The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Air Date: 
July 31, 2012

Ted Cruz campaigned in Houston on Tuesday as Texas voters went to the polls to determine the Republican nominee for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.  

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW   

Tuesday 905P Eastern Time:  Larry Kudlow, The Kudlow Report on CNBC, in re: Milton Friedman's hundredth birthday.

Tuesday 920P Eastern Time:  Phil Izzo, WSJ, in re: Friday's GDP number, antepenultimate before the election. US economic growth pulled back further during the second quarter of the year as consumer spending slowed--a reading that suggests domestic fiscal worries may becoming a more significant drag.  BLS number coming on Friday: roughly 100,000. Even a little above 100 isn’t good enough.  Consumer spending is flat even though incomes are up; money going into savings rather than being spent.  Second-quarter numbers not good. Housing is now such a small share of the economy after the bust.  LK:  Capital goods orders are very, very weak; inventories went up, not down. Bright spot: a couple of quarters of increased home sales and prices are actually rising. Fiscal tax cliff: $440 bil out of the private economy in Jan 2013. I've always used profits as a leading indicator (anomalously).  Case-Shiller up for the second [third?] consecutive month.  BLS/Labor numbers won’t be available to the Fed or Administration won't be available till 4:30 Thursday night.   JB: Draghi? Fed?  PI: The Fed (which doesn’t meet again till September) might twist language, but won’t do much.

Tuesday 935P Eastern Time:   Edward Paul Lazear, Hoover & WSJ, in re: Slow recovery or failed agenda? Recovery is stalled. We're not getting better at a pace even parallel to normal economic health. Our economy has a lot of catching-up to do  - we could have 5% growth for years and not be close.   LK: Jobs, and core capital-goods orders. real GDP has barely got above the prior cyclical peak. EPL: Our rate of hires monthly is lower than the average number f hires during the 2007-2009recession.  Layoffs have recently picked up again, which is scary.  LK: Gargantuan layoffs in the financial services industry are coming: all the hires for mortgages – 50K to 75K; the last hired will be first fired, and it's right around the corner.  EPL:   What the president did was focus on the short run;  long run: need low & efficient taxes, a budget under control [et al.];. We’ve doubled the size of the govt debt; worried about looming tax increases; cash for clunkers of first-time homebuyers: effects only for a month or two. What we shd have done three years ago was to set up a climate positive for economic growth today.  Worry that the American consumer is starting to worry as people do worldwide when they see the economy turning down.

Tuesday 950P Eastern Time:  Bill Whalen, Hoover, in re: Obama and the Book of Job(lessness): "While all 12 of the above states have lower unemployment rates compared to a year ago, seven of the battleground states – Colorado (+0.1%), Iowa (+0.1%), Michigan (+0.1%), New Hampshire (+0.1%), Pennsylvania (+0.1%), Virginia (+0.1%) and Wisconsin (0.2%) – saw their numbers go up from the previous month. Only two of the battleground states – Missouri (-0.2%), Ohio (-0.1%) – posted a one-month improvement. The other three states – Florida, Nevada and North Carolina – had the same May/June numbers.  Thus the importance of the soon-to-be released July jobs numbers. If the nation’s unemployment rate is flat for a third consecutive month (or worse) and going south in a majority of the swing states, then the Romney camp can introduce a new phrase to the conversation “bad trend”. Thus begging the question of which matters more to voters – what’s happened over the past three years, or three months?"

Tuesday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Lara M Brown. Villanova,  in re: "Let's face it, Romney can't win, but Obama can lose."—Ed Rogers, GOP consultant. Clinton Democrats. Spambotted all day by the Obamistas asking for dollars. Obama campaign is not happy today.  JB: I admit to being a Rockefeller Republican. In a general election I vote Republican because my grandfather and father are watching. Is that true of Clinton Democrats? SZ:  Different factions may sit out a election; Clinton supporters may sit this ut in anticipation of a Clinton candidacy in 2016.  Harry Reid announced to a reporter that a Bain partner had told him that Mr Romney hasn’t paid taxes for ten years and is a felon. This is a Christmas gift to Mr Romney.  Mr Krauthammer offered the opinion that Winston Churchill had been banished from the White House; Obama crew vociferously disagreed then later apologized for having been wrong.

