- reverse pyromania
- Posts
- Somebody Better Do Something!
“Trump tariff market collapse” - at least the financial news (CNBC here) can call it straight.
The history of Trumpism is full of concerned Republicans saying something and doing nothing, a classic collective action problem. It started with his primary rivals in the 2016 primary. The Republican Congress completely failed to rein him in. Now, this week’s chapter is going to be CEOs whining about the Trumpcession.
Welp, motherfuckers, you wanted low taxes and less regulation, but instead you got a mad king that took the yoke of this here airplane and pointed it into the earth.
Major Wall Street figures from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who had recently downplayed the tariffs threats, to hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who supported Donald Trump for president, are now warning about the economic consequences of his trade policy.
Negative feelings are widespread among CEOs, who told CNBC in a flash survey that a recession is coming, job losses are likely, and American brands that sell overseas are already beginning to feel boycott-like pressure.
“Disappointingly stupid and illogical,” is how one CEO described the tariffs in the CNBC CEO Council survey. “Without faith that our government knows what it is doing, it is impossible for businesses to thrive.”
I have a hard time dinging vibes voters for their Trump votes — yeah, some of them were racists, or homophobes, or whatever, but some of them just believed that Trump would lower prices.
I have no sympathy for the most coddled group of mostly white males in the world, CEOs. They’re paid like superstars, and they’re supposed to understand business. Despite their supposed great business talent, they fell for the “he won’t really do it” nonsense when Trump consistently said how much he liked tariffs. At least vibes voters thought Trump would really lower prices. CEOs thought they were playing n-dimensional chess when they backed a guy who can’t even play an honest game of golf.
If these CEOs wanted things to really change, they could call up their wholly-owned subsidiary, the Republicans in Congress, and tell them that there’s no more money coming unless they stop Trump. They could go on the record about how Trump’s tariffs are going to ruin their companies. But, like their other cowardly predecessors in the Republican Party, they won’t. Some of the big names will whine on the record, the rest will whine off the record.
(As I wrote this, the markets rebounded for a bit, but the S&P 500 is down over 12% YTD so we’ll see where we are at the end of the day.)
Reply