Friday 13 December 2019
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Dr David Livingston, The Space Show
Hour One
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 1, Block A: Devin Nunes, CA-22, Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee; in re: The years-running scandal of disinformation from senior members of the American intelligence community. (1 of 2)
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 1, Block B: Devin Nunes, CA-22, Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee; in re: The years-running scandal of disinformation from senior members of the American intelligence community. (2 of 2) . . .
- The Nunes Memo, Dec 2018
- The Schiff Memo: deception, deliberate falsehood, in his memo.
THE SCALA REPORT
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 1, Block C: Chris Riegel, Scala.com, in re: Gig economy. WAG.com has a $650mil valuation! Better for investors than negative interest rates. Overvaluations, poor worker conditions, and other matters: the tech economy is still shiny and grabbing big pieces of the investor class. The notorious South Sea Bubble, enormous financial collapse. The dot.com crash of 2007. The tech companies are among the major buyers; if with their own stock, it’s relatively cheap to do deals. If you’re Apple, Facebook or Google, a $500mil mkt isn’t even worth their time because of the scale. Mid-sized tech companies are rarer. All investors in tech area: look at the fundamentals; if it’s not [well-founded and] making money, it’s probably a unicorn.
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 1, Block D: Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center, in re: The trade discussions with China. They’re obviously not working too well, but anything that puts an end to the tariffs is good. I would’ve loved to have seen what the US economy could have done with out the trade war, but it’s still doing very well Did China’s economy go down 2% because of the trade war? Hard to tell, but clearly it’s been [damaged] by it. . . . Don't need an overwhelmingly big European government; trade with one another without the superposition of Europe. If there’s a lesson learned for the French, it's not to be scared of too much change.
The USMCA: all good news at year’s end at Christmastime.
Hour Two
SCALA.COM
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 2, Block A: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: Are we in a civil war? Star with the election in Great Britain, where the Brexit Tories overwhelmingly won over Labour. Orwell’s 1984 map: the rebellion that began in Airstrip 1 and Oceanea . . . Because the US, Canada and Britain are kindred societies, sometimes real commonalities, what happens in Britain can be seen as a portent. The energy released by the UK election and which will come form severing with Europe, a powerful emotional re-statement of British [culture and] energy, will encourage red America. Also the class element: Tories have always s been associated with the elite, but [that’s reversing] . Although Boris Johnson is the class snob, went to Baliol and Eton, can recite the first hundred lines of the Odyssey in Greek – and the US president grew up in a well-to-do family, . . . Let’s define “elite.” In a sociologically descriptive sense, it's a class rooted in and focussed on, tenaciously devoted to, its own advancement to the exclusion of others.
In America, they're so determinedly committee to their own advancement, narcissistically, that [their deeds] have come home to roost. Old Labour districts have come over to Tor; like some Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio in 2016.
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 2, Block B: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: Trans-Atlantic pollination: thought it was necessary to hand over all authority to the elites in the EU; scare tactics were used to alarm Britons, same scare tactics used here with the Mueller report. Parallel recognition. Blue elites happy to say, “You have to accept the loss of your jobs,” as Hillary did in West Virginia, Horowitz Report: to defend heir elitism, were ready to tear up all laws we have in this county in order to defeat Trump. H R is the substantiation of he deep state, which had been a rhetorical trope and now is [visible], we have all the evidence; the civil service or permanent government. If this is not corrected there’ll be no trust in an election here. The big shift now is that former upper-class elites are leading a populist revolt; same in Britain. I hope that between the US Sturm und Drang and Brexiteers there’ll be a new relationship.
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 2, Block C: Gene Marks, Small Business Report; in re:
The stock market was at 580 in the 1960s because they believed that big govt was the way to go, more important than local programs. Small Business optimism: in 2015, small bz adored what Donald Trump was saying; it was right. Small bz confidence: the largest month-over-month gain since early 2018. A historical high for the Natl Federation of Independent Businesses.
A rough year coming for truckers. For one thing, next week, all trucker s will be required to have GPS monitoring tracking vast amounts of information. Many firms aren't yet prepared.
San Diego, Boston, San Jose, San Francisco, and ___ are thought to be the best places to have your bz.
If you have a pass-through, a partnership: allocate enough income. Pay income taxes this year – up to $1 mil in deductions. Set u a retirement plan , 40K or other wise; can pay bonuses Give more stuff away – charities will take eqpt and inventory. Give bonuses to employees! See Gene’s column in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 2, Block D: Gene Marks, Small Business Report; in re: A $53,000 computer: Apple has a new Macbook Pro, with all bells and whistles. The base price is $6,000. Upgrade processor, internal memory, storage space, accelerator cards, better monitor: you’re at $52,999; 8 terabytes in one machine.
