Snapshot · The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Under Republican President Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate was 91–92%, and he also called for universal healthcare — positions considered centrist at the time.
Where this was said
At 31:20 · chapter starts 31:17
In response to Galloway's question about historical analogues to Trump's foreign policy and today's domestic situation, Richardson reaches for the Gilded Age — the late 19th century era of robber barons, purchased senators, and the systematic exclusion of Black voters from the political process. The analogy has real force: extreme wealth concentration, captured legislatures, the delegitimisation of opposition. But Richardson presses on a critical distinction that makes the current moment more alarming than the Gilded Age [1] — Heather Cox Richardson "The Gilded Age had robber barons who bought senators — but even Carnegie and Rockefeller believed in America's democratic framework. Today'…" 28:00 . Carnegie and Rockefeller — however ruthlessly they pursued their own interests — still believed in the United States, its constitutional framework, and the separation of powers. Today's group in power, she argues, has no such faith. They are actively trying to destroy both domestic democratic institutions and the post-World War II rules-based international order, with an eye to carving up the globe in ways that echo late 19th-century colonial competition. That ideological rupture, she suggests, is what makes this moment qualitatively different.
Since 1975, roughly $50 trillion has moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.
A total of 8 states have filed lawsuits against social media platforms, including an ongoing case in Tennessee, using product liability and public nuisance theories to seek accountability.
France built 56 nuclear plants in the 1970s and now has the cheapest energy in Europe, making it independent of Russian or Middle Eastern energy geopolitics.
Estonia has a single tax form, a law preventing the government from asking citizens for the same information twice, and a flat rate of tax — enabling competitive taxation.
Portugal's Lisbon, once a city with a major heroin problem, legalised drugs and redirected enforcement spending into rehabilitation and housing, dramatically reducing crime.
The first Boland Amendment banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras passed the House unanimously — yet the Reagan administration ignored it.
Over just two years, Saudi Arabia alone donated $32 million to the Contra rebels, giving loosely affiliated factions millions they had no way to spend on arms.
The National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty raised $6.3 million for the Contras but only $3.3 million reached them — a shockingly low 52% program expense rate.
Richard Secord and Albert Hakim marked up their arms shipments to the Contras by as much as 300%, making enormous personal profits from the covert operation.
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, tapped to run the entire covert Contra support operation, had no prior experience in covert operations whatsoever — he was learning as he went.
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