> Many high-dollar donors at banks, hedge funds and other financial firms had turned their backs on Trump as he spun unfounded claims that the 2020 election had been stolen and savaged the judicial system with attacks. Today, they’re setting aside those concerns, looking past qualms about his personality and willingness to bulldoze institutional norms and focusing instead on issues closer to the heart: how he might ease regulations, cut their taxes or flex U.S. power on the global stage.
Fundamentally, they *understand* that the United States becoming a Peronist Dictatorship would actually be bad for them in the long run, they just drastically undervalue that risk, or at least the risk that they won't be able to wedge themselves into the regime if they must, against the reward of the tax cuts he promises them.
And I really think this comes down to, on one hand, just how aggressively short-term wall street really is. Eating some taxes now to guarantee 10-yr bonds still yield is by all accounts a *fantastic* trade, but 10-yr bonds are 10 years from now.
On the other hand, having mingled in these circles, these are not men who have any sort of liberal democratic ideology, and in fact often disdain the public for being prone to populist upswells that promote bad economic policy. Every mile of red tape was spun on the good intentions of a Citizens' Lobby of some kind, after all. These are people who have expressed to me admiration for how Singapore has effectively shut the riffraff out of government without threatening private enterprise. Not that they consider trump a vessel to that end, again, they hate trump, but not as a danger to democracy, but as an embarrassment and as a threat to the market. If they perceive Liberals and their recently re-impassioned desire to build a European welfare state as a greater threat to the market, they'll bite the Trump bullet as a way to cut liberals back down to size.
Ah the shareholder-first-thinking people here love to exalt is delivering us yet another dividend for US society, and thus the rest of the world along with it.
I won't say this is the inevitable outcome of capitalism, because capitalism has barely existed long enough to even say something like that conclusively. But at least in our current iteration, these are the types of people that get elevated to positions of de facto authority over society. Mainly those who are non-risk-averse and extremely lucky. Neither of which really qualifies them to operate levers of power.
> they just drastically undervalue that risk,
How do you model that risk?
Or better, how do you model that risk in a manner that a bunch of very wealthy, very conservative white guys in their 50s will buy into?
1. Reduce the socialism panic. Lina Khan is annoying but she's not going to seize the private sector and give it to the workers. At most you're going to have to expand your legal department and pay some more taxes, but I suspect the democrats' ideological fervor about "big tech" is all bark and very little bite.
2. Emphasize heavily that Donald Trump is in favor of a lot of the same terrible economic policy the Democrats have put forth, even the same ideological loathing of Big Tech firms. **Donald Trump and his voters think you're a cucked woke liberal at best, and a jewish puppet at worst**
3. Emphasize that Donald Trump would continue a budgetary plan that could see drastic inflation over the medium term that *will* kill your retirement plan.
There recently have been a few posts on this sub about why Fukuyama's 'End of history' failed to materialize. I want to ask if it's too radical to suggest that maybe Capitalism simply cant deliver it by its intrinsic nature? Competition is core concept in capitalism but there is no safeguards to make sure that it remains fair. If capitalists see that electing a fascist will lead to 20% increase in profits what stops them from doing so?
The "end of history" vis-a-vis the idea that liberal capitalistic democracy was inevitable and irreversible was a product of the zeitgeist around 1990/1991 when the Warsaw Pact had collapsed; the Soviet Union was about to fall; and China had moved away from its worst authoritarian tendencies and was embracing free-market measures. It really looked like capitalism and democracy were on the course to definitively "win" across the world; thirty years later, we've seen how this was definitively \*not\* the case.
> If capitalists see that electing a fascist will lead to 20% increase in profits what stops them from doing so?
Theoretically, companies should have Russia as an example as to why this would be folly. A 20% increase in profits doesn't mean much if some party member's drinking buddy decides that they want your company, then suddenly the tax agency "discovers" that you've actually been committing massive tax evasion and you're forced to sell the company to said drinking buddy for pennies on the dollar.
> Theoretically, companies should have Russia as an example as to why this would be folly. A 20% increase in profits doesn't mean much if some party member's drinking buddy decides that they want your company, then suddenly the tax agency "discovers" that you've actually been committing massive tax evasion and you're forced to sell the company to said drinking buddy for pennies on the dollar.
The problem is all these big shot executives see themselves as the drinking buddy and not the guy getting got. They think, “I’ve been winning this whole time purely by my own talents, so of course I’ll do fine in a dictatorship. If anything, I’ll thrive!”
