Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Election Prediction

Regular readers of this blog already know that markets are not always right. Our message is the more limited argument that markets simply do the best job of creating wealth and maximizing liberty (especially compared to government!).

So with this caveat in mind, the market prediction at intrade this morning says that Scott Brown has a 75.0 percent chance of winning today's Senate race in Massachusetts and Martha Coakley has a 26.5 percent chance (yes, I realize that those numbers add up to more than 100 percent, but these numbers are the result of independent bets on the likelihood of either candidate winning).

A Brown victory does not guarantee that Obama's government-run healthcare scheme will be defeated. As a matter of fact, it's likely that something awful will get enacted regardless of what happens in Massachusetts. But the chances of stopping this fiscal and health nightmare will be much greater if Democratic Senators and Representatives become more scared that voters will throw them out in November.

For what it's worth, I'm predicting Brown, 51-48.

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