Welcome to Axis ProRata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

Brought to you by Facebook. I'm Dan for Mac. On today's show, the music industry's merger mess and Trump's big contradiction on Huawei.

But first, America's never-ending economic boom.

So today is the first day of July, and this month marks the longest period of time that the U.S.

has gone without an economic recession.

Ever, 121 months, beating the previous record set in the early 2000s after the dot-com bubble crash.

Now, of course, this will end at some point because all economic growth eventually ends in

recession. And there are some worrying indicators, like an anticipated slowdown in Q2 economic growth,

an inverted treasury yield curve, and a massive proliferation of corporate debt that even the

Federal Reserve has called troubling. But the reality here is that the bears have been roaring

for well over a year and the economy continues to merrily chug along, so much so that we're

beginning to see an interesting reversal of position in presidential politics. Remember 2016?

President Trump regularly railed against Obama's stewardship of the

economy, even though it had recovered from the financial crisis. It was a populist message

about how things are worse than they appear. Hillary Clinton and Democrats, meanwhile,

were largely status quo on the economy, regularly marveling at what Obama had done.

Today, Democrats do acknowledge the stock market gains

and low unemployment. They're obvious. You can't avoid them. But the Democrats are also laser

focused on economic inequality and how the growth story has been relatively exclusive to the wealthy.

In other words, things are worse than they appear. Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow, however,

was asked about economic inequality yesterday on Fox News Sunday and basically said he didn't understand what the Democrats are talking about.

All economic systems go.

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