In a week that brought almost too many wanted things, U.S. business behaved like a thirsty man suddenly caught in a cloudburst—grateful, but worried too that he would soon have to swim for his life.
The stockmarket, confident of Republican victory, had gone up over 10 points (Dow-Jones industrial averages) in the four days before election. But when victory came, the market fell, the worst drop in two months. Commodity prices fell also. Probable reasons: short-term speculators read G.O.P. talk of a big U.S. budget cut as a deflationary measure, grabbed their profits. They ignored talk of the corollary...