Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has a contrarian suggestion for Donald Trump: To make America great again, make America more Japanese.
The Alibaba founder didn't say that specifically in Davos when he opined on the existential crisis facing American capitalism. Much has been written about Ma arguing that Washington blew $14 trillion on wars in recent decades that would've been better invested in the middle class. That misallocation of resources and focus left U.S. infrastructure, education, health care and economic incentives second rate.
"You're supposed to spend money on your own people," Ma said last week, clearly hoping a U.S. president threatening another kind of war against China, a trade one, is listening. "It's not that other countries steal American jobs. It is your strategy — that you did not distribute the money in a proper way."