The stock market may be more efficient than Rubin thinks it is
By Robert Reich — via Substack
Friends,
A few weeks ago, when I asked you what you thought Trump’s promised “October surprise” would be, most of you predicted he’d interfere in the election.
My erstwhile Cabinet colleague Robert Rubin, who served as secretary of the treasury, agrees with you.
Rubin wrote in Wednesday’s New York Times that many Americans “underestimate” the threat presented by “Trump’s clearly expressed desire to interfere with and even usurp the midterm elections.”
Rubin worries that leaders in business and politics “don’t take Trump’s attacks on voting seriously” and therefore “markets are not pricing in what I consider a meaningful risk.”
Presumably, according to Rubin, if the stock market were reflecting the actual risk of Trump taking over American democracy, it would not be at its current record highs. It would be far, far lower.
But could it be that current record high stock market valuations do reflect the real possibility that Trump will usurp the 2026 midterms?
Trump has already usurped the powers of Congress over spending, tariffs, and war and defied the judicial branch when it told him to stop. Yet the stock market has surged.
Is it possible that investors — especially big investors — don’t particularly like the messiness of democracy?
Perhaps the wealthiest Americans, who own most shares of stock — and hold a larger share of the nation’s wealth than at any time in history — worry that if we had a real democracy, a majority of voters would decide to raise taxes on them to finance all sorts of things that the majority needs, such as healthcare, childcare, good schools, elder care, and affordable housing.
Maybe the wealthiest Americans worry that if we had a real democracy, a majority would demand that artificial intelligence be strictly regulated; that AI data centers must pay for the electricity and water they’re using and the noise they’re creating; and that no individual can monopolize satellite communications, or own a major source of information, or pollute our politics with hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign spending.
So they don’t mind that Trump is clamping down on democracy. In fact, some are quite elated, and the high stock market valuations reflect their elation.
I’m reminded of multibillionaire Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal, patron of JD Vance, and one of the Republican Party’s largest donors), who wrote that he “no longer believe[s] that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Why? Because democratic majorities vote for more government spending, social welfare programs, and market regulations, which Thiel views as infringements on individual freedom and free-market capitalism.
If Thiel represents the views of most of the billionaire class in America today, perhaps the buoyant stock market is indeed reflecting the possibility that Trump will finish the job he began — usurping the midterm election and American democracy.
I hope to hell I’m wrong. I hope Bob Rubin is wrong, too.