How to buy an election…. Credit Axios

They voted for this….

and financially supported this

Well, well, well 🙄

Gee,this was only predictable to anyone who was paying attention for the past 4 years.

The idea that capital votes for fuck it chaos over relative stability is baffling. You knew what Trump was like! This can’t be a surprise!

No they really do all have goldfish brains

Or the fact these supposedly super smart heads of business cannot look at the hard data and see that Dem presidents have been better for the economy than even regular Rs, for like at least 50 years.

Dems are better for the economy, but Rs are better for making quick, easy fortunes. The people running corporations these days are interested extracting wealth. They’re not even really interested the health of their own companies, just the worth of their stock options.

This part.

Call up a corporate fixer to bribe 10 - 15 senators and buy an impeachment. Come on, CEOs.

Excuse me, I don't mean bribe or buy an impeachment. "Lobby" for impeachment.

it's a gratuity actually

If they’re so worried about the economy, how about they fix the issue they created. Our representatives go to the highest bidder anyway.

Morons. These are the assholes who cheated off our tests in high school.

Nationalizing key industries by establishing a Wallet Inspection Agency

People refer to these corporate leaders as smart, but they weren't smart enough to see Trump for who he really is. They aren't smart, they're just greedy narcissists.

This is what they voted for

Greedy, uncaring, psychopathic idiots.

And here we were thinking that the people who would suffer most from their votes on Nov 5 were not in the upper echelons of US income and wealth holding. Looks like those at the top are having their own kind of suffering from their votes. Oh dear.

They need to put the pressure on congress to deal with. You're not going to convince Trump to do anything sensible

Capitalism is too important a force to be left in the trust of capitalists

The fact that they were ever euphoric about the Trump administration tells me all I need to know.

Yep. They can all go straight to hell. Or poverty conditions

Prescribed “Trading Places” internships not the worst option

You only have to follow Mark Cuban for a week to realise they're just not the geniuses people make them out to be. And he's one of the less ridiculous billionaires out there.

They bought the ticket and now they take the ride

📌

Awww. The owners Of Everything are feeling stress.

He spent years telling them exactly how he was going to fuck them, also corporations are not people and the Csuite is basically the incarnation of evils at this point so sorry not sorry, step up and help fix it dudes.

But who could have guessed this guy was untrustworthy and a bad businessman?

Seriously I think about this all the time - corporate America all throughout the #FOTUS campaign and into the presidency took him at his word. The guy who just lies and lies about everything, even for no reason, and has been doing it for his entire 78 year life, provably, in public.

They need to pressure the Maga politicians to break with the Chief Felon. The situation is beyond desperate.

“We knew he was an idiot, but believed he was our idiot.” FAFO!

Genuinely thought Walmart and the deep state had more pull than they do.

We’re just a year away from our 250th anniversary of our independence from Britain. I think they’re on the side of Britain and the American people aren’t having it and maybe they’re a little scared.

Guess what, corporate America… FAFO

There's actually a somewhat stronger case to make, which involves pointing out that if capital is not held in check then inevitably it ends up in the hands of not only idiots but also sociopaths.

One of China’s genuine strengths is that they reprimand capital when it steps out of line. CEOs that do crime get executed there. Here we refuse to place *any* checks on capital whatsoever, to the point that it is now leading to societal collapse.

If by 'held in check' you mean 'regulated in the public interest', then yeah

And with a safety net and a progressive tax system

Yes, please

Yeah… I think we’re proving the theory in real time

I mean it's been shown many times, but you know what they say about knowing history....

Kneecapping firms to buy them up cheap

Gosh, if only we had had another choice, other Tham Trump for president.

They can band together with the rest of us and fight against the Trump regime

Remember how everyone in the world told us this would happen? I remember that.

Every last one of those CEOs should face a class action lawsuit for their breech of fiduciary responsibility for not doing everything in their power to see that Trump is impeached and removed from office. Corporate America has the power to end this nightmare.

“Overriding sense of helplessness.” Most Americans being fired, hours being cut, unable to access their SS office, Vets unable to access healthcare, etc are helplessly along for the ride. Welcome to the club🤷‍♀️

I'm honestly shocked by how many of *them* are shocked that Trump is an economic disaster. None of them are fit for their roles if they didn't see this coming.

