Activist investor Bill Ackman is promoting a plan for every American to receive cash at birth from the government which would be invested for their futures. The head of Pershing Square Capital made the comments to the New York Times. He is also looking at bullish 2021.
Bill Ackman explains in the New York Times today that one of capitalism’s biggest problems, specifically in the way that it has functioned over the last few decades, is that wage growth has not kept pace with long-term wealth creation, which has disproportionately favored the wealthy and the upper-middle class. “This likely can be attributed to the higher after-tax returns generated by investment assets as compared with wage growth over the same period,” said Ackman.
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So what solution does he suggest?
Bill Ackman feels that a potential solution to the wealth inequality problem he perceives would be to provide capital to all of the people with no investment assets with which to take part in the success of capitalism. So Mr. Ackman says that in order to do so, “we need a program that makes every American an owner of the compound growth in value of corporate America.”
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This interview is a must watch. We need to convince our country to take Covid seriously or we will lose another 500k Americans. What makes this such a tragedy is that we are only a few months away from widespread vaccinations that will end this. https://t.co/YxE2E04Cny
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) November 16, 2020
He thinks that the government should, therefor, fund investment accounts for every child born in America, for a program which he would call birthright.
“In addition to helping all Americans build wealth for retirement,” adds Bill Ackman, “Birthright would encourage greater financial literacy, and give all Americans the opportunity to participate in the success of capitalism.”
This will surely not be welcomed by the people on the right in America who would call this socialism. However, many on Wall Street might welcome this as it would provide it with new capital every time a U.S. citizen is born. And Republicans might agree to such a plan if it were to be implemented in place of Social Security.
As for 2021, Bill Ackman said on a Pershing Square quarterly earnings call Thursday that he is optimistic and will be bullish on the stock markets next year. But he also acknowledged that 2020 will see a miserable end saying, “the next couple of months unfortunately are going to be tragic and very difficult for the globe and for our country in particular. We have basically a 9/11 every day.”
Meanwhile, England’s The Guardian reports that an investment trust that tracks Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital will join the FTSE 100 on December 18. The Guernsey-registered trust tracks the performance of Pershing Square Capital Management.