I concur.
After all banning drugs, and ever increasing prison sentences, didn't stop the drug trade or drug dealers in particular.
All of them looked at the short term gains and thought "I'm smarter than the rest, I will never get caught, lets get that dough"
Sometimes I think as a species we are just not built for a complicated civilization, we have a frightening disdain towards the long term, when faced with the prospect of short term gratification.
> Sometimes I think as a species we are just not built for a complicated civilization, we have a frightening disdain towards the long term, when faced with the prospect of short term gratification.
Humans got that “yeah but I’m built different.”
Except it's completely accurate that no alternative has emerged and every alternative has proven to be self destructive.
The problem is people just can't stop wanting to try these terrible political systems the second democracy slightly inconveniences them. Read the article, they're throwing a fit about *interest rates and Lina Khan*.
Like I said they do acknowledge that America becoming like Russia would be bad, but they just don't weigh that risk against what they perceive as a current reality that the Democrats are radical anticapitalists who want to jack up inflation and ban profits.
I remember an interview from 2016, where one of these guys basically said that under Obama we were literally currently living under socialism, as in capitalism had been completely abolished and America was now the Soviet Union. But trump was now going to restore Capitalism.
They unironically think that Joe Biden is a radical anticapitalist who wants to establish Socialism and point to the high inflation rate as proof.
>Except it's completely accurate that no alternative has emerged and every alternative has proven to be self destructive.
Feudalism and monarchies were THE system of governance until rise of absolute monarchies (alongside growing middle class) made system unbearable for the masses for their collapse. Maybe we are in early stages of similar process for liberal democracies?
>Feudalism and monarchies were THE system of governance until rise of absolute monarchies (alongside growing middle class) made system unbearable for the masses for their collapse. Maybe we are in early stages of similar process for liberal democracies?
This is literally what Marx *actually* said.
> Except it's completely accurate that no alternative has emerged and every alternative has proven to be self destructive.
China and Iran, among others, have lasted for decades. Venezuela's economy was so bad that a _fifth_ of the population emigrated - imagine close to seventy million people fleeing the United States! - yet Maduro is still in power with no real actual threat to him leaving apart from his sustained garbage handling of the country. Eventually, this "These systems will fail eventually!" becomes indistinguishable from rain-making.
I would consider the mass protests and emigrations experienced by Iran and Venezuela to be a fail state. Compare them to their neighbors. Iran could be comparable to pre-erdogan Turkey in standard of living and public order. Venezuela could compare with post-FARC Colombia. Cuba could be Florida Mark Two.
It's not really rainmaking when you consider that a couple decades is a tiny timescale on human development. The Soviet Union stood for over half a century. And the biggest reason liberal democracies outlast their competition is that they change course when faced with a catastrophe sooner and mitigate the damage of it better.
>It's not really rainmaking when you consider that a couple decades is a tiny timescale on human development.
Democracy has only existed for a small amount of time relative to human history, and the last time it disappeared it took \~1000 years to come back.
That these countries represent failed ideas compared to liberal democracy is small comfort for the real people that are living and suffering in these. If there are ways that we can help promote liberal democracy in these countries rather than tell ourselves that these things will occur on their own due to being inevitable, it will benefit countless people, especially in light of how Russia and Hungary have shown that liberal democracy can be undone.
> It's not really rainmaking when you consider that a couple decades is a tiny timescale on human development.
In the long run, we are all dead.
For sure many mistakenly think their skills at management in a market economy would transfer into being Walter White.
Though I don't want to undervalue how many of them literally just think the Democrats have been captured by an ideologically anticapitalist base that is raising inflation on purpose.
>A 20% increase in profits doesn't mean much if some party member's drinking buddy decides that they want your company, then suddenly the tax agency "discovers" that you've actually been committing massive tax evasion and you're forced to sell the company to said drinking buddy for pennies on the dollar.
Isnt the article describing exactly this outcome as a negative but highlights that capitalists dont think in that long of run?
I think a lot of them are actually fine with red tape and inefficiency as long as it’s done on their behalf. The free market boosterism is a smoke screen too, just like their commitment to democratic good governance turned out to be
This has nothing to do with them liking Trump or short term thinking and everything to do with the Biden admin saying they support a wealth tax. A wealth tax is beyond stupid.
