Tuesday 2 February 2021
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 1, Block A: Jeff Bliss
Gov Newsom. The Democratic party controls everything in California, but they’re not one happy family. Newsom is the nephew of Nancy Pelosi. A recall would be a preview of 2022 election; a smart GOP tactic would be to speak of the economy and of the teachers’s union.
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 1, Block B: Gunnar Gregory, founder of Vancery.com, an information website; in re: GameStop. “The world is getting flatter and flatter.” In finance, if you go back in time to the 1920s, only a handful of Wall Street people understood how to do corporate valuations; now, it's easy. In 2000, even a Bloomberg terminal was expensive to get the information.
Short: you borrow stock and pay cash; eventually, if it declines you gain $50. The risk is that it can go up to infinity and you can loose fortunes. In the past when retail got in, the smart guys left; this week, the world turned upside down. Retail forced players to [face] the risk they’d taken on. Robinhood is in a tough space: branding exercise . . . The Fed is bidding up the market. People with a couple hundred thousand dollars . . .
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 1, Block C: Michael Auslin: @MichaelAuslin; Hoover; in re: Burma [labelled Myanmar by the military], led back then by the then-inspirational Aung San Suu Kyi. Several days ago, a coup by the military. The Eurasian Heartland and the Rimlands. Burma is a Rimland; two adversaries are contesting: both Russia and China are holding back on asking for a UN statement on democracy till they check with their capitals. Now, the populace are protesting, banging pots. The democratic forces won an election but the military maintained a third of the parliament’s seats. Suu Kyi became increasingly authoritarian; may have been complicit in the genocide of the Rohingya. However, Burma was part of the global competition of democracy vs. [tyranny].
Major US aid to encourage the parties to come to the table; China has fought to maintain power, largely by connecting with the military. Where is aid coming from now—Russia? China? How to get the junta to relinquish power?
Biden has declared this a coup and may suspend aid; however, he’s worried about calling it a coup lest that offend China. Must build a united front against the military; but Russia and China will slow-walk this, and they could always undermine the whole thing, as they've done with North Korea. Few options.
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 1, Block D: Samuel Gregg, Acton Institute, in re: Stimulus packages are like a drug: you get a lift for a short while; then start to think, let’s do that again. How to pay for this? Debt. Currently, the federal govt has lost touch with economic realities. Further, they’re insisting on bringing in racism, gender equality, climate changes. Not safe to use economic policy to bring in equity causes, Recall the housing mkt in the 1990s: feds required Fannie and Freddie to extend loans to [unqualified] people; then it all blew up.
Mission drift: economic policy makers, such as Yellin, say, “My priority is to fight climate change” No. That’s not part of your priorities; another agency has the raison d'être of protecting the environment. Should the Attorney-General offer economic advice? No: that creates bad policy.
Hour Two
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 2, Block A: Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: It’d be enormously helpful if children went back to school, allowing parents to return to work.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago: “We’ve spent $100 million on schools and now the teachers refuse to go back to work.”
Children are falling farther and farther behind, may beer regain that lost year in their entire lifetimes in knowledge and earnings, This is offensive, and terrible for our children. It becomes ever more evident that the teachers’s unions are not interested in protcting students; only their own benefits.
Some states are basically shut down—CA, Michigan and NY – although there’s no benefit to it. In undercounting care-home deaths, Cuomo seems the be the real villain, Cuomo lets restaurants open at 25% capacity on Valentine’s Day – why not tomorrow? No difference. Power-mad governors and mayors. Housing has been on a roar for months, gaining speed. Adds jobs. Mfrg is doing very well—PMI is higher than it was in the fourth quarter. Net worth of consumers is up about $2 trillion. Every reason to be optimistic to surpass pre-pandemic levels and no excuse for a $1.9 trillion package being [rammed] through by Democrats. The long-term consequences are [fearsome], and why are we sending huge checks to people making $150,000?
