Who Predicted the Election and Why It Matters

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king.” — “The Maxims of Wall Street” (p. 62). 

A number of financial advisors went to 100% cash before the election, fearing that the bull market on Wall Street would falter under the uncertainty of the election.

Others sold stocks and bought gold. I was not one of them.

In my newsletter, Forecasts & Strategies, I stayed fully invested in technology and other stocks through the election year, and it paid off. Stocks are hitting an all-time high, and we’re profiting. Even our high-income stocks have taken off, while gold is struggling.

My Political Forecast Proves Accurate

My prediction before the election was that the presidential vote would be close, but Joe Biden would ultimately win the White House.

Many of my Republican friends were convinced that, like 2016, Donald Trump would pull off a surprise victory, and defy the national polls and the professional betting odds. I disagreed. 

In the Oct. 12 hotline, I wrote, “I am still convinced that 2020 is different from 2016, especially with mail-in ballots becoming the norm and the anti-Trump sentiment in response to the virus scare and depression this year. That makes it a lot easier to vote, which favors the Democrats.”

I also relied on the prediction formula by American University Professor Allan Lichtman, author of “Keys to the White House.” He has accurately forecasted the winner of every election since 1980. He was slated to be our keynote speaker at this year’s FreedomFest before it was canceled by the governor of Nevada.

Based on his 13 keys to winning, Lichtman concluded that Joe Biden would be the next president. He said the primary reason was the economy, which is still struggling.

The forecasts made by Lichtman and me proved accurate. I actually won a nice dinner bet on the election outcome.

However, I did express worry that a Biden administration would mean sharply higher taxes and a socialist agenda, causing a bear market on Wall Street. Fortunately, it’s not likely to take place because of political gridlock on Capitol Hill.

The Republicans are likely to maintain control of the Senate, and that means the Trump tax cuts will stay in place and we won’t witness some of the crazy schemes of the radical Democrats, such as the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college tuition and higher taxes on investors. 

Thus, the selloff in stocks did not take place, and we’ve stayed fully invested as we approach the holiday season. However, we must be careful.

The Democrats’ penchant for shutting down the economy could cause serious trouble again. It pays to know the signs of the times.

I would not be selling gold or silver. It pays to have a diversified portfolio of stocks, high-income, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds and commodities. See my latest recommendations at www.markskousen.com.

40 Years of Forecasts & Strategies: What Have I Learned?

Last week, my publisher Roger Michalski interviewed Jo Ann and me in celebration of 40 years of writing and editing our investment newsletter, Forecasts & Strategies — lessons learned, our biggest successes and mistakes, and our personal reflections. The video is only 34 minutes long. Click here to view it.

You Blew it! Time to Stop the Divisive Labels and Work to Find the Best Solutions

“There is no left or right, only up or down.” – Ronald Reagan

Meridian magazine this week published my review of an explosive new biography of Ezra Taft Benson, the former Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower, an anti-communist, a freedom fighter and LDS president as leader of the Mormon faith. You can read it by clicking here.

The Benson biographer, Professor Matthew Harris, claimed to be an objective historian, but it is clear in reading his book that he has an agenda: to malign Ezra Taft Benson as a “right-wing extremist.”

It’s a sad commentary when historians, politicians and the media use terms to vilify their opponents with name-calling rather than engaging in civil dialogue and objective analysis. 

Fox News constantly refers to opponents as “far-left extremists” while CNN and MSNBC call their adversaries “far-right reactionaries.” 

There’s a lot of bad blood and it’s only getting worse. 

After writing my review, I received the following letter from Hyrum Lewis, a professor of history at Brigham Young University-Idaho. He wrote that one of the biggest problems among today’s historians is their gratuitous use of smear terms like “right-wing” and “left-wing.”     

Lewis opined, “The sole function of those left-right terms is pejorative rather than analytical. Notice that nobody ever defines the term ‘far-right.’ They simply use the term ‘far-right’ to dismiss whatever they don’t like, hoping that it will make readers say, ‘OOOHHHHH SCARRRRY! He’s like HITLER!’ It’s a pathetic, lazy, anti-intellectual, but highly effective smear tactic.

“Simply describing President Benson’s views as accurately as possible (and, perhaps, critiquing them based on their substance) should be the role of the historian. It’s not the historian’s role to say, “BOO! Right wing! You know about them, right? Fascist, Nazi and all that. Scary. 

“Sadly, the history profession has become so ideological and driven by activism that description and analysis now take a back seat to crusading and writing up the past in terms of heroes and villains.

“The left-right spectrum is completely worthless as a way to understand or inform, but valuable as a way to dismiss anyone we don’t agree with. You find people in the Republican tribe just as guilty as those in the Democrat tribe.

“The spectrum is just a tool of insult and self-deception.”

I agree 100%.

But there’s good news. There is a “no labels” movement developing. A number of political writers, such as economist Richard Rahn, columnist for the Washington Times, have been writing op-eds largely free of the “left-right” rhetoric. 

I personally stopped using these divisive labels years ago, and it has been liberating. At FreedomFest, my annual gathering of “free minds,” we try to focus on solutions to problems rather than name-calling. It is not so much who is right, but what is right, that counts. 

I know I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.