Election Tuesday Will Have Little Bearing On Your Life. But Vote Anyway

Let me make something clear about the elections this Tuesday. Since this is an econ/finance blog, I’ll try to keep it focused on that topic specifically, without getting too political.

National midterm elections mean virtually nothing for you, your life, and your money. Nor do presidential elections for that matter. No matter who sits at the helm of the White House, who’s holding the reins in the House of Representatives, and who owns the majority in the Senate, life goes on.

But the media, politicians, and lots of ignorant people who know startlingly little about this country and the economy, but think they know everything during the election periods, will try to make you think that the way the pendulum swings is actually a huge deal.

The Democrats will fear-monger you into thinking that if they lose control of the Senate, the rights of gays, women, school teachers, and blue collar workers / unions will be set ablaze on the steps of the Capitol building.

The Republicans will try to tell you that if they can’t take back the Senate, your guns will be confiscated, churches will be forced to perform gay marriages, and pot, the most popular drug second only to Facebook, will soon be legal in all U.S. states.

This is all nonsense. Why is it nonsense? Because the two parties are basically one and the same. They have the same beliefs and the same agendas about the things people really care about, with a few exceptions.

Neither party has your actual self-interest in mind. Neither party cares a great deal about personal liberty. Although since we all have to swing one way, I've at least decided to go with the one that I agree with on most moral and economic issues.

Energy policy. Gun control. Gay marriage. Healthcare. Foreign wars. The list politicians yammer on about goes on for miles. Then, of course, there are the local issues. Honestly, this is all you should really care about.

Allow me to open your eyes to a little secret. Most of our elected leaders in government, even on separate sides of the aisle, have very similar beliefs and agendas about all of these issues. This is really how it should be. Very few things in life are black and white, and compromise is always a necessity to make the most people happy.

True, there are those who stand out among the two parties as polarizers, nuts, and communists. But their views by and large do not represent the majority of their constituents, nor their fellow elected leaders. That, my friends, is the real reason “nothing gets done” in Congress. It's because most of our dearly elected representatives, and all the people of this blessed country, tend to stand on middle ground on many issues.

As I said, most elected officials are middle of the aisle. They always have been, and always will be. If it weren’t so, they never would have been elected. Our country is too diverse to elect an actual outlier, or someone who might actually have the stones to make sweeping changes to the inept system our country has slowly lumbered itself into over the past sixty years.

The biggest polarizing factors between the two parties boil down to moral or religious issues. And as bad as it sounds, these issues have very little bearing on the strength or weakness of the economy. So from an economic standpoint, they don’t matter in the least.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am very passionate about many moral and religious issues. I just choose to leave them out of my rants on this blog, because it’s not my focus. It’s not the right forum.

In this blog, I write about money, finance, investments, and the like. And my advice to you, who might be worried that the outcome of the midterm elections has much bearing on your money or your wealth, is to ignore them. Vote, absolutely, but mostly you should be concerned only about the issues at your local or state level.

The bottom line is, all of the companies in our economy will go about their business as usual, regardless of who the Senate Majority Leader is. The stock market will continue its never-ending march into the sky as long as the Fed is around to POMO the heck out of any shadows of economic doubt. Janet Yellen and her cronies will continue to dominate every direction the market takes until this country wakes up to the stupidity that is The Fed, and abolishes this sham system. But that won’t happen until the system itself implodes.

The only awakening our system will have is its own self-destruction. Significant changes will only come at the moment of collapse.  And by the time everyone realizes what is really going on, the destruction will be too imminent to be stopped. It is my opinion that, no matter how painful it might be, this “great reset” is what we need in the great United States.

Until then, your ninja-like saving, spending, and investing habits should go on mostly unchanged. You might make a small adjustment here or there, if by some slim chance a law goes into effect which will actually have any significant bearing on your livelihood, your wealth, or your retirement. But by and large, these same decisions would have been made in the same way no matter who was in the oval office, the House, or the Senate.

So in closing let me reiterate: don’t sweat politics. As another writer I enjoy reading has put it elsewhere, “shopping trumps politics.” The economy rolls on all by itself, no matter which pompous bozo thinks they are in charge at the helm.

Live long and invest,

Jeremiah