The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Air Date: 
March 18, 2014

Photo, above: Changing borders in Europe.  See video:   http://loiter.co/v/watch-as-1000years-of-european-boarders-change/

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-host: Larry Kudlow, The Kudlow Report, CNBC; and Cumulus Media radio

Hour One

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Larry Kudlow, in re: Putin recognizes Crimea as an independent, sovereign state.  Obama throws sanctions on a few Russian oligarchs and two Ukrainians.  Cameron tells France to cease a $2 billion aircraft sale to Russia; France shoots back, Yeah, and you can evict Russians from your banking. [Half of Mayfair and Belgravia are Russian manor houses. Revealed: The £50m Belgravia home Russian tycoon uses as his London 'crash pad'  Two Russian multimillionaires racked up a bar tab of more than £130,000 at a Mayfair nightclub after going head-to-head to see who could produce the most extravagant bill. ]   US bout $200 billion –plus in Russia, esp Gazprom.  Russia depends on the City of London for financing; has raised $400 bil in stocks and bonds on the London mkt; many are depository slips. In 2013, raised $47 bil; 70 new issues in depository receipts in recent years.  If Obama pushes, PIMCO will pull out of the Russian mkt in Moscow.  Natgas from Russia: it’s been a mild winter and lots of gas stocks have built up; if Russian imports were blocked under a moratorium Russia would be crippled.   In 1998, Long Term Capital explosion, Russians guessed wrong and ruble collapsed, was rescued by US and Europe.   Last week, ruble was off 11%, and mkt was off 27%, but both have bounced back substantially.

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 1, Block B:    Phil Izzo, WSJ lead editor, Real Time Economics blog, in re:  The best way to see when the Fed may raise rates is to see when they think rates will go up in coming years.  LK: I'm not sure of that  - could use wages, average compensation, average hours worked – trying to paint a picture of he labor mkt (which isn’t very strong).   . . . Coming: labor market pandeamonium.  The Taylor Rule (inflation yardstick): says the Fed funds target rage should currently be 1.5%, not zero.  PI: She has an altered version of the Taylor Rule.  JB: Looks as though Yellin knows where she wants to come out and will use statistics to get there.  PI: Inflation is still sub-1.5%.   JB: Tomorrow: Janet Yellin explaining.  Secondary Sources: Monetization Taboo, Minimum Wage, Re-Employment  A roundup of economic news from around the Web.

Secondary Sources: Bond Bubble, Middle Class and Taxes, Ukraine  A roundup of economic news from around the Web.

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 1, Block C:   Joseph Rago, WSJ editorial board & Pulitzer Prizewinner, in re: Impenetrable pile of paper and documents. Now 5 million have enrolled in ACA.  Can we tell who, how many, actually pay, and the like? No. A wilderness of mirrors in the health-care industry.  LK: My theory is that he individual mandate ids dead; a three-year moratorium on sign-up for those who had their plan cancelled.  PI: Also can claim an unspecified hardship. HHS will review these at some point – some will have a nasty surprise when they’re find for not having entered the system and bought the plan. Can claim that what's available ins uneconomic.   Very easy to qualify for exemption categories (there are 14) – some have no verifiable standard.  JB: Is this so complex that only our grandchildren will be able to sort it out?  PI: Recall, "You have to pass it to find out what's in it." 

ObamaCare's Secret Mandate Exemption  HHS quietly repeals the individual purchase rule for two more years. /  Sebelius vs. Accuracy   The HHS chief confirms her secret waiver of the individual mandate.  /  The 'Doc Fix' Follies   How a sensible and bipartisan Medicare reform dies in Congress.

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Edward Paul Lazear, Hoover & WSJ, in re: The Hidden Rot in the Jobs Numbers.   . . .  EL: I'm not a fan of QE because it’s not effective any more.  I think the Fed is looking for a way out.  A tenth of an hour ties the size of the entire work force; divide by the average work week to see how many workers you have.  . . .  We’ve lost the equivalent of a million jobs when we've gained the equivalent of 900,000 people working. 

Hour Two

Tuesday  18 March  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: Russia has felt "repeatedly betrayed by the United States for twenty years."  We may disagree with his conclusions, but we need to take how the Russian political elite sees events.  Putin has 80% of the population in supporting; he's just joined the Russian pantheon by bringing the Crimea home.  What worries me is that bad things will happen and now Putin will be forgiven.   . . .  Putin is far from being the most extreme [hawkish]voice in the Kremlin.  He planned to give pensioners monthly checks that would have been inadequate; huge numbers protested and he recanted.  He said something utterly Russian: "We regard these sanctions [from the US] as a form of aggression, will not deter us. They [the White house] think they have a fifth column in Russia; we will see."  This Crimean event will transform domestic policies in Russia. 

