A Quantum of Decency

Last week I wrote about mean reversion and proposed this week’s mail to be on the market efficiency theory. I am sorry, but the topic will have to wait, I feel we „have bigger fish to fry“. I do not want my weekly mail to become a political instrument of any sort, and I consider myself to be a reasonably free spirit, but I almost felt urged to share my thoughts with you.

So, there I was, getting up at 02:30 CET in the morning (yes, 2:30 am) on Wednesday to be ready for the first of three debates between the U.S. President, Donald Trump, and the former U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was shocked by the performance. Are these two candidates really the best the U.S. has to offer? After all, this is supposed to be one of the most important jobs in the world (comes right after CEO at Incrementum) and out of a population of 328.5 million people, one could expect to find at least a handful of intelligent and classy people, no?

But, let me start with first things first. To win a presidential election, a U.S. president needs a majority in the „electoral college“, i.e. the electoral men and women. This body consists of 538 people, so the majority is 270 votes. Each state sends a certain number of electoral men and women depending on the size of its population. The winner of a state receives all the votes, thus strengthening the Electoral College for his or her party. The absolute majority of the people’s votes (popular vote) is not decisive. Now that we have established this part, let us briefly concentrate on what happened from my perspective on Wednesday morning.

It should have been a debate to show the two candidates‘ position on the following six topics chosen by Chris Wallace, the debate’s T.V. host, from Fox News.

“The records of President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.”
“The Supreme Court”
“COVID-19”
“The economy.”
„Race and violence in our cities.“
„The integrity of the election.“

Chris Wallace is a 72-year-old and very experienced journalist, and yet, he had severe troubles to keep the debate and discussion on a decent level. To me, the president of the United States of America behaved in a very indecent way, and watching him perform on Wednesday morning CET confirmed one fundamental view that had developed over the past four years inside myself. The view I have today is that no matter how potentially excellent his political performance was during his term in office, without a quantum of decency no one should serve as president of the United States of America (or any other country), the largest economic and military power in the world.

You know, Ladies and Gentlemen, in sociology, decency is defined as a standard for ethical and moral standards and expectations of good or correct behavior that is taken for granted. Decency determines manners and lifestyle. To me, this is a must-have for any politician, but even more so, for the president of the superpower called the USA.

I am not sure if Mister Joe Biden will be a good president and if his political program will help to get the job done, but because to me he seems to be the more decent person, than the current U.S. president, the political program becomes almost less critical. I want the without a doubt globally most influential politician to be a reasonably decent person, and currently, I do not have the impression President Donald Trump meets this expectation.

Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li
Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend.

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li