Despite their fundamental disagreements, one perspective both Trump and Clinton seemed to share was that banks and bankers are not to be trusted and that banks should possibly even be broken up. In the past few days, however, Trump has made one of his trademark sharp turns, suggesting ahead of his speech today that he might institute a moratorium on new financial regulation. He also announced a list of economic advisers on Friday—thirteen men, heavily populated with billionaire business figures, such as the hedge-fund manager John Paulson and Stephen Feinberg, of Cerberus Capital, and many of whom are Trump political donors, according to Politico. The list suggests that he won’t be seeking the policy expertise of academic economists and, combined with the ban on regulation, might be seen as an effort to inch back into the good graces of Wall Street. [...]
It used to be that the Republican Party was the party of Wall Street, or at least of a certain urban-professional, socially moderate, economically conservative banker type. Republicans could be relied on to offer policy ideas that the financial sector loved: free trade, tax cuts, and loosened regulation were the predictable trifecta, with a little budget austerity sprinkled in. The alignment between wealthy political donors from major banks and corporate executive suites and candidates like Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President in 2012, made logical sense, as predictable as the sun setting in the West. [...]
The tilt in Clinton’s favor among financial-industry types may have less to do with their love of her than with a rejection of what Trump represents: instability. As Warren put it in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek last week, “Nuclear war is bad for business.” Wall Street’s backing of Clinton is therefore less a vow of support than an attempt to stave off catastrophe.
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