This episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver had more meaning when it originally  aired on Sunday.  For those who missed it, however, it still has a good deal of substance.  That's because it deals with Trump's business ventures.  I wavered back and forth whether or not to post it today, after the fact -- but realized it was definitely worth watching.  After all, as the show writes, it looks at his business dealings from the perspective of "what has changed about them since his presidential term, and the havoc they could wreak if he’s reelected."

Since the later transpired, the look ahead is indeed very valuable.  Also, like all the show's reports, it's very funny.  You might laugh through clenched teeth on occasion, but ridicule absolutely has its value these days.
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Given the two pieces I’ve written this week, including one of them last night, about billionaire owners of newspapers blocking presidential endorsements – or to put it another way, refusing to let their papers endorse someone other than Trump, I thought that it was appropriate to post Jon Stewart’s video podcast this week, since it’s titled, “Jon Stewart Exposes Billionaires’ Influence Over Elections.”

The show, which was recorded before​ the news, writes, “From elections big and small across the country, the super-wealthy are using their money to reshape democracy in direct and in-direct ways. On this episode, Jon is joined by New York Times reporters Teddy Schleifer and Ken Vogel to explore how rich donors leverage their resources across the political landscape to benefit themselves.”

Let’s look at the stock market performance from 1961-2024.

Assume we invested $10,000 in the stock market and allowed growth to compound only during Republican presidencies; our $10,000 would have done well, growing to approximately $105,000 during those 32 years.

If we did the exact same thing, but invested only during the 32 years of Democratic presidencies, we would have again done well…exceptionally well. Our $10,000 would have grown to approximately $570,000.

This equals a difference of close to 7% PER YEAR in favor of stock market performance during Democratic administrations.

...Let’s move on from the stock market to economic and job growth.

In order to avoid upside bias from 1935-1944, as the economy recovered from the Great Depression and the buildup to WWll under FDR, we will begin our analysis in 1945.

The most important measure of economic performance is the real growth rate (nominal growth minus inflation).

Under the 40 years with GOP presidents, real GDP growth has averaged 2.4% per year.

Under the 40 years with Dem presidents, real GDP growth has averaged 3.5% per year.

A difference of 1.1% per year might not sound significant, but if you compound it over the course of a 40-year working career, it compounds to 50% more total growth.

Further, these data help explain something remarkable. EVERY transition from a Democratic to a Republican administration during the past 100 years has resulted in slower job growth, while EVERY transition from a GOP to a Democratic administration has led to faster job growth.

Now let’s look at deficits and debt.

Over the past seven decades, there have been three presidents who either reduced the size of the annualized federal deficits, or turned their inherited deficit into a surplus.  [NOTE: One Republican -- Eisenhower, and two Democrats -- Clinton and Obama]

Each of these three presidents achieved this progress via a combination of slightly higher tax revenues, primarily from large corporations and very high income earners, along with modest and restrained growth in aggregate federal spending.

Meanwhile, under Trump, annualized deficits exploded by more than 50% from 2017-2019, BEFORE COVID-19

This was almost entirely due to Trump’s tax cuts for large corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals like Elon Musk.

Trump’s proposal to repeat that policy means he will seek needed tax revenues elsewhere: enormous “across the board” tariffs—20% to 60%—that will hurt the middle class and hammer those who aspire to join the middle class.

This fact, along with the risk of a trade war that would harm our farmers & other exporters, led 16 Nobel-prize-winning economists, among hundreds of economic experts, to unanimously declare Trump’s policies will lead to much slower growth & higher sustained inflation.

...Vice President Harris, by way of contrast, appears to be following in the footsteps of Presidents Eisenhower, Clinton, and Obama by suggesting modest tax increases on those making high levels of income, while offering tax credits to young families and budding entrepreneurs.

History demonstrates that this is the path to fiscal improvement. It significantly reduces the odds of a debt-driven crisis by preventing debt from growing faster than the economy, strengthens rather than degrades the solvency of Social Security, and reduces inflationary pressure.

Remember the quote earlier in this thread?

“It just seems the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.”

The person who said this, many years ago, was Donald Trump.

A dispassionate review of 80 years of economic history makes clear that what Donald Trump said two decades ago was, in fact, correct. If only the Donald Trump of today were to take a look at why.

The very policies Trump abhors today have in fact been far better for the millions of Americans who seek better growth, smaller deficits, avoidance of serious recessions, and his favorite, stock market appreciation.

These policies that have worked better in the past are today championed by Kamala Harris.

