S1 E10: The Wealth Gap, CIA Twitter & Japan: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Season 1, Episode 10, July 13th, 2014. John Oliver discusses the wealth gap, the CIA's first tone-deaf attempt at using Twitter, changes to Japan's longtime military restrictions, plus Warren Harding's penis and a day-in-the-life of Barack Obama.
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[@stefanhoimes]

I am extremely stoned and just realized that John is currently on his 3rd US president.

[@georges3]

Took me a whole episode to figure out these were from 2014. Lol.

[@wubz3543]

This is the answer to the question “what kinda stoner are you” lmao real

[@tetrakoop]

he's gotta be really full

[@austinb3463]

Lol "whether you're buying hbo or stealing it" as they upload fully episodes. Thanks Last Week Tonight.

[@moogle68]

A decade after those episodes aired, yes, and I mean this channel is _owned_ by the show, so any/all proceeds this video earns will go directly *to them* ... so who is being robbed, and what of?

[@hannahw7023]

​@moogle68 They're just pointing out how it's funny how John jokingly made fun of people pirating HBO, only for HBO to put the episodes up for free a decade later. It's not deep.

[@MartialArtzz]

'stealing it' is so rich as well. You wouldn't download a car!

[@zdelrod829]

​@@MartialArtzzI *will* download car jpegs.

[@dragonlordblazer13]

This show is a gem and needs to be protected lmfao

[@normalityrelief]

Then there’s the standard line “we can’t just give struggling people money because they won’t learn anything.” Unless of course a person comes from a dynasty, then they’re obviously brilliant and deserve all the money.

[@mastershake1187]

or maybe free will is somewhere between hardly existent and straight up not real and meritocracies are cruel

[@Lambda_Ovine]

also, it's demonstrably false. as anyone that grew up with parents that came from an impoverished background but managed to become middle class will tell you, poverty traumatizes so much that even if people are financially secure, after living that, they're stuck operating on a sense of perpetual scarcity. it's obvious that people that say "we can't help people out because they won't learn" have never had to face financial struggle

[@normalityrelief]

@@Lambda_Ovine very well put, I couldn’t agree more

[@Vesta_the_Lesser]

@@Lambda_Ovine "it's obvious that people that say "we can't help people out because they won't learn" have never had to face financial struggle" Or they just don't know any poor people...Or even if they do they just don't care about them because "fuck you, taxation is theft" and "leave me alone" and "I want to live in a society while also being free from society's rules"

[@TadanoCandy]

Being able to inherit your parents’ wealth def puts the kids of wealthy parents at an advantage without having to learn anything. However, if wealth couldn’t be inherited, there wouldn’t be many who put effort into accumulating wealth so their children could have an easier life. Shucks tbh

[@PleaseAlex07]

It is wild to watch these back 10 years later to see what changed, and what didn't. (Also "Damn Warren, you nasty!" is still an all-timer)

[@shawnhsia6668]

and in 10 years time you can watch this again because chances are that nothing had been done, just change the numbers

[@ErutaniaRose]

@@shawnhsia6668 Gods that is depressing. I hope I can do SOMETHING to change stuff. We are running out of time--at the very least, we are gonna force the ultra rich to be out of time so we can all have more time.

[@Solid_Fuel]

'Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires' - Steinbeck

[@Vesta_the_Lesser]

Well, also supposedly b/c our infrastructure is specifically designed to prevent the "spread of communism." We have to drive everywhere and our suburbs are a nightmare, someone (probably Robert Moses but I can't remember) literally said "the average American will be too busy to be a communist." Actually, I think that was a happy coincidence. In reality our infrastructure is designed for force us to buy gasoline...

[@pavelmacek282]

never heard this one but so far the best deffinition ever...

[@whispersmith]

​@@pavelmacek282Steinbeck was a dude with some writing ability

[@opalessence1187]

@@whispersmith 🤣🤣🤣

[@ErutaniaRose]

So true.

[@johnchessant3012]

S1 E10 (aired July 13, 2014)

[@dragonfly686868]

Income inequality? 2024 here - they don’t even bother talking about it anymore.

[@marcsequence]

It was successfully canceled. Isn’t that what we wanted? 🥹👍

[@berkaltuglu8140]

*Laughs in Turkish Lira then starts crying*

[@angmaraboli6511]

Because there's no such thing!