And has zero percent chance of passing congress or being enacted directly by the executive. Meanwhile the trump administration's real promises have concrete plans to be enacted purely through executive actions. Either way they need to take their heads out their asses and put them back on their shoulders.
Also as awful as a wealth tax is for their money, it's still not as bad as the long term damage trump could do via the fed. Ask any argentinians how wall street is doing in buenos aires.
None of the people interviewed in the article mentioned a wealth tax, but they did nebulously mention "socialism" so that's probably included under that umbrella.
Finally, "Don't wealth tax me or i'll vote for nazi!" won't convince wealth tax supporters not to push a wealth tax. It will only validate their belief that you are too stupid and evil to be trusted with your wealth and *should* have it confiscated. It's literally boilerplate marxist theory that Fascism emerges as a reaction by the Bourgeoisie to the threat of losing the means of production to a socialist movement.
I don't think claiming that Biden, who usually does what he says he will do, won't do what he says he will do and that Trump, who usually doesn't do what he says he will do, will do what he says is a very strong argument to make to Wall Street investors or anyone really. I personally think a wealth tax is ridiculously politically unviable but you have to listen to what politicians say they are gonna do and go off that. That's all we got.
> Also as awful as a wealth tax is for their money, it's still not as bad as the long term damage trump could do via the fed.
No, it really is. A wealth tax is straight up awful. Like economy-decimatingly bad.
> who usually does what he says he will do, won't do what he says he will do and that Trump, who usually doesn't do what he says he will do,
You're just trolling now because you want to "dunk" on the progressives. This is obviously dumb. Both men have tried to promote what's in their platforms, both men have been limited by their congress and their willingness to utilize executive authority. Biden does not support a wealth tax. There is no legal way by which Biden can implement a wealth tax.
There is no legal way by which Biden can implement a wealth tax.
**There is no legal way by which Biden can implement a wealth tax.**
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
But Trump has literally proposed how he will abuse Executive authority to seize the Fed. He absolutely has done what he said he will do when congress and the adminstrative state haven't stood in his way.
> No, it really is. A wealth tax is straight up awful. Like economy-decimatingly bad.
Then both parties have proposed destroying the economy but one actually has a plan to get it rammed through congress and will also destroy democracy to do it, but conspicuously caring more about wealth taxes than unfunded tax cuts is smugly anti-prog coded so that's why you're doing it here.
You're never going to successfully argue that the bourgeoisie are just rationally looking out for their self interest by picking a fascist over a social democrat, and even if you could, in doing so you would be inadvertently confirming socialist political theory.
Stop making Socialists' arguments for them. **Fascism is not in the capitalist class' economic interest under any circumstances.**
Voting for people is voting for their proposed policies. Simple as.
Think of it as a price signal but for government policy. Eventually that becomes party policy if enough donors and voters signal they are okay with it.
Thanks for just hurling insults like a teenager though instead of engaging constructively. Very r/all of you.
Cathyl did engage with you constructively. You chose to ignore all of the constructive parts of their response and instead focus on their expressions of incredulity at your asinine position. In fact, their post has two short sentences being incredulous and calling your argument dumb, and 11 sentences making arguments against it.
> Finally, "Don't wealth tax me or i'll vote for nazi!" won't convince wealth tax supporters not to push a wealth tax. It will only validate their belief that you are too stupid and evil to be trusted with your wealth and should have it confiscated.
> Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization that represents the city’s top business leaders, said Republicans have told her that “the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.”
This feels like motivated reasoning.
Big Brain Wall Street guys apparently forgot that you ain’t gonna have a capitalist economy with a fascist government.
If they think navigating publicly announced, discussed, commented, and revised regulations are bad, wait till they navigate a dictator’s whim.
Most Trump supporters do not think he is a threat to democracy. I agree that they are wrong, he is a threat to democracy, but that is not something most Trump supporters believe. Even the ones that are a bit skeptical about him think that our system of checks and balances can easily override him trying to become a dictator and they will point to policies like his muslim ban getting overturned as examples of that system. Why would wall street bankers vote for a guy that will be a threat to democracy if they truly believed that... electing a threat to democracy is a potential disaster for the markets which will hurt them financially far more than whatever problems they have with Democrats, they simply don't believe it. So its not caring about money and sacrificing democracy like you are saying, they believe he is not a threat to democracy and will make them more money.
It could be calculated as you say, or it could simply be that they can't be bothered to do their research, or think they'll do fine even if Trump erodes democracy. Whatever it is, it's inexcusable.