Now, a chicken sandwich for $120,003.99. The banana and duct tape “art” in Miami.
Popeye’s: in an art gallery, have duct-taped a chicken sandwich to a wall.
Free meals to homeless in Albuquerque, La Luna Bakery and Café (vegan and vegetarian); now challenged because they deliver the meals via volunteers, using Styrofoam containers. Legal challenge from environmentalists!
Softbank had a service, interrupted by WeWork: WAG, a dog-walking start-up where you sign u as a dog-walker and get matched with people with dogs. Softbank invested $300 mil two years ago; withdrawing now because the model is failing, Tail wags dog.
UK: The Tail-Wagger magazine.
Craft coffee industry will grow to $85 bil by 2025. Blue Bottle, Ritual, Verve, et al.
Hour Three
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 3, Block A: Dan Henninger, WSJ editorial board and Wonder Land column; in r: the two men with exciting hair, BoJo in London and Donald Trump in Washington. BoJo won an 80-seat a majority in Parliament, and Labour’s worst defeat since 1935. BoJo provided unapologetic leadership – Let’s get Brexit done – and like Trump was disruptive of [the status quo]. Warren’s confiscation program on billionaires.
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 3, Block B: Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch, in re: Oakland’s homeless encampment –almost every street in downtown; parks overrun; then westerly to the port, under the freeways. A councilwoman says: ships and trucks are generating a lot of pollution; let’s get the cruise ships from the companies and [stuff] homeless people on to them, maybe 2,000 at a time. San Diego country: methamphetamine deaths up 31%; Fentanyl is common. Drugs are a driver for people on the street. A dog ate some works, was saved from death. Oracle will move its huge annual conference from SF to Vegas — “We can’t be sure our Guests will be safe in San Francisco.” A big economic hit and a massive PR problem. Seventy-plus car burglaries a day.
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 3, Block C: Jeff Coughlin, NASA, in re: The many worlds of exoplanets: SuperEarths, gas giants, hot Jupiters, the search for Earth 2 (first of two)
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 3, Block D: Jeff Coughlin, NASA, in re: The many worlds of exoplanets: SuperEarths, gas giants, hot Jupiters, the search for Earth 2 (second of two)
Hour Four
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 4, Block A: Brett Arends, WSJ, Market Watch, in re: The pound is climbing; what does this mean? The Brexit soap opera . . . it’s a much bigger victory for BoJo than people anticipated. He’s a superb campaigner, now has a huge majority. In the parliamentary system, his position is closer to that of Pelosi than that of Trump. The pound: what markets hate is uncertainty, and now it’s pretty sure that Britain will leave the EU on Jan 31. Avoid a hard border; but regulations and a new customs structure. I have a third of my portfolio in pounds and British stocks. Jeremy Corbyn wanted to nationalize everything, He is, without hyperbole and in practical fact, a communist. If you map from Larry Kudlow to Bernie Sanders, then do that length again, you’ll get to Corbyn. He has a long past of friendship with people we'd call terrorists, and is clearly anti-Jewish. What arrogance!
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 4, Block B: Michael Auslin, Hoover, in re: Batwoman in a DC Comics (Warner Media-owned) graphic novel heaving a Molotov cocktail in a nebulous environment, with “The future is young”; Chinese authorities forced it off the Internet, complaining that it was about Hong Kong. Wounded pride and grievances against the Western world to make others conform, to be deplatformed, to kowtow to China.
Said that she threw a Molotov cocktail, was dressed in black, and supported the youthful protestors. A type of totalitarian-inspired propaganda. US corporations have grovelled, apologizing for labeling Taiwan as an independent nation or even slightly referring to the brutality in Xinjiang or Tibet. Warner Media earns an infinitesimal percentage of its income from all of Asia. Threats and extortion!
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 4, Block C: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBack.com, in re: Bennu: An American mission to a satellite; landing site in a loose rubble pile that’s the asteroid. Great risks. NASA. Possible landing sites named Nightingale and Osprey. Mount Doom. Touch and go. . . . Interstellar Comet Borisov: a bright blue glow; not from our Solar System. Passed through perihelion this past week.
Friday 13 December 2019 / Hour 4, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBack.com, in re: Blue Origins, Bezos project, is re-usable; booster did a vertical landing. Stratalaunch looking for a new owner. Buyer? Someone bought it after Paul Allen died; Deepwire reveals that the new owner is VC named Cereberus [?]. Repurpose it to be a launch platform to test hypersonic technology. India.
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