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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 1, Block A:  John Tamny, Real Clear Markets and Forbes.com, in re:  Don't tax the rich!  It’s they who have the extra capital to invest in new companies and endeavors, thereby bringing to the economy amazing innovations and much greater wealth to the nation – ergo, jobs, technical improvements across the board, generating a renovated and refreshed national economy.
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 1, Block B: John Tamny, Real Clear Markets and Forbes.com, in re:    . . . Massive concentrations of wealth – people are willing to invest tens of millions of dollars on innovations, can afford to lose 90% of them in failures and still continue to back the winner. In recent American history, those were Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and all the others that have buoyed the US economy to extraordinary highs and brought in oceans of cash from around the world.
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 1, Block C: Richard A Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover; in re:  . . .How much economic efficiency are they willing to give up  in order to
. . .  distortions: try to turn ordinary income into capital gains (carried interest) in order to benefit from current tax structure.  As taxes get higher, have to divide income: by partnerships, trusts, etc, to divide it among one or more entities;  but you can take taxes from 50% to 20%.  . . .Flat tax creates long-term certainty for investments.  . . . Large amts of public money go to transfer payments.  Steve Mnuchin wants to end double taxation (by state or municipality).  When you deduct this from your federal income tax,  . . . top beneficiaries: Cal NY, NJ Illinois.  Note that Connecticut chased General Electric out to Boston.  Astoundingly bad management.
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 1, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover; in re:   Child tax credit: Difficult for young people to get in to labor markets. If you cd slow down the rate of illegitimacy (both Black and white), we’d do much better Being raised with only one parent leads to a dozen grave setbacks.  As more young people defer having children, that negatively affects a good deal of he rest of the economy.  Lower admin costs, increase rates of productivity. Im this political envt, the flat tax is a red flag against liberals, so Trump will concede a fourth bracket.  One percent of populations pays approx. 40% of the taxes.  You can kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Taxing the very rich is dangerous as they have great mobility, can move to another state or even another country.    Need flatter taxes, esp on consumption. 
 
Hour Two
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 2, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com and “Capitalism in Space,” and Pioneer,  in re:  ISS.  The development of the solar systems – mining, comms, etc.;  just as in America for the last few centuries: parts break, and lots of hard work sets it aright.  Natl Space Council: Big players focus on a lunar orbiting space station for he next project, use SLS as the rocket to get there.  In The Federalist, I wrote,  “This will determine what Trump will be.  Not so bad if they structure as it around hiring private companies to make it happen. Save money gets done faster, multiple ways to do it (competition and innovation).   Otherwise, it’ll just funnel $5 bil every year to the big contractors.   Is Trump a transformational figure?
First mtg of the  Natl Space Council chaired by Mike Pence: a photo op carefully staged; all members are Cabinet members.   . . .   First action was pork, second was lining up with private contractors. Third actions as mil and natl security aspects of space: A Space Strategic Framework.  . . . Jim Bridenstine.  .  . . .The presumption is that space will be weaponized. Yes; others will, so we need at least to recognize that. Further, that’s how to get it funded.  Looks as though Trump is very interested in increasing efficiency and reducing costs. However, a chunk of it, [maybe emanating from the crew that surrounds him,] is still crony capitalism. 
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 2, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com and Capitalism in Space, and Pioneer, in re: UAE will have a space corps that rides on rickets launched by other countries Egypt announced an Egyptian Space Agency to dvpt satellites, Similar to Nigeria and Angola: a huge intl demand for cube sats and nanosats. Will launch first indigenously-made sat  in 20200.  Prompted by Chinese funding.
Mars hit by a Sept 11 solar wind. Plans for humans there to live underground. Mars has a patchwork magnetic field. Mars Odyssey has taken pix of Phobos [recall the hollow Moon and war with Russia . . .[giggle])
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 2, Block C:  Gene Marks, Washington Post, in re:  Small business. Family-owned businesses are doing better than most others. Credit Suisse surveyed 900 of hem: more profitable, experienced better rev growth, and performed better in markets. Why?  long-term vs short-term decisions. Not as focussed on quarterly earnings, make longer-term decisions. 
Disrupt men’s wear with socks:  VCs put $110 mil in a small co selling socks, esp Star Wars-themed ones. Justin Trudeau wore them, now celebrities are. Also disrupt markets with robots: I went into a Shake Shack to look; the firm may soon let go all the young people serving and replace them with robots. First such will be in Manhattan’s East Village.  Practice already in effect at Wa-wa.
Noon.com wants to be the Amazon of the Middle East, aimed at Arabic speakers. 
Opioids in Philly and New York.    Gender-based ice cream: men like it with salt; women, with raspberry; she was screamed out by FB and Instagram as stereotyping women and men. She gave up.
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 2, Block D:  Gene Marks, Washington Post, in re:  Small business. . . . Dark Web:  can buy malware, ransomware.  Hackers are making their destructive tools available.  WSJ report: some companies are backing up their data on tapes, all offline! Legend that the Moscow Kremlin is using paper and carbon copies.
Bangkok street vendors sell insects as food; now a fancy restaurant there, Insects in the Back Yard, cooks giant water beetles, crickets, caterpillars, et al.  The pig farmer of the year: award to Leslie McChristian(?) in Columbus, Nebraska, who raises pigs according to ethical principles and connects well with customers.
 
