Uncertainly will continue past election

The Election Won’t Solve All Puzzles 

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN, NYT

Here comes more uncertainty.

It may sound counterintuitive, but whatever the outcome of the election - whether President Obama or Mitt Romney wins - the economy and markets are likely to face more uncertainty, not less, over the coming year.

"Uncertainty" has become the watchword over the last several years for many chief executives, politicians and economists as an explanation - or perhaps an excuse - for the economy's slow growth, for the lack of hiring by business and for the volatility in the stock market.

"The claim is that businesses and households are uncertain about future taxes, spending levels, regulations, health care reform and interest rates. In turn, this uncertainty leads them to postpone spending on investment and consumption goods and to slow hiring, impeding the recovery," a group of professors from Stanford University and the University of Chicago wrote in a study that found "current levels of economic policy uncertainty are at extremely elevated levels compared to recent history." (The professors have created a Web site, policyuncertainty.com, where you can track the "uncertainty" levels.)

Come Wednesday morning, we should know who our president will be. But the uncertainty hardly ends there.

(More here.)