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The Middle East Is Black Swan Territory

the situation in the mid east is extremely dangerous and could cause a major war and disruption of the capital markets in an instant

By Joel Ross | Updated on November 18, 2012

It now seems pretty likely that the immediate fiscal cliff will not happen and some sort of a little now and something real maybe later is what will happen. Translation, they will agree some revenue (tax increase) raise will happen. Likely a raise in rates for those making over $1 million, plus a cap on deductions for those making over $250,000. A sop to Obama. Then there will be a few immediate reductions in spending along the lines Obama and Boehner  agreed last summer and a series of committees to work on overall tax reform, entitlement reform and one for deficit reduction. Of course we already have Simpson Bowels, Rivlin Domenici, the Gang Of Six, all having devised plans that work to one degree or another. Simpson seems to be the favored basis, so maybe they will take that and rework parts of it. Bottom line is nothing will really get resolved, and we will have more blather for six months and more uncertainty as to what taxes and entitlement reform might look like. In short, nothing will get done that really matters to us for quite awhile.

Meantime Obamacare is now in place and already costing thousands of jobs and lower incomes to lower income workers. The restaurant industry is already well underway to cut hiring, put full time workers on part time and doing other things to not have to cover these people. The same will follow for hotels who employ the same people. Then there are medical device companies already announcing layoffs due to the device tax. Others are moving to reduce full time staff, or simply not hire as many people. This is very widespread. Obamacare will be a huge job and personal income killer.

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