Photo, left: Dr. Vadim P. Lukashevich, the "Russian space expert [who] was fired from his job at a hi-tech operation outside Moscow after he publicly criticized the Putin government’s consolidation of Russia’s entire space industry into a single government-run corporation.  Vadim Lukashevich worked at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, a high-tech business park outside Moscow intended as Russia’s answer to Silicon Valley that has partnerships with Western research universities such as MIT. “As I understand it, they [fired me] for a series of interviews in which I criticize the recent decision to liquidate the Federal Space Agency and create a new state corporation called Roscosmos,” Lukashevich told The Moscow Times on Friday. . .  . Lukashevich, a prominent voice in the Russian space scene, told the BBC the reform would remove any industry accountability and would foster corruption — all while failing to provide Russia with a long-term direction in space.   See Hour3, Block C, Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
Hour One
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block A: Sudeep Reddy, WSJ, in re:
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block B: Sudeep Reddy, WSJ, in re: Mandatory corporate tax on overseas profits: some are kept overseas, but a $2 trillion repatriation holiday proposed with 14% and 19% taxation offered.  Should it ever come to pass, that'll be negotiated downward.  LK wants permanent reduction of such axes. That 14% is worse than current: today, if you bring cash back, you get a credit.   The Business roundtable are "furious." President's numbers are way outside mainstream thinking. 
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block C:  John H Cochrane, Hoover, & Grumpy Economist, in re: Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment 
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: Gregory Zuckerman, WSJ & author, The Greatest Trade Ever, & The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters, in re: ETFs and Other Ways Investors Can Bet on the Drop in Oil Prices
Options include shorting Canadian banks, currency or investing in ETFs that aim to return the inverse of an oil-and-gas index.  How Cheap Oil Complicates Investing


While some stocks, like retailers, benefit, others take it on the chin.    U.S. Oil Prices Drop Below $44   U.S. oil prices skidded to a nearly six-year low on Thursday on continued concerns about massive supplies.  Natural-Gas Prices Sink   Scrapped: Oil Prices Shelve an $11 Billion Gulf Coast Project  Sasol said it was shelving an $11 billion project on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, imperiling one of the largest foreign investments on U.S. soil because of the plunge in oil prices.  Harold Hamm Says U.S. Oil Firms Can Help Right the Market     Senate Moves Closer to Keystone Passage
LK:  Can be profitable at the wellhead at $35 Bbl?    GZ:  Horizontal drilling came only after the Bakken and Eagleford – "hold by production" requires producing, which they've done for a few years; now the marginal cost can be low, maybe a bit above $35.  LK: Why is the GOP not lifting export limits?  GZ: right.
Hour Two
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor 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 http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/UkraineReport_Febru...
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; (2 of 4) in re: http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/UkraineReport_Febru...
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; (3 of 4) in re: http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/UkraineReport_Febru...
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; (4 of 4) in re: http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/UkraineReport_Febru...
Hour Three
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block A: McKay Coppins, Buzzfeed, in re:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/the-race-is-on-for-2016-republicans-to-land-romneys-most-val#.jbdgNlWqq
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: Brad Stone, Bloomberg, in re:  Uber vs Google
 
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Proton launches successfully  The competition heats up: Russia’s Proton successfully launched an Inmarsat commercial satellite into orbit today. Considering the problems the Proton has had in recent years, this launch success is significant. It suggests that they are back in business.
In related news, a Russian space expert was fired from his job at a hi-tech operation outside Moscow after he publicly criticized the Putin government’s consolidation of Russia’s entire space industry into a single government-run corporation.  Vadim Lukashevich worked at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, a high-tech business park outside Moscow intended as Russia’s answer to Silicon Valley that has partnerships with Western research universities such as MIT. “As I understand it, they [fired me] for a series of interviews in which I criticize the recent decision to liquidate the Federal Space Agency and create a new state corporation called Roscosmos,” Lukashevich told The Moscow Times on Friday. . .  . Lukashevich, a prominent voice in the Russian space scene, told the BBC the reform would remove any industry accountability and would foster corruption — all while failing to provide Russia with a long-term direction in space.
On Wednesday, a day after the interview was published, he said someone at Skolkovo’s Space Cluster called him to say he had been fired. The caller “apologized several times, saying the decision was imposed on them from above — by a phone call from URSC in the middle of the night,” Lukashevich said.  I think that Lukashevich is right, that creating a single government-run corporation will encourage corruption and in the long run will be a disaster for Russia’s space industry. We will see a rebirth of the same problems that destroyed the Soviet Union. In fact, Lukashevich’s firing is illustrative of this.  I also think that in the short term it will likely energize their space program. But only for a short period of time. After they achieve some Soviet-style stunts that appear impressive, the weight of corruption and the lack of competition will cause the industry to collapse in bankruptcy again.
Roscomos puts the squeeze on Ukraine  Two more stories this week provide additional evidence that Roscosmos, the new Russian government-run space corporation that controls Russia’s entire space industry, intends to eliminate its dependence on any foreign contributions, even if that contribution comes from the former Soviet province of Ukraine. Russian space agency suspends Dnepr carrier rocket project    Russia to Stop Buying Ukrainian Space Rockets
In the first story, Roscosmos ends the commercial use of the Dnepr anti-ballistic missile, built originally in the Ukraine. In the second story Roscosmos makes it very clear that it will focus on using its Russia-made Angara rocket rather than depend on the Ukrainian Zenit, even though Zenit is what the Roscosmos-owned Sea Launch platform was designed to use and Angara is far from operational.  The main result of these decisions will be the bankrupt many Ukrainian space companies. Whether it will bring more business to Angara, however, remains to be seen. Angara has only had one orbital launch, and has hardly tested its many different configurations. At this stage it is highly unlikely that the commercial customers who have depended on Dnepr and Zenit will flock to it, especially since they now have other competitive options available in the west.
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center & National Review Online, in re: CBO budget: enjoy the dropping deficits while you can because they won’t last long.   http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/386488/cbos-new-budget-outlook-debt-ahoy-veronique-de-rugy   [See the chart] . . .By CBO’s estimate, the federal debt held by the public will reach 74 percent of GDP at the end of this fiscal year, a level not seen in the US since the topsy-turvy budgetary days of FDR and WWII. By 2024, the federal debt is projected to reach 77 percent of GDP. Before the onset of the recession, federal debt constituted a “mere” 35 percent of GDP. If current economic trends continue, debt levels that were once rationalized by extraordinary economic circumstances may simply become the new normal.  . . . /  http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/345183/presidents-2014-budget-377-trillion-veronique-de-rugy  Here is a recap of other headline budget figures for 2014:   Senator Rand Paul: $3.2 trillion.  Chairman Paul Ryan: $3.53 trillion.   Chairman Patty Murray: $3.71 trillion.   Pres Obama: $3.77 trillion.
Hour Four
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block A: Don't Be Afraid of the Bullets: An Accidental War Correspondent in Yemen   by Laura Kasinof (1 of 4)
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block B: Don't Be Afraid of the Bullets: An Accidental War Correspondent in Yemen   by Laura Kasinof (2 of 4)
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: Don't Be Afraid of the Bullets: An Accidental War Correspondent in Yemen   by Laura Kasinof (3 of 4)
Tuesday 3 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: Don't Be Afraid of the Bullets: An Accidental War Correspondent in Yemen   by Laura Kasinof (4 of 4)
..  ..  ..