Photo, above:  Crisis in the Late Bronze Age Triggered by Environmental Change  The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians, such as Amos Nur and Leonard R. Palmer, believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia which characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages.

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Ever wonder what kind of music filled the throne rooms and banquet halls of the Biblical world? What were the melodies that were played for the Canaanite kings of Megiddo and Hazor as they entertained their courts with stories from the battlefield?   A cuneiform tablet discovered in the 1950s at the Canaanite coastal city of Ugarit revealed one of the oldest musical compositions ever found, dating back more than 3,400 years. With cuneiform notations analogous to “sheet music,” the tablet records instructions for playing an ancient hymn to the Hurrian goddess Nikkal, the wife of the moon god.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio

Hour One

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: John Tamny, RealClearMarkets, in re:

The economy: damaged, as Stanley Fischer says? AS measured by GDP and capital spending, this is the worst recovery post-WWII.  Use George Schultz, or Stanley Fischer with secular inflation?   Where Fed won’t be tightening for a lo-ong time. 

John Tamny: Stanley Fischer gets it exactly backwards. We haven’t allowed the recession to take place, therefore no recovery. 

LK: Schultz says there are too many obstacles – tax, regulatory, monetary HE argues for a flat tax at a low rate, abolish corporate tax, lower entitlement spending, et al. Taylor says short-rate target shd be about .5%; long term: 4 to 5%.

JT:  Fed allocates the direction of resources. We have an activist Fed, therefore a slow economy.  I want the rates to float, and the Fed to target a stable dollar.

LK: Schultz also points out that we've constructed barriers to economic growth [q.v.]  Worst - new regulations. See Federal Register.

Goldilocks Economy": Another Mythical Creation of Lazy Economists and Pundits   Google Goldilocks Economy and your computer might lock up. So popular is the phrase that it has its own Wikipedia entry. A “Goldilocks Economy,” one that is “not too hot and not too cold,” is very much the fashionable explanation at the moment for all that’s allegedly good. Supposedly the markets are performing well because the economy is in between extremes of boom and bust . . .

The only problem with this oft-repeated monument to trite is that it’s utter nonsense. Indeed, if the mildly sentient are willing to ignore the laughable idea that infinite decisions made every millisecond by hundreds of millions of Americans can be reduced to “not too hot, and not too cold,” they can’t ignore that even if real, no rational individual would ever worship at the Goldilocks altar. Why would anyone yearn for average when it comes to anything economic?

Logically no one would, and because they wouldn’t, it’s worth noting that there’s really no such thing as a Goldilocks Economy.  There isn’t because an economy isn’t a living, breathing blob whose temperature can be measured in a literal or figurative sense; rather, it’s a collection of individuals' thriving, failing, or merely getting by.

“Goldilocks” presumes economic uniformity where there is none, as though there’s no difference between Sausalito and Stockton, New York City and Newark, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and former Oakland Raiders bust JaMarcus Russell. But there is, and that’s what’s so silly about commentary that lionizes the Fed for allegedly engineering “Goldilocks,” “soft landings,” and other laughable concepts that could be dreamt up only by the economics profession and the witless pundits who promote the profession’s mysticism.  An economy is once again [composed] of individuals, and . . .

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block B: John Tamny, RealClearMarkets, in re:  No Matter What Happens, Politicians Will Live Very Any discussion of the top hotels in Washington, D.C. always includes the Four Seasons, which is situated at the eastern edge of Georgetown. There are arguably better ones in the District today, the new ones a function of D.C. experiencing a boom with money taxed away from its subjects in the fifty states, but even amid a great deal of hotel growth on the very high end, the Four Seasons remains very much part of any conversation about the best.

This is worth bringing up in light of a visit there last week. Precisely because it's such an impressive hotel, the Four Seasons' lobby and other common areas are frequently used as meeting spots by locals not actually staying at the hotel. Visiting with a writer last week whom I edited in the past, I arrived for the meeting early, and waited in the front lobby. What I witnessed wasn't remotely surprising, but bothersome just the same.

For readers who perhaps missed it, an African economic summit that included a talk by President Obama was held in Washington, D.C. last week. As one would expect, leaders of the 54 African nations were in attendance. And if the Four Seasons lobby was at all indicative, many of the African leaders booked rooms for themselves and their staffs at some of D.C.'s finest hotels.

The scene in the lobby was perhaps more notable mainly because Africa is a tragically poor continent. As an Investor's Business Daily editorial noted last week, so poor is Africa that U.S. producers exported more to tiny Belgium last year than to all of Africa combined. So poor is the continent that it still takes in $50 billion per year in foreign aid. Yet despite the grinding poverty endured by its inhabitants, and the certainty that corruption/statism/general ineptitude on the part of its leaders logically has something to do with the poverty, the leaders of what is a failed continent still enjoy the best the U.S. has to offer during their visits. Some readers will no doubt ask . . .

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Charles Blahous, Mercatus Center, in re: "Medicare unsustainable"?  - on a long-term trajectory: to 2030, when the Medicare hospital trust fund no longer viable.