[@georges3]

You guys realize the stock market is the greatest driver? The stock market is NOT the economy, the economy is GDP. Stock prices are the result of countless non-tangible variables (eg. speculation). The 1% had wealth managers in the 80s when the stock market started blowing up. These managers all play squash together so they bought all the stocks, now the 1% own 95% of all shares of all corporations/companies. These include banks, where WE (& companies) put our earned $ reflecting the GDP. Bank charters allow banks to spend $5 no questions asked every time we deposit $1. They leverage OUR money five fold to charge us interest on credit/loans, making % for the shareholders (1%). The craziest example is investment banking arms, the big banks have. They take the $5 we made them, invest in the stock market, increasing the value of the same 1% other holdings, then the bank's stock goes up because they had a return. A market cap going up 1-2% is HUGE, and we get NOTHING. Then Jim Cramer says to invest in banks, everyone puts more of their real money in there.... Tax laws, the federal reserve, all that stuff makes it worse. But that's all business interest of corporations / 1% related. They own 40% of residential real estate as investments (made by their money managers in the good days), inflating the prices double or so. ITS INSANE

[@Charge0Complete]

I'm glad we finally address income inequalit....what? Still? How?

[@ErutaniaRose]

Screaming in Japanese with the huskiest British accent was something I never knew I needed to hear from John Oliver.

[@Rad9000]

Anyone else watching these first year episodes and realizing absolutely nothing haas changed? Something tells me that is exactly why they were posted.

[@USCTrojan2013]

Well THAT changes the concept of JERRY-MANDERING.. lol

[@BudJr]

This is the only late night show that’s still worth watching.

[@kumbaya69421]

ong, ever since the daily show became a shell of its former self, and all the other late night shows either retired (letterman, conan), or became unnecessarily political (late show, tonight show, late night). This man is peak silliness and i love it.

[@BudJr]

@@kumbaya69421 I know what you mean. He’s also freaking hilarious. I straight up didn’t believe it when I found out Jimmy Fallon used to be a comedian, because ain’t funny at all.

[@kumbaya69421]

@@BudJr NBC pretty much sucked the life out of him. He was definitely funny, not talk show host funny, but funny enough to be on SNL. His monologues are depressing to watch. He should leave NBC

[@sadie1606]

But Seth Meyers is sooo silly, he’s my favorite

[@murdermatics]

He's not interviewing celebrities for puff pieces or covering domestic issues. America needs international news instead of the sesame Street version of world events.

[@kateuhler7803]

Income inequality......And it just keep GETTING WORSE. 😞

[@JH22533]

9:09 I genuinely love that this guy has done voice overs for LWT since day 1

[@Nukenai]

What would you do if I told you that it's David Kaye, extremely famous and prolific voice actor, potentially known by you as the voice of Megatron in several Transformers series like Beast Wars?

[@JH22533]

@@Nukenai I would believe you!

[@michaellangan6385]

This threw me off because LWT used to be London Weekend Television, a channel that hasn't existed since the 90s (I think) and I was desperately trying to figure out why you mentioned it until it hit me 😂

[@ImposterJones]

Thanks for the library dump. Great seeing how the headlines of the day have morphed. Have we all aged as much as our boy Johny Olly?

[@kehlcassidy9562]

Yes. Yes we have.

[@giggabiite4417]

I like to call him "Jolly Olly"

[@Sam-Cain]

I'm 25 and my body feels like it's got about 5 years left.

[@GSBarlev]

​@@Sam-CainThat tracks. I'm 37, and it feels like my body is seven years past its expiration date. Then again: I'm bingeing _LWT_ in the dark trying to recover from a head-cold, so this fatalism might just be temporary.

[@ErutaniaRose]

Welp, I know my mental health certainly makes it seem like I have.

[@joaoborges6851]

Warren be harding

[@hawkeye5955]

"Damn, Warren! You nastay!" 😂

[@samanthasinger3747]

Lmao

[@jellybiome]

living for the reuploads

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Class warfare has been going on since the dawn of man. The only reason the topic is taboo is because the people doing the most of it don't want the losing side to fight back.

[@EndPoliticalCorruption]

Indeed. And it's why the party of the ultra wealthy, the Republicans, are the first ones to scream "Class warfare!" (And why Obama asked for help to overcome that charge.)

[@ErutaniaRose]

Exactly.

