SO why is the global television sports industry—pre-Covid, of course—worth up to $100 billion a year? For the same reasons, my comments above are silly considering I watch every move on the global asset and financial markets. People want to know the results “first” in real time and more importantly want to feel they are part of the action.
“Pay-per-view” is as close as you will ever get to experience a punch to the face from Manny Pacquiao.
Politics became a television “sport” in the 1960s. Anyone who was alive then watched as John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev battled for the Championship of the Western Hemisphere. And politics is now—like sports—a firm part of the social media landscape. And if there is a World Cup of politics, it is the US presidential election. The world watches for the same reason as viewing the Olympics; real-time results and virtual participation. No domestic politics can match what comes out of the US.
However, the reality is that the occupant of the office of US president is becoming less and less important. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” The other reality is that the geopolitical world of the 21st century has substantially changed if not reduced the power of the United States. The bipolar world of the 20th century between the USSR and the US no longer exists.
The “Cold War” has been augmented with the “G-7,” the G-20, the BRICS, and serious regional political and economic groupings and alliances such as Asean, Asean Plus 3, the European Union, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The world was also divided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, with their little cousin the Asian Development Bank. January 2016 saw the entry of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. “Pax Americana” now must share the global stage with the “Belt and Road Initiative.”
It is obviously not that the US and its president are unimportant. But the global game has changed in the past 20 years. Obama’s words could not keep the Chinese out of Panatag Shoal. Obama’s “red line” in the Syrian civil war was nothing more than chuckle to both the Syrian government and the rebels.
It is no longer effective for the US—or any country—to merely show an “Iron Fist.” That is useless unless the world knows that the country is willing to punch with it. Ask Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine. Does anyone doubt Russia’s resolve? Or China’s when Xi Jinping says he owns the South China Sea?
Trump’s “craziest guy in the room”—and therefore the most dangerous—rhetoric worked with the Iranian “Mad Mullahs” and the “Little Rocket Man” in North Korea for a while. But now the US is not the only power, let alone “Superpower” on the planet.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo made 16 trips to the US. President Benigno Aquino 3rd went there seven times. Duterte was the most traveled Philippine president in his first year of office, but not once to the US. The US election matters much more if you bet on the winner.
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.