Apparently not preoccupied enough with the currently ongoing Olympic Games, odds makers in the UK are now calculating the probabilities of who will win the US Presidential election in November.  Still being the loan super power, it is no surprise that other countries care about who will be running our country in the future. Although we explained in the past how the stock market was the best Presidential predictor, it is worth seeing who these bookies currently have winning. Smart Money continues, “The U.K. bookies now heavily favor Obama: He's quoted at 2/5, compared with 15/8 for Romney. Put another way, they currently give Obama a roughly 70% chance of winning, against 35% for Romney. (Those odds have moved sharply towards Obama in recent weeks, following Romney's missteps, although the polls in the U.S. don't reflect that.)

Looking for a punt on Romney's VP pick? The bookies heavily favor Rob Portman (2/1) and Tim Pawlenty (9/4). Those seem pretty narrow odds. Nobody asked me, but I think that if the race gets tougher for Romney, the more he'll face more pressure to go for someone more interesting and "diverse." In the only election Romney has won so far, when he ran for Massachusetts governor in 2002, he picked a female running mate for the same reason. If he does something similar this time, New Mexico's governor Susana Martinez looks like a fun wager at 25/1. New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte is 16/1. Florida senator Marco Rubio, who may help with the Hispanic vote, is 6/1. Gen. David Petraeus, currently at the center of some speculation for VP, is offered at 100/1…”