Last night Wall Street soared, with Dow Jones up by +4.53%, S&P 500 by +4.22%, and Nasdaq by +3.85%. Joe Biden’s big win on Super Tuesday was the underlying reason of the positivity, where he won 10 out of 14 states, as a potential Biden presidency offers a relatively unchanged status quo, similar like what Michael Bloomberg is offering.
By contrast, the other front runner Bernie Sanders would bring big changes in the American establishment by introducing Social Democracy (that is, Scandinavian style socialism and not Soviet style communism) that would bridge the gap in American economic inequality by taxing corporations (that have been dodging taxes via safe havens) and billionaires (which Warren Buffett once famously said he paid less tax than his secretary) to provide free services such as health care for the rest of the population, just like in Scandinavian countries.
Another democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren would also bring changes in the establishment, with Senator Warren, a former law School professor specializing in bankruptcy law, proposes detailed plans to break up banks and technology companies and raise taxes, akin to what Teddy Roosevelt started in the early 1900s with the “Trust busting” in his days, to break up monopoly and to avoid just a number of people controlling the economy, which was followed by presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, with the breaking up of Standard Oil and Northern Securities Company as some of the big busts.
Hence, theoretically, if Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren win the democratic nomination, Wall Street would slump. And conversely if Joe Biden or Michael Bloomberg win, Wall Street would soar. But as of yesterday, Michael Bloomberg dropped out from the race (and naturally gave his endorsement to Biden), Elizabeth Warren suffered a big blow on Super Tuesday, while the one other candidate Tulsi Gabbard only polling about 1% nationally, practically leaving the democratic race to 2 candidates: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
As things stand Biden had racked up 566 delegates, Sanders 501 and Warren 61 from the Super Tuesday with the numbers are expected to shift as new states report their numbers (with California, which has 415 delegates on offer, famously takes quite a while to count the votes). More primaries coming up for the Democratic candidates, until July convention.
EDWIN SETIADI 