The John Batchelor Show

Friday 18 May 2018

Air Date: 
May 18, 2018

Photo: On May 7, 2018, the official Russian media announced a reshuffle of the Russian government, coinciding with the beginning of another presidential term. The new members of Putin's cabinet included former Deputy Minister of Defense Yuri Borisov, who would now be responsible for overseeing the nation's military industrial complex encompassing the rocket and space industry. In the chair of Vice Prime Minister, Borisov replaced Dmitry Rogozin.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 1, Block A:  Gordon Chang, Daily Beast and Washington Post, in re: Larry Kudlow approves the finances discussed with China.  No need for China to be surprised as Trump spoke of China in very tough terms even during campaigning. He makes occasional compromises, but he has core beliefs and will implement them. ZTE: Chinese telcom that steals from US firms and sells goods to US enemies; it also buys parts and resells them worldwide. It employs 75,000 people and is working with Huawei to bld 5G, which will provide huge control. China said that relief for ZTE is a recondition for a trade deal. “Made in China 2025” = initiative announced in 2015 by the State Council.  If China can dominate robotics, computer chips, and a half-dozen other technologies, then it can achieve a variety of global hegemony.  . . . Is this the League of Nations of Chinese trade?  Good comparison.  Maybe yes.   . . . 301 tariffs may be WTO-violative . . .
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 1, Block B: Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch; in re:  In Pacific Palisades, a one-acre, $27 mil mansion.  Meanwhile, LA is too dangerous to walk through at night.  Sacramento says: We need over a billion dollars to clean this up.  Amazing lawlessness at night.  A huge police sweep ne winter night; more homeless people scattered across the landscape in summer.  Attracts people from around the country. In SF on BART, have to hopscotch across people, human waste, needles. 
Elon Musk’s proposed tunnels: short runs to move people rapidly; “Like the weird little Disney ride in LA.”   Step in the right direction.  Seattle: head tax on companies faring well.  The notion of a head tax is Medieval.  Daily downtown protests stopping traffic.  Tax sugary drinks; taxes and rules: take money from workers to fund people who don’t.  Punish success, drive the countries making the city rich – out of town. There’s an initiative to charge Amazon with a felony: It intimidates public officials by refusing to build a building. 
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 1, Block C: John Tamny, The End of Work: Why Your Passion Can Become Your Job; Forbes, and RealClearMarkets, in re: We need more of the robots so people will be free to do what they love and are skilled at.  Tractors put millions of people off the farm, let them pursue their natural genius.  People with endless talents can focus on what they do best. 
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 1, Block D: John Tamny, The End of Work: Why Your Passion Can Become Your Job; Forbes, and RealClearMarkets, in re:  . . . Investors want to be around high-wage workers because they get more [return] for it. New York Times wants the govt to decree this. . .  Abundant profits are critical to [growth].   . .  . The rich can take risks that no one else can.
 
Hour Two
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: The American civil wars, then and now.  A century ago Wilson took the US into the Great War in 1917.    . . . Suppressions, jailings; then Versailles with his 14 Points no consultation with Congress of his allies. He presented a Utopian view, insisting that the 26 nations must be included in the treaty (League of Nations?).  He had no legal skills; son of a Presbyterian pastor; commitedly anti-Black; couldn't negotiate or collaborate; his only strength was as an orator.  Born before the Civil War, a son of the Confederacy.  He made segregation the official policy of the US government.  Slavery by Another Name, a melancholic book.   . . . Volksgemeinschaft (peoples community). 
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 2, Block B:   Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: The American civil wars, then and now. Georges Clemenceau. Wilson was solitary, didn't listen to Clemenceau or Lloyd George, or Lodge, nor even his own Congress. Deaf. Hid in the White House when a compromise was offered; he walked away. I accuse Wilson of laying the groundwork for the fractiousness we suffer today.    . . .  Today we have a return to the very divisions that Wilson and Roosevelt tried to stitch together. Having an imperial president does not solve it; each side has its own Zeus battling the other.
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 2, Block C:  Gene Marks, Small Business columnist, Washington Post;  in re:  Workers’ looking for retirement benefits over healthcare plans!
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 2, Block D: Gene Marks, Small Business columnist, Washington Post;  in re: The wedding in Windsor Castle: AirB’nB there has 42,000 people?  Pubs allowed to stay open later and all day on Saturday. Selling tea towels and replicas of Meghan’s ring;  in the US, Dunkin’ Donuts selling Royal Love doughnuts (heart-shaped jelly doughnuts with trimmings) – selling like hotcakes.  Someone selling hot tub rides down the Thames. /  The Lexington Legends, an affiliate club. 
 
Hour Three
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 3, Block A: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack,com, in re: NASA’s inspector general commenting on the ISS.   . . . Cis-lunar.  . . .
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 3, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack,com, in re: Stars are what create the elements.  It takes time to develop oxygen. Big Bang 13.5 billion years ago – not expected to have complex elements early on.  CubeSat is 4cm squared!  Two Marcos – one in testing took a photo  of the Earth and Moon; in a few weeks will make a mid-course correction on its way to Mars. Dumitru Popescu, CEO of Arca Space Corp., trying to dvp small rockets. In an investigation conducted by the New Mexico Securities Division he was charged him with fraud and his business was down; charges were found to be baseless; grand jury refused to accept charges so the case was wholly dismissed.
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 3, Block C:  The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency, by James Tobin
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 3, Block D:  The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency, by James Tobin. . . .  Found Warm Springs, Georgia: water had so many minerals that one could float for long periods.  His father had visited spas in Germany, so no doubt that was a factor in encouraging FDR to go there.  Further, he made a second home there, which was heartening to Southern voters (whom he later needed).   He spent $200,000 to buy Warm Springs and then promoted it as a place for recovery.  He and Louis Howe played this well toward FDR’s running for New York governor.  Al Smith for the presidency in 1928 was up against Herbert Hoover.   Polio at that time was seen as possibly a cover for syphilis; this scurrilous rumor was circulated and FDR had to fight it.  
 
Hour Four
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 4, Block A: Hotel Mars, episode n.  David Livingston, The Space Show, and Anatoly Zak, Russian SpaceWeb.com; in re: Roscosmos and Russian space.  Dmitri Rogosin in the Moscow Kremlin: was supervising space from 2012 on, but not universally loved. He said that if NASA doesn't like Russian space work it should use a trampoline to get to space.  Many blame him for industry failures and losing customers. Rogosin no longer is Deputy Prime Minister and is gone from Russian space.  Borisov: During Putin years, military men often have been put in charge of Russian space both mil and civilian.  Current changes: cf: Titanic deckchairs rearrangements.  In Russia, the industry that built satellites and rockets is fully civilian, and was so even under USSR. Current financial state is good but performance is terrible; exactly the opposite of under Soviets, when the finances were awful but the performance was excellent. . .  Sputnik 3.
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 4, Block B: Hotel Mars, episode n.  David Livingston, The Space Show, and Anatoly Zak, Russian SpaceWeb.com; in re:  Russian space.
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 4, Block C:  The Last 100 Days: FDR at War and at Peace, by David B. Woolner.  
Friday  18 May 2018 / Hour 4, Block D:  The Last 100 Days: FDR at War and at Peace, by David B. Woolner
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