It’s a Sad Day for Our Country

With Senator Cruz and Governor Kasich suspending their campaigns and Trump now being the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, it is a virtual certainty that we will have eight, or at a minimum four, more years of destructive liberal policies. That is not my prediction. It is the prediction of millions of bettors who have put their money where their mouths are. I’m speaking of the on-line prediction market. The prediction market is a pari-mutuel betting market where people bet on the odds of certain future events like the outcomes of elections or the winners of sporting events. These markets have been around since the mid-1800’s and are more accurate than pundits, analysts or scientific polls.¹ In a study of the accuracy of presidential prediction markets for the 15 elections between 1884 and 1940, the betting favorite won 11 times and the underdog won only once. In the remaining three contests, the odds were essentially even throughout and the races very close.² The markets accurately predicted Obama’s wins in 2008 and 2012. The betting markets have historically been extremely accurate in predicting the outcomes of presidential elections.

So what are the betting markets predicting for the 2016 election? Clinton’s odds of winning are 70.2% and Trumps are 27.6%.³ I expect these numbers to close up as November gets closer, but 43 points is a big gap to close. As they say, Clinton is the “presumptive” president.

With Clinton, we will have more of Obama’s destructive liberal policies. Higher taxes, more spending, more job-killing regulations, more illegal immigration, and more socialism in general. But the thing that will be most damaging is that Clinton will nominate Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement, and possibly up to three or four more vacancy’s replacements. This will have the effect of nullifying the Second Amendment - taking away, or at least seriously curtailing, our natural right of self-defense.

The foregoing is not to be interpreted as an endorsement of Trump. That will never come from me. The list of Trump’s negatives is just as long, and potentially more damaging. Regardless of whether the next president is Clinton or Trump, at this point, it feels like having to choose our method of execution.

May God have mercy on our country.

References

1.       My political advice for 2016? Place your bets, John Stossel, 1/6/2016
      http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/01/06/stossel-my-political-advice-for-2016-place-your-bets.html

2.       Historical Presidential Betting Markets, Paul W. Rhode and Koleman S. Strumpf
      http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/BettingPaper_final(JEP_Resubmit).pdf

3.       Election Betting Odds, Maxim Lott and John Stossel, 1:45PM EDT on May 04, 2016
      https://electionbettingodds.com/4hr.html