1000% this It’s mind-boggling that none of them saw this coming. Fodder for shareholder lawsuits

"No central planner could allocate capital as efficiently as private industry!" Dawg have you SEEN private industry these days

Dawg have you seen the Presidential Administration these days

Well in theory it wouldn't be that hard to have a better one of those

In theory, I 100% agree with you!

And may I add, lol at the popular assumption that most investors behave rationally. Like, have you paid ANY attention to investors? *gestures at Tesla’s market cap, DJT, and good god, trillions pumped into crypto*

It's amazing to me all the people who think that in the private vs public debate, that private automatically means smarter.

If you look at the history of the idea it's not really predicated on relative competence, but on incentive structures and how information gets filtered If you look at like, Fox Business circa 2009 on the other hand...

yes.

I don't know if this was ever raised/addressed in historical debates, but I could imagine that distribution of power/decision making could play a role too, i.e. like in democratic theory, having more voters and power centers leads to an overall increase in baseline competence

if that were the case/the causative factor, then the solution for publicly-controlled capital is simple; decentralize it! A model somewhat related to state capitalism/market socialism

Much like how the constitution can’t sustain itself if it dies in the hearts of men, capitalism can’t remain efficient if everybody gets on the Peter Thiel train of seeing monopoly as the natural, desirable end state of the economy. These Nietzschean mofos are some of the worst people alive

I think there’s a concentration problem to it where, over time, capitalist systems without sufficiently high marginal tax rates effectively *do* end up with central planners

Yep, decades of totally MIA anti-trust enforcement just leads you to central planning, with the added benefit of massive amounts of rent-overhead going to the monopolists

Yeah

something something Piketty and Saez something something

It’s not just the concentration. Owners of capital want higher rates of return. They accomplish that by preventing their competitors from increasing the capital stock. They would rather have less productive capital so they can profit from the shortage.

Who could possibly have foreseen that someone with $600b might want to start pushing us all around

Warren Buffett: “If markets were efficient, I would be poor."

I think this is an important topic. With zero interest rate policy we basically gave away a trillion dollars so dudes could make apps. That's the choice we made with dollar supremacy

This admin is doing their best to show that Marx was right

Damn, a rare case of being able to actually relate to CEOs. Unlike them, however, I didn't LITERALLY HELP CAUSE THIS TO HAPPEN.

They knew Trump wanted tariffs. They knew what they were buying. Karma is a bitch

Trump spelled out most of what he planned to do in the run-up to the election (to be fair he blathered on about all kinds of nonsense, and lies, and has a legitimately difficult to follow speech pattern) but none of what he is doing is a surprise. I do believe this is FAFO time.

CEOs right now bsky.app/profile/mims...

Well they got what they voted for, chaos. We told them but they thought they were smarter. Suck it up aholes, you’re going down with the ship you boarded.

Right. People don’t spend money when they are terrified. Short sighted evil assholes.

Truth

(Mostly) …evil idiots.

Nothing was hidden. FAFO. Trump is severely mentally ill. They thought they could manipulate him but he’s so damaged and most probably is in the moderate stage of dementia, that this whole fucking situation is completely out of control. God help us.

It's not out of control. The Republican-held House and Senate have a tool, impeachment, at their disposal. That they choose not to use it does not mean that the remedy doesn't exist. Never forget that they can stop this at any time.

Jump! Jump!

They’re getting what many of them voted for…problem is, the rest of us are getting what these short sighted idiots voted for too! They need to suffer, but they won’t suffer as much as regular people!! We have to boycott as many of them as we can, in addition to acting against the regime.

I still remember the economic forums he did in New York City and Chicago during the campaign when these leaders applauded him as he described the tariffs and other nonsense he planned to implement.

Business is always saying that what business needs is stability and predictability. But that's what just regular people and families want. Why is that no longer a priority for our government? The numbers are in and trickle down doesn't work.

Anyone who has ever worked for a big corporation knows perfectly well that they are no more efficient than any other big bureaucracy. Small business is not necessarily better. I liked to say: "The only thing worse than a big stupid bureaucracy is a little stupid bureaucracy."

You got the brawn, I got the brains, let's make lots of money.

