The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Air Date: 
July 03, 2012

Captain William Clark Meeting the Northwest Indians, by Charles M. Russell (1897)  

John Batchelor Show on location in Bozeman, Montana at the Property Environment Research Center (PERC)  

Tuesday 905P Eastern Time: Phil Izzo, WSJ, in re: ISM number below 50 for the first time since April 2011.  Overseas economic troubles bouncing back to US.  Every time the US consumer looks as though he's about to launch back into buying, he gets spooked [for cause] and retreats. Next jobs number coming next Friday. We're not the mfrg country we use to be, it remains a relatively small part of he economy - which is mostly services ow. We won't get a negative number on Fri, need 100,000-1500,00 jobs per month just to make up for the normal augmentation of the workforce.

Tuesday 920P Eastern Time:  Charles Blahous, Hoover and Mercator Center, in re: the unintended consequences of Obamacare. We'll know more in a few days - CBO analyzing the Supreme Cut's ruling Finances of this law were hanging by a thread; it was haled together by duct tape, needed to pass muster under CBO criteria. Medicaid provision: law's finances all hinge on states's covering a certain portion; with many more people eligible under Medicare subsidies costs would be prohibitive.  Court didn't much look at p  ... 

Health exchanges are comparatively more generous for some  people . If Texas elects not to go compel along, the whole thing blows up.  "Fed govt cannot states with threat of punishment if they don't follow fed regs on Affordable Care Act." Buried in the text of this legislation:  "The health exchanges will not cost more than .504% of the federal budget [after 2018]" - were that not to occur, many people wouldn't get subsidies.

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 Health Care Turnaround? The burst of polls and reactions to last week's Supreme Court "Obamacare" ruling should give the president's supporters hope that his signature legislative achievement is no longer poised to handicap his re-election effort. The health care law might yet sow his eventual defeat, but early evidence indicates the political albatross that has hindered Democrats for two solid years could be rebounding.    

McCaskill's Embrace The Supreme Court's health care ruling was good for the DCCC, but not so much for Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, Josh Mandel makes a $4 million fall ad reservation, Claire McCaskill says the president thinks her decision not to go to the convention is the right call, and the uncertainty continues in New York's 13th District Democratic primary  

Tuesday 935P Eastern Time:  David Drucker, Roll Call, and Lara Brown, Villanova, in re: Nobody knows what the Medicaid part of the Affordable Care Act will cost in years to come.  No one.  In a poll (Pew): most people didn't even know that the Supreme Court decision had come down.   Among US voters, 73% believe that the economy will be poor in this coming November.

Tuesday 950P Eastern Time:  Terry L Anderson, president PERC (The Property and Environment Research Center), in re: Montana; the headwaters of the Missouri River (the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin conjoin at hThree Forks).  The young people at PERC are filled with entrepreneurial spirit. Sacagawea was Shoshone, taken slave by Mandans; recalled having spent summers at Three Forks. She joined the Lewis Clark expedition and met her childhood friend again there with the group. This is now a state park; was a pivotal point in the Lewis and Clark travels - which made axes of pig iron with a Lewis and Clark insignia, traded them to Mandans in Montana, sent an enormous amt of time and effort to get to the Pacific - and found their axes already there, having been traded among tribes and beaten the expedition there.   Blackfeet were ferocious, prevented everyone from entering, esp trappers. Did not tolerate other Indians, so no one went into a big part of Montana.  Three Forks was a trading node, a free-trade zone, with many tribes in the network.  Doha ROund: note how it's correctly done!

Tuesday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Gregory Zuckerman,  Special Writer, Wall Street Journal, in re:  midyear market measure; prospects for corporate earnings (if any); the Barclay's melodrama. LIBOR accurate?  Two levels of malfeasance: by 2008, Barclay's acted to keep LIBOR lower (paying what for short term? etc.) so people wouldn't get too worried about the health of banks. Banks didn't want to lend to each other; a lower LIBOR suggest s that banks are indeed, lending to each other. Banks too big to fail . . . at least now they hold more capital than formerly, and more clawback.  People now are paid a lot in stock rather than cash - all these are improvements. However, bankers are bankers - they manipulate, trade; boys will be boys, unfortunately, and sometimes we have to step in.

Tuesday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  Larry Johnson, No Quarter blog, in re:  It's time to blow the whistle on the hype and exaggeration surrounding terrorism. While terrorism is a threat, it is not the greatest nor the most dangerous threat we face or have ever faced. Frankly, the most serious danger posed by terrorism is that we allow our fear of it to justify suspending our Constitution, surrendering our civil liberties and engaging in the grotesque human rights violations that tarnish America's destiny to be a light of freedom and justice to the world. 

Tuesday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: 

Tuesday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):   Mary Anastasia O'Grady, WSJ, in re: Mexican election returns PRI to power. US doesn't recognize the new Paraguayan president; why? 

Tuesday 1105P (805P Pacific Time): Matthew Turner, University of Toronto & PERC Fellow, in re: congestion pricing; congested parts of urban dwelling.

Tuesday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  Kate Fitzpatrick, Deschutes River Conservancy at Bend, Oregon, in re: managing in-stream use and enhancement for ecosystem and stakeholders, dealing with water rights.

Tuesday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Don Leal, PERC (current focus is on preventing overharvesting of marine resources and restoring ocean fisheries), in re: what PERC does. Proper management of fisheries to enhance and enrich the stakeholders.

Tuesday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):  Bob Hix, Colorado/Wyoming Pheasants Unlimited, in re: managing pheasant ecosystems for hunters, farmers and birdlife.

Tuesday/Wed 1205A (905 Pacific Time):  Samson Lenjirr, wildlife manager with the County Council of Narok in the Republic of Kenya;in charge of a trust land forest, Mau, one of the largest water towers in the country; and PERC Fellow, in re: managing the watershed of the Masai Mara Rivers flowing in Kenya and Tanzania.

Tuesday/Wed  1220A (920 Pacific Time):  Robert Kimball, communications and outreach coordinator for the World Resources Institute, in re: WRI Aqueduct project.

Tuesday/Wed  1235A (935P Pacific Time):  David Drucker, Roll Call, and Lara Brown, Villanova, in re: Nobody knows what the Medicaid part of the Affordable Care Act will cost in years to come.  No one.  In a poll (Pew): most people didn't even know that the Supreme Court decision had come down.   Among US voters, 73% believe that the economy will be poor in this coming November.

Tuesday/Wed  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.  Robert Zimmerman, beyondtheblack.com, in re: Climate Change. Improvement of carbon emissions in North America. Private space bidding on Russian project. Messages from Messenger on orbit around Mercury.

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