To the editor:

This is in response to Ms. Mona Charen’s claim that President Trump’s policies will transform the United States into a Third-World country (“Voters wanted change; they’ll get it,” Journal-World, Nov. 10).

A standard method in business research to assess the impact of an outcome is to analyze the stock market’s reaction (event study). On Nov. 5, betting markets estimated a 60% probability of the former president’s victory. The outcome became certain on Nov. 6. This 40% reduction in election-related uncertainty coincided with a 3.5% increase in the Dow Jones Index, implying an 8% increase attributed to the full outcome. Considering the U.S. equity market’s valuation of approximately $50 trillion, this translates to roughly $4 trillion in wealth creation in a single day. To put this into perspective, this surpasses the annual GDP of 95% of the world’s nations. Clearly, this evidence is at astronomical variance with Ms. Charen’s conjecture and one wonders if she resides in an alternative universe.

Kissan Joseph,

Lawrence