Boo hoo. They are worried now.

"Take ownership from the current owners and hand ownership to Trump," he argued, while imagining himself part of The Resistance

Up here i can really tell you that the sentiment about has completely shifted! Even mayonnaise is taking a hit at grocery stores..

The same people who elected him because they thought the cruelty would only apply to the poor & minorities? That leopard is becoming morbidly obese from the faces of Trump supporters.

I guess they didn't read the myth of Midas....greedy bastards

Who would have believed the guy who bankrupted multiple casinos would turn out to be terrible for the economy?🤔

Target is learning that the tax breaks won’t cover their losses.

I’ve always been told that the markets love stability and predictability. Then I watched the markets go up after people elected chaos personified as POTUS.

Exhibit A: Bill Ackman's tweets

Hubris... plain and simple. Virtually every American CEO I've encountered lives in an entirely differently world from the one that their employee's live in. They are used to having lackeys praise their delusional thinking and never hesitate to jump to a new company when things go south.

The most pathetic thing is that our country's current economic policies allow for incompetent business leaders to create massive amounts of wealth for themselves with zero accountability. And it is getting worse...

Always nice to know that the suck-ups are getting the Trump steamroll along with the rest of us.

I think the technical term is "pinheads."

The data over the last 35 years is pretty clear, the market and the economy in general likes Democrats. But maybe it's too much to expect financial literacy from CEOs.

We also made it through an inflation scare in which capital desperately needed labor but .... was unwilling to raise wages. It was always not about the merits of the thing.

Arrogant fools. The respect for one another's expertise is fundamental in developing complex social mechanisms, but these people all tend to be lacking humbleness and, in turn, intelligence. Their voters also lack the humbleness to admit how limited they are intellectually.

Golden Age? More like golden showers.

Honestly? I don’t even care if I survive the next few yrs, but I DEFINITELY wanna see the collapse of the entire fucking system & watch the greedy Capitalists at the top lose everything, including their sanity.

I guess business schools don’t teach how to read the writing on the wall.

I never realized how truly Stupid Rich People are. I mean, REALLY STUPID!

How self deluded do these would be captains of industry need to be, not to realize Putin's plans for the US will leave them as well off as an average Russian?

It's something that people who have worked for large orgs know first hand. If they're honest, they know, and call, their corporate bosses morons. But then don't trust their instincts because so many others talk about how smart the rich people are, so they second guess.

Business culture is full of "there's no room for negativity" so every idea from above is perfect. But so often, while being forced to do the new stupid policy/plan/system, the rank and file know it's all stupid performance games to sate corporate ego. Often to the detriment of the org

There is absolutely nothing a billionaire can do that will convince some people that he's not a genius. Wealth=intelligence, and they won't give up on that belief. Trump has never even been a billionaire, and certainly not a self-made man, but true believers are gonna believe.

There is a "not-drunk" drunk guy driving who is a failed businessman who charades as a "deal maker" who is the worst example of a negotiator ever to exist on the planet. It was a role created by TV producers of a "reality" show. He's a felon. A fraud. A sex offender. He's stupid + stubborn. #Kraznov

FINALLY

They can join us peasants in the arena of distress. Sucks not having complete power, eh?

Bingo!

I find this to be very comforting.

I was optimistic enough to think that perhaps business leaders wouldn’t vote for Trump because business needs predictability and stability and Trump promised the opposite, and I thought they might vote for their own self interest.

I honestly think since they'd get their tax cuts, Trump would get in line with everything else. Trump only knows tariffs and rate cuts. He thinks they fix everything.

Clearly I overestimated their intelligence and their ability to understand what was in their own self interest (and it once again proves that the business is the opposite of a meritocracy)

I honestly have a hard time believing they didn't see this coming. He told them, he told all of us, exactly what he was going to do.

“But not OUR FACES” - Face Eating Leopard Party Members

CEOS if you're that stunned, maybe you could voluntarily tax yourselves, specifically offering money to the USA government. You could #demonstrateyourwealth in a very noticeable way. You could give money toward bills that secure voting rights & assure free and fair elections w/equal access for all.

leopards eating faces, etc.

