| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, currently the envy of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. It's been one week since Election Day, but people still seem confused as to whether President-elect Donald Trump is going help or hurt the economy. On one hand, you've got Scott Bessent — his likely pick for Treasury secretary — saying that markets are unambiguously embracing the Trump 2.0 economic vision. But on the other hand, Anthony Scaramucci is scared out of his mind that we'll get a stock-market crash à la 1929. So which is it: Are assets about to enter a golden era of MAGA mania, or are we going to be on a Costco rotisserie chicken budget for the next four years? The answer, it seems, is messier than this pot of passenger seat chili. To try and clarify the financial landscape we find ourselves in, here are some Telltale Charts — we're mixing things up today! — from our columnists. "In the following chart, I have compared the Dow Industrials' performance from Election Day in 1928, when Herbert Hoover was chosen president, to its performance since a week ago. They're very similar," John Authers writes. "Does this prove that Donald Trump's second term will pan out like Hoover's?" he asks. "Of course it doesn't. And that's just as well, as this is what happened to the Dow in the four years between Hoover's election and his landslide defeat to FDR in 1932." The thing is, the US economy is actually pretty spectacular right now. Far from the being the epic disaster that Trump sold to voters, Justin Fox says it's "currently the envy of the world." Although Trump made a promise to "fix" the economy, Justin thinks "not meddling with a good thing is probably the best course." While the cost of living crisis is real, Justin chalks a lot of the electorate's ire up "to lingering effects of the inflation wave of 2021-2022, a frozen housing market, a recent slowdown in hiring, partisan polarization and a lamentable lack of familiarity with comparative international economic statistics."  If Trump does end up meddling with the economy, Robert Burgess says traders predict inflation will come roaring back over the next two years. "Never mind the tariffs; Trump's most inflationary proposal, as the macroeconomic strategists at TS Lombard see it, is probably his plan for mass deportations," he writes. To make matters worse, Bill Dudley fears the Federal Reserve won't be able to stop the bleeding if Trump acts rashly. "The central bank's response will occur too late to mitigate fully the economic impact," he warns. Perhaps the only thing mass deportations are "good" for are private prisons. In a grim twist, Jonathan Levin says "traders have speculated that Trump's immigration crackdowns would translate into increased demand for detention facilities and services such as those provided by CoreCivic Inc. and GEO Group Inc. The market action in those stocks illustrates how the 2024 Trump trade is an accelerated version of 2016."  Allison Schrager, meanwhile, points to another so-called "Trump trade," Bitcoin. But she thinks that label is a bit of a misnomer: "I will not push the analogy between the president-elect and cryptocurrency any further," she writes. Even if Trump hadn't championed crypto, the asset "would probably still be having a good week, because the whole market is up and crypto has a high beta. This makes crypto a very risky asset. When everyone else gets rich, you get even richer. And when markets crash, you are even worse off — just when you may need money most. This is hard to square with crypto's promise as a safe and secure way to make transactions." Even if you remove all of the mind-boggling things Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done and said over the past year — the parasitic worm, the dead whale and the dead bear, the ill-advised entanglement with Olivia Nuzzi — I still don't see why we should trust him to run the American health care system, and neither does Mike Bloomberg. In a new, free-to-read op-ed, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP says appointing "a notorious anti-vaccine crusader and peddler of junk science" would "be a disastrous mistake that would kill and sicken countless Americans while also harming Trump's political standing and tarnishing his first-term legacy." You'd be forgiven for forgetting that one of Trump's greatest accomplishments in his first term was Operation Warp Speed. The $18 billion project hastened the creation of the Covid-19 vaccine and saved countless lives. Handing over the administrative keys to a known conspiracy theorist who thinks childhood vaccines are linked to autism will all but erase that success. Mike says he "grew up at a time when one of parents' biggest fears was that their children might contract polio, which paralyzed and killed thousands of people before the vaccine was introduced in 1955. Back then, if anyone had told us that someone who opposes vaccines for deadly diseases might be considered for a top presidential appointment, we would have thought that person was delusional or deranged." Fast-forward to today, and "Make America Healthy Again" is an anthem cheered by many. But RFK Jr. isn't going to make us healthy, Mike says. Instead, he'll usher in a new era defined by sickness: "Want to see a return of measles, mumps and rubella in schools across the country? Appoint Kennedy. Want to see more people die from Covid? Appoint Kennedy. Want to see spikes in diphtheria? Appoint Kennedy." Trump, a self-professed germaphobe, would be wise to axe Kennedy from his list of administration hopefuls. Elliott's plan for a Honeywell breakup doesn't go nearly far enough. — Thomas Black Elon Musk's beliefs about AI doom could blunt Trump's fast-and-loose tech policies. — Parmy Olson Trump's return to Washington leaves Japan's prime minister with no time to snooze. — Gearoid Reidy Beijing's plans for a super embassy in London should give the UK government pause. — Matthew Brooker Thames Water needs to get creditors back to the table to give plan B a shot. — Chris Hughes Overturning state abortion bans won't magically reopen clinics or protect women. — Lisa Jarvis Bluesky added 700,000 new members. (Say hi!) Trump is TikTok's chance at survival. Chronic brain trauma is common at sea. NYC real-estate dynasties are selling out. An oligarch's daughter is not pleased with her mansion of moths. (h/t Andrea Felsted) Sweetgreen selling kale camo hoodies and ruining Brooklyn. How the election sent BookTok into crisis mode. Bridget Jones is back for one last huzzah. Notes: Please send rotisserie chicken and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Threads, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. | 
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