I seriously don’t understand how anyone on Wall Street is acting shocked right now. We — the supposed “rational actors,” the champions of capitalism — are supposed to know the ABC of economics. Literally any first-year undergrad in econ could tell you: tariffs are bad. They’re inefficient, regressive, and always end up hurting consumers and global alliances. And yet, here we are — again.
Now you’ve got Ben Shapiro and other conservative voices suddenly sounding the alarm, acting like they just realized tariffs are economic poison. Are you kidding? Trump ran on this explicitly. He implemented them in 2018. There was no ambiguity. He’s not pretending to be Milton Friedman.
And don’t even get me started on the Wall Street royalty that lined up behind him: Steve Schwarzman (Blackstone)
Bill Ackman, the guy who says he’s a disciple of Buffett
Jamie Dimon, who played the centrist game but stood by him when it counted
Stanley Druckenmiller, always talking macro while backing chaos
Even Scott Bessent, who was literally the CIO of Soros Fund Management — yes, Soros! — and still publicly backed Trump yesterday
If they couldn’t see the consequences of enabling a tariff-happy populist, then either they’re dishonest or delusional. This is not just a political miscalculation — it’s an economic betrayal. These people should’ve known better. Most of them do know better. And now they want to act surprised when markets react violently?