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 2, Block B: Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: The politics f bz: a trillion-dollar booster shot of $1.9 trillion. We don't need the stimulus checks to the rich, Also, the $15 minimum wage: not clear that it’ll do anything but decrease the number of jobs as most people use it to augment their income, not to survive on. Ergo, we're headed to the robots. If Dems go the budget reconciliation route, they can't include the minimum wage as it has nothing to do with the federal budget. Manchin of West Virginia: FDR didn’t give out money; he gave people jobs, which is what people want. States have given such outlandish promises to public-employee unions that they can't possible pay it all.
Keystone XL Pipeline: the oil will come in by train and truck. It won’t just stay in Canada. This is negative jobs. Who gains? The woke left, like Mike Bloomberg. Biden didn’t even speak with Canada in advance, infuriating Justin Trudeau. In his campaign, Biden basically lied about everything—bipartisanship, healing; and then immediately offended everyone who didn’t vote for him
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 2, Block C: New World Report.Joseph Humire @jmhumire, @securefreesoc, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal @MariaFdaCabal, in re: Colombian intell has info on ELN, a bad actor, the biggest terrorist group. Last year Colombia captured a leader,“Uriel,” cracked his encrypted file, which is shocking, Presence in nine countries, incl Europe; sophisticated plans to kidnap; and MO change: 3.2 terabytes of info in devices, can use all IT eqpt to use cyber techniques and influence politics and protests, Aligned with intl movements. Note: relations with Iran, which provides funds for indoctrination, recruitment, many subversive activities; ELN is also aligned with Cuba. ELN’s focus is Colombia. Convergence of state and nonstate actors each for its own benefit. Nonstate actors have tremendous intl networks.
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 2, Block D: New World Report.Joseph Humire @jmhumire, @securefreesoc, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal @MariaFdaCabal, in re: The Amazon. Manaus was deeply damaged by the virus—spectacularly tragic. A mutation invading Brazil. Severe emergency; desperately need oxygen. People asphyxiating for lack of it.
Argentina’s debt trouble—again. Ninth debt default.
Hour Three
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block A: Joseph Sternberg: @josephsternberg, @WSJOpinion; Political Economics column; WSJ editorial board; in re: Italian govt in disarray. Mario Draghi? More important: who gets to spend the money? Conte says he should; Matteo Renzi says the parliament ought to. . . .
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block B: Joseph Sternberg: @josephsternberg, @WSJOpinion; Political Economics column; WSJ editorial board; in re: Boris Johnson. The Telegraph says he’s pushing to reopen schools rapidly as the number of covid cases has peaked. However, mutations. Scotland also wants to reopen.
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block C: Gregory R Copley: Defense and Foreign Affairs; Gregory R Copley, The New Total War of the Twenty-first Century and the Trigger of the Fear Pandemic, in re:: Indonesia havn ruble protecting its borders; further, China is in effect invading, reminiscent of Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere. Sukarno tried to maintain favorable relations with Chinese, had to kill all the PKI. Yes, China is militarizing the region, sending ostensibly fishing boats that in fact are mapping the ocean floor. Papua is no way linked to Indonesians, who've been occupying since 1960s; a civil war right there. Freeport-MacMoran sold much of its mines to the Indonesian govt, and now China is moving in to that space. wo members of the Quad working with Indonesia – India and Australia. Containing PRC. Biden’s problem: The Myanmar coup—how to pressure the generals without sending them further into the embrace of the PRC?
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block D: Gregory R Copley: Defense and Foreign Affairs; Gregory R Copley, The New Total War of the Twenty-first Century and the Trigger of the Fear Pandemic, in re: Australia’s blue-water navy. Submarines operate throughout the South China Sea, and northward.
Hour Four
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 4, Block A: A Wretched and Precarious Situation: 4of4: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier, by David Welky; with Joel Richards as narrator. Audible Studios: publisher.
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 4, Block B: A Wretched and Precarious Situation: 4of4: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier, by David Welky; with Joel Richards as narrator. Audible Studios: publisher.
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 4, Block C: A Wretched and Precarious Situation: 4of4: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier, by David Welky; with Joel Richards as narrator. Audible Studios: publisher.
Tuesday 2 February 2021 / Hour 4, Block D: A Wretched and Precarious Situation: 4of4: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier, by David Welky; with Joel Richards as narrator. Audible Studios: publisher.