Thursday Quickies

-My experience on Intrade has shown me that certain issues have a lot more twists and turns than you'd expect from a first glance. Health care reform is exactly that kind of issue. There is a huge incentive on one side to pass something, and a huge incentive on the other side to stop it. The landscape of the ideological alliances in Congress, the procedural rules of the Senate, and shifting public opinion means that this will be a extremely volatile contract. I still believe something will get passed, and I still think the most likely outcome is that a public option gets forced through the Senate using reconciliation. That said, I expect there will be times when a public option looks completely dead, and other times when it looks like a sure thing.

-Second Quarter GDP Advance estimates get released tomorrow. Economists' consensus is -0.7%, with a range from -2.8% to +1.0%. If the consensus is correct, and is confirmed by the Final results in two months, it means the heavily traded -10%GDP.CUM.09 contracts will expire at 100, as will the US.RECESSION.2009 contracts. I don't have a strong opinion about the Advance number, other than it will be within that range.

-Initial unemployment claims came in at 584,000, close to my estimate of 591,600. Analysts had predicted 560,000-575,000.

-More and more Republicans against Sotomayor. Only relative moderate Lamar Alexander has come out in favor of her in the past week. Besides him and Lindsay Graham, every fence-sitter on my count of Sotomayor votes has come out against her. At this point it's pretty certain she'll get between 65 and 70 votes. (Incidentally, Ben Nelson D-Nebraska is still not ready to make a decision -- is he trying to be the next Zell Miller?)

-Big, big protests in Iran today, the 40th day after Neda's death. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to be sworn in August 5th, and I expect he'll make it that long. In the longer term, though, this regime will either have to crack down severely or lose power altogether.