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 2, Block B: 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: Crimea, Ukraine, and Vl Putin's speech today.  The president of Russia moves carefully through this moment. "The US thinks they can decide the future of the world; . . . aggression, force resolutions from international organizations.  Yugoslavia: we recall 1999 very well; Belgrade was under missile attack for weeks. Then they hit Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. "  I think we're in a dangerous position, I don't thinks we get out of it by re-living the past, as in "Putin is like Hitler," for example. One interesting aspect of Putin's speech – both he and Obama are lawyers -  [references to UN resolutions].  Medvedev, Putin and Lavrov: Anent Libya, an agreement at Security Council that there'd be a gathering of tribes, Gaddafi would retire to the desert, all the Libyan tribes would work together. Mrs Clinton assured Putin of this, then the US bombs started. End of trust by Russia of US.  Also: Russia greed not to veto SC on Libya.  Russia abstained in favor of a no-fly zone.  The entire Russian political class was stunned and furious. They never let Putin forget, they say 'These are your Americans." 

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 2, Block C: 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:  . . .  Yatseyeniuk was speaking of Russian shooting Ukrainian soldiers. He was apptd by Victoria Nuland. Kerry implied that Putin was Hitler – referring to the lead-in to WWII. [Danger!]   See: JohnsonsRussianlist.com; Kremlin.ru   .  . . .  The public discourse sounds like the road to war.  Merkel is holding back tonight, Berlin hasn’t commented on the sanctions. Putin: "America crossed our red lines."  Russia has made clear for at least a decade that Ukraine and Crimea are [untouchable]  "Our Western partners, led by the US, prefer not to be guided by intl policies but by the rule of  the gun."

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 2, Block D: 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:  . . .  Exxon Mobil, GM, Ford, all deeply invested in Russia; eke Volkswagen, Mercedes.  . . . We need to find a basis for negotiations. What do the Russians want? (Crimea? that train left the station.) 1. Zero more NATO expansion. 2. Want a nonaligned govt (like Finland) in Kiev.  3. Want a new, federal Ukrainian constitution, where each group has rights. In return, we'll recognize that govt as legitimate, not contribute to more secessionist movements, and contribute to the Ukrainian economy, possibly with natgas.  Question: Are there leaders in DC and Moscow who can step up to this?

Hour Three

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 3, Block A:   Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & Pirates fan, in re: Sometimes prayers are answered by the most peculiar of angels. Completing a World War II Vet's Mission of Honor - Sometimes prayers are answered by the most peculiar of angels. Perry E. Ball works in a nondescript office in a maze of rooms at the U.S. Army War College. A professor of international relations, he keeps his desk neat and orderly; the artifacts in his office reflect two things — a man who spent his life as a U.S. foreign service officer, and a son of a proud Army veteran of World War II.

“One of my earliest memories with my father was visiting the graves of his friends at the U.S. Military Cemetery outside of Manila, the Philippines,” he said. “He told me he hoped he had led a life that honored the ones who never came home.”

He held his father's sense of honor throughout his life, attending the annual military reunions of the 25th Infantry Division, even after his father's death in 1998. At the last reunion in Knoxville, Tenn., in August 2001, Ball began the long journey of answering a soldier's prayer.

He was sharing a story with 10 veterans from Company G about the return of a Japanese soldier's wartime diary when Emil Matula, an Army lieutenant during the war, asked Ball to help him return a flag he had taken from the helmet of a dead Japanese soldier. Matula, commander of 1st Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, was ordered to capture a hill northeast of Kapintalan in the Philippines; after several bloody battles with the Japanese, his platoon settled into a captured foxhole.  During the night, one of Matula's platoon riflemen informed him of a cave . . . [more]

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 3, Block B:  LouAnn Hammond, DrivingtheNation.com, in re: GM CEO Vows Changes in Wake of Recalls  GM chief Mary Barra said a new global safety head will meet with her monthly and said investigators have been told there are "no sacred cows" in identifying how an ignition-switch recall was mishandled.

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Paul R. Gregory, Hoover and Forbes.com, in re: Putin's Destabilization of Ukraine Overshadows Today's Crimean Vote (80 Percent Turnout, 93 Percent for Annexation)

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 3, Block D:  Jed Babbin, American Spectator, in re: Lies, Spies, Leaks, and DiFi | The American Spectator

Hour Four

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 4, Block A: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins, Part I (1 of 4)

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 4, Block B: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins, Part I (2 of 4)

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 4, Block C: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins, Part I (3 of 4)

Tuesday  18 March  2014 / Hour 4, Block D: The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins, Part I (4  of 4)

..  ..  ..

Music

Hour 1:  The Triangle. Tomorrow Never Dies. Field of Dreams.

Hour 2: Hunt for  Red October.  Red Dawn.  Crimson Tide.

Hour 3:  I Am Legend. Batman.  Our Mutual Friend, Vysotsky

Hour 4:  Breaking Bad.  Pacific Rim.