In this thread, you can discuss the US presidential election 2020 and its impact on the stock market and economy in a smart, analytical way.
This is the 59th US presidential election. If the concept of an election is unfamiliar, you can find comprehensive Wikipedia articles on the topic.
Thanks to @Markakorva for the idea for this thread.
Links to tonight’s debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvRIboFJOiY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_92o3Z919f4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPiofmZGb8o
I’d like to put up a poll about Trump’s “stunt” tonight, but I couldn’t come up with good options.
Now, the mics are muted for 2 minutes per candidate per topic (there are 6 topics, 15 minutes each) so that each can answer in peace, and Trump doesn’t find this appropriate. In the last election, he walked behind Clinton to lurk, which probably won’t work this time, thanks to Corona. But he must come up with some trick… for me, this is almost the most anticipated question of the debate… What Will Trump Do? 
I guess we’ll get outraged headlines from this, no matter what happens. The debate organization has already messed up so much… this was supposed to be the debate where foreign policy was one of the topics. Until it was removed because… why? Because Biden’s achievements in foreign policy are a bit shaky? Instead, they dug up topics for the list that were already discussed in the 1st debate.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/media/trump-campaign-statement-on-debate-commission-rule-changes
This is being awaited with interest here. It is quite tragicomic and sad that, when it comes to such a serious topic as the US presidential elections, social media seems to be mostly guessing whether Biden will blurt out the words “Shut up,” and how many times the opposing party will be called a clown.
I myself expect a completely meaningless and uneventful discussion that will have no impact on the polls or the perceptions of these heroic figures. The columnists at 538 seem to be expecting the same: minimal impact on polls and voting behavior in general, and few undecided voters. The only black swan would be a significant blunder by Biden in such a rare live debate. Even this, however, would probably require him to forget his own name or have a medical emergency for anyone to care.
In the polls of recent days, the situation still looks very good from Biden’s perspective: a national lead still around ten points, and Florida and Pennsylvania polls still in the +3 to +9 range. I’d be tempted to bet even more on Biden.
John Authers has a good column on the risks of investors “riding” the so-called blue wave and the vaccine.
And there are plenty of them.
If a person has served as vice president for eight years and as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for four years, they cannot be considered a novice in foreign policy in terms of their knowledge, skills, and understanding.
I personally follow this purely if one tries to benefit from predictions in trading.
Kauppalehti anticipates (behind paywall) the election result:
From the stock market’s perspective, the worst possible outcome would be if, after the elections, it’s not known who the President of America is.
Then the United States would be in the middle of a corona crisis, unemployment on the rise, and no one in the White House to lead the situation.
But there’s no one leading the situation there right now either.
(Edit: missing word added)
It’s there, even if the media might portray a different picture. Then we can argue whether it’s well-managed or poorly managed.
https://twitter.com/FirstSquawk/status/1319478512147890177?s=19
From this, we can follow Squawk’s poll on what the people think of the last debate 
I was just reading some random polling results from Michigan, and they contain very interesting themes and question batteries that every tinfoil hat wearer can overanalyze.
The pollster, 538, ranks it at level B (i.e., semi-quality). The poll is generally consistent with Michigan consensus and national levels. A few pointers:
Looking through Biden-tinted glasses, an equal number of respondents voted for Trump as for Clinton in the last election, whereas in this election, support for Biden would have increased by a few units and Trump’s decreased correspondingly. The number of undecided voters also appears to have decreased by several percentage points, as has been seen in other polls.
Interestingly, 55% support Fauci, and 61% of the sample would rather listen to him than Trump – apparently, this includes some Republicans and independents as well. Also, over half of voters disapprove of Trump’s coronavirus actions. Sounds logical all around.
I don’t know if I’m reading the results from a perspective that pleases my views, but generally, this small sample seems to correspond to my understanding that Biden is liked more than Clinton, and some of those who supported Trump in the last election would be switching their allegiance in this election. The fact that a record number of people will vote in this election is unlikely to weaken Biden’s chances, considering the national breakdown of about D 31% / R 25% / I 40%. Of course, it’s always possible that people are so annoyed with Biden that they eventually cast their vote for a third party.
