Keep your eye on a financial trend that will eventually be a political one. The United States is becoming a nation of investors, and people with money in the stock market are likely to change their outlook about important political matters like taxes, regulation, trade, property rights, and labor relations. Last year about one in four households owned individual stocks. Polls place the proportion of households owning stock through any means at around half.
Several studies find investors are voters.
Certainly, stockholders want lower taxes, especially on capital gains, dividends, and estates. Broad stock ownership may have been one reason Bill Clinton didn t veto the 1997 capital gains cut. It was hard to call it a break for fat cats when half of Americans own stock. More important to corporations are such things as overzealous environmental regulation and government intervention in general. Many of these issues are specific to individual firms, but so far investors show no inclination to exert political influence.