Charles Blahous’ guide to the latest Medicare trustees report. Medicare Has Different Components Financed in Different Ways: Each year there is enormous interest in the projected date of depletion of Medicare's HI trust fund. This fund represents but one part of Medicare, and less than half of its spending at that. For the majority of Medicare, solvency is not a meaningful concept. Medicare's financial strains are not principally manifested in the threat of insolvency but in rising pressure on the budget and on premium-paying beneficiaries. There are other reasons why excessive attention to this date (2030 in this report) is inadvisable. The HI fund is not sitting on an enormous buildup of assets a la Social Security; HI assets now equal less than one year's costs. With such an insignificant balance it does not take much of a nudge in either direction to move the depletion date by years. For example, if BCA sequestration were overridden, the date would move from 2030 to 2028.

      Today e21 published Charles Blahous’ guide to the latest Medicare trustees report. Blahous is a senior research fellow for the Mercatus Center and a public trustee for Medicare and Social Security. A summary of the piece follows.

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; and Cumulus Media radio, in re: Lower Benefits, Higher Jobs   Paul Ryan has it right.  By Larry Kudlow & Robert Sinche. Neel Kashkari, the Republican candidate for governor of California, just recounted in the Wall Street Journal his week on the streets of Fresno posing as a homeless man looking for work. At the end of his op-ed, Kashkari lamented that he didn’t need a higher minimum wage, paid sick leave, or a health-care plan. What he needed was a job.  And Kashkari made the important point that all those government benefits, especially extended unemployment benefits, are work disincentives that may actually block job creation.  To be sure, there are signs that employment in the country is rising more rapidly these days. The February to July period was the first . . .

 Yahoo Finance, 08/11/14: ObamaCare Enrollment Falling Significantly, Insurers Reveal  Thanks to Charles Ornstein for giving me a heads' up about an article in Yahoo Finance (reposted from Investors Business Daily) today, which has a rather loaded headline and lede:  ObamaCare Enrollment Falling Significantly, Insurers Reveal   ObamaCare exchange statistics should clear up any doubt as to why the Obama Administration has been tight-lipped about enrollment since celebrating 8 million sign-ups in mid-April.  Reality, evidence suggests, could require quite a come-down from those lofty claims.  The nation's third-largest health insurer had 720,000 people sign up for exchange coverage as of May 20, a spokesman confirmed to IBD. At the end of June, it had fewer than 600,000 paying customers. Aetna expects that to fall to "just over 500,000" by the end of the year.

Yup, on the surface that does look pretty bad. Or, at least, it would, if a) that was representative of the trend as a whole and b) if I hadn't already addressed the "attrition" factor several times in the past.  Regarding the Aetna number: Yes, it's true, if Aetna ends the year with 500K paid QHPs by the end of the year, that would indeed represent a 30% drop from 720,000 paying customers. However, if you read the above quote carefully, notice that isn't what it says; it says they had 720K "sign up" as of May 20.

In fact, take another look at the last Investors Business Daily piece I've written about, and you'll notice something very interesting about halfway down:  Aetna says that out of 720,000 sign-ups, only about 580,000 were paid up by May 20, a payment rate of only 80.6%.  Hmm . . .  interesting, since according to Bloomberg News, Aetna's official testimony before Congress gave the paid number as in "the low to mid-80 percent range"...as of May 7th. "Low to mid-80's" would suggest around 83%, or 598K. Not sure how that number dropped by 18,000 over the next 2 weeks. Clerical error on Aetna's part?    The point is,  . . .

Hour Two

Tuesday  12 August 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: Luhansk is almost deserted; elders and children are suffering the most; a humanitarian disaster.

. . .  On Tuesday, it was reported that Russia was sending a convoy of 280 KamAZ trucks with about two thousand tons of humanitarian aid: food, including 400 tons of cereals, 100 tons of sugar, 62 tons of baby food, 54 tons of medical equipment and medicines, 12,000 sleeping bags and 69 power plants of various capacities.

An official representative for the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation, Alexander Drobyshevsky, told reporters that the destination point to deliver the humanitarian cargo to residents of the south-east of Ukraine would be determined in conjunction with representatives of the ICRC and the Ukrainian side. The three-kilometer-long convoy is to arrive to the border on Wednesday.  . . .

RUSSIA/UKRAINE. Ukraine Won’t Let “Humanitarian Aid” Convoy Cross – Ukraine won’t let a convoy of 280 trucks that Russia says are carrying humanitarian aid to cross into its territory in its current form as it doesn’t adhere to international rules and must be led by the Red Cross.

 

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen (2 of 4): John Kerry sees hope for easing of Ukraine tensions  The Secretary of State said Tuesday that the White House is cautiously optimistic that the ongoing crisis in Ukraine can be resolved with Russia with diplomacy. His comments came as a convoy of 280 Russian trucks headed for eastern Ukraine, a day after agreement was reached on an international relief mission.

