Why the hysteria over Trump?

The British press is tearing its hair out over a Donald Trump presidency. But what is there to be so scared about, asks Merryn Somerset Webb.

Why would anyone choose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton? I'll tell you why. Because for a large part of America, Clinton represents everything that they think is wrong with modern capitalism. As every email revelation of the last few months has shown, she is part of the great round of crony capitalism a key part of a world of elites cosying up together as they run commercial and central banks, big companies and even bigger governments.

Fairly or unfairly, you can connect her with all the things that the "elites" are under fire for. Think of the transfer of wealth that comes from low interest rates and quantitative easing; of the way in which the chief executives of big companies pay more attention to their own multi-million-dollar pay packets than to long-term shareholders, to growth and to sustainability; of low wages (note that in this week's election several states voted to raise the minimum wage); of uncontrolled immigration; and of the kind of relentlessly open globalisation that appears to pay more attention to the needs of corporations than it does to their workers.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.