Well … it’s been a week.
And if there is one thing the past week has shown us, it is
that there is often two sides to a story. For everyone thrilled that Joe Biden
is now president-elect, there are almost as many people upset about the outcome.
No one is necessarily wrong, there are just two possible answers. That is what
voting essentially is, after all.
The same thing can often happen in the financial realm. On
Monday, Pfizer released news that it had a vaccine against COVID-19 that was
more than 90% effective. Great news, right? Of course, and if you look at the
stock market’s overall numbers in the wake of the news, it agreed.
Well, unless you looked at some individual stocks, ones for
companies like Zoom and Peloton. Heck, even giants like Amazon and Netflix saw
a downtick because we may be seeing the light where we are not all at home all
the time anymore.
This is something to remember as now move forward. What will
Biden’s election mean for the country’s economy? What will it mean for tax
policy?
Well, it is all guesswork now, but suffice to say there will
be some change. And when that change happens, it is going to mean good things
to some people, and it is going to mean bad things to other people. And heck,
just what is going to happen may depend more on the two Senate runoff elections
in Georgia than it has to do with Biden anyway.
The calendar timing means this all comes at the end of the
year just as many people start to look toward their tax picture and finding what
the numbers will say when it comes time to file next year. So, like I often
counsel, we can only work under the rules that we currently have to the best of
our ability. Even when those rules change, we will do what we can to help
everyone work under the current rules and make them work in the possible way
for their situation. And again, of course, that will be a good thing for some
and a bad thing for others.
But everyone will get another chance to say how they feel
about that, and everything else that happens, in four years. First off, may
those years prove to be easier to travel than 2020. And next off, let us all
remain committed to respect, civility, and lawfulness over that time. We have
lived under rules and leaders we enjoy, and we have lived under rules and
leaders we do not enjoy. We have thrived under both and we can continue to do
so.
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