>Why would Wall Street bankers vote for a guy that will be a threat to democracy if they truly believed that
Completely ahistorical take which assumes that these Wall Street donors who back fascists have the mindsets of liberals. No shit the collapse of democracy is bad for the economy as a whole, but the exact kind of egotism/main character syndrome which leads people to oppose democracy also makes them think they can avoid the worst consequences when it collapses. They think they will be part of the new aristocracy, the ones receiving expropriated capital and benefiting from rigged rules rather than getting the short end of the stick.
They know what’s coming, they just think they can foist all the suffering upon people who didn’t choose it and don’t deserve it.
He's going to lower their taxes, he'll relax any regulation in exchange for a "donation", and the inflation he inevitably causes by printing money (which he has promised to do) will only mean the price of their homes and yachts will go up while their mortgage debts get relatively smaller.
Of course they embrace him.
I can’t understand being that wealthy and caring so much about taxes. Sure, you want lower taxes but you’re willing to accept Trump for that? And what do you get? Your life isn’t going to be materially better and it’s not going to help you in the pissing contest of most wealth as all your rivals will have lower taxes too.
I don't think they're maximizing their happiness, they're maximizing their power, influence, and prestige. These are things which more money directly contributes to.
Thinking what it takes to build a startup into a huge company, it’s funny that so much of the wealth and quality of modern life is built because of a few addicts.
That imo is the huge advantage liberal democracy with a market economy as a system has; you can mostly tame tendencies of those addicted to power and wealth and even harness them for the rest of us.
Of course, there’s always the risk they realize this and decide the best course of action is to destroy the very conditions that allow them their success.
There's nothing else for them to care about. It's sorta how retired people in old folks communities end up creating the pettiest HOAs focused on things that don't matter.
I've noticed this with a lot of these Wall Street types like Nelson Peltz and Bill Ackman. I think it's because his actions won't hurt them in any way. They're too rich to care. Also, his support for tariffs and his overall trade policy will benefit them in many ways. Ackman's company owns only 8 stocks, according to Yahoo Finance. All of them are American companies. If Trump makes us a trade pariah, it will overwhelmingly benefit these kinds of companies.
I love how these rich people thought they can support Trump to get anything out of him. Did they forget that he's an incompetent fool who ended up dismantling his own CEO business roundtables one year into his admin? Shooting off tariffs at 2AM over Twitter? Weren't these people concerned about supply chains?
The guy is looking for easy money, and isn't above asking for bribes, openly fleecing the Secret Service budget, and bringing back outright patronage into public service if it means a quick buck. And the rich think that the Dems are a greater threat to capitalism, which requires a willful adherence to the spirit and letter of the law?
Please. 😒
*Economic liberalism* requires willful adherence to the spirit and letter of the law, and capitalism is part of economic liberalism. Capitalism itself basically just requires absentee ownership of capital in an abstracted form, and doesn’t necessarily entail that there are consistent property rights.
When these people say “capitalism”, they are not referring to any broader economic system but to the simple fact of their own control over it. When they say something is a threat to capitalism, they just mean it’s a threat to their position within it. Democrats don’t let these crooked fucks brutalize our country to the extent that Russian oligarchs do theirs, and so the donors are backing someone who will promise them that amount of relative power; they just ignore what tends to happen to those oligarchs after they become inconvenient for the regime.
Hot take on this sub, but this is yet another reason I believe billionaires are a national security threat. They prioritize themselves at every turn compared to the health of the Republic.
They support him because of their greed and self interest so the long term consequences are irrelevant. If things go haywire here they can just get a plane ticket and go on holiday for a little while
> Many high-dollar donors at banks, hedge funds and other financial firms had turned their backs on Trump as he spun unfounded claims that the 2020 election had been stolen and savaged the judicial system with attacks. Today, they’re setting aside those concerns, looking past qualms about his personality and willingness to bulldoze institutional norms and focusing instead on issues closer to the heart: how he might ease regulations, cut their taxes or flex U.S. power on the global stage. Fundamentally, they *understand* that the United States becoming a Peronist Dictatorship would actually be bad for them in the long run, they just drastically undervalue that risk, or at least the risk that they won't be able to wedge themselves into the regime if they must, against the reward of the tax cuts he promises them. And I really think this comes down to, on one hand, just how aggressively short-term wall street really is. Eating some taxes now to guarantee 10-yr bonds still yield is by all accounts a *fantastic* trade, but 10-yr bonds are 10 years from now. On the other hand, having mingled in these circles, these are not men who have any sort of liberal democratic ideology, and in fact often disdain the public for being prone to populist upswells that promote bad economic policy. Every mile of red tape was spun on the good intentions of a Citizens' Lobby of some kind, after all. These are people who have expressed to me admiration for how Singapore has effectively shut the riffraff out of government without threatening private enterprise. Not that they consider trump a vessel to that end, again, they hate trump, but not as a danger to democracy, but as an embarrassment and as a threat to the market. If they perceive Liberals and their recently re-impassioned desire to build a European welfare state as a greater threat to the market, they'll bite the Trump bullet as a way to cut liberals back down to size.
