KEVIN O’LEARY: My essential financial advice before you vote – and which candidate will make you richer

On November 6, I don’t care who won the election. I’ll be too busy to go to work.

As a businessman, I will adapt to the economic policies of our new president, whoever that may be.

It’s certainly not time to be bothered with personality questions. For me it’s about policy.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a clear preference when it comes to each candidate’s economic policies – and this is how I evaluate them.

CHOOSING ‘WINNERS AND LOSERS’

Vice President Kamala Harris has been somewhat quiet when it comes to discussing the details of her plans.

Although one thing we know for sure is that she thinks the federal government is better at making decisions about where money is spent than local government or individuals.

We also know that she wants to allocate more money to support certain industrial sectors. I call this picking winners and losers.

For example, President Biden and Vice President Harris have directed more than $200 billion in taxpayer dollars to the CHIPS and Science Act since it was signed into law in 2022.

This statute is specifically intended to boost the high-tech chip industry in the US.

We have yet to know whether it is a good or bad idea, but by allocating such a large amount of capital to one area, Harris and Biden have attempted to make a huge gamble.

And historically, that hasn’t worked out very well for governments. It’s actually more like the centrally controlled economies of socialist countries.

Trump, on the other hand, believes it is better to let individuals and companies keep more of the money they make and spend it as they see fit – a market-based approach.

Trump’s plan is to keep tax rates around 20 percent and maintain a level playing field for financing across all sectors. He will not pick winners and losers.

Another important factor to think about is how Trump plans to impose tariffs – especially against China.

THE RATE TIFF

Trump has proposed a massive 60 percent tariff on all goods from China and 20 percent on everything else brought into the US from abroad.

Normally I would be in favor of a mutual tariff settlement – ​​in other words: a ‘tit for tat’ agreement.

If Germany wants to impose a 10 percent tariff on cars, we will do the same. And so on.

But when it comes to China, there has never been a level playing field because their supreme leader – Xi Jinping – doesn’t play by the rules.

I do business in China and know that their regime-controlled companies routinely steal the intellectual property of American competitors. And if you want to sue in Chinese court, good luck. You can’t get past the courthouse steps.

If the US imposes high tariffs on China, the Chinese will lose access to the US market and their supreme leader will be forced to come to the negotiating table and China will be forced to behave more reasonably.

That’s how to use tariffs – selectively and painfully.

Harris honestly hasn’t laid out her policy on tariffs or anything else. Her proxies do the talking for her – and that causes chaos.

SAVING THE AMERICAN DREAM

My Shark Tank co-star, Mark Cuban, is one of Harris’ proxies and said last month that we should ignore claims that Harris would tax rich people’s “unrealized gains” (that’s any fictional growth in their assets – before those assets are actually sold!).

Yet this radical proposal is part of the tax plan that Harris actually endorsed.

Of course I’m against it.

If she really wants to impose taxes on unrealized capital gains, that’s not the America anyone knows.

It’s not the American dream. He’s a socialist and that’s quite scary.

While both Mark and I support American entrepreneurship, Mark has campaigned for a candidate and endorsed Harris.

On the other hand, I don’t support politicians.

Actually, I think it’s a very stupid thing to do. Half of my CEOs are Democrats – and I do business with all of them. Half are Republicans. I also do business with them.

My own family dinner table is split between Republicans and Democrats.

Instead of getting stuck in endorsements, I encourage everyone to vote. And when you vote, keep America’s most important export in mind: It’s not energy or technology.

It’s the American dream. And the most important job of our new president is to protect it.