Bloomberg Businessweek (August, 2024)

Год выпуска: August, 2024

Автор: Bloomberg Businessweek

Жанр: Бизнес

Издательство: «Bloomberg Businessweek»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 104

Facing Trump

Interviewing a presidential candidate in person before a monumental election is always a coveted opportunity. But after President Joe Biden’s disjointed debate performance raised doubts about his candidacy and Donald Trump escaped an assassin’s bullet in Pennsylvania, examining the GOP nominee and his economic agenda for a Bloomberg Businessweek cover story became a journalistic imperative.

Trump has an aggressive plan for the US economy and American companies that includes radically higher tariffs, a lower corporate tax rate and mass deportations of immigrants that could further constrict an already tight labor supply. Without this, he says, “you can fold up Businessweek, because I don’t think it’s gonna be worth a damn. I think the whole country will go down the tubes.”

Most economists disagree. In June, 16 Nobel Prize winners published an open letter arguing that Trump’s agenda would reignite inflation and balloon the federal debt. A recent report from the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics said Trump’s proposed tariffs would cost a typical household $1,700 a year “while inflicting significant collateral damage on the US economy.”

But there’s vocal support for Trump in some surprising quarters. Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, are two recent converts who’ve endorsed Trump. In early June prominent venture capitalists contributed more than $12 million to his campaign at a San Francisco fundraiser. Among the co-hosts was Shervin Pishevar, a backer of Airbnb, Slack and Uber, who once proudly hung photos of himself with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in his home. Now he posts photos with Trump to social media and rails against Biden’s appointees at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, who’ve worked to restrain tech giants and cryptocurrency. Biden’s administration “has gone after the crypto world, they have gone after the business world, they are trying to regulate by executive policy with a much more liberal, far-left view of capitalism and corporations,” Pishevar says. “The Republican Party is much more open to new ideas and big ideas from our world.”

On the other side of innumerable social media battles about the election is LinkedIn Corp. Executive Chairman Reid Hoffman, who sent an email to followers after the debate calling Biden a “resolute fighter” and saying attempts to replace him were misguided. Hoffman argues that European policy shows unequivocally that high tariffs impede growth and raise prices, and that the unavoidable central feature of Trump’s style is his tendency to govern as if he’s still starring in a reality-TV show. “Investors need a sense that they are investing in a stable future,” he says. But he gets why some business leaders may be drawn to the former president: “Trump has a better understanding than the Biden administration that regulation can be a business impediment.”

There’s also nervous silence from many others in the business community. In 2021 former American Express Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ken Chenault helped organize dozens of prominent Black business leaders to oppose restrictive voting rights bills in Republican-led states. There’s been no such groundswell now, despite similar perceived stakes for the future of democracy and fair elections. Chenault attributes this to Trump’s record of vindictiveness toward his enemies. But he says he hopes others will join the fray soon. “I would not criticize a CEO for not speaking out because of the threat to their company,” Chenault says. “What I would hope is that a few CEOs, and I don’t think it’s going to be large number, are able to act on their conscience.”

In the interview with Businessweek, Trump was personable, as vainglorious as ever in attempting to prosecute his case for another term, and characteristically boastful, bragging about everything from first-term accomplishments to the vaulted ceilings at Mar-a-Lago. (Considering his penchant for making false claims, we’re publishing the entire transcript of the interview on Bloomberg.com, annotated with fact checks.) It was clear that Trump is feeling exceptionally confident—even for him—about his prospects in November. Surviving the assassination attempt, and having criminal charges over his handling of classified documents thrown out, has only strengthened Trump’s improbable momentum. But four months is a lot of time, and as recent events have shown, a campaign can change overnight.

Remarks

• Why (some) businesses embrace the Trump agenda

In Context

• To be a capitalist in China, it helps to be a communist
• A hung parliament could be France’s best-case scenario
• Five questions for Apollo co-founder Josh Harris
• Climate forecasters have a valuable new tool in AI
• The Right Stuff: What to buy and where to go
• Addicts can’t kick the opioid habit. Neither can US insurers
• Another Albertsons merger, another loss for competition?
• Airbnb hosts contemplate wriggling away from Airbnb
• A Walk With: Celebrity whisperer Anita Elberse

In View

• The AI revolution is playing to US strengths
• The secret of Erewhon’s success
• When CFOs swap the “F” for an “E”
• The case for and against a universal basic income

In Depth

• For small investors, trading gets easier—and riskier
• Higher interest rates: A user’s guide
• The stock market gets democratized
• The downside to so many accredited investors
• Giving the masses a louder voice in giving
• Patrick McKenzie on digital money’s ins and outs
• What a second term for Trump would mean for business, in his own words
• Roblox, a popular online hangout for kids, is struggling to keep its users safe
• Where the Musk haters are going for their luxury EVs
• A data cable snaps near Norway’s coast, and a Russian boat there sure looks suspicious

Pursuits

• A gut check on those “healthspan” startups
• These resorts are selling vacationers on longevity
• New York, New York, is a helluva pasta town
• Summer is hat-wearing season
• CBS grows fat on a steady diet of spinoffs
• Yes, Rome in August is touristy. But when isn’t it?
• Bourbon and rye: There’s magic in the mashup
• A quiet Rolex; an oddball putter; six CEO diets    

Last Thing

• Complete the puzzle: Find the chip thief

скачать журнал: Bloomberg Businessweek (August, 2024)