Hour Three
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 3, Block A:  Andrew Jacobs,  New York Times,  in re: Nestlé and Brazil. Diabetes type 2 (adult onset) – caused by too much sugar consumption. Mrs DaSilva works very hard yet is obese, as is the rest of her family.  Govt is alarmed, as the crisis of diabetes 2 is overwhelming the Brazilian health care system.  Nestlé is a primary purveyor of junk food and is fighting. Joana De Vasconcelos (?) raised her two children on Nestlé products thinking they had a Swiss pedigree. A collective industry will to be responsible? Not.
Nestlé is trying to some extent to grapple with the problem.  Since 1980, obesity has been a global problem.
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 3, Block B:  Andrew Jacobs,  New York Times,  in re: Nestlé and Brazil.  Remember the global flap in the 1970s when Nestlé aggressively tried to persuade women not to breast-feed and instead to buy their [frankly unwholesome –ed.] products. Until July 2017, a barge, a floating Nestlé supermarket, sailed up the Amazon to sell the same level of stuff to indigenous peoples along the river.    Mexico passed a soda tax; and in the US a few cities have.  People are undernourished and overweight. 
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 3, Block C:  Harvey Mansfield, Hoover, in re: Democracy. Pericopes: Edmund Burke (1779), opposed to the kings: “A party is a body of men united to promote their joint interest.”  “Party” originally had a taint of faction.   Thought of its being an unsettled time, not happy.  Frowned upon as indicating ambition. Lord Chatham, William Pitt the Senior: thought it was all right to pick men he found to be talented and virtuous without regard to what they believed; Burke thought that gave license to ambition.  James Madison on faction as opposed to party: Federalist No 10; no strong distinction between the two, but the troublesome matter is faction, esp majority faction. Beware tyranny of the majority.  Left an opening for “party of good people”; Madison and Hamilton and the US Constitution.  Later, Madison joined the first party, Jefferson’s Democratic Republican party. 
Party can be in any free society; party govt: open, declared, respectable parties; this occurred in the US later, in 1840s. Party, faction, interest.
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 3, Block D:  Harvey Mansfield, Hoover,  in re: Democracy. Madison: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”  Begins the principle of separation of powers (Federalist No. 51).  See also Federalist No. 78. Harvard is filled with ambitious people.  Pols speak of “preferences,” not “passions.”  Preferring chocolate or vanilla is a preference; holding to pro-life or pro-choice is not a preference but a matter of _____.
Ambition is not really a matter of self-interest; Aldrich misses the public-spirited aspect of ambition, f/b/o something larger than oneself.  The two American parties: look stable?  In a way, yes.  Over the last century they've shared victories pretty much 50/50 Trump has shown ta you can take over a party by hijacking it, referring not to party principles but to himself.
 
Hour Four
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 4, Block A: Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 4, Block B: Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 4, Block C: Robert M. Gillespie, Black Ops, Vietnam: The Operational History of MACVSOG
Friday  6 October 2017 / Hour 4, Block D: Robert M. Gillespie, Black Ops, Vietnam: The Operational History of MACVSOG
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