists) is to assume that people are rational and make economic decisions after calm, rational calculation. This is a figment of the rational imagination.

People often take leave of their senses. And these days, it’s hard to say just why some people are selling and no one is buying. As we’ve said here, we think it’s the massive unwinding in leverage that’s forcing stocks to be sold. There are simply not enough buyers to sop up all the selling (at least not until last night in New York, when some of that cash got back in the game).

It doesn’t help that you have a slowing global economy and a credit crunch. When you combine all that, the social mood turns decidedly sour. The beer goes flat. The smoke, rather than being a pleasant cloud in the lungs and making everyone look sophisticated and cool, just burns the eyes.

What our little daemon told us yesterday, we think, is that the social mood couldn’t possibly get any more sour. “Consumer confidence drops to record low,” reports Bloomberg this morning. There was dust and tumbleweeds blowing through the markets this week. It was fast becoming a barren wasteland.

But yesterday in New York, the first intrepid investors popped their head out from above their fallout shelters. Squinting in the sun, they found that perfectly healthy world-class businesses were lying around in the street for the taking. They were taken. The Dow was up double digits.

Don’t get us wrong. This still feels like the beginning of the 50% rally the Dow experienced in late 1929 and early 1930. But a man can take only so much depression in one quarter.

It is not hard to see a simultaneous round of global interest rate cuts, a massive stimulus package in the U.S., and the election of Obama in the States (did somebody say Messiahs?) as just the things to turn the social mood around. And that’s what makes for a rally.

Source: The Root of All Financial Evil

More from Bloomberg:

The dimming outlook signals consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, will deteriorate further, deepening the U.S. slump.

“The economy feels like it is contracting at a rapid pace,” Lewis Alexander, chief economist at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “It’s clear that consumers have really been affected by the volatility we’ve seen in the last six weeks.”

The report underscores voter discontent with the country’s direction heading into the Nov. 4 presidential election. A majority of voters think Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the Democrat, will be better able to handle the economic turmoil than Republican rival John McCain, according to polls.

The Daily Reckoning’s Bill Bonner warned yesterday how the crisis that started on Wall Street was rapidly spreading to businesses and consumers all across America.

The next stage will come when consumers go on a rampage of thrift. Credit cards will go in the trash. Malls will be silent. Sales clerks will fall asleep on the job – and then be fired. Higher unemployment. More foreclosures. More bankruptcies.

And when Americans don’t shop, it will be products Made in China that they aren’t shopping for. That’s why the depression will be worldwide – the first ever.

“China, India, Brazil and Russia (the BRICs), the biggest emerging economies, export most of their products either to each other… or to the developed economies [mainly, the USA],” continues La Prensa.

Yes, Dear Reader… our “Crash Alert” flag is still up – even though the stock market, the housing market, the financial market, and the commodities market have already crashed. But now, there’s another flag up on our mast, a black flag. On it is a white duck laying on its back with its feet up in the air.

It is our way of warning you: “Global Depression Alert” it says at the bottom.

.

– Meanwhile, McCain’s fellow Republican George W. Bush made a televised appeal for the swift passage the plan. He said the “entire economy is in danger” and warned of a “financial panic” and “a long and painful recession” if Congress didn’t pass the bill soon.

– “Most illiquid assets are illiquid because they’re not worth anything,” said Ron Paul to Fed head Ben Bernanke during testimony in Washington, DC, yesterday. Presumably, this holds true even if the “entire economy is in danger.”

– US stock futures are limp this morning following Bush’s address and news that General Electric (NYSE:GE) cut its earnings estimates and halted its stock buyback. “S&P 500 futures rose 3 points to 1,196.00 and Nasdaq 100 futures added 12.25 points to 1,684.25. Dow industrial futures rose 9 points,” according to Market Watch.

– Bush’s dire warnings on the state of the economy he has been in charge of for the last eight years didn’t exactly help the dollar either. The buck “fell to $1.4686 per euro as of 6:35 a.m. in New York, from $1.4621 yesterday,” according to Bloomberg. “The currency declined to 105.91 yen from 106.11. The euro was at 155.57 yen from 155.15. The U.S. currency dropped to $1.8553 against the pound from $1.8465, and to 1.0836 versus the franc from 1.0916.”

– Yesterday on Contrarian Profits, Rude Awakening editor Eric Fry urged investors to “Sell the dollar, sell the dollar, sell the dollar.” (We think he was being pretty clear on this one.)

The Treasury and the Federal hope that these actions will restore buoyancy to the potential markets.  But we doubt it.  Instead, we suspect that these actions will only add buoyancy to the US inflation rate and, therefore, to commodity prices.