I wouldn’t do it because I want the left to ascend but Dems should say loud that Trump is the most incompetent revolutionary in history

Trump has reminded us of something we should have learned from the history: big firms (even law firms) are no bulwark against fascism. They will do anything to preserve their status in the new order. Allowing companies to get too big, and people to get too rich, is the biggest mistake man makes.

"Golden Age?" More like "Fool's Golden Age."

I reckon you can leave the word tariffs out and just say Chump is the cause. Tariffs don't help but he is surely the primary deterrent to buying American. Folks these days are savvy enough to know harming US business trickles up

They really only hear “high income bracket tax cuts” and tune out everything else until it bites them in the ass.

complete asshat imbeciles. didn't mike johnson use the word "euphoria" yesterday. wtf.

Greatest Grift in recent history 👻

A lesson we already learned in the great depression and will have to learn again the hard way.

true as long as we can be sure that capital ownership doesn’t cause idiots

You really have to feel for them. Trump said exactly what he was going to do, but those fools didn’t believe him. All they had to do was listen, but they deluded themselves into thinking he was secretly a Chamber of Commerce Republican.

Indeed. They completely brought this on themselves by supporting and enabling Trump all this time.

There's a big party coming and none of us are invited.

Truly, as a kid I believed adults had things under control because of wisdom. I would have punched a lot more dicks if I had known how stupid and selfish they were.

The ONLY benefit of this regime is the thorough and public dismantling of the of the previously unshakable belief that America is a meritocracy.

*wantonly selfish idiots

And cowards

🤷‍♀️

100% the message Democrats should be after. Not that we should get rid of billionaires. It is that they are incompetent nepo babies, who will wreck our lives. Musk is the poster child of that.

At least the British aristocracy back in the day had some pretense of honor. These pindicks have no shame. This won’t last forever for them. People aren’t as fed up yet as they will be.

WSJ didn’t recognize the “free” link. Paywall is up.

You supported him with large donations now suffer the consequences

Cold, but we’ll allow it …

Sorry business owners. Unless you’re a billionaire, 47 doesn’t care about you.

I kept wondering why folks weren’t doing more to question the notion that he had anything to do with the economy the first time.

😩 I feel so sorry for them! from a tiny 70+ old woman trying to get by on social security with help from a food pantry.

Billionaires are good for 1 thing -ideas. Everyone around them who makes the idea happen are who create the billionaire.

It is really truly insane how they could not predict that trump might DO EXACTLY WHAT HE REPEATEDLY SAID HE WOULD DO, AND HAS DONE IN THE PAST.

Wasn’t it $5 million for a sit down with this clown? 🤡

Seize the means of production, you could only be a better steward, the bar is so low you guys.

Cannot imagine why. The number of groups that seem to have truly believed that only OTHER groups would be damaged is astounding.

They helped build this monster. I feel zero sympathy

The only company that auto tarriffs helps is Tesla. Tesla gets tax credits for cars built in the US, people that buy Teslas get a $7500 tax credit, federal money spent on electric charging stations is for Tesla. Elon Musk's entire business model is based on funding from the federal taxes I pay.

Other electric companies also get that same tax credit. But yes Tesla makes a ton of money on federal funding and selling carbon credits to other companies

I have a former friend who owns a company dependent on steel and solar. He voted for Trump. Unbelievable

it has the twin benefits of being correct and being the right thing to do

MBA 101 - Business "leaders" if your purpose is to amass money and power for yourself you are corrupt. If the purpose of your business is to benefit the firm, the customers, AND society, then you shouldn't back con men.

My heart bleeds lukewarm seagull 💩 for all those power hungry, profit driven, hypocritical, effers.

I don't ask that business leaders be polymath geniuses but is it too much to expect them to, like, read a book or something? That cozying up to Fascism never works out in the end for Capital is a lesson that's been learned again and again.

who could have seen this coming, truly an unexpected turn of events

I love sarcasm in the morning!

Thoughts and prayers!

They don't even have the gumption of the 1930s. FDR at least faced the Business Plot.

One million percent

They got what they deserved for cheering when Trump was elected, believing they could profit more once restrictions and protections were lifted. They didn't care about authoritarianism as long as they could make outsized profits. This is despite Joe's term giving them plenty to cheer about.

Agreed.

