Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your feedback and commentary. My colleague, Ron Rimkus, writes about trade wars every once in awhile, so you might want to check his work out here on Enterprising Investor. Also, much of CFA Institute's content library is free to the public, you can find our vast archive at www.cfapubs.org. My own opinion is that populism is always a short-term phenomenon. The reason is that it is an indication that democratic processes are still trusted enough to log a very disgruntled vote. When people vote, rather than shoot their way to power it means that democracy is still working. However, more entrenched power interests covet votes so they tend to shift their rhetoric and their policy prescriptions to be more in align with the populists. You saw this in the Clinton campaign, where by the end her platform, when she talked about it, was more like that of Bernie Sanders. All of that said, if there is a permanent shift toward more populist concerns, most of the commentary I have seen says that it will hurt economic growth slightly. If memory serves the World Economic Forum and the IMF have discussed their forecasts in a populist world.

Yours, in service,

Jason