Most of the bad guys who created this mess are gone…although not yet in prison where they belong. And most of the American regulatory agencies are eager to change the rules of the game. These two developments are very helpful. But the process of repairing and reforming the American financial system could be painful. The U.S. Treasury will absolutely, positively increase the money supply to rescue the financial system…Which means investors must try to protect themselves against an almost certain inflation.

So what’s an investor to do?

Sell American stocks, bonds and currencies; buy foreign stocks, bonds and currencies. And, of course, buy commodities.

– Crude oil is down near its three-day low in New York on a report that revealed demand is at its lowest in almost five years. According to Bloomberg, “crude oil for November delivery was at $105.77 a barrel, up 4 cents, in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 12:45 p.m. Singapore time.”

– Eric Roseman in The Sovereign Society is buying oil stocks, nevertheless. He believes “hard assets” like oil and gold are the best assets to own if you believe that inflation remains embedded in the financial system…

Inflation is not dead and commodities remain in a secular bull market as China and other rapidly growing economies continue to boost domestic consumption and increase trade.

The credit crisis is a Western problem, not an Asian one. Balance sheets across Asia are not restricted by sub-prime losses or other mortgage-related write-downs. So the sooner the U.S. finally tackles the credit crisis, the sooner Asian growth will reaccelerate. That’s when I expect commodities to bottom.

The long-term picture remains bullish for these markets and commodities. Over the next 12 months, I see the greatest reflation trade of the century hitting the markets, courtesy of the United States government and the European Union.

– December-dated S&P 500 futures rallied 13.10 points, Dow futures were up 101 points, and Nasdaq-100 Index futures rose 18 points on the news. Yesterday, US stocks ended the worst two-day rout since 2002.

– The Fed, nevertheless, is upping its effort to juice up the credit markets.. It has set up swap lines that will provide $30 billion to central banks in Australia, Sweden, Denmark and Norway for short-term loans to commercial banks. The Fed has now made a total of $277 billion available for short-term money-market lending in dollars through foreign central banks

– Crude oil prices climbed by more than a dollar this morning. This brings light sweet crude for November delivery to $108 dollars a barrel in New York. Yesterday, oil prices dropped $3 on profit taking following a $25 one-day jump, the biggest ever in history.

– Oil rollercoaster behavior this year appears to have been too much for legendary-oil-investor-turned-wind-energy-activist T. Boone Pickens. His star is waning, reports the WSJ.

[The] downturn in energy has blindsided the industry veteran, leaving one of his hedge funds that focuses on energy stocks down almost 30% through August. A smaller commodity-focused fund is down 84%.

All in, the funds have lost around $1 billion this year, a figure that includes $270 million of personal losses. “It’s my toughest run in 10 years,” said Mr. Pickens, a former geologist who earned billions by building an oil company and investing in energy. “We missed the turn in the market, there’s nothing fun about it.”

– Other commodities were also up yesterday. The Reuters/Jefferies CRB commodity index had its best day in history.

– Hank Paulson’s $700 billion bailout bonanza is still causing controversy. Writing for CNN Republican congressman Ron Paul had this to say about the plan:

Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.

The solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the market. Government intervention leads to distortions in the market, and government reacts to each distortion by enacting new laws and regulations, which create their own distortions, and so on ad infinitum.

It is time this process is put to an end. But the government cannot just sit back idly and let the bust occur. It must actively roll back stifling laws and regulations that allowed the boom to form in the first place.

The government must divorce itself of the albatross of Fannie and Freddie, balance and drastically decrease the size of the federal budget, and reduce onerous regulations on banks and credit unions that lead to structural rigidity in the financial sector.

Until the big-government apologists realize the error of their ways, and until vocal free-market advocates act in a manner which buttresses their rhetoric, I am afraid we are headed for a rough ride.

– The meltdown on Wall Street has given Barack Obama a clear lead in the polls of over John McCain, reports the Washington Post. Obama now leads McCain by 52% to 43%.

The Times said Gramm said he expects a McCain administration would inherit an economy “weighed down above all by the conviction of many Americans that economic conditions are the worst in two or three decades and that America is in decline.”

The Times quoted him as saying: “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession… We have sort of become a nation of whiners…

“You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline… We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today.”

McCain distanced himself from these remarks as the Democrats tried to frame it as if he doesn’t care about the hardships of the working class.

While we’re sure that positive thinking would probably be somewhat beneficial we do hope that McCain might have a slightly more robust plan for improving the economy as part of his platform.

With the consumer price index (CPI) safely in the books for another month, economists can now turn their focus to wholesale inflation with the release of the May producer price index (PPI). Economists, mistakenly, often disregard the energy component of this data each month and focus mainly on the so-called “core” releases – which excludes “volatile food and energy prices.”