Is this a way of forcing businesses to their knees before Trump?

An easy fix, they can fight against his DEI effort, stop funding his nonsense, pulled money from the tech bros that went to his inauguration... he responds to actions, and a bully can't take the heat. Stop whining and do something. Funnel money into the law firms fighting against him. Not 🚀 science.

What’s funny is these opinion pieces are supposed to make working- and middle-class Americans feel bad for them? You voted for and invested in a man you knew would make life harder for most Americans—all for profit. Treating the American people like assets and labor with no real value beyond that.

Give me all their money, I'll gladly pay outrageous amounts of tax and not complain in anyway, shape, or form. As an added bonus, I'll let the people who actually know what they're doing run things.

This is true

the most powerful and richest humans to have ever lived are “helpless”. or is it that they think they might lose a little money or a job, and still be the most powerful, richest ppl in the world?

We tried to warn them…

📌

It's getting more difficult to golden parachute out of a failing company into a company that will soon fail.

What will be the first industry Trump nationalizes? Oil? Aerospace? AI?

Always has been

america's executives discussing how to avoid the carnage of trump's tariffs

Their ownership of that capital...derived from their labor? Nah. Derived from their previous access to capital. How quaint.

I mean WTAF. Our current business leaders are paid hugely outsized compensation in part on the theory of their outsized competence. But here comes a well-telegraphed crisis, and they are only smol beans.

but i only thought he was going to come for the poors

Thoughts and tariffs to them. I guess.

Best salary 500 times that of an average worker we ever spent, muse boards across the country

I'm in logistics, and it's been hell trying to keep up with this syphilitic idiot's impulses. Everything is taking longer to get through customs, and everyone is shipping everything they've got to avoid more tariffs, so the backlog just keeps getting worse.

And how many of them donated to scump's election campaign? The "find out" part...

Since forever, America has been subjected to a deluge of hagiographies about business leaders & their innovative genius. The proof of their genius? Their wealth. This moment reveals our collective fetish for business genius as largely a projection of our fetish for money magnified by inequality.

I mean sure, but so is the current administration of the state.

Have corporations heard that money is speech?

truly - and this isn’t only about schadenfreude - these ceo’s get paid big fkn $$$ to lead so much of our surplus productivity has been disproportionately co-opted by ceos that they got entitled and lazy i say eat it ceos welcome to reality

They shouldn't have backed a Nazi then.

Lie down with dogs get up with fleas!

Anyone who believed the "golden age" horse shit deserves everything that's coming.

But they’re getting their tax cuts; I thought that’s all that matters. Oh, you mean tax cuts aren’t good if you aren’t actually making money? FAFO!

I'm so done with the fantastical notion that Lots of Money = Really Smart Literally the only regular working people I know that are even remotely surprised by this clown show are the ones gullible enough to still believe this myth that's the basis for the 5-decade Republican Trickle-Down Lie

I'm not sure that the current captains of industry stand out as *particularly* stupid, historically speaking.

They had the best move last November and blew it

So you're telling me that making sure no one has money for anything except the people who don't need them is a *problem* for companies looking to sell products? NO FUCKING WAY.

That is soooo damn true!

Yes I’m feeling that distress in the emotional air waves. The social consciousness is palpable

Here is a suggestion, call your congressman and senators and tell them to do their job or no more money

Expropriate the expropriators

DAMN! Truth told.

Seize the means of production.

They refused to do business with him because he was bad at business, so were they expecting him to be good at this?

That will teach them for not making billionaire Status.😏

I agree with your point while disagreeing that this is the strongest case for socializing capital ownership. Even if current owners were geniuses, hoarding national wealth (70% owned by the top decile, 2% by the bottom half), yields no proportional social good. Which I'm certain you know.

It really is something.

Too fucking bad

👍🏾👍🏾

And the few who aren’t, Are saying “Yeah, do something… tax us, stop the national infrastructure decline, educate some workers…”

It was happening--until Jeffrey Sachs showed up.

Insert face eating leopard joke here ________

So dumb. They have great moves: spend between 1 and 10 percent of their net worth to elect Democrats, who may not be perfectly aligned with their interests but will at least give them a stable playing field. Bonus for execs: Dems will move toward them if they open their wallets.