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On Nov. 24, 2020, after then-President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he conducted a brief unscheduled news conference (during which he took no questions). He touted the fact that the Dow Jones industrial average had just passed the 30,000-point barrier. "Never been broken, that number," he said. "That's a sacred number, 30,000, and nobody thought they'd ever see it."

In his remarks, unsurprisingly, Trump failed to acknowledge that the Dow average had risen more than 2,500 points between Election Day (when it closed at 27,480) and the date on which Trump attempted to take credit for the Dow's rise.

During the campaign, Trump also stated repeatedly that the stock market would crash under Biden. As he said on one occasion, "If Biden wins, you're gonna have a stock market collapse the likes of which you've never had."

Like so many of Trump's statements, he was wrong. At the market's close on Dec. 19, 2023, the Dow Jones industrial average hit 37,557, its highest level in history. In short, the Dow has increased more than 10,000 points since Nov. 3, 2020, the date Trump lost the election.

One can legitimately question whether a president's policies (as opposed to the actions of the Federal Reserve) affect the stock market. But, to the extent that the stock market is a barometer on the overall health of the economy, let's not overlook the market's results during the Biden presidency. (Of course, unlike his predecessor, Joe Biden's ego did not lead him to schedule an impromptu news conference to take credit for the market's rise.)

And for those who have the general, though mistaken, belief that the U.S. economy fares better when Republicans are in the White House, don't forget that the largest stock market increase took place when Bill Clinton was president, with the S&P 500 rising 210%. And the second best stock market performance occurred when Barack Obama was president, when the S&P 500 rose 189%.

Roy Ginsburg, Minneapolis

In "Hopes for peace must overcome our fears," (Opinion Exchange, Dec. 17), we find this guidance from Albert Einstein: "We cannot solve problems with the same kind of thinking that created them." I propose some new thinking that will lead to a permanent, lasting peace in the Middle East. Hamas was chosen to rule Gaza because it was perceived as less corrupt than the alternative, the Palestinian Authority. This is what the new thinking would lead to: Regarding voting, a similar system to that of the U.S. could be implemented with a variety of caucuses. Possible caucuses could include Muslim, Israeli and Christian. This would be a multiparty system in which each party will have diversity. It is very exciting to think of the possibilities.

Later, an appropriate name can be chosen — Israel/Palestine? This is obviously a work in progress.

Several years ago, a coalition of Palestinian civil societies determined that rather than advocating for their own state, their goal was to live in "one state with equal rights for all." Now they state the goal as: "one secular democratic state with equal rights for all." That means no more occupation or restrictions on movement or choice of residence. My hope is that readers of this letter and others yearning for lasting peace in the Middle East will contribute their ideas to work toward establishing "one secular democratic state with equal rights for all."

Sister Florence M. Steichen, St. Paul

On a recent morning I asked myself why is a baseball player's 12-year contract worth $325 million more important than improving the education of our children? Why are $62 million improvements to an already overpriced sports stadium more important than improving our outdated and crumbling infrastructure? Why is spending billions of dollars on political campaigns more important than aiding our allies who are at war? Why is adding to a multimillionaire's wealth more important than raising a line worker's wages to a livable wage? Why is adding billions to a health insurance company's bottom line more important than putting money into medical research? I grew up in an era when clarifying values and having discussions about them was not a taboo or divisive. Resources are finite. Have we lost track of what is really important?

Jo Trippler, Blaine

Regarding "Biden's patent plan threatens innovation" (Other Views, Dec. 18), why did the Star Tribune republish this crudely inflammatory attack on the Biden administration from the Wall Street Journal? It reeks of partisan bias and character assassination, with language such as "arrogate sweeping power for himself," "patent grab," "stealing IP," and the absurd claim that "the Biden administration cares more about expanding government control over the private economy than expanding lifesaving treatments." Worse yet is the logical sleight-of-hand that simultaneously ridicules press fears about Trump's fascist innuendo and implies that Biden is the real Hitlerian threat. Who needs AI to churn out propaganda, as noted in the same paper on the front page ("Fueled by AI, false news sites surging"), when the Star Tribune reprints material like this?

It's fine to publish outside material below the Editorial Board opinions, but please, not at the top, where I have come to expect reasonable arguments and temperate language.

David Rhees, St. Paul

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I write regarding the Wall Street Journal editorial you ran Dec. 18. That was the worst, most biased, most misguided editorial I have ever read on your pages. It basically says corporate profits are more important than people's lives and health, which are at risk due to unaffordable drugs.

Shame on the Star Tribune for publishing a lead editorial which will make the pharmaceutical industry delighted. Remember Alec Smith, who died because his insulin was too expensive? Remember the sympathetic stories run in the Star Tribune about Smith's death? The Dec. 18 "Other Views" editorial basically says the hell with folks like Alec Smith — protect corporate profits even if it costs citizens their lives.

Mark Brakke, Coon Rapids

The writer is a physician.

The Dec. 18 opinion piece from the Economist ("Objectively, is the news media biased?") claimed to identify a leftward bias in the media since 2016, the age of Trump, using a supposedly objective method. However, the method fails to take into account that the GOP has been using deliberately slanted language for longer than that, at the urging of people like Frank Luntz, an expert in linguistic framing. For example, Luntz urged Republicans to use the emotionally loaded phrase "death tax" instead of the more neutral "estate tax" to refer to taxes on inheritance (note that no dead person has ever paid taxes).

This GOP tendency biased the machine-learning based approach, which depended on scanning politicians' speeches to identify right- and left-leaning phrases. This led to identifying neutral phrases as "left" and slanted phrases as "right." The two examples given illustrate this imbalance vividly: "Unborn baby" is the right-leaning phrase, and is an oxymoron intended to engage emotion; "reproductive care," supposedly left-leaning, is emotionally and factually neutral. Likewise with "illegal alien" vs. "undocumented immigrant."

The article's putative shift over time to the left in the media is nothing more than editors becoming more diligent about using neutral rather than loaded language. The Economist can do better, and has in the past.

Timothy R. Church, St. Paul