[dhume]

Businesses seek confidence on what their costs are going to be, and the fact that such confidence has always been impossible doesn't really affect that.

This raises the question of what changed when Obama took office that caused the complaints of uncertainty to start. Then again, at this point, I don't expect the people I generally see complaining about uncertainty to acknowledge that it has always been there (and that they were just giving Bush a free pass).

[waterlesscloud]

That's an easy question to answer. Obama came in promising radical change, and then followed through in some areas. This increased uncertainty in all areas, since it was made clear that radical change was in fact in the works.

After this week's election, uncertainty should drop, since we will then know that nothing much can get done for the next two years.

[sprout]

If the Republicans continue to stonewall, I'd expect the filibuster to be abolished. The inaction is getting poisonous.