Stephen Thaxter- Senior Partner and Principal Adviser

Sovereign Wealth Partners

Over the last week I’ve spent quite a lot of time watching the US election on the newswires. There were one or two charts I kept coming back to, that for me, said it all.

Firstly there was the chart showing the relative size of the winning margin in each county.  It shows that the Democrats easily control the cities – the highly populated areas – but do not speak for the rural areas.  Not so surprising when the US has the worst inequality statistics of the G7.  In the US, the top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 90% combined and the inequality trends are accelerating.

So Mr Trump may have lost the election, but last Tuesday 72 million US voters actually preferred his leadership over the conventional alternative. In a highly partisan country riddled with fake news, there is clearly a long way to go in fighting the ugly side of populism.

POPULAR VOTE MARGIN (source Associated Press)

Blue circle – county vote won by Democrats

Red circle  – county vote won by Republicans

Size of circle proportional to size of winning margin.

Larger circles show larger winning margin

Joe Biden’s victory speech made a big point of uniting the country in the fight against COVID19.   Clearly a smart move – the virus has no political allegiance (although it seems to prefer those not wearing a mask!) and is running rampant in the US.  Incredibly, new case numbers are almost double those of the previous peak.

US CORONA VIRUS UPDATE

Source: Bloomberg, via Perpetual Funds Management.

We all look forward to some genuine good news on the vaccine front.