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While we obsess over domestic politics — not that there’s anything wrong with that, since a lot depends on whether the next leader of the world’s most powerful nation is a racist xenophobe, a sinister theocrat, an empty suit, or all of the above — something scary is going on in financial markets, where bond prices in particular are indicating near-panic.

I know, Paul Samuelson famously quipped that the stock market had predicted nine of the last five recessions; the wisdom of crowds is often overrated. Still, bond markets are a bit less flighty than stocks, and also more closely tied to the economic outlook. (A weak economy has mixed effects on stocks — low profits but also low interest rates — while it has an unambiguous effect on bonds.) What plunging rates tell us is that markets are expecting very weak economies and possibly deflation for years to come, if not full-blown crisis.

Among other things, such a world would be a very bad place into which to elect a member of a party that has spent the past 7 years inveighing against both fiscal and monetary stimulus, and has learned nothing from the utter failure of its predictions to come true.