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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council under US Pres Donald Trump.
 
Hour One
THE NATIONAL AND GLOBAL BUSINESS REPORT
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 1, Block A: Elizabeth Peek, FoxNews.com and TheHill.com, in re: . . . Esp housing, which has been high this year, incl carrying costs (meaning, inter al., higher mortgage rates) and so postpone purchases.  The Fed is slowing down certain sectors. If it does raise rates, that means it thinks the economy is good and it won't let inflation get outside its control; but inflation is only 1.7 % right now, well below the 2% level of concern. Ergo, why accelerate a slowdown? Now the rate hike is controversial
Also, while we were recently in a synchronized global recovery, the rest of the world is now in retreat — notably, the EU & China—so why would the US be the only country to do slow down intentionally?
Stan Druckenmiller ran a WSJ op-ed making these points and also: You're already shrinking the amazing balance sheet, so liquidity goes out of the marketplace, which also slows economic growth.
Xi Jinping has now made a controversial speech: The Party is right, I am right; there’ll be no change. Interesting time for him to establish his turf on the 40th anniversary of the opening of China. There may be serious domestic blowback against his harsh, one-man rule.  Mo tariffs by ht US could really hurt.
In China, workers are going to factories, working, and not getting paid.
Main Street is bullish: John tried to buy Oculus Risk for his son ($349) — and they can't ship it for at least a month.
The Atlanta Fed wage tracker  has just moved up to 3/9%, which is very high. The US is an island of growth. If you listen to the main media, you’ll be so alarmed – almost as though they're talking themselves into a slowdown; the wall of worry could create a slowdown.  Earnings are up 20%, stocks are down a great time to buy.
 
THE NATIONAL AND GLOBAL BUSINESS REPORT
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 1, Block B:  Elizabeth Peek,  Fox News.com  and TheHill.com, in re: Last night Chris Matthews said there were 17 different investigations into Trump; he asserted, “You resign now and we won’t put you in jail — in exchange for not putting your sons and daughter in jail.”  What's happening?
Very disheartening. Most of the investigations were ginned up by ambitious attorneys-general.  The discussions on Gen Flynn, it strikes me as so grossly unfair, that the DoJ and FBI have behaved very badly. Compare Gen Flynn’s interview with that of Hillary Clinton, who was allowed to bring nine lawyers in with her and it wasn’t recorded.  . . . I think this is making many people very angry.   Joe Biden: “Also, most anyone can beat Donald Trump.” Dems gather around him because they think Biden can take industrial states.  
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 1, Block C:   Bill Whalen, Hoover, writes Area 45; in re: (J: Looking to 2020: Joe Biden is popular; also Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke; but esp Joe Biden. Surprise: also Mitt Romney.) On the same ticket!   Teddy Roosevelt created the Bull Moose Party. What would be the power arrangements?  What would Biden give Romney? Not domestic or foreign policy. Judges? No obvious way for this to work.  . . . The media will run a candidate; I think Biden-Romney.
OK, but the problem is, what do they have in common politically? Other than hatred of Trump, what in common? How about common ground for a Supreme Court nominee. Oops — in Ohio.
If this third-party ticket swept, it’d still have only a hundred-odd Electoral College votes. More like a 1992 Perot candidacy. Do we vote for the presidential candidate or the VP?
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 1, Block D:   Bill McGurn, Wall Street Journal, in re:  How demographic groups were treated and masked in the Twentieth Century. Still today – Bill DeBlasio is the progressive New York City mayor who apparently doesn't worry about discrimination against ethnic groups..  I went from a high school that that was 70% Jews to Princeton, where there were only a handful of Jews.
In a lot of the Ivies, there was fear that in a fair race, maybe the Jews would beat “us.” 
DeBlasio has eight schools where the entrance is by passing a certain, highly-competitive exam – where Asians are strong – and the mayor proposes simply to steal a lot of the seats to put in non-Asians. At present, I think it's currently made up of about two-thirds poor kids.  ‘The Discovery Program”: you come in just under the test, but have a lot of other things going for you, then you can get in; that’s about 5%.  DeBlasio is including mostly Black and Latino kids; if you're poor and Asian, you’re flat out of luck. Harvard has developed a Likeability test where Asians seem to score lower in “amiability, kindness, social mixing.”  Thumb on the scales.  A tremendous racial disparity in New York City schools in achievement for Blacks and Latinos.  The mayor won’t do anything substantive to correct this because he’s in bed with the teachers’s unions. An indictment, a huge failure. Most kids  are _not_ reading or doing math at grade level. Black children are being prepared for a life at the fringes.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; 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, the US, and the new cold war. (1 of 4)
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 2, Block B:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; 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, the US, and the new cold war.  (2 of 4)
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 2, Block C:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; 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, the US, and the new cold war.  (3 of 4)
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 2, Block D:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; 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, the US, and the new cold war.  (4 of 4)
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 3, Block A:  Andrew C McCarthy, III, Esq; in re: General Flynn and Michael Cohen. (1 of 2)
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 3, Block B:  Andrew C McCarthy, III, Esq; in re: General Flynn and Michael Cohen. (2 of 2)
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 3, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack,com, in re: The Sun, and clouds (1 of 2)
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 3, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack,com, in re: The Sun, and clouds (2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 4, Block A:  Debra J. Saunders, White House Correspondent, Las Vegas Review-Journal. Columnist, Creators syndicate; in re: Nevada now looks very blue; no longer purple and surely not red. Harry Reid’s backing helps. The Las Vegas Culinary Union is powerful and got out the vote.  Big Latino vote in LV. Every Republican in Nevada lost except the Secretary of State.  Candidate Trump visited twice.
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 4, Block B:  Dr. David Adesnik, director of research at Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; in re: Turkey
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 4, Block C:  First to Jump: How the Band of Brothers Was Aided by the Brave Paratroopers of Pathfinders Company; by Jerome Preisler 
Tuesday 18 December 2018/ Hour 4, Block D:  First to Jump: How the Band of Brothers Was Aided by the Brave Paratroopers of Pathfinders Company; by Jerome Preisler