Summary: States try to vote out electoral college<br> Markets tense & uncertain, awaiting election results<br> Past shows to revisit on control of information<br> <br> <br> Nazli Choucri Cyber Politics and You<br> Monroe Price: Free Expression and Strategic Communication<br> Robert Jervis - Does Instant Twitter Diplomacy Change The Game With China, Iran, & North Korea?<br> <br> <br> The McAlvany Weekly Commentary<br> with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick<br> Election 2020: What Can Gilgamesh Epic Teach Us?<br> November 4, 2020<br> “Biases lead to looking at information that is most readily available, and it’s easiest to process and most understandable, rather than to probing more deeply for what is more illuminating and diagnostic. When we look at this election and we say, ‘Oh, well, this was obvious, this is how it happened,’ we need to make sure that we’re not the drunks under the light looking for our keys. And so accounting for our bias is a pretty important part of sorting through perceptions, and, of course, what could potentially be misperceptions.”<br> – David McAlvany<br> Kevin: Well, many people have just voted as we record this program because we’re recording a couple of days before Election Day. But let me ask you, what are you going to be doing on Election Day?<br> David: The market is always concerned about things like taper tantrums and what there’s going to be in terms of a market response to this or that, and we’ve got a really big weekend. I’m not so much concerned about the tantrum following the taper, but I am in a taper, which is to say, my exercise load is decreasing each day until the race this next Saturday in Florida.<br> Kevin: Yes, 140 miles. And actually, I remember those tapers. I only did the half Ironman with you a few years ago, but I just I loved those last two weeks. It was weird because you get antsy. All you’ve been doing up to this point is training. And now you’re tapering. They’re actually saying, Dave, relax.<br> David: Yes, it’s going to be interesting being in Florida away from our house and all the things that are sort of naturally comfortable in the context of not only the election but what may end up being a very tumultuous period of time. So we’ve already got our meetings lined out for the Wealth Management group in terms of when we’re talking and how we’re operating and what our protocols are. So that’s fine.<br> Kevin: This working remote goes anywhere, doesn’t it?<br> David: It does. It does. So it will be a fascinating week. Looking back at last week, I think this is really critical. We had stocks down. We had Treasuries down. We had the Blue Wave narrative shifting from being advantageous to potentially being problematic. And most importantly, we saw that the market is saying, “Wait a minute. There is a risk in the credit markets.”<br> So far the equities markets have been able to ignore that. It’s kind of the elephant in the room. We’ve seen such massive distribution of credit into the system this year. But finally this last week, a bit of an outflow from high-yield, anywhere from $2.5 to $3.7 billion coming out of HYG and your other high-yield products.<br> Kevin: Just call them junk bonds.<br> David: Yes, exactly. That’s the euphemism. But we’re in an interesting place. We’re recording this commentary prior to the final vote count, which means there are significant data points we don’t have, mainly who won the election, and by what margin. And nothing’s conclusive. It’s thought that a decisive win may take some time to determine, because of the millions of mail-in votes. And you’ve got the contested election, which would be sort of the worst outcome in the short run, a disaster for the equities markets just because people don’t know what to do with uncertainty.<br> Kevin: Well, I liked what Lila Murphy had to say, too, though. She said a lot of what you’re calling disaster would look like disaste...
