September 3, 2012 / Fortune Asia / Volume 166 / Number 4 / ELECTION SPECIAL

ELECTION SPECIAL
50 HEY, WASHINGTON: ENOUGH ALREADY!
Neither Obama nor Romney talks about the hard choices America needs to make to solve its economic woes. Fortune’s GEOFF COLVIN and ALLAN SLOAN offer a commonsense proposal for getting the country back on track.

58 BARACK OBAMA: A PRESIDENT READY FOR A SHOWDOWN
If Obama is elected to a second term, he’s likely to stop making concessions with the GOP on economic measures and force a confrontation―right away.
BY TORY NEWMYER

64 MITT ROMNEY’S FIVE-POINT PLAN FOR THE ECONOMY
Helped by an all-star team of advisers, the Republican candidate maps out ways to stimulate business.
BY DAVID WHITFORD, WITH DORIS BURKE

41 LEADERSHIP Q&A
What’s the secret of survival these days? Change quickly, says AT&T’s Cathy Coughlin, along with your customer.

INTERVIEW BY GEOFF COLVIN
44 THE SECRET OF SEE’S CANDIES
Warren Buffett calls it a ”dream business.” Californians love it. Now CEO Brad Kinstler is expanding east. Will it work?
BY DANIEL ROBERTS

70 CAN THE NAVY REALLY GO GREEN?
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is betting that the service will get half its energy from renewables by 2020.
BY BRIAN DUMAINE

10 FIRST
Closer Look
The ultimate corner office: In the cab of a crane on the 91st floor of 1 World Trade Center.
BY RYAN BRADLEY

12 FIRST
Housing
An eco-friendly, elegant prefab.
BY BRIAN DUMAINE

15 FIRST
Brainstorm
Where the high cost of corn will hurt most.
BY CECILIA PAASCHE GRAPHIC BY NICOLAS RAPP

16 FIRST
Game Changers
The man behind the JOBS Act.
BY RICHARD MCGILL MURPHY

19 VENTURE
How I Got Started
Zappos’s Nick Swinmurn quietly built a retail giant.
EDITED BY DINAH ENG

22 VENTURE
Fastest-Growing Companies
For Alexion, rare diseases mean big profits.
BY RICHARD MCGILL MURPHY

23 TECH
The Future Is Now
Miniature robots repair patients’ bodies from the inside.
BY RYAN BRADLEY

25 TECH
Hulu’s Drama
The networks that own the streaming TV service are squabbling, and Hulu could stall.
BY JANET MORRISSEY

27 TECH
Tech@Work
How cloud storage services stack up.
BY OMAR AKHTAR AND RICHARD NIEVA

29 INVEST
Financial Matters
Why boutique investment bank Centerview Partners matters on Wall Street―and beyond.
BY SHAWN TULLY

31 INVEST
Value Play
Betting on banks.
BY RUSSELL PEARLMAN

32 INVEST
Wealth Adviser
It’s time to adjust your thinking about mortgages.
BY JANICE REVELL

8 Editor’s Desk

76 Bing!

OPINION

35 John Cassidy
Obama should have canned Bernanke in 2009.

36 Nina Easton
A radical tax plan the left and right can agree on.

37 Sheila Bair
The Fed dropped the ball during the Libor scandal.

38 Becky Quick
Mike Oxley on Sarbox: His one big regret.

39 Dan Primack
Private equity’s twisted trip down the campaign trail.

CORRECTIONS
In ”No Borders, No Boundaries” (July 23), we quoted energy expert Daniel Yergin as saying the developed world consumed twice as much energy as the developing world 10 years ago. In fact he said, ”A decade ago the developed world consumed twice as much oil as the developing world.” We also wrote that the Middle East is home to only one Global 500 company. It is home to two: SABIC and International Petroleum Investment. Fortune regrets the errors.

+

FORTUNE.COM

EVERYTHING WE KNOW, THE MINUTE WE KNOW IT.

ON THE COVER Photograph by SAM KAPLAN; button design by GAIL ANDERSON and JOE NEWTON

[IMAGES]

ILLUSTRATION: RHYTHM & HUES DESIGN

TEN PHOTOS:

TWO ILLUSTRATIONS:

© Time Inc.