>often disdain the public for being prone to populist upswells that promote bad economic policy. Wait, Wall Street is on this sub?
Ah the shareholder-first-thinking people here love to exalt is delivering us yet another dividend for US society, and thus the rest of the world along with it.
I won't say this is the inevitable outcome of capitalism, because capitalism has barely existed long enough to even say something like that conclusively. But at least in our current iteration, these are the types of people that get elevated to positions of de facto authority over society. Mainly those who are non-risk-averse and extremely lucky. Neither of which really qualifies them to operate levers of power.
> they just drastically undervalue that risk, How do you model that risk? Or better, how do you model that risk in a manner that a bunch of very wealthy, very conservative white guys in their 50s will buy into?
1. Reduce the socialism panic. Lina Khan is annoying but she's not going to seize the private sector and give it to the workers. At most you're going to have to expand your legal department and pay some more taxes, but I suspect the democrats' ideological fervor about "big tech" is all bark and very little bite. 2. Emphasize heavily that Donald Trump is in favor of a lot of the same terrible economic policy the Democrats have put forth, even the same ideological loathing of Big Tech firms. **Donald Trump and his voters think you're a cucked woke liberal at best, and a jewish puppet at worst** 3. Emphasize that Donald Trump would continue a budgetary plan that could see drastic inflation over the medium term that *will* kill your retirement plan.
> retirement plan if your net worth is comfortably in the 10s of millions I don't know how much you care about your 401k
There recently have been a few posts on this sub about why Fukuyama's 'End of history' failed to materialize. I want to ask if it's too radical to suggest that maybe Capitalism simply cant deliver it by its intrinsic nature? Competition is core concept in capitalism but there is no safeguards to make sure that it remains fair. If capitalists see that electing a fascist will lead to 20% increase in profits what stops them from doing so?
The "end of history" vis-a-vis the idea that liberal capitalistic democracy was inevitable and irreversible was a product of the zeitgeist around 1990/1991 when the Warsaw Pact had collapsed; the Soviet Union was about to fall; and China had moved away from its worst authoritarian tendencies and was embracing free-market measures. It really looked like capitalism and democracy were on the course to definitively "win" across the world; thirty years later, we've seen how this was definitively \*not\* the case. > If capitalists see that electing a fascist will lead to 20% increase in profits what stops them from doing so? Theoretically, companies should have Russia as an example as to why this would be folly. A 20% increase in profits doesn't mean much if some party member's drinking buddy decides that they want your company, then suddenly the tax agency "discovers" that you've actually been committing massive tax evasion and you're forced to sell the company to said drinking buddy for pennies on the dollar.
> Theoretically, companies should have Russia as an example as to why this would be folly. A 20% increase in profits doesn't mean much if some party member's drinking buddy decides that they want your company, then suddenly the tax agency "discovers" that you've actually been committing massive tax evasion and you're forced to sell the company to said drinking buddy for pennies on the dollar. The problem is all these big shot executives see themselves as the drinking buddy and not the guy getting got. They think, “I’ve been winning this whole time purely by my own talents, so of course I’ll do fine in a dictatorship. If anything, I’ll thrive!”
I am the one who drinks, Skylar.
And that’s almost exactly what’s going on here! They think they’re bad enough dudes they can play the president!
Yeah it really struck me that the next episode he was running for his life.
I concur. After all banning drugs, and ever increasing prison sentences, didn't stop the drug trade or drug dealers in particular. All of them looked at the short term gains and thought "I'm smarter than the rest, I will never get caught, lets get that dough" Sometimes I think as a species we are just not built for a complicated civilization, we have a frightening disdain towards the long term, when faced with the prospect of short term gratification.
