In this video, he says that he has not met a single Fortune 100 CEO who would change their investment strategy based on who wins the election, so the election does not matter.
But that is just a fucking weird claim.
Look at the list. Number one is Walmart. Maybe Walmart’s CEO does not believe that a Trump Administration would hike trade barriers between the U.S. and its suppliers. But there is no goddamned way that is true, not in a world where debate performances move exchange rates.
Berkshire Hathaway cares a lot about the Clean Power Plan. Ditto ExxonMobil, Chevron, Valero, Marathon, Energy Transfer Equity, ConocoPhillips, Exelon, and Tesoro. The car companies care a lot about CAFE standards. The banks care a huge amount about repealing or amending Dodd-Frank. Alphabet lives and dies on tiny changes in intellectual property. (To be fair, I doubt Trump has any sort of I.P. policy at all. But that lack will be almost as much a concern as much as having a definite one.) Boeing cares about the Iran deal. The medical and insurance companies care about Obamacare. The defense companies care a whole lot about defense budgets.
I could go on. I will, however, call bullshit on my man from Chelsea, Massachusetts. The claim is untrue on its face, unless Ian is speaking to a select group of CEOs ... in which case he is deliberately misleading his viewers by implying that said CEOs are representative.
Now, I can believe that the radical tax cuts a Trump Administration would usher in would not affect investment that much. But not at all? Corporate tax rate cuts of the magnitude Trump is proposing will have no effect on investment decisions?
And then he throws out this pearl of wisdom: “Ultimately, Obama was a radically different President than Bush and how much difference did he make in terms of policy?” Well, if your counterfactual is Hugo Chávez, then maybe not much. But if your counterfactual is hundreds of billions of dollars of investment flows then he made quite a fucking big difference. Dodd-Frank, the Recovery Act, Obamacare, the CPP, just for starters.
What I do not understand is why Bremmer would make such a silly ... oh, heck, stupid claim. Bremmer has built a multi-million dollar political risk business. He has mastered tweeting. (Nate Jensen is better.) He knows what he is doing. His brand is not mindless contrarianism. Quite the reverse, actually.
So what the hell is up with this stupid video? I lost IQ points from watching it.
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