Political noise and the economy

"Uncertainty is not a good thing," JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon remarked when asked about the direction of the American economy.

- BOO CHANCO

For America, its biggest economic threat is the chaos sown by an unpredictable White House, a New York Times opinion piece observed.

The business sector is allergic to political risks. Investors want as much certainty as they can get. They don't want black swans or unforeseen events with grave consequences. In America where the political climate is more or less stable for decades up until the Trump era, they are not as used to political black swans as we are in our third world country.

Zany Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist, reports from New York that the mood among the business leaders and financiers she had spoken to is not so sunny. "In private, at least, there seems to be growing concern about where America is heading under Mr. Trump... It is dawning on some of the denizens of Wall Street that the revolutionaries in the White House may do serious damage."

Political risk has also increased here in the Philippines over the past week. But it is not likely to seriously affect the trend of local businesses. SM will still go ahead with plans to add 205,400 square meters of new retail space and redevelop 124,488 sqm of existing areas and focus on large-scale events. SM will likely breach their record 5.2 million visitors per day regardless of what political repercussions we end up seeing with BBM's decision to send Duterte off to The Hague.