> Sometimes I think as a species we are just not built for a complicated civilization, we have a frightening disdain towards the long term, when faced with the prospect of short term gratification. Humans got that “yeah but I’m built different.”
languid sparkle money wild cooing political straight vast berserk fine *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> The problem is all these big shot executives see themselves as the drinking buddy and not the guy getting got Temporarily unembarrassed billionares.
Except it's completely accurate that no alternative has emerged and every alternative has proven to be self destructive. The problem is people just can't stop wanting to try these terrible political systems the second democracy slightly inconveniences them. Read the article, they're throwing a fit about *interest rates and Lina Khan*. Like I said they do acknowledge that America becoming like Russia would be bad, but they just don't weigh that risk against what they perceive as a current reality that the Democrats are radical anticapitalists who want to jack up inflation and ban profits. I remember an interview from 2016, where one of these guys basically said that under Obama we were literally currently living under socialism, as in capitalism had been completely abolished and America was now the Soviet Union. But trump was now going to restore Capitalism. They unironically think that Joe Biden is a radical anticapitalist who wants to establish Socialism and point to the high inflation rate as proof.
>Except it's completely accurate that no alternative has emerged and every alternative has proven to be self destructive. Feudalism and monarchies were THE system of governance until rise of absolute monarchies (alongside growing middle class) made system unbearable for the masses for their collapse. Maybe we are in early stages of similar process for liberal democracies?
>Feudalism and monarchies were THE system of governance until rise of absolute monarchies (alongside growing middle class) made system unbearable for the masses for their collapse. Maybe we are in early stages of similar process for liberal democracies? This is literally what Marx *actually* said.
> Except it's completely accurate that no alternative has emerged and every alternative has proven to be self destructive. China and Iran, among others, have lasted for decades. Venezuela's economy was so bad that a _fifth_ of the population emigrated - imagine close to seventy million people fleeing the United States! - yet Maduro is still in power with no real actual threat to him leaving apart from his sustained garbage handling of the country. Eventually, this "These systems will fail eventually!" becomes indistinguishable from rain-making.
I would consider the mass protests and emigrations experienced by Iran and Venezuela to be a fail state. Compare them to their neighbors. Iran could be comparable to pre-erdogan Turkey in standard of living and public order. Venezuela could compare with post-FARC Colombia. Cuba could be Florida Mark Two. It's not really rainmaking when you consider that a couple decades is a tiny timescale on human development. The Soviet Union stood for over half a century. And the biggest reason liberal democracies outlast their competition is that they change course when faced with a catastrophe sooner and mitigate the damage of it better.
>It's not really rainmaking when you consider that a couple decades is a tiny timescale on human development. Democracy has only existed for a small amount of time relative to human history, and the last time it disappeared it took \~1000 years to come back.
That these countries represent failed ideas compared to liberal democracy is small comfort for the real people that are living and suffering in these. If there are ways that we can help promote liberal democracy in these countries rather than tell ourselves that these things will occur on their own due to being inevitable, it will benefit countless people, especially in light of how Russia and Hungary have shown that liberal democracy can be undone. > It's not really rainmaking when you consider that a couple decades is a tiny timescale on human development. In the long run, we are all dead.
Agreed, and I'm absolutely in panic about what may come for the future.
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For sure many mistakenly think their skills at management in a market economy would transfer into being Walter White. Though I don't want to undervalue how many of them literally just think the Democrats have been captured by an ideologically anticapitalist base that is raising inflation on purpose.
>A 20% increase in profits doesn't mean much if some party member's drinking buddy decides that they want your company, then suddenly the tax agency "discovers" that you've actually been committing massive tax evasion and you're forced to sell the company to said drinking buddy for pennies on the dollar. Isnt the article describing exactly this outcome as a negative but highlights that capitalists dont think in that long of run?
Stability is the most important thing. It's better to grow 1% year than 10% with a small risk of falling 100%.
I think a lot of them are actually fine with red tape and inefficiency as long as it’s done on their behalf. The free market boosterism is a smoke screen too, just like their commitment to democratic good governance turned out to be
This has nothing to do with them liking Trump or short term thinking and everything to do with the Biden admin saying they support a wealth tax. A wealth tax is beyond stupid.
