The John Batchelor Show

Friday 22 January 2021

Air Date: 
January 22, 2021

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 1, Block A: John Tamny, @johntamny, RealClearPolitics, author, When Politicians Panic;in re: Government always seeks to limit, constrain.  Best to let people just do what they want with their innovation. I have free speech where I live but not necessarily at your house.  As for the platforms—twitter, amazon, parler, et al.—the govt sees a chance to tax.  Our new president is worried about rich people.  The rich have gained $1.5 trillion in the pandemic. Alert: the economy cannot progress without the rich as they have unspent wealth.  What stimulates economic growth is investment in new ideas. NYT: a  man moved his operation from California to Texas; after the first year, he found his taxes were zero. Blue billionaires have given more to Joe Biden than red billionaires have given to GOP.  There’s winking going on: four of the five richest companies in the world are still based in California.
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 1, Block B: John Tamny, @johntamny, RealClearPolitics, author, When Politicians Panic;  in re:  Hewrote that Trump sensed voters felt weak in face of global elite with unimaginable power. Bezos spends tens of billion a year to find new ideas.  Google employees wrote to the firm’s president objecting to Google’s doing business with the Pentagon.  You can't afford to offend your employees—the power is too ephemeral.  AOL is now a laughline.  FAANG CEOs know exactly how ephemeral their power is.
      Bitcoin (which a friend has called “tulipmania without tulips”): Money is just a measure, like one foot or one cupful.   Real currency’s value is unchanging.  Gold will always speak its mine.    Bitcoin’s volatility magnifies the dollar’s worst qualities.  #SmallBuainessAmerica: Looking up for 2021
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 1, Block C: Gene Marks,  @genemarks @Guardian  #SmallBusinessAmerica @Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, and at TheHill; in re: Small busnesses are hunkering down, looking forward to a significantly stronger second half, considering pent-up demand. Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. Yellow lights:  could just become more public debt—all right when interests rates stay this low; but if they rise, would make it much more expensive.   The $15/hr minimum wage is quite different in Seattle and Tennessee.  Higher costs will send business owners to technology, robots, automatic mfrg.  Mandating paid time off will be a headache for small-business owners.  
Coming: an unprecedented tax season.  Tips: The Employee Retention Tax Credit—up to $7,000 per employee per quarter.  Also, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit: you can get from $1,200-9,600 per employee. 
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Turn off Zoom and save carbon emissions: not the Babylon Bee
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 1, Block D: Gene Marks,  @genemarks @Guardian  #SmallBusinessAmerica @Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, and at TheHill; in re:  Napa and Sonoma: vintners suing the Cali governor holding they’ve been kept closed arbitrarily.  New York City : outdoor dining, parallel.  Paycheck protection loans: if you build an outdoor dining area, you can be forgiven the cost by govt.   DeBlasio has made outdoor dining permanent. Other cities considering doing the same.  Gavin Newsom. A new president. One theme is green.  Carbon emissions.  Zoom calls: Purdue study: if anyone turns off video, can cut carbon emission by 96%. 
2020 was a great year for some rich people, esp venture capitalists. An all-time top year, have invested $130 billion.  Huge number of start-ups. 
 
Hour Two
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos: @JHUWorldCrisis; Johns Hopkins; in re: The remains of the week.  Biden’s “uncivil war.”  Tiberias retired to Capri. A solution is conflict — or separation.  At its root, civil war is an existential [division], each side unwilling to share power with the other. Biden seems to think that submission is a third possibility; I disagree.  A relatively quiescent [environment] will be triggered and inflamed by the upcoming impeachment trial. This will be done by the successor emperor—not good when half the country vocally supports the previous emperor.
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 2, Block B:  Jeff Bliss: @JCBliss, #PacificWatch, in re: The very first night of Biden’s inauguration, in Portland Antifa tried to burn down the first Starbucks and more.  
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 2, Block C:  Chris Riegel: @Scala, @STRATACACHE; in re: EU unhappy with American tech: there’s not enough high tech in Europe, and Europeans want taxes, and want compliance with European ideas. If not, we’re coming for you.  Government can foster innovation—e.g., DARPA and the Internet. Imagine big tech as media, think of William Randolph Hearst.  Power has transferred to Bezos or Apple, etc. A persistent evolution of media. Antitrustvs these big companies; I’d bet that the tech companies best the government, ten to one. EU is ultimately negotiating for: you can operate if you pay the taxes we demand.
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 2, Block D: Veronique de Rugy, @veroderugy, Mercatus Center, in re:
 
Hour Three
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 3, Block A:  Dan Henninger: @DanHenninger, @WSJOpinion; editorial board and Wonder Land column; in re:   Covid. Vaccinat ion: why so slow?   “We don’t have time for government to stumble forward.”
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 3, Block B:  Francis Rose,@FRoseDC,  Host of @GovMattersTV @ ABC7News & WJLA 24/7 News. Washington D.C., in re:  
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 3, Block C:  Michael E Vlahos: @JHUWorldCrisis; Johns Hopkins; in re: Clifford Humphrey, @cphumphrey,  post-doc at The Catholic University of America; and Juan Davalos; and Lynette ______; ANewCivilWar.com  A lack of clarity about the division; wanted to track the rhetoric. Most of the liberal sources are print and main publications; most of the right content is from podcast and videos. 
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 3, Block D:  Josh Rogin: @joshrogin, author: Chaos under Heaven;in re:  
 
Hour Four
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 4, Block A:  1/8 Sicily '43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe,by James Holland
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 4, Block B: 2/8 Sicily '43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe,by James Holland
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 4, Block C:  3/8 Sicily '43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe,by James Holland
Friday 22 January 2021 / Hour 4, Block D: 4/8 Sicily '43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe,by James Holland  
 
On July 10, 1943, the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted took place, larger even than the Normandy invasion eleven months later: 160,000 American, British, and Canadian troops came ashore or were parachuted onto Sicily, signaling the start of the campaign to defeat Nazi Germany on European soil. Operation HUSKY, as it was known, was enormously complex, involving dramatic battles on land, in the air, and at sea. Yet, despite its paramount importance to ultimate Allied victory, and its drama, very little has been written about the 38-day Battle for Sicily.
Based on his own battlefield studies in Sicily and on much new research, James Holland’s Sicily ’43 offers a vital new perspective on a major turning point in World War II and a chronicle of a multi-pronged campaign in a uniquely diverse and contained geographical location. The characters involved―Generals George Patton and Bernard Montgomery among many―were as colorful as the air and naval battles and the fighting on the ground across the scorching plains and mountaintop of Sicily were brutal. But among Holland’s great skills is incorporating the experience of on-the-ground participants on all sides―from American privates Tom and Dee Bowles and the Tuskegee fighter pilot Charlie Dryden to the British major Hedley Verity and Canadian lieutenant Farley Mowat (later a celebrated author), to German and Italian participants such as Wilhelm Schmalz, brigade commander in the Hermann Göring Division, or Luftwaffe fighter pilot major Johannes “Macky” Steinhoff and to Italian combatants, civilians and mafiosi alike―which gives readers an intimate sense of what occurred in July and August 1943.
       Emphasizing the significance of Allied air superiority, Holland overturns conventional narratives that have criticized the Sicily campaign for the vacillations over the plan, the slowness of the Allied advance and that so many German and Italian soldiers escaped to the mainland; rather, he shows that clearing the island in 38 days against geographical challenges and fierce resistance was an impressive achievement. A powerful and dramatic account by a master military historian, Sicily ’43 fills a major gap in the narrative history of World War II.