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2024 Election: The Return of Trump

What a comeback. Four years after his first Presidential stint, Donald Trump is set to return to the white house after a dominant victory in the recent US Presidential election. This would have been unimaginable back in 2021-2022, when Trump’s political seemed to be in demise as he faced significant legal troubles.


Source: NBC News


But he did. And he did so in resounding fashion as he won the popular vote too, the first Republican candidate to do so since 2004.


This marks the end of a wild election campaign to say to least. From the Democrats change in candidate from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, this could yet be the craziest presidential campaign that Donald Trump had been a part of. Though as the campaign unfolded, it became quite clear that Donald Trump was going to win.


Source: BBC


Kamala Harris was in an uphill battle right from the start, being thrown into the fray with only slightly more than 100 days to campaign. As the incumbent vice president, she embodied an administration that many Americans blamed for rampant inflation. As there was no way for her to tackle the issue of inflation without conceding her incompetence, she chose to anchor her campaign on the dangers of a second term Trump presidency, which proved to be ineffective. People wanted an inflation fix, and they want someone else who didn’t cause it to fix it.


Kind of like Manchester United bringing in a replacement for Eric Ten hag to get them out of the current mess. No idea if he could do it, but anyone besides the person who got them in the mess would be welcome.


Fixing Manchester United's problem is no walk in the park, but fixing the inflation problem could be tougher. The last US CPI reading was around 2.4%, YoY which is what most economies want. But 2% increase over the crazy inflation since Covid is still significant, as prices are not dropping. For the regular folks, milk, eggs, and bread etc continues to be expensive. What they want, is a fall in prices, which is negative inflation. This is an unlikely outcome with the stock market continuously reaching new highs, as it reacted positively to Trump’s victory. If Trump wishes to bring prices of goods down, the asset prices would likely drop correspondingly as a trade-off.


Source: The Atlantic


So what would Trump do? Deflation is never a good idea in economic theory, yet Trump knows that Americans voted for him partly because they are upset at the high prices. On the other hand, it would be ludicrous to think that any sitting US president would intentionally crash asset prices. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.


Source: Business Insider


Watching the US elections show how unpredictable world affairs can be. In the Singapore property market context, you often hear some aspiring home owners commenting on how prices are too high, and to wait for prices to drop before buying their homes. The truth is, there are no reliable ways to forecast / compare prices across time periods. Look at the US elections – from George Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden and now back to Trump. Each have very different economic philosophies which shape world affairs and economy extremely differently. We cannot predict what kind of macroeconomic affair would drive prices up or down. What we can put our faith in, is the track record of the Singapore Government, who have led the country wisely throughout periods of great uncertainty. Betting on Singapore’s real estate, which is largely reflects Singapore’s economy, could be wiser than trying to time and catch the lows of the real estate market.

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