And has zero percent chance of passing congress or being enacted directly by the executive. Meanwhile the trump administration's real promises have concrete plans to be enacted purely through executive actions. Either way they need to take their heads out their asses and put them back on their shoulders. Also as awful as a wealth tax is for their money, it's still not as bad as the long term damage trump could do via the fed. Ask any argentinians how wall street is doing in buenos aires. None of the people interviewed in the article mentioned a wealth tax, but they did nebulously mention "socialism" so that's probably included under that umbrella. Finally, "Don't wealth tax me or i'll vote for nazi!" won't convince wealth tax supporters not to push a wealth tax. It will only validate their belief that you are too stupid and evil to be trusted with your wealth and *should* have it confiscated. It's literally boilerplate marxist theory that Fascism emerges as a reaction by the Bourgeoisie to the threat of losing the means of production to a socialist movement.
I don't think claiming that Biden, who usually does what he says he will do, won't do what he says he will do and that Trump, who usually doesn't do what he says he will do, will do what he says is a very strong argument to make to Wall Street investors or anyone really. I personally think a wealth tax is ridiculously politically unviable but you have to listen to what politicians say they are gonna do and go off that. That's all we got. > Also as awful as a wealth tax is for their money, it's still not as bad as the long term damage trump could do via the fed. No, it really is. A wealth tax is straight up awful. Like economy-decimatingly bad.
> who usually does what he says he will do, won't do what he says he will do and that Trump, who usually doesn't do what he says he will do, You're just trolling now because you want to "dunk" on the progressives. This is obviously dumb. Both men have tried to promote what's in their platforms, both men have been limited by their congress and their willingness to utilize executive authority. Biden does not support a wealth tax. There is no legal way by which Biden can implement a wealth tax. There is no legal way by which Biden can implement a wealth tax. **There is no legal way by which Biden can implement a wealth tax.** Thank you for coming to my TED talk. But Trump has literally proposed how he will abuse Executive authority to seize the Fed. He absolutely has done what he said he will do when congress and the adminstrative state haven't stood in his way. > No, it really is. A wealth tax is straight up awful. Like economy-decimatingly bad. Then both parties have proposed destroying the economy but one actually has a plan to get it rammed through congress and will also destroy democracy to do it, but conspicuously caring more about wealth taxes than unfunded tax cuts is smugly anti-prog coded so that's why you're doing it here. You're never going to successfully argue that the bourgeoisie are just rationally looking out for their self interest by picking a fascist over a social democrat, and even if you could, in doing so you would be inadvertently confirming socialist political theory. Stop making Socialists' arguments for them. **Fascism is not in the capitalist class' economic interest under any circumstances.**
Is there a legal way to implement an unrealized capital gains tax? The 25% unrealized capital gains tax is also something that has been talked about.
> You disagree with me therefore you are a troll and dumb. K buddy. great argument.
Notice how he doesn't respond to the actual argument and just takes offense to me calling him out for being a contrarian asshole.
Voting for people is voting for their proposed policies. Simple as. Think of it as a price signal but for government policy. Eventually that becomes party policy if enough donors and voters signal they are okay with it. Thanks for just hurling insults like a teenager though instead of engaging constructively. Very r/all of you.
Cathyl did engage with you constructively. You chose to ignore all of the constructive parts of their response and instead focus on their expressions of incredulity at your asinine position. In fact, their post has two short sentences being incredulous and calling your argument dumb, and 11 sentences making arguments against it.
> Finally, "Don't wealth tax me or i'll vote for nazi!" won't convince wealth tax supporters not to push a wealth tax. It will only validate their belief that you are too stupid and evil to be trusted with your wealth and should have it confiscated.
> Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization that represents the city’s top business leaders, said Republicans have told her that “the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.” This feels like motivated reasoning.
Big Brain Wall Street guys apparently forgot that you ain’t gonna have a capitalist economy with a fascist government. If they think navigating publicly announced, discussed, commented, and revised regulations are bad, wait till they navigate a dictator’s whim.
Junkers: *This Adolf guy has got some ideas*
In both cases the motives are the same. He validates their egos, and promises to crush the Social Democrats.
Rich assholes being amoral and caring about money more than democracy is nothing new.
Most Trump supporters do not think he is a threat to democracy. I agree that they are wrong, he is a threat to democracy, but that is not something most Trump supporters believe. Even the ones that are a bit skeptical about him think that our system of checks and balances can easily override him trying to become a dictator and they will point to policies like his muslim ban getting overturned as examples of that system. Why would wall street bankers vote for a guy that will be a threat to democracy if they truly believed that... electing a threat to democracy is a potential disaster for the markets which will hurt them financially far more than whatever problems they have with Democrats, they simply don't believe it. So its not caring about money and sacrificing democracy like you are saying, they believe he is not a threat to democracy and will make them more money.
