Decades ago, I enjoyed reading The Kiplinger Letter, as it was passed around the office.  When I left that job, I didn’t read it again until recently, when an old friend asked me if I’d like to read his copy.  Since then, he has faithfully shared each copy.  I always appreciated the clarity of Kiplinger’s expectations, which means it was not written by a lawyer.

Today, I read the most recent issue.  They expect the economy to grow slowly in 2012.  While they expect unemployment to rise in the early part of the year, they expect it will be below 8.5% by year-end.  Consistent with that, they believe full year GDP growth was 1.8% last year but 2.5% this year.  Not so consistent with that, they believe the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond rate to rise from 1.9% to 2.5% by mid-2012.  Either they do expect greater GDP growth or they expect inflation to break out.   I just do not see serious inflation breaking out that soon, especially since the Fed is still worried about deflation.

Separately, they expect Obama to approve the Keystone pipeline after the election, either as a second-term President or as a lame-duck.  Either way, I see that as a good thing.

Also, they addressed the problem of election spending, after the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court.  They believe the expense of the presidential election will increase from $1.6 billion in 2008 to $2.5 billion this year.  You can only give $2,500 to a candidate and $5,000 to conventional PAC, but anybody can give any amount of money to these new super-PACs.  Most importantly, donors to super-PACs are not disclosed.  And, I thought sunshine was good . . . for everything except politics, I guess.