[@emvv3784]

since the dawn of civilization*** which is only about 2% of human history… which was a response to an ice age and fundamentally opposed to human nature***

[@LGBTQLegend]

I'm pretty sure the conception of class warfare was invented by Karl Marx but okay mate.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@LGBTQLegend The conception of oranges came after the existence of oranges. And for the record, according to Karl Marx all history is the history of class conflict. So even if we buy into your premise that Karl Marx "invented" the idea of class warfare, the person who'd disagree with you most about that claim is Karl Marx himself. It's not an idea he created, it's an idea he got from somewhere else. I didn't actually know any of this until I did the research to fact-check your comment, so that's an interesting thing I learned. Apparently we got that idea from the same place. Interesting that paying attention to reality sometimes leads two different people to independently arrive at the same conclusion.

[@Car_D_Board]

10 episodes in and John still is only saying welcome once. When will he evolve?

[@davidfuentes9957]

He is not a Pokémon. Edit: well to be fair, he says that he is. He mentioned that his final form is a graphing calculator.

[@hannahw7023]

​​@@davidfuentes9957 I thought his final form was a screaming robot tea kettle that yelled depressing numbers at you

[@davidfuentes9957]

@@hannahw7023 I also heard that he is what Milhouse would look like in Britain.

[@zumabbar]

He started saying that on the S1E13 episode.

[@theshockbones6595]

Love it! I’m so glad your older shows are available to watch!

[@kr1stinabee]

26:45 this is my favorite last week tonight joke ever

[@juanlopez-qd1yh]

That eyes wide shut joke💯🔝

[@forgiveman]

Now more than ever the breach between poor and rich people is growing day by day. Unless something catrasthropic happens, we will be in this situation forever.

[@sejembalm]

Wealth gap in 2014 had the top 1% made 19.3% of all available income in the USA. In mid-2023, more than one-quarter of all household wealth, 26.5%, belongs to Americans who earn enough money to rank in the top percentile by income, according to Federal Reserve statistics. The top 1% holds $38.7 trillion in wealth. That’s more than the combined wealth of America’s middle class, a group many economists define as the middle 60% of households by income. Those households hold about 26% of all wealth. Low-income Americans, representing the bottom 20% by income, own about 3% of the wealth. In the third quarter of 2023, 66.9 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. The United States threshold for a top 1% individual earner was $407,500.00 in 2023, median individual income was $50,000 in 2023.

[@ErutaniaRose]

Yikes...

[@LGBTQLegend]

But hypothetically you could be a winner.

[@jaebee1121]

Watching him talk about wealth inequality ten years later is like putting on a thick, sopping wool blanket.

[@Alex.R.L]

It's gotten worse. The fire rises as the curtain falls.

[@luthfihar3211]

9:31 , i wonder where we falls under the category

[@Viviorkogaming]

😂

[@GSBarlev]

"People who pay for Premium" vs. "People who _bypass_ the ads"?

[@cheesebiscuits6323]

Poorer than those bourgeois motherfuckers who can afford to steal HBO

[@aish125]

Thank you for uploading though I, older pacifist Japanese is hurt being current militarism PLUS being called world's perv uncle, only half of the Japan is perv, I guess!

[@EndPoliticalCorruption]

_Au contraire,_ John. We had a candidate in 2016 who talked about wealth inequality, and he was roundly despised for it by not just Republicans, but the media, and especially establishment Democrats.

[@scrubbyduckychess4121]

Who?

[@EndPoliticalCorruption]

@@scrubbyduckychess4121 Bernie

[@omarolive]

@@scrubbyduckychess4121 Bernie Sanders

[@TriforceWisdom64]

​@@scrubbyduckychess4121Bernie

[@Lilzgamez]

​@scrubbyduckychess4121 my guess is Bernie sanders

[@KAvanAlten]

He is doing a phenomenal job in convincing me to never ever ever become an American.

[@CollinMcLean]

Ok I zoned out after the song and for some reason I'm holding a Tachi, and it's covered in blood... I have no idea what I did but I may need to go lay low for awhile...

[@hakarlrs9817]

The more things change...

[@thefinestsake1660]

19.3% of the imcome for the top 1%? Psh! 2024, it's gone up to 30%! The top 10% has 67% of all wealth in the states. Something to think about.

[@hannahw7023]

15:00 hearing those stats now in 2024 is almost dystopian

[@forceworksplus]

John's efforts will never convince me to give a shit about FIFA.

[@tlawlessrr-vid-archive]

Lottery parody reminded me of the job application process.

