Scaramucci on the Pandemic, Politics and Profitable Predictions
Former White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci wrote in a CNN Business Perspectives piece last week that the U.S. government needed to think bigger about its stimulus response to Covid-19 “or else it risks another Great Depression.”
Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of investment management firm SkyBridge Capital, outlined steps such as backstopping jobs and cutting taxes to enact a $3.2 trillion stimulus, nearly $1.2 trillion greater than the stimulus signed by President Donald Trump on March 27.
“The economic recovery from the global financial crisis was slow by historical standards due to the fact we undershot the size of fiscal stimulus in 2009,” he wrote. “Let’s not make the same mistake again.”
Days before publishing the piece for CNN, Scaramucci appeared as a guest on The Political Trade, a podcast focused on trading in political prediction markets. On the show, Scaramucci shared figures calculated by SkyBridge and made the case for larger stimulus considerations.
“We’re dealing with some very harsh reality,” he said. “This is as if you took 9/11 and the global financial crisis and you added a land-based invasion of our homeland.”
Scaramucci equated the potential economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic to World War II and called for as much as $3,000 in stimulus money per qualifying U.S. adult and $1,500 per child.
“That will calm things down and create more public safety and create more of an ability to restart the consumption cycle,” he said.
The stimulus signed into law late last week included maximum income-based direct payments of $1,200—less than half the amount suggested by Scaramucci.
In the second half of his exclusive interview on The Political Trade, Scaramucci weighed in on pricing opportunities in 14 markets on political prediction market platform PredictIt, sharing his perspective on the most likely outcomes for each:
- Will Trump grant clemency to Roger Stone in his first term?
- Will Trump grant clemency to Michael Flynn in his first term?
- Will Trump grant clemency to Paul Manafort in his first term?
- Will Benjamin Netanyahu be prime minister of Israel on Dec. 31, 2020?
- Will Trump meet Kim Jong-Un in 2020?
- Will Mike Pence be the 2020 Republican nominee for vice president?
- Who will win the 2020 Democratic vice presidential nomination?
- Which party will win Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential election?
- Which party will win Michigan in the 2020 presidential election?
- Which party will win Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election?
- Which party will win Florida in the 2020 presidential election?
- Who will win the 2020 Alabama Republican Senate primary?
- Will there be a recession in Trump’s 1st term?
- Who will win the 2020 U.S. presidential election?
Listen to The Political Trade’s full interview with Scaramucci here.