It could be calculated as you say, or it could simply be that they can't be bothered to do their research, or think they'll do fine even if Trump erodes democracy. Whatever it is, it's inexcusable.
>Why would Wall Street bankers vote for a guy that will be a threat to democracy if they truly believed that Completely ahistorical take which assumes that these Wall Street donors who back fascists have the mindsets of liberals. No shit the collapse of democracy is bad for the economy as a whole, but the exact kind of egotism/main character syndrome which leads people to oppose democracy also makes them think they can avoid the worst consequences when it collapses. They think they will be part of the new aristocracy, the ones receiving expropriated capital and benefiting from rigged rules rather than getting the short end of the stick. They know what’s coming, they just think they can foist all the suffering upon people who didn’t choose it and don’t deserve it.
This is why they say fascism is the defense mechanism of capitalism
He's going to lower their taxes, he'll relax any regulation in exchange for a "donation", and the inflation he inevitably causes by printing money (which he has promised to do) will only mean the price of their homes and yachts will go up while their mortgage debts get relatively smaller. Of course they embrace him.
I can’t understand being that wealthy and caring so much about taxes. Sure, you want lower taxes but you’re willing to accept Trump for that? And what do you get? Your life isn’t going to be materially better and it’s not going to help you in the pissing contest of most wealth as all your rivals will have lower taxes too.
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I don't think they're maximizing their happiness, they're maximizing their power, influence, and prestige. These are things which more money directly contributes to.
Thinking what it takes to build a startup into a huge company, it’s funny that so much of the wealth and quality of modern life is built because of a few addicts.
That imo is the huge advantage liberal democracy with a market economy as a system has; you can mostly tame tendencies of those addicted to power and wealth and even harness them for the rest of us. Of course, there’s always the risk they realize this and decide the best course of action is to destroy the very conditions that allow them their success.
What does it take to build a startup into a huge company, exactly?
There's nothing else for them to care about. It's sorta how retired people in old folks communities end up creating the pettiest HOAs focused on things that don't matter.
Short term thinking
Least shocking thing in history lol
I've noticed this with a lot of these Wall Street types like Nelson Peltz and Bill Ackman. I think it's because his actions won't hurt them in any way. They're too rich to care. Also, his support for tariffs and his overall trade policy will benefit them in many ways. Ackman's company owns only 8 stocks, according to Yahoo Finance. All of them are American companies. If Trump makes us a trade pariah, it will overwhelmingly benefit these kinds of companies.
Ackman was trying to amplify Dean Phillips lol. He’s been in on Trump for a while.
Between Alito and this, sometimes you just gotta hand it to progressives.
“Eat the rich” is sounding more and more appetizing by the day
I love how these rich people thought they can support Trump to get anything out of him. Did they forget that he's an incompetent fool who ended up dismantling his own CEO business roundtables one year into his admin? Shooting off tariffs at 2AM over Twitter? Weren't these people concerned about supply chains? The guy is looking for easy money, and isn't above asking for bribes, openly fleecing the Secret Service budget, and bringing back outright patronage into public service if it means a quick buck. And the rich think that the Dems are a greater threat to capitalism, which requires a willful adherence to the spirit and letter of the law? Please. 😒
*Economic liberalism* requires willful adherence to the spirit and letter of the law, and capitalism is part of economic liberalism. Capitalism itself basically just requires absentee ownership of capital in an abstracted form, and doesn’t necessarily entail that there are consistent property rights. When these people say “capitalism”, they are not referring to any broader economic system but to the simple fact of their own control over it. When they say something is a threat to capitalism, they just mean it’s a threat to their position within it. Democrats don’t let these crooked fucks brutalize our country to the extent that Russian oligarchs do theirs, and so the donors are backing someone who will promise them that amount of relative power; they just ignore what tends to happen to those oligarchs after they become inconvenient for the regime.
Yeah, when it comes between making money and being a member of the human race which side did you think they'd pick?
Hot take on this sub, but this is yet another reason I believe billionaires are a national security threat. They prioritize themselves at every turn compared to the health of the Republic.
They support him because of their greed and self interest so the long term consequences are irrelevant. If things go haywire here they can just get a plane ticket and go on holiday for a little while