DLCers in 2012 may well be like conservatives in 2008 - staying home and not voting.

Nearly deserted stadiums at London Olympics, scandal and regret.

Tuesday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  Larry Johnson, No Quarter blog, in re: Republican congressional investigators have concluded that five senior ATF officials -- from the special agent-in-charge of the Phoenix field office to the top man in the bureau’s Washington headquarters -- are collectively responsible for the failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation that was “marred by missteps, poor judgments and inherently reckless strategy.”  ATF bought guns in the US that wound up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, then killed civilians and US law enforcement officials. AFT has a history y of surprising incompetence. No supervision and coordination at he level of Dept of Justice, even though they were pushing it. Idea originated from DOJ.    Meanwhile, DOJ is refusing a Congressional report on the matter, being "terrified" of the likely results.  Eric Holder refusing to release certain information.  Wiretaps, need DOJ HQ at a very senior level; because it was cross-border into Mexico, had to be widely coordinated- which it was not. ATF created dangerous situations and field officers couldn’t get anyone to respond.  Personal vanity and desire for professional glory took the place of common sense.

Tuesday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):   Bill Roggio, LongWar Journal, and Arif Rafiq, Middle East Institute and columnist, Express Tribune, Pakistan,  in re: Coalition casualties in July hit the highest monthly total in nearly a year, a reminder that even as international militaries head for the exit, the insurgency is far from vanquished. Horror hospital: Afghanistan's Dawood Hospital outside of Kabul – abuse of Afgh national soldiers by the Afgh army. Appalling.  US Gen Caldwll buried this for electoral reasons; unconscionable, nightmare, unacceptable.  Trading: "If you want care, you have to pay for it "– and lie in horrific conditions.  These young men were left to have their limbs . . .    Karzai's government is wholly incompetent, corrupt and useless.

Lt-Gen Zahir ul-Islam, head of ISI, apptd in March, now on first visit to US to meet Gen Petraeus and other officials.   MOU on supply route.  US wants to target key individuals and Pakistan does not. Political posturing. Pakistanis cannot adjust to ground situation in the US; "joint operations" totally eludes them.  AL Qaeda is in the field and vigorous in Pakistan.

As of Tuesday, 46 troops had been killed – "green on blue attacks," being Afgh soldiers' killing  NATO troops - in July, according to iCasualties.org, a website that tracks casualties from the war. The numbers come after the International Security Assistance Force released figures showing an 11 percent increase in attacks this year. Though the number of deaths this month is up, overall Coalition deaths are down 20 percent over the same period last year, according to ISAF.

NCTC director: 'We remain at war with al Qaeda'   During testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security on July 25, National Counterterrorism Center director Matthew Olsen provided his organization's view of the ongoing fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

On Tuesday, India suffered the largest electrical blackout in history, affecting an area encompassing about 670 million people, or roughly 10 percent of the world’s population. Three of the country’s interconnected northern power grids collapsed for several hours, as blackouts extended almost 2,000 miles, from India’s eastern border with Myanmar to its western border with Pakistan.

Tuesday 1050P (750P Pacific Time): David Quammen, author of Spillover, in Bangalore, in re: ebola in Western Uganda. Two way ebola often spread: someone in a village dies and people tend to the body, or he goes into a hospital and health-care workers are infected. People scatter in fear, which causes the epidemic to spread. It usu doesn't spread too far because it's so quickly and ferociously lethal.  There exist some apparatuses for controlling it: containment is the first imperative.  Need latex gloves, masks, people sequestered in wards. Need: "barrier nursing techniques."  Terrifying; belief that it's caused by sorcery.  War zone sort of situation.  We think it comes from handling wild game, asymptomatic species. Can spill into chimps, gorillas, humans, then burns out and disappears, awaiting the next opportunity.