These data tell a compelling story, one even Republicans should study and embrace.
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I thought that Kamala Harris gave an excellent economic speech yesterday at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh.  It had specific proposals, though wasn't burdened down by them, mostly giving her view of dealing with the economy, from the perspective of the middle class (what she called an "Opportunity Economy.")  Among her specifics were programs to help provide opportunities with more substantial small business loans than exist now and a streamlined process for receiving them.  Also, focusing on emerging technologies so that the United States could be in a leading position in them over the next decades.  One thing that stood out in her speech was noting how the Empire State Building was built in a year, and that the Pentagon was built in just 16 months.  The point she was making was that the country has a history of being able to make things fast, and there's no reason we can't keep doing that again.

Nicolle Wallace’s panel on MSNBC was enthusiastic about the speech, ncluding conservative (though a “Never Trumper”) head  of the Bulwark, Sarah Longwell.  And the panelists particularly like that she gave enough specifics to be satisfying, but didn't get bogged with with a laundry list of too many details.  As they noted, no one is listening for (or will remember) Bullet Point #7 of a 12-Point Plan.

However, as good and important as the speech was, I spent a lot of the afternoon writing to friends about the interview Nicolle Wallace did afterwards with Mark Cuban who was at the Economic Council event (perhaps, not just being a billionaire and interested in such things, but also because he's from Pittsburgh.  I also have a feeling that he was an invited guest by the Harris Team, because he's been an effective and outspoken advocate. 

Cuban was superb.  In fact, afterwards, Sarah Longwell was almost bouncing in her seat and said that Cuban got her so inspired she almost felt like running through a wall.

I was going to go into detail about how Mark Cuban presented his thoughts, along with his comparisons of how both Harris and Trump are campaigning, which he explains on a totally different level than most analysts, looking at it as a businessman, and his conversations with Trump in the past and what moved his from accepting certain things about Trump when he first became a candidate to changing his support.  But happily, I found the 10-minute conversation, and Cuban's enthusiasm is something I wouldn't have been able to capture. 

I hope you watch the interview, it's worth it.

As a bonus, for those interested, this is the very good, thoughtful, detailed (sometimes very detailed) interview that Jon Stewart did afterwards with Mark Cuban.  It covers a wide range of subjects, including basketball, his dealings with Trump, a lot on AI industrialization, and medical drug transparency.

When the stock market plummeted 1,000 points on Monday, MAGOPs in Congress took to social media doing their best to scare the public about how their retirements had just been crushed by President Biden and Kamala Harris.  They were all similar, but one posted by the House Judiciary GOP account stood out best for each of them.  It said –
 
“If you look at your 401k today, remember that it was all brought to you by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.”
 
Basically the same was one from Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) – who, being MAGOP, of course, includes a Bible quote in his Twitter bio, about walking humbly.  His was --.
 
“When you look at your 401k today, remember that Kamala Harris has spent the last three and a half years saying that #Bidenomics works.”
 
Their comments, designed obviously to score quite political points by scaring people about their retirement funds, was ludicrous for many reason, But most notably and obviously by the reality that if a person didn’t sell anything in their 401k account, they didn’t lose a penny.  It might be worth less on that day, but the account is fluid and is always going up and down.  Most people don’t even touch their 401k for a decade – or decades.  At which point its value with be overwhelmingly different.  For all any MAGOP knows, people who did take their 2024 distribution did so before the stock drop.  Or they’ll be taking it at the end of the year in four months, when (again) the market will be totally different.  So, what the stock market was on Monday has literally no meaning on what almost every person’s 401k will be when they deal with it.
 
Also notable and obvious and easy to figure out while MAGOPs are trying to scare the public about how President Biden and Kamala Harris have supposedly pummeled the value of their 401k is the Really Easy to Figure Out Reality that since Biden and Harris took office...the stock market (even after Monday’s 1,000-point drop) has gone up 7,000 points!
 
So, for all those who did take MAGOPs up on their suggestion and decide to “look at your 401k today” – something most people likely don’t very often – saw that it’s doing incredibly better than when Trump left office.  And are likely overjoyed.
 
So, y’know, thank you, MAGOP officials for the reminder to check our 401k’s!!
 
And, of course, there’s more.
 
A couple night later, I was talking with a friend about the market drop.  One of the things we noted – and neither of us are stock market whizzes – is that history shows that when the stock market has a big drop in one day (and is pretty much only that one day), it eventually comes up – in fact, often very soon. 
 
Furthermore, as my friend noted, a friend of his – who is, in fact, involved with finance and investing -- has told him in the past that, after there’s a big drop in the market, that is actually the best time to buy.  It means stocks had a correction, so they’re at a low point, but should likely go up.
 
Indeed, I’ve been checking the stock market the last few days with all of this in mind.  And it led to me to tracking down tweets by severely MAGOP officials (including, of course, the House Judiciary GOP) written the day of the drop and sent the following yesterday –
 
“UPDATE:  And if you look at your 401k TODAY, just three days after you tried to terrrrrify the public, you'll see that the stock market has gained back almost all it los, and is now only 300 points lower than its drop on Monday!
 
“Well-done, MAGOP, doing what you do.”