Tuesday 26 August 2014
Photo, above:
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
Hour One
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Michael Boskin, Hoover, in re: Larry Kudlow, at that time a humble number-cruncher in Washington, drove up to Woodstock; was especially pleased by Jimi Hendricks but was smitten by Grace Slick.
Janet Yellin: "Our assessments of the degree of slack must be based on a wide range of variables and will require difficult judgments about the cyclical and structural influences in the labor market," she said. "While these assessments have always been imprecise and subject to revision, the task has become especially challenging in the aftermath of the Great Recession."
George Melloan: "Fed economists undoubtedly have given the absence of the traditional interest-rate control mechanism some thought. Stanley Fischer, the International Monetary Fund and Bank of Israel veteran who was brought into the Fed as vice chairman in June, indirectly addressed it in an Aug. 11 speech. Asking himself whether the Fed still has the tools to manage interest rates, he came up with answers that sounded, well, tentative."
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Michael Boskin, Hoover, in re:
U.S. Consumers More Optimistic Durable-Goods Orders Surge U.S. Manufacturers Lose Ground
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Matthew Mitchell, Mercatus Center, in re: States having high sales tax rates have more exemptions. Drain money, lead to economic slump. Texes lead to less economic activity, called "deadweight loss" by economists. Evidence that capital taxes discourage growth the most. Best: low tax rates and a broad base. . . . Blue states keep taxes high for revenues – which always come in short. Lower tax rates generate more revenues.
Key Findings:
• Stratmann finds that the relations between tax rates and the number of exemptions is both positive and statistically significant. This means that if a state has a current tax rate of 5 percent and adds another exemption, then the state can be expected to increase the tax rate to between 5.1 percent and 5.25 percent.
• Politicians have sometimes-conflicting incentives to raise more revenue and to maximize their chance of re-election. This means they face a trade-off when seeking votes from groups that favor sales tax decreases and groups that lobby for tax exemptions. In order to maximize votes, politicians can satisfy both groups by simultaneously increasing taxes and expanding the number of exemptions, or loopholes.
• Ultimately, the link between sales taxes and exemptions indicates that increasing the sales tax does not guarantee additional revenue. Policymakers, therefore, should take into account this link when making projections based on tax policy changes.
• Higher sales taxes increase the incentive for special interests to lobby for more tax exemptions, which can distort and damage the economy. By advocating for different treatments for certain transactions or activities, lobbying activities (and ultimately sales tax exemptions) have adverse effects. By picking winners and losers, sales tax exemptions distort consumer choices, which alter market signals and result in misallocation of resources and investment.
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, in re: Countrywide made mistakes, bad loans; the individuals should be punished. Same at Merrill Lynch. This event is about shakedown, a class-warfare election. There are a lot of hands in this, coming out of Justice and Eric Holder. Look – the Federal govt gets the money, as do blue states; some of the funds go to community organizers, like an ACORN scam. Why now? Why not five years ago? Politics – the Dems are in trouble. Some Wall St guys have gone to jail on civil, not criminal.
Hour Two
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton prof Emeritus ; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re:
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen (2 of 4), in re: Ukraine Captures Russian Soldiers, Clouding Talks Ukraine released video of what it said were captured Russian soldiers, raising tensions as President Vladimir V. Putin met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro O. Poroshenko.
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen (3 of 4), in re: Poroshenko to seek ceasefire plan after 'very tough' talks ...
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen (4 of 4), in re: @JulieSheats: Feds Buy Border Fence.... For Ukraine! ~ pic.twitter.com/LP9KTZLS3M Security Fencing Wire for Ukraine Border Agency: Department of State; Office: Office of Acquisitions; Location: Regional Procurement Support Office Frankfurt, Germany; Posted Date: August 15, 2014. Contracting Office Address: American Consulate General Frankfurt.
Hour Three
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Bret Stephens, WSJ, in re:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/bret-stephens-the-neo-neocons-1409008955?mod=Opinion_newsreel_2
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Sohrab Ahmari, WSJ London, in re:
Farewell to the Lioness of Iran
By Sohrab Ahmari Simin Behbahani was 82 and nearly blind when the Tehran regime imposed a travel ban on the fearless, celebrated poet.
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re:
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Ken Croswell, Scientific American, in re:
The Most Distant Star in the Milky Way: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/far-out-the-most-distant-star-in-the-milky-way/
Dr. Ken Croswell, author THE ALCHEMY OF THE HEAVENS: SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN THE MILKY WAY
Hour Four
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, in re: Best of the Web Today: The Reluctant Warrior Why Obama may be the right man for this moment. & "Is ISIS evil?" asks James Dawes, director of the Program in Human Rights at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a CNN.com op-ed. His answer: "Yes, ISIS is evil and must be stopped." Thus concludes today's installment of Shortest Op-Eds Ever Written.
Just kidding. The op-ed actually runs 700 words. It's entitled "Should We Call ISIS 'Evil'?" and Dawes argues that we shouldn't--even though he himself does in the course of the piece. "There is only one good reason to denounce a group as evil," Dawes claims: "because you plan to injure them, and calling them evil makes it psychologically easier to do so." If that is true, it would seem to apply here, at least to American public officials' comments about ISIS.
But is it even true? Martin Luther King once said: "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." Dr. King's approach was not to injure his adversaries but to shame them using nonviolent resistance. It would be fatuous to suggest that such tactics would be effective against ISIS, but violence is not the only way to respond to evil.
If an intent to injure one's adversaries is not a necessary condition to justify denouncing them as evil, it should be obvious that neither is it a sufficient one. Dawes has twisted things around so that . . .
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Jed Babbin, American Spectator, in re: The fact that barbarity isn't unusual doesn't mean it can't shock. Louvain in 1914 shocked the world, but why does Foley's death shock anyone?
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Elizabeth Green, NYT (last wrote for the magazine about how to build a better teacher) (1 of 2), in re: Why does everyone hate the new math? Discusses the problem with math education in America: that we don't teach the teachers how to teach it. The 1960s brought the "new math" and the 80s a new new math, but neither saw any results. "The story is the same every time: a big, excited push, followed by mass confusion and then a return to conventional practices. The trouble always starts when teachers are told to put innovative ideas into practice without much guidance on how to do it. In the hands of unprepared teachers, the reforms turn to nonsense, perplexing students more than helping them." Now we're seeing the same trend play out with the Common Core, which is the best way to teach math, the author argues -- if only the teachers were trained in how to do it.
Tuesday 26 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Elizabeth Green, NYT (2 of 2)
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