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen (3 of 4): Ukraine: Far-Right Fighters from Europe Fight for Ukraine  Almost 80 years ago, ideological true believers from all over the world flocked to Spain to fight in a civil war, serving in the famed International Brigades on the Republican side. These days, echoes of Spain can be found in Ukraine, where foreign ideologues now can be found battling separatists backed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
 
So far, the scale of foreigners going to Ukraine to fight is far smaller than was the case during the Spanish Civil War. For example, of the roughly 250 volunteers in the Azov Battalion, an irregular unit fighting for the Ukrainian government, 12 are foreign and 24 reinforcements from abroad are expected to arrive soon.
 
“We are not mercenaries, we are volunteers who . . .

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen (4 of 4): Putin to travel to Crimea for a two-day tour   The Kremlin press service reported that on Wednesday the President would confer with members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation

Hour Three

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Eric Trager, Washington Institute, in re: Egypt's Western Security Concerns

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: More U.S. spacesuit problems  Two American spacewalks planned for this month have now been postponed until the fall due an issue with a fuse in the U.S. spacesuits’ batteries.

They have to now wait until replacement batteries are brought to the station by the next Dragon supply ship. Test results from NASA saucer Mars landing test  NASA has released video and test results from the first test flight of its Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD), referred by many press outlets as a “flying saucer” because of its shape.  The purpose of the test was to see if the saucer and its parachute would work to slow a vessel down sufficiently in the Martian atmosphere. The parachute tore and failed. The video describes the flight and the failure and how the data from this failure can now be used to modify the parachute for the next two test flights.

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block C:   Anna Nemstsova, Daily Beast, in re: In War-Torn Ukraine, Savva Libkin's Delicious Recipes for Survival   A century ago Odessa was a glorious city of the Belle Epoque. Then war and revolution came. A great chef who has fought to revive the old spirit says he fears history may repeat itself.   Savva Libkin, a wonderfully subtle chef, has a keen sense of what’s real and what’s fake, what’s pure and what’s pretentious when he tastes a glass of wine or a finely prepared filet of freshly caught fish. As a citizen of Odessa, that extraordinary pearl of a city on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, he als0 has an acute idea, too, of the line between repression and freedom.

Now, as his country faces the possibility of a widening civil war, and perhaps an even bigger war between the West and Russia, our conversation at his best-known restaurant, the Dacha, flows back and forth between epicurean delights and geopolitical threats.  Russian President Vladimir Putin and those around him want to reclaim a huge swath of Ukraine as something they call Novorussia, perhaps linking up with the chunk of Moldova they lopped off years ago and called Transdnistria. Already in the course of this year, Putin’s agents and sympathizers have amputated and annexed Crimea, then incited, aided and abetted the increasingly bloody conflict in the eastern Ukrainian region known as Donbass. In early May, Odessa was the scene of violent confrontations between . . .

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block D:  Paul Gregory, Hoover & Forbes, in re: Ukraine Officials: Rebels Were Trying to Down a Russian Passenger Plane, to Create Pretext for Invading Ukraine   The Ukrainian government has presented evidence that Russian-trained missile operators in east Ukraine intended to shoot down an Aeroflot A320 bound for Cyprus on July 17, but blame Ukraine for the tragedy. The rebels downed instead the Malaysian Boeing BA -0.27% 777—flight MH 17—by accident, instead of Aeroflot flight AFL 2074. “This cynical terrorist attack was planned for the day when the [Malaysia Airlines] plane happened to fly by, planned by war criminals as a pretext for the further military invasion by the Russian Federation; that is, there would be a casus belli,” said Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the head of Ukraine’s Security Service, to Ukraine Interfax News.

Only the most imaginative writer of fiction could dream up the plot of a head of state deliberately blowing up a planeload of his own citizens to advance his political agenda. Ukraine has accused Vladimir Putin of doing just that. Although we would like to dismiss such a claim out of hand, Putin’s own record requires that Ukraine’s charge be taken seriously. At the time of the blast, the two aircraft had converged over east Ukraine separated by 600 meters in altitude. International investigators from Holland, Australia and Malaysia will have to determine whether or not . . .

Hour Four

Image, below left: Egyptian memorial stone of a mercenary Levantine soldier drinking beer in the company of his Egyptian wife and child. XVIII Dynasty, 1350 BC.  The African history of early Judea, Samaria, Palestine.  The main Canaanite goddess was Athirat (Asherah, Ashtartian) 'the Lady of the Sea' or Elat 'the goddess'. She was El's loving consort and is protective mother of her seventy children, who also were known as the gracious gods, to whom she is both mother and nursemaid. Initially Astarte was one of her children, but over time the two became merged in some cultures. Canaanite goddesses were worshipped in many lands under different names.  Credit: thanks to RealHistoryWW.com   See Hour 4, Block A, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) by Eric H. Cline

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) by Eric H. Cline  In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the “Sea Peoples” invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen?

In this major new account of the causes of this “First Dark Ages,” Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries.

A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age—and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece. (1 of 4)

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) by Eric H. Cline (2 of 4)

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) by Eric H. Cline (3 of 4)

Tuesday  12 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) by Eric H. Cline (4 of 4)

 

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