[@cptainbubbles]

Just my luck, I didn't even win the lottery when I was rich. I picked 2.

[@HawSnowwhite]

President Harding, bringing all new clarity to the word jerrymandering!

[@shawnthompson3059]

This is still as relevant then as it is now

[@user-wv7kt4wk7q]

Bravo!! No matter how much you were our modern day hero, you are, like others, are so out of touch with our lives.

[@Lilzgamez]

What?

[@The_R-n-I_Guy]

Full episodes! Cool!

[@JanMarquez_]

Has anyone found the episode where the “WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME” started?

[@rock-bottom2023]

JWO has got talent.

[@hamplus163]

9:25 watching the episode 10 years later on KZbin

[@desmond982]

John Oliver is the funniest human alive. He is our generation's George Carlin. ❤

[@DaDunge]

28:45 It's not bad but when the second dog said the thign abotu secret prisons the first dog should have said "that sounds like something a communist would say, are you a communist?"

[@J21637]

😂 I am watching in 2024 and hilarious that the world never changes. Same issues, same weirdness, same humour needed to deal with it 😅

[@zoobatzjr371]

1:13 I think one of those stills is from the OVA of Fist of the North Star, but I'm not sure

[@jaymiller5669]

Harding was crazy yo haha

[@periwinkycrafts]

I earned it!😂

[@Viviorkogaming]

9:29 I pay for HBO.

[@GSBarlev]

David Zaslav thanks you for your obedience.

[@Viviorkogaming]

@@GSBarlev I pay for the hard work of others so you don’t have too. Happy to do it.

[@Cabrera1027]

​@@Viviorkogaming you pay so I can watch for the price of my data set for Google. Lol you pay, yet here you are watching with the rest of us.

[@Viviorkogaming]

@@Cabrera1027 , can’t watch season one on HBO.

[@Cabrera1027]

@@Viviorkogaming ah, I see

[@ViraMotorko]

"You can't spell 'colossal privacy violation' without lol." I'm a bit sad that this joke got buried in audience applause, what a gem

[@SpookyStag2015]

was watching this when I was 11 lol. i'm in college now! crazy how much has changed over the years. john's looking better than ever these days if i do say so myself 😏

[@markzuckerman-powdercoatin8358]

There's a difference between money and wealth. If .05% are holding 99% of money, imagine how much the total wealth would cost if it were purchased with money, given that the "wealth" actually doesn't exist yet.

[@chezchuckles]

Consider an Oxford comma? lol otherwise there are some interesting stories mashed together. But either way thanks so much for putting these up. It’s quite disheartening or perhaps encouraging? to know we haven’t died yet but it’s all happened before.

[@aaditkamat4995]

I wonder if John Oliver has done an episode on the H1B lottery

[@michaelg3088]

I wish we could go back to the days under Bill Clinton's economy. With some of 2024 fixes.

[@Rice-bowl214]

Yes

[@cattothemoon6922]

i had no idea john mentioned akb48 omg

[@Theswedishfoamer]

What song is that anyways? I've never actually heard of them before this...

[@GSBarlev]

Oh 💩 I almost downvoted this thinking it was more crypto spam. Yeah, John's (writers have) always been attuned to the wonderful world of Asian pop supergroups.

[@DW98rosy]

​@@Theswedishfoameri was wondering what the song was, too......

[@Richard-ow3cj]

I'm an atheist, but God damn this is the funniest rant I've ever heard!

[@antigonaromeu]

america ball deserves all the awards

[@JeeWillikurz]

Don’t you wish you had named your member “Jerry ” Warren…

[@davidestremera6003]

Oh my god 😂😂too freaking funny 😂😅

[@DrewSavo]

6:36 I think they eventually caught up with the guy wearing the horse mask, and he said he did it because he reckoned it would guarantee him being on tv.

[@dreamway9]

There's Billy and then everyone else... strongly agree

[@zander6177]

Who else watching all these in order ?

[@averat84]

Working in a precision aerospace machine shop that was a Boeing subcontractor in the early 2000s, we knew _then_ not to fly Boeing!

[@maora24]

Um... As a Japanese, I'd like to point out that part of the reason why the Japanese are so pacifistic and obsessed with anti-war is the last war ended disastrous after a certain country dropped A-bombs on Japan for the first and only time in human history. But um... proud of being the pervert uncle by the way.