While food and energy prices often suffer from month-to-month volatility based on seasonal factors, they cannot be overlooked these days as they continue to have significant impact on the global economy.

Also, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH) can’t seem to avoid the limelight, as the eyes and ears of the investment community will be sharply focused on its earnings announcement today (Monday), which also is expected to detail plans for its much needed capital infusion.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson welcomes his friends from China for Strategic Economic Dialogue IV, as both countries are sure to bicker over unfair trade practices, protectionism, and currency valuations. (And, “bickering” has become a very popular sport in Washington as of late… too late for the Beijing Olympics?).

Market Matters

So let the partisan bickering and political pandering begin. With the executive branch up for grabs in November, the Democratic-led U.S. Congress introduced legislation that has virtually no chance of passing, merely to be used as ammunition as the campaign season heats up. So-called “Big Oil” became the latest villain with politicos proposing windfall profit taxes on record company earnings. Our friends within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) did not escape the wrath of the Dems, who want to file suits over perceived price-fixing.

In typical partisan fashion, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has touted his opponent, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, as a traditional “tax-and-spend” liberal, the wrong choice during this period of economic challenges. Sen. Obama pegged his opponent as a continuation of the previous eight years of failed policies that have led the country into recession/inflation/deflation.

Lehman Brothers has remained front and center in the “who will be the next Bear Stearns Cos. (BSC) watch“ as the financial giant attempted to raise $6 billion in new capital to compensate for its disastrous second quarter. The company also bid a (not-so) fond farewell to two high-ranking executives as it goes to great measures to regain some lost public trust. Over a four-day time frame, its stock gave up more than $4 billion in shareholder value.

Always a day late, Moody’s Investors Service jumped in to protect investors by downgrading the firm from “Stable” to “Negative.” In other business news, transactions headlined the week as Staples Inc. (SPLS) will be acquiring the Dutch office supply company, Corporate Express NV (ADR: CXP), for $2.7 billion. Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. (BUD) turned to Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo SA de CV (OTC: GPMCF) to help fend off an unsolicited offer by rival InBevNV.

Meanwhile, Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) finally said good riddance (presumably, for the last time) to Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in any merger, partnership, or other relationship (and jumped into bed with Google Inc. (GOOG) with a search ad agreement). Apparently, McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) remains recession/inflation proof as the fast food chain reported strong domestic and global sales in May.

Crude traded within a $10 range throughout the week to settle around the $135-a-barrel level as traders over-analyzed news of declining demand, OPEC made comments about “unjustifiable rise on oil prices,” and polls blaming industry insiders for “unethical behavior.” In the “misery-loves-company” category, the United States is not the only nation to struggle with energy-related inflation.

China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell to its lowest level of the year as the country attempted to fight off related price pressures. Likewise, India reported that its inflation rate climbed above 8% in May, while Vietnam devalued its currency because of soaring prices. Closer to home, Broadway ticket sales are down more than 10% from last year’s levels – meaning that even the “rich-and-famous” group of consumers are suffering the ill-effect of soaring oil and gas prices.

After an extraordinary day in the markets that saw the Dow plunge close to 400 points and oil surge to almost $140 per barrel on June 6, any recent volatility seemed tame by comparison. While investors searched for bargains in equities, the fixed-income markets struggled mightily last week as prospects for future Fed rate hikes grew more likely. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury surged past 4% (and beyond), reaching its highest level of the year. Anyone inside the Beltway you’d care to blame, senators McCain and Obama?

The US’s minority party routed American taxpayers Tuesday when it mopped the floor with citizen-related issues by blocking a vote that would have:

• Killed corporate oil’s $17 billion tax break.
• Taxed excessive corporate oil profits, unless big oil poured the excess into exploring alternative energies.
• Forced oil futures speculators from big investment banks, hedge funds and brokerages to have a lot more than 5% cash in the margin accounts they use to bet on oil. Such a move would have dramatically cooled speculation, which even oil company executives admit makes a barrel of oil (today) $70 to $80 too much.
• Made it a federal crime to price gouge oil and gas.

On the first two issues, Republicans ignored the minimum $17 billion in taxes that would once again flow to US coffers. Instead, they accused Democrats of merely wanting to punish oil companies as a way of expressing the seething anger most American taxpayers feel over gas prices that have skyrocketed for no apparent reason.

Democrats said, “Yup, making oil companies pay their fair share and punishing them for excessive profits while Americans suffer is exactly what we wanted to do.”

“Why that’s un-American,” screamed GOP senators. All while they rushed to call John McCain in order to congratulate him for admitting that, if elected president, he’d continue a program that secretly wiretaps domestic phone calls made by American citizens.

