https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/trump-can-win-former-finance-minister-tells-investors-20200828-p55qdzTrump can win, former finance minister tells investors
Federal Labor minister turned fintech investor Lindsay Tanner says Australian traders and investment professionals betting on a Joe Biden victory in the 2020 US election might want to think twice.
The former politician, who served as finance minister in the Rudd-Gillard Labor government, said US President Donald Trump had a strong prospect of winning a second term at the general election in November, despite polls showing he is behind his Democratic challenger by at least 4 percentage points in six top battleground states.
"It is a very, very even contest," former Labor finance minister Lindsay Tanner said of the 2020 US election. Eddie Jim
“A lot of people are writing Trump off. I think that’s wrong, I think it's a very, very even contest. There is a very good chance he will win,” Mr Tanner told a virtual conference hosted by the Stockbrokers and Financial Advisers Association on Friday.
For all his "madness", the US President, who was last week officially nominated as the Republican Party's presidential nominee, can reasonably claim to have honoured many of his 2016 election promises, the Labor luminary said.
“Record job creation, record unemployment, standing up to China, ending foreign entanglements, a wall of sorts, the list goes on,” he said.
Following his political career, Mr Tanner emerged as an influential figure in the financial services industry, serving as a non-executive director of Suncorp, a special adviser the Australian operations of global fund manager Lazard and investment committee member at robo-adviser Six Park.
In June, he was named chairman of Pacific Infrastructure Partners, the US-backed investment company that rose out of the ashes of collapsed fintech Sargon Capital, acquiring its superannuation trustee subsidiaries.
Turning to Australia's retail investors and their advisers, Mr Tanner said those looking to assess the impact of the US election on financial markets should tune out from hysterical reporting of the superpower's divided politics.
“For those facing big investment choices I would say look through the smoke to the fundamentals [of the US economy and sharemarket],” he said.
'Goldman Sachs guy'
The US had a good shot at being in the first stages of post-pandemic economic recovery by November, he added. It also enjoyed an "ongoing dynamism" in its business culture that has historically assisted it to bounce back from crises.
Both of these factors boded well for a Trump victory, Mr Tanner said, but the President would also be aided by a more demographic and ideological advantage due to having been embraced by working-class voters.
“The problem that politics faces is that even parties that were once the party of workers and lower income earners [are now the] domain of abstract thinking, university-educated people,” he said.
“Democrats, like the Labor Party, haven’t managed to straddle that divide,” he added, quipping that when he looked at his former parliamentary party colleagues, there was "not a TAFE graduate or school leaver among them".
Trump had been able to exploit voter cynicism that all politicians looked the same, went to the same universities and socialised in the same circles he said.
“They think no matter who wins some Goldman Sachs guy is going to get in anyway.”
Flawed president is not out of this race yet
Asked by stockbrokers and investment advisers in attendance – who are themselves subject to a contentious new mandatory professional standards regime – whether it had become too difficult for non-educated people to aspire to leadership positions, the former minister said it was a fair question.
"It has crept up on us. It is not a giant conspiracy, but it is a major problem," he said. "[We need to] take a good long hard look at ourselves."
Business had a role to play in "grappling with the demands of labour" and ensuring there were meaningful roles for non-university-educated Australians in the future economy, he said.