[@ericdykann2018]

Well, Japan. You guys were acting up.

[@omarolive]

10 years later, how many AKB48 members graduated to AV Industry?

[@LGBTQLegend]

Asian countries have been generally more pacifist than western countries. Buddhism for example has been big in Japan and Japan even in older days had a bigger sense of honor than many west nations. The wars between clans in Japan was tiny in bloodshed compared to the Europe counterpart, the crusades. The Japanese were not known for inventing torture devices like much of Europe is. It's kind of always been there. It's just larger now than it previously was.

[@heyysimone]

Remember when people used to say "The President" and meant Obama?

[@DullyDust]

I might be out of some loop but why do i sometimes hear those little jabs against Roberto Benigni? I mostly remember him from the Life is Beautiful movie. Did he ever do anything bad?

[@GSBarlev]

It was more that the general consensus was that Edward Norton deserved the '98 Oscar for _American History X_ and feel that he was robbed.

[@calumproctor981]

No one beats James Joyce's love letters.

[@powerviolence29]

is that buckets the drummer??

[@Sonichero151]

It's so sad this was the last episode before John's sudden suicide via being eaten by sharks in a swiming pool.

[@nwsportstilidie]

John Oliver sounds more British in these earlier seasons.

[@lavendula6759]

Lol thank goodness we spend 2016 whining about Obama 😂

[@sejembalm]

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver S01E10: Income inequality and wealth inequality, aired on July 13, 2014

[@GMSOLOS]

No way the CIA got some millennials running their social💀💀

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

2014.07.13

[@davidbrown8546]

I'm trying to decide whether or not I'm looking forward to the Trump presidency episodes.

[@stefanhoimes]

Around 13:01 ooohhh poor 2014 John. Definitely nothing ominous about the roaring 20s. Did he predict another world event?

Here is the pilot episode from paw patrol

[@lilaclolapop]

he's missing the akb48 member who was a CGI amalgamation of 7 other members!

[@ErutaniaRose]

7:19 Yikes, sounds like meeting the president would be hell for neurodivergent and disabled people. Secret service would hate stimming.

[@Zeb364]

You can tell this is the first season because John is still being way too nice. What he is describing as "American Optimism" is in fact American Delusion.

[@JH-vo4ts]

Funny that class warfare comes up whenever the rich are ever even remotely in danger of being fair.

[@AnotherWayFilms]

Are these re-runs form long ago?

[@ViraMotorko]

Yes, from 2014

[@lauraknight5973]

Obama just had to ask the NHS what average Americans were doing and have them say, "You don’t want to know." To which he'd say, "Yes I do. I'm the president and these are my constituents." Then the NHS would explain that he is not ready for such horrors, which would lead to a dad joke, then finally the NHS would cave and show him Tumblr.

[@alanp741]

Ayo tf did the CIA do in Uzbekistan????

[@klimtklavier]

Classy talk about class warfare and smutty old presidents !

[@vectorfox4782]

Smutty 😂

[@phil-anthrophist3960]

No where in American history has the term "American's will have" has been widely true,, yes there are some who do succeed but it's very few

[@TheRealEvilkitten3]

no government tweet will ever live up to the ones jaboukie young-white made making fun of them.

[@LunaryxDiarmait]

The hell is up with the Homeward Bound meets CIA bs!?

[@arnielehn717]

How about a story on the Gordie Howe bridge, and the massive corruption plot to stop it by a weird billionaire. You have some canadian writers yes?

[@chaunceybarton7676]

I take offense

[@BKKfreak]

America... Where Hundredaires argue loudly for the rights of Billionaires.

[@MarkHoover-dv7mf]

Income is going up for the wealthy because we don't produce as much as we used to. People buy Chinese goods at Walmart and off Amazon. Globalism is a big part of that. You can tax the rich to a point, but that only really puts a cap on potential growth. We have the most progressive income tax in the world. That's a fact. Want to fix the problems, break up monopolies, start buying American goods, vote out career politicians, do something about the fed and limit or tax Blackrock, state street, and vanguard ability to buy homes. Also, make it easier to start business.

[@singagency1481]

Hello!

[@TheArtien]

This was a decade ago, what has changed? Or did I miss something.

[@user-wv7kt4wk7q]

Here's one "hey cia how do us citizens become an asset, do you cash them in upon death"

[@scozzy08]

Are you sure that wasn't Clinton... 🙂