If there is anything that can be counted on, it is the notion of the indispensability of American politicians, otherwise, in the financial crisis of 2007, the agreement to save the financial system, unthinkable to date, was not a beast of seven heads, namely the exorbitant Government fund for banking and other major companies, such as General Motors and AIG, the latter the biggest bailout in history, but which ended up yielding a profit of $23 billion on the sale of the US Treasury’s stake in company after its nationalization. More recently, at the beginning of the pandemic, the US Congress quickly reached an understanding for aid packages to the economy, in which the $600 per week given to all unemployed citizens stands out and which they were very able to support consumption.
But if in these situations the best interest now dominates the scenario is different, I refer to the impasse that exists in Congress regarding the approval of a new stimulus package, at a time when the emergency is not so pressing, but above all at a time pre-election, i.e. the most important political terrain every four years. And if the chances of an appeasement in the coming weeks were already slim, even less where the death of US Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader, given that she tended more towards the Democratic camp and made a difference by placing Democrats with 5 judges against the 4 tendency Republicans. According to the Constitution, it is now up to the President to appoint a new judge, which must then be approved by the Senate, except that this upper house of Congress is dominated by the Republicans, while the House of Representatives is a Democratic majority.
Photo by Anna Sullivan.
This puts even more fuel into the fire of political fighting in the coming weeks, which investors are seeing as bearish since there should be no new aid package until we know who the new White House tenant will be, and even then. things are not peaceful, since it is likely that neither side will immediately accept the result of the elections, which may delay the process until the end of the year, a dispute that will be decided by the Supreme Court, hence the importance of who will be the successor by Ruth Bader.
