Wall Street In Panic: What If Trump Wins?

It appears as though Wall Street has gone to Defcon 4, and the reason isn’t the recent stock market dip — it is because Donald Trump is on an unstoppable rampage toward the GOP candidacy.

According to Politico, everyone, including Wall Street, regarded Trump as a joke. Trump was nothing more than a circus spectacle to be mocked. Once the debates happened and the cogs of the campaign machine began to turn, he would be revealed for the inept buffoon that he is, and he would move on to promote whatever public relations campaign he was actually wanting to take on at the time.

It seems that has yet to happen, and Trump, as Wall Street is concerned, may actually be serious and have a legitimate shot. Byron Wien, vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Partners and a senior figure on Wall Street, explained the reasoning.

“I held four lunches for investors in August and at the first one everyone assumed Trump would implode. By the fourth one everyone was taking him very seriously. He taps into frustrations that are very real and he is a master manipulator of the media.”

The issue is so important to Wall Street investors that even those offering criticisms of the Donald are offering their concerns under the cloak of anonymity. One Wall Street CEO in particular feels as though a Trump presidency is still a pipe dream.

“So it’s a combination of shock and bewilderment. No one really knows why this is happening. But my own belief is that the laws of gravity will apply and those who are prepared to run the marathon will benefit when Trump drops out at mile 22.”

The thing that has Wall Street so upset is that Trump does not seem to play by any discernible playbook. Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics points out that not only does Trump break the rules, but is rewriting them, making himself immune to the political attacks of people that generally serve Wall Street interests.

In fact, Trump had his own things to say about the candidates that he feels serves Wall Street and corporate interests before the will of the people.

“Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton will continue to let Wall Street and the ‘hedge fund guys’ rip off the people by paying no or very little in taxes.”

He went on to say that his campaign is self-funded and his fellow people are beholden to Wall Street while he serves no one but the American people.

[Image by Tom Pennington/Getty Images]