“By placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital,” Ackman wrote.

He argued that Trump should consider calling a “90-day time out” that would allow him to negotiate and solve “asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country.”

If that doesn’t happen and instead the U.S. launches “economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate,” Ackman wrote.

“What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war? I don’t know of one who will do so.”

Ackman predicted that if markets crash, “new investment stops, consumers stop spending money, and businesses have no choice but to curtail investment and fire workers.”

  • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    12 days ago

    Is it not? He did say many times he will enact tariffs and that other countries will pay for it.

    I suppose capitalists only expected a 20% tariff on China and be done with it. it’s interesting they didn’t say much about DOGE Austerity program which has similar effect of dampening investment and consumption but I guess thats fine because it punishes workers.

    • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      he said so much shit that everyone was able to create a headcanon trump of their own, by deciding which of his idiot promises to ignore

    • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      The capitalist class’s view on gutting public programs is that it will push people and institutions to use private equivalents or near-equivalents.

        • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          12 days ago

          The private equivalents are already there when it comes to a lot of those government programs; they’re called loans. Or, in the case of non-profits and academia, there are grants that the private sector will hand out, but they come with private sector strings attached (the petro-chemical industry loves to fund climate “science” research).

          • ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net
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            12 days ago

            In biomedical research basically everything is government funded. Even the research being done by private companies is government funded. The few private grants that do exist are either one billionaire’s pet project or just government funding from different sources being repackaged.

            Private industry in the biomedical industry isn’t real. The whole thing is a facade held up by middlemen. It’s designed to make it look like private industry is capable of doing things but if you actually look below the surface that’s entirely made up, and like 99% of the money can be traced back to the government.

    • SovietBeerTruckOperator [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      His first term he basically just cut taxes and then fucked off to golf for 3 years. So I guess they assumed it’d be more of the same. I honestly think Elon is more the one running things this time since he seems to have a ketamine fueled delusion of megalomania.

  • thelastaxolotl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    12 days ago

    People normally think the Capitalist class is always united, buts thats only if they are ever threaten by a proletariat revolution

    In general they are always divided in factions that constantly fight each other or even seek to eliminate each other.

    • Terrarium [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      11 days ago

      The capitalist class is only united by their interests. Cutting wages? You’ll get full support. Blame the minorities for every problem? Well that’s useful for Ted firing an entire factory of white workers to scapegoat POC underclass workers but it runs counter to Bob’s PR hiring strategy for hiring PMC Karens.

  • Cimbazarov [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    12 days ago

    Wow sounds like business leaders are really dumb if they believed Trump was not going to raise tariffs on every country in the world, something he said he would do.

    I remember last term seeing Trump screw over every ally he made and wondering how can people keep trusting him. Guess it’s because they’re stupid like this Ackman fellow

  • Future_Honkey [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    12 days ago

    This is not what we paid voted for

    Homie this is not his first term.

    They are bigger clowns than i thought if they dont remember the chaoscircus of his previous 4

    • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      eh, after trump, we’ll probably hear a lot of breathless shit about “america is once again the leader of the free world” as the dogs come crawling back

      • sfxrlz@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        12 days ago

        Burning bridges is fast, rebuilding isn’t. Even though money seemingly helps. Yet they’ve opened the can, may they choke on the worms.

      • Lochat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        12 days ago

        Of course. History doesn’t rhyme, it fucking repeats. As Trump term 2.0 proves.

        In fact, it repeats in cycles so fucking short that you’ll go through 15-20 fucking “Groundhog day” presidencies in your lifetime. Just the absolute dumbest shit that was already proven the term before, with nothing learned and nothing improved, repeated until finally, the empire dies, the nightmare ends, and we can all finally die. A-fucking-men. Yes we can. Hope and Change! (On record admitting he "governed like Reagan, and he was 100% honest in that, to his credit) It was her turn, because it was her turn. Then a colossal failure. Then, next? Well, it was her turn, because it was… her turn! Same god damn shit with a different name. Loser careerists who care nothing except about their next promotion, or the next committee they can lead, against true-believing sociopaths either wanting to destroy America to create a feudalist society or even (somehow) bigger true-believing sociopaths trying to earnestly bring about, in their broken minds, the end-of-times and rapture.

        It’s not going to change until we die, then we get peace. Finally. Because it’s never going to be her turn and it isn’t ever going to be the rapture and hope and change sounds nice, and it’ll happen, but it’s a futile hope and an negative change. I guess the silver lining (heh) is at some point, we might become a truly feudal society, and someone wins and breaks the cycle. I guess I know who I’d bet on, if I had to. But then, that also means I also know who I’d redacted if I could.

        So, that’s something.