Mortimer B. Zuckerman
Analyst
Well, I have believed, for all of this year, that Romney will win the election. Primarily because of the terrible unemployment numbers that this country is dealing with, a lot of which doesn't even get publicity. But I'll just give you a couple of examples. It's not only the 23 million people out of work. The unemployment numbers do not really give you an indication of how serious the unemployment is. The unemployment number is 7.8%, it's what is called U3, and that measures people who've actively applied for a job. That is, they have to have sort of filled out an application form or gone for an interview. And that is the number, that is 7.8%. But the number of 7.8% only went down because 582,000 people moved out of being unemployed into part-time employment. But if you measure, what they call involuntary part-time employment, which is U6, that's 14.7%, it hasn't gone down at all. But even that doesn't give you the full number. Disability insurance has gone up by 5.4 million people just in the period that President Obama has gone. It's almost doubled the number. Okay. Now, if you think that the 5.4 million people who were suddenly disabled as a result of their work, I think that's a very optimistic interpretation. I think a lot of people have gone into that as they've run out of unemployment compensation or what-have-you and they've been able to do it, but they don't count as unemployed. Nor do people who were put on leave, even if it's temporary leave, and a lot of people have been. So the unemployment numbers, to my mind, it's known by the people who are unemployed. It's known by their families, it's known by their friends, and by their children. And some -- at some point or another, there is going to be a feeling -- there's got to be a change. Like it or not, that's where I think is the driving force of this economy. And the one thing that have to happen, which I believe has happened, is that Governor Romney has established himself as a credible President. He was extremely presidential in the first debate, broke through to the consciousness of most Americans. And I believe, as this goes on over the next couple of weeks, the trend lines which are basically now favoring him, will moderately continue, and that he will eke out a victory. And I felt this way even when these numbers weren't as favorable to Romney as I think they are.