Tuesday 1105P (805P Pacific Time): Fouad Ajami, Hoover, in re: Romney’s trip to London, Jerusalem and Poland: a quiet show of American candidate.  What's failing in Syria, what's to be done.

Tuesday 1120P (820P Pacific Time): Paul Barrett,  in re: Karl Rove takes command of American Crossroads for the long haul; the power in GOP fundraising

Tuesday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):   Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack, in re: water on the Moon pole? Also, Chinese mission to the Moon in 2013; and climate change challenges in Nature magazine. For the past week there's been a new spate of articles written about human-caused global warming, instigated by an op-ed written by scientist Richard Muller in the New York Times.

Tuesday 1150P (850P Pacific Time): Tyler Rogoway, Aviationintel.com, in : what if Apple builds a fighter aircraft?

Tuesday/Wed 1205A (905 Pacific Time):  Larry Kudlow, The Kudlow Report on CNBC, in re: Milton Friedman's hundredth birthday

Tuesday/Wed  1220A (920 Pacific Time): Phil Izzo, WSJ, in re: Friday's GDP number, antepenultimate before the election. US economic growth pulled back further during the second quarter of the year as consumer spending slowed--a reading that suggests domestic fiscal worries may becoming a more significant drag.  BLS number coming on Friday: roughly 100,000. Even a little above 100 isn’t good enough.  Consumer spending is flat even though incomes are up; money going into savings rather than being spent.  Second-quarter numbers not good. Housing is now such a small share of the economy after the bust.  LK:  Capital goods orders are very, very weak; inventories went up, not down. Bright spot: a couple of quarters of increased home sales and prices are actually rising. Fiscal tax cliff: $440 bil out of the private economy in Jan 2013. I've always used profits as a leading indicator (anomalously).  Case-Shiller up for the second [third?] consecutive month.  BLS/Labor numbers won’t be available to the Fed or Administration won't be available till 4:30 Thursday night.   JB: Draghi? Fed?  PI: The Fed (which doesn’t meet again till September) might twist language, but won’t do much.

Bank of England, 1901.

Tuesday/Wed  1235A (935P Pacific Time): :   Edward Paul Lazear, Hoover & WSJ, in re: Slow recovery or failed agenda? Recovery is stalled. We're not getting better at a pace even parallel to normal economic health. Our economy has a lot of catching-up to do  - we could have 5% growth for years and not be close.   LK: Jobs, and core capital-goods orders. real GDP has barely got above the prior cyclical peak. EPL: Our rate of hires monthly is lower than the average number f hires during the 2007-2009recession.  Layoffs have recently picked up again, which is scary.  LK: Gargantuan layoffs in the financial services industry are coming: all the hires for mortgages – 50K to 75K; the last hired will be first fired, and it's right around the corner.  EPL:   What the president did was focus on the short run;  long run: need low & efficient taxes, a budget under control [et al.];. We’ve doubled the size of the govt debt; worried about looming tax increases; cash for clunkers of first-time homebuyers: effects only for a month or two. What we shd have done three years ago was to set up a climate positive for economic growth today.  Worry that the American consumer is starting to worry as people do worldwide when they see the economy turning down.

Tuesday/Wed  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt. John Hudson, in re: Cyber-command recruits hackers at Defcon convention in Las Vegas - no kidding.

Mission Improbable: How the NSA Recruits Hackers   The National Security Agency is desperate to hire new hacking talent to protect the nation's critical infrastructure, but its reputation for spying on Americans has damaged its reputation among cyber sleuths.

..  ..  .. 

Music (times based on Eastern Daylight Time broadcast)

9- hour:  Valkyrie; War Hammer;  10-hour:   Wrath of the Titans; Breaking Bad; X-Files; Hurtlocker; 11-hour: 11-hour:  Hurt Locker, War, Start Trek,; midnight hour: War Hammer, The Recruit

..  ..  ..