The week in review

• DJIA gained 122.39 points this week, 1.02% to 12,108.43. The rally continues.
  

• Nasdaq Composite picked up a healthy 58.93, 2.53, and wrapped up at 2389.72.
  

• S & P 500 gained 16.60, 1.22% to close the week at 1,380.90.
  

• 10-year Treasury yield dropped 0.127 percentage points to 4.590%.
  

• Crude oil rose 45 cents this week, 0.76% and stood at $59.59 yesterday afternoon.

Results of this week's election had an entirely benign, if not negative, effect on the financial markets this week as stocks finished Friday lower than where they stood mid-day election day. While American liberals are giddy and gleeful about the new influence Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will likely possess for the next two years, investors' reactions were a bit more realistic. The burden is now on Democrats, who have spent the last six years complaining, to actually present ideas and solutions.

Number one on democrats' to-do list appears to be a hike in the national minimum wage. Gee, what a compete waste of time. More than half of U.S. states already have minimum wages above the federal level and those states are discovering that employers are quick to automate, outsource, go underground and hire illegal workers or just quit business altogether rather than pay unskilled workers more than they are worth. Higher minimum wage policy creates more problems than it solves.

Democrats need to really step up to the pump and present some concrete solutions rather than a just a bunch of fluff designed to excite uninformed, unsophisticated voters. I'll be waiting.