GOP senators made no comment on the bill’s increased margin account provision. What could they say? Big investment banks, hedge funds and brokerages won. Taxpayers lost a huge one. Best to pretend it never happened.

But, Senator I.M. Forsale did applaud the effort. He said the move is part of an effort to make gas so expensive that “poor people won’t have the gas to drive to the bank to cash welfare checks… perverted homosexxxxxuaaaallls can’t afford to drive to city hall to get married and godless whore women are economically prevented from driving to Planned Parenthood clinics.”

He added, “$5 and $6 gas is finally going to shake the losers, the sinners and the old out of the American family tree.”

Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged that Americans are hurting from the high-energy costs. But, he strongly opposed the Democrats’ response and ridiculed those who “think we can tax our way out of this problem.”

“Republicans by and large believe that the solution to this problem, in part, is to increase domestic production,” McConnell said.

A GOP energy plan, rejected by the Senate last month, calls for opening a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Drilling in the ANWR would net the US about 454 days of oil, at its current 22-million-a-day burn rate. And, it would take eight to ten years bring the first of this oil to market.

INTERNAL ENDORSEMENT

Just this Once
BELIEVE THE HYPE!

It was the email that shocked the investment world.

One noted investment authority told his readers to take seven huge stock market gains on one day… SEVEN HUGE WINNERS on one day that ranged from 526% to 102%… seven, and on stocks… not options.

But that was just the beginning! It now looks to be setting up to happen again this year, too.

That’s why you must check out the whole story right here.

I actually believe that oil field technology is advanced enough that it would be fairly safe to drill there.

Of course, there’s the human element to consider… as in shortcuts and corrupt contractors. And, with so much at stake, some people might try to cover up mistakes.

Then, I did some research and discovered just how little oil is in ANWR… modest predictions are 5.5 trillion barrels… best-case predictions suggest 10 trillion barrels.

And, that is quite literally – even at the 10-trillion level – a drop in the bucket.

You see, the US Energy Information Agency reported that if Congress gave the go-ahead to pump oil from ANWR, the crude could begin flowing by 2017. It would reach a peak of 876,000 barrels a day by 2029.

But even at peak production, the EIA analysis said, the United States would still have to import more than two-thirds of its oil.

That’s 21 years until peak. And, that peak would be less than one million barrels a day. That’s less than 1/20th of our daily burn.

And, this is a front-burner issue. For whom?

Now, I rarely share with you the thoughts I send in private to my Asia Business & Investing subscribers… but a bit of what I wrote to them on Wednesday is an extension of my thoughts here.

This is what I wrote

Here in the United States… apparently no one in charge is to blame for the state of the economy… fuel and food prices… except, of course, consumers who pay the prices.

Ron Reagan was known as the Teflon President because trouble didn’t stick to him. Today, US leaders in Washington eschew the Teflon, because no one is throwing anything at the White House or Congress.

It’s you and I that need the Teflon.

After all, it was greedy homeowners who created the credit crisis… not nominally regulated banks and lenders.

It is SUV drivers and soccer moms in mini vans who have run up the price of oil – not totally unregulated oil futures speculators (Google “Enron Loophole” for the whole story) or the threatened veto of a farm bill that included a provision to close the seven-year old crooked loophole, which is well known among Washington highest echelons at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave.

…if you’re like me, when you look around don’t you occasionally wonder who led us to the state we are in today… and why everyone in Washington has escaped blame… or worse, won’t accept responsibility?

Instead, what we get is the Mitch McConnells of the world saying “we know Americans are hurting but there’s not a thing Congress can do about it – except to open up oil drilling in the Alaskan Nation Wildlife Refuge…”

See, there it is again… Washington is not to blame… it’s those pesky, do-gooder, unpatriotic, environmentalists who are pissing in the soup.

So, how about this for an idea?

If this oil is so freekin’ critical to the US’s way of life, then we open up the ANWR for oil exploration, but with two huge restrictions.

They would be that ExxonMobil is not allowed to participate in the ANWR.

And, oil company profits would be capped at 6%.

You see, the US Geological Survey estimates that at $30 a barrel, oil company profits would be about 12% on ANWR oil… but, the Department of Energy, on Thursday, said that oil prices will be $129 a barrel in 2009. It should be $86 in 2010. And it should be back over a c-note at $107 in 2015.

So, who knows how high profits would fly on ANWR oil by 2017 when its initial oil came to market.

But, under my restrictions, every penny beyond a 6% profit would evenly flow directly to the Social Security Trust Fund and Medicare.

And, I am certain that as patriotic Americans with the ability to help sustain the American way of life, US oil companies would rush to accept that deal.

Have a great weekend.

Andy

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Source: Kiss Your Gas Goodbye