My confidence in election polls grew in that it’s not just a click-the-box-do-you-support-Trump type of thing, but rather a quite rational and comprehensive-looking battery of questions. On Twitter, Trump supporters laugh about intentionally lying in polls for their own amusement, but are there really masses of such people to systematically create biases in these 10-100 question batteries?
I’m still increasing my popular vote bet for Biden. On Monday, the odds were 1.22, and today it’s still 1.18 for Biden to be more popular than Trump. Regardless of who wins the election, I believe the world is alarmingly out of whack if Trump’s performance in recent years would gain the support of over half of Americans.
{“content”:“The debate was also seen on Yle, so let’s put up a poll.\n[poll type=regular results=always chartType=bar]\n# The winner of the Trump vs Biden debate, in my opinion, was\n* Trump\n* Biden\n[/poll]”,“target_locale”:“en”}
The main thing I remember from the debate is that if Trump’s words could be trusted and Biden won the election, then now would be the time to pawn your grandma… 100 trillion dollars for green energy. Omg 
I don’t know if I’m alone in my thoughts, but in my opinion, one of the most important issues in the last election was the parties’ differing stances on coal and oil. While the parties are still in the same trenches on the matter (even though Republicans do mention something small about solar energy, for example), the field has strongly changed. Greta, the EU’s emission targets, and most recently, Attenborough’s Netflix documentary, brilliantly timed just before the elections, all play into voters’ perceptions moving in a greener direction, and the Democrats’ line on replacing oil with renewables is no longer automatically seen as un-American. Of course, the biggest green boom is seen on the coasts, which are already considered Democratic strongholds, but I still see a clear change even in myself compared to a few years ago. As a great lover of long-distance travel and private car ownership, it took a while to accept that maybe I could be more open to the idea, and it’s really only in the last year that I’ve considered buying an electric car next.
Biden totally messed up when he openly admitted that his administration is shifting focus away from oil. Even if that comment could bring 2 million sleepy environmentalists in California and New York to the polls, it will backfire in the Rust Belt, where the oil and gas industry is a significant employer.
At this rate, Trump will win the electoral votes by the same landslide as last time. Biden might easily win the popular vote by five million over Trump, but it’s entirely his own fault if his campaign strategy is so terrible.
I don’t think even Americans would be unaware of the parties’ stance on climate change and oil. The issue is also one of the biggest political agendas for Democrats, and without COVID-19, it would have been the biggest topic of discussion throughout the election cycle. Therefore, I don’t see that Biden would have won anything by staying silent on the matter, or that it would come as a surprise to any voter. Instead, in swing states, even a small shift in support for the EV and renewables scene might make the situation different from previous elections.
The point was that Biden, from an election tactical standpoint, should have strongly defended oil. No important voter in those key states would have jumped from the Democrats to Trump’s camp because of that throw aimed at defending oil.
Now, Biden foolishly took a strong stance on an issue that is extremely unpopular in those key states. The basic Democratic voter certainly thanks him for that strong puffing for renewables, but those whose livelihood depends on the jobs created by those oil companies disagree. Fearing job loss, they might switch to voting for Trump, even if they otherwise found the man repulsive. According to polls, Trump’s economic expertise has been considered good throughout his term. This was a bad hat-trick into his own goal by Biden.
This probably falls into the category of whether a politician should strive to gain power or to bring about change. I stand by the view that all oilmen were already aware of this, given how vocal the Democrats have been about it. It’s likely true that if they lose, climate change and the costs to society from its mitigation will be decisive factors for the Republicans. However, the Democrats have chosen their path a long time ago (which the rest of the world is probably happy about), and at this stage, it’s worth making noise to shift people’s attitudes towards the issue. The media and the EU, among others, have done good promotion for them. Of course, if one only wants to win elections without an agenda, one can conduct a poll to find out what is wanted in each swing state and support those wishes, but then one should, in principle, partly implement such policies even after the elections.
So, one has to do like Trump. Although I don’t know if he needed surveys to find out what the people wanted.
The result is probably a bunch of “POPULIST!” insults from the press and “intellectuals”. Oh, and the usual “this is a danger to democracy” rhetoric.
