It's the Economy, Stupid.
I can't remember who wrote this, but he basically said the fatal floor of democracy is that the majority of people will always vote for the person that offers them the most of other peoples money. When the money runs out, which it is in the US and Western Europe from too expensive to afford social systems, he said at that point democracy will be replaced by a dictatorship.
So interesting times lie ahead.
Unfortunately, you have somebody who has never had a job in Industry Obama trying to fix the biggest economy in the world, personally I would trust a self-made businessman who had created a $200m fortune. To make that sort of money you have to be good, because creating a large business is like being a top sportsman, if you can't cut it and aren't good enough then you get found out and lose by getting taken over or going bust.
But at the end of the day the US has the right of self determination and can choose whoever they like for President, so good luck to them. It is certainly going to make the Fiscal Cliff interesting as the lower house ruled by the Republicans won't work with him, because of his breaking of protocol and political ethics over getting Obamacare through. Having a socialist President is probably good for the UK economically as we will have less competition from US companies, hence their shares tanking. It is also why the UK had no rise in share prices for 8 years from 2000 under Labour.
There is no doubt as taxes go up, so the American dream is dying, but never rule the US out it might be down a bit, but they have certainly got the resources to reinvent themselves and to make a come back. The average American is still very hard working. But, the odds are still on the 21st century belonging to much of Asia, Russia and much of South America. I have my doubts on China lasting the course to join the 20/50 club, due to their leadership change going to conservatives and it being an inflexible dictatorship and their poor demographics and rising wages and cost, which means it will be the other Asian tigers. The country to watch is India, their population size, demographics, extended family system (so no expensive wealth draining social system), good education, good work ethic puts them in a strong position, their biggest problems are vested interests, corruption and the caste system.
Why the US economy will recover, can be explained in 4 words. Shale gas and oil. This is giving them a major cost advantage for high energy industries, which include the steel and chemical industries, who are now investing $30bn in new plant in the US. Other jobs are being repatriated where labour costs are going up in China and down in the US.
The danger for the US and the UK is that we both have to many jobsworth, talent less, smooth talking career politicians, who are totally ill suited to running a country.
A good example is George Osborne, who after taking a degree in history had two non-jobs before joining Conservative central office as a researcher and then getting safe seat to become an MP. So you can see he is well qualified to run the world's 7th largest economy. David Cameron history is similar where he was a very junior PR spiv, before joining Central Office and getting a safe seat, so is it any surprise, they are both so poor at their jobs. The commons on both side of the house are full of these useless jobsworths, that would struggle to hold down a job as burger flipper, shelf stacker or cashier in a petrol station. Although rumour has it that one or two do moonlight at petrol stations in the Brackley area.
I saw an interesting thing recently on some stats on a company of 650 and it made horrendous reading on how dysfunctional they were. It was something along the lines of 87 had been convicted of drink driving in the last 4 years, 81 had a credit score so bad they can't get a credit card, 10 have been previously bankrupt etc etc. The 650 are our MPs.
The western world has a crisis of democracy along with an economic crisis, with the former causing a lot of the later, which is going to be fatal for many countries.
Vote UKIP. At least Nigel Farage has had a real job, working in the banking industry. He is very astute on economic matters.