Bas-relief, above: Akhenaten and Nefertiti embrace their small children, c 1350 BC.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Guest-host: Chris Riback

Sunday  905PM Eastern (605P Pacific):. Dr William Dunkelberg, chief economist for Natl Federation of Independent Businesses; in re: small bz. Low readings on NFIB's index; 80% of the decline was from two issues:  expected bz conditions, and one's own expected real sales volumes.  Hiring and capital—spending plans stayed at the same level (near recessionary). Along Canadian border is doing well. In fifteen days arrives the fiscalcliff.  Job losses of 2 mil? 3.4 mil?  If Congress does naught, the Jan 1 everybody's tax rates rise, need 120bil in spending – but that's spread over twelve mos. CBO says: technical recession. Weak consumer spending – 70% of the economy – and 70% of that is the service sector. The only bright spot is housing – from 500K units to 900K units and slowly climbing in the new-home construction sector.

Sunday 920PM Eastern (620P Pacific): Mark Coopersmith, UC Berkeley Professor of Entrepreneurship, and serial entrepreneur, in re: "The real world is this vast petri dish."  Reshoring and entrepreneurship in today's economy. macro factors, product's quality, mile-long supply chain, communications, and use of capital – and new leadership – could we bring business back here and help the US economy? – all led to our bringing one business  back to the US from Asia.  Here, can use automation more successfully, and the pace of change/innovation is so fast – product life-cycles – these determine success in business. Need to be faster and more competitive. These days: put minimum viable product n mkt, have customers tell  you what they want for next iteration; do that. Radically different from what a large [lumbering,] corporation does.  Google works with at least 100 new ventures every year.

Sunday 935PM Eastern (635P Pacific): Dr. Kurt Schuler, US Dept. of Treasury and economic historian, in re:  the discovery of Bretton Woods transcripts. has just published an 800-pae e-book of them. Found the volumes in "uncatalogued material" – from 1944. Inside, found transcripts of remarks by Maynard Keynes, which turned out to have been hitherto unpublished.  Very exciting!  Spent two weeks researching the material; when I was sure it was all new, I told a few co-workers, also Steve Hanke – prof at Johns Hopkins – who wrote an intro along with Jacques de la Rosiere (IMF).  The three most important economic events of the Twentieth Century were the Great Depression, the Bretton Woods conference, and the fall of Communism. Bretton Woods marked a radical change from how things had been done in the Thirties. The delegates to the conference were very aware of mistakes that had been made; they largely succeeded in shifting to a [less-dangerous system] of continued intl cooperation.  What we learn from these papers are ht who, why and how.  The US, and to a lesser extent Great Britain, naturally had the most illustrious economists, but smaller countries made cogent and critical points because of the sheer brilliance of their delegates.  It was truly a multilateral conference.

Sunday 950PM Eastern (650P Pacific): Michael D. Shear, New York Times, on the politics of the fiscalcliff.  Speaker Boehner seems to have made his first [small] concessions on the fiscalcliff.

Sunday 1005PM EDT (705P Pacific): Gov. George Pataki, now with the law firm Chadbourne & Parke in New York, on our public infrastructure, from a sustainability point of view as well as a business competitiveness point of view. 

 

Sunday 1020PM EDT (720P Pacific): Nicholas Burns, Harvard University and former US Under Secretary of State, in re:  the Middle East, Syrian bloodletting, and Secretary of State nominations.

Sunday 1035PM EDT (735P Pacific): Sheryl Wu-Dunn, Mid-Market Securities & Pulitzer Prizewinner, in re: China.

Sunday 1050PM EDT (750P Pacific): Steve Kornacki, co-host of MSNBC's The Cycle, in re: Susan Rice, John Kerry, gun control and politics of the day.

Sunday 1105PM EDT (805P Pacific): Dan Perry, AP Jerusalem Bureau Chief and Acting Middle East Editor, in re;  the Middle East.

Sunday 1120PM EDT (820P Pacific): Leon Neyfakh, Boston Globe’s Ideas reporter, in re; new research and thought coming out of academia. The science of gift-giving.

Sunday 1135PM EDT (835P Pacific):  Eric Trager, Washington Institute, in re:  Egypt. Cairo. Elections, Morsi, democracy.

Sunday 1150PM EDT (850P Pacific): Dr. Gabrielle Walker, Cambridge University, in re:  Antarctica

Sunday/Mon 1205AM EDT (905 Pacific): Dr William Dunkelberg, chief economist for Natl Federation of Independent Businesses; in re: small bz. Low readings on NFIB's index; 80% of the decline was from two issues:  expected bz conditions, and one's own expected real sales volumes.  Hiring and capital—spending plans stayed at the same level (near recessionary). Along Canadian border is doing well. In fifteen days arrives the fiscalcliff.  Job losses of 2 mil? 3.4 mil?  If Congress does naught, the Jan 1 everybody's tax rates rise, need 120bil in spending – but that's spread over twelve mos. CBO says: technical recession. Weak consumer spending – 70% of the economy – and 70% of that is the service sector. The only bright spot is housing – from 500K units to 900K units and slowly climbing in the new-home construction sector.

Sunday/Mon 1220AM EDT (920 Pacific): Mark Coopersmith, UC Berkeley Professor of Entrepreneurship and serial entrepreneur, in re: "The real world is this vast petri dish."  Reshoring and entrepreneurship in today's economy. macro factors, product's quality, mile-long supply chain, communications, and use of capital – and new leadership – could we bring business back here and help the US economy? – all led to bringing one business  back to the US from Asia.  Here, can use automation more successfully, and the pace of change/innovation is so fast – product life-cycles – these determine success in business. Need to be faster and more competitive. These days: put minimum viable product n mkt, have customers tell  you what they want for next iteration; do that. Radically different from what a large [lumbering,] corporation does.  Google works with at least 100 new ventures every year

Sunday/Mon 1235AM EDT (935P Pacific): Lawrence Krauss, theoretical physicist & author of A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, Inaugural Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, in re:  outer space, Voyager, and ice on Mercury. 

Sunday/Mon 1250AM EDT (950P Pacific):  Exit.

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Music (using New York City broadcast times)  

9:00 hour:  Annonymous; Burn after Reading.

10:00 hour:    Castaway; Syriana; Shaolin; Michael Clayton.

11:00 hour:    Syriana; Castaway; Antarctica.

midnight hour:  Salt.