The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 23 June 2020

Air Date: 
June 23, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 1, Block A: David Henderson, Hoover and WSJ, in re: The lockdown: how was the calculation made of the expected benefits of $7.9 trillion?  The Imperial College of London analysis was filled with analytic and coding errors, and concerned mitigation, only; estimated that we’d save 1.76 million lives within months. Wrong.   Economists figure that there’s a value of a statistical life.  Early on, Trump used the Imperial College numbers, product of a mistaken algorithm.  All the calculations have gone lower, incl the number of lives thought to be saved. Best study is from Berkeley: saved 76,000 lives.  Quarterly GDP estimate:  maybe 40% fall [diminution] for second quarter. I opposed the lockdowns from the start because it was all based on a model, not data. To reduce economic freedom for a few hundred million people for months based on a model is bad.  Cuomo issued an executive order in March requiring nursing homes to take in Covid-positive elders; 40% of the deaths were from there.
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 1, Block B: Daniel Griswold, Mercatus Center,  in re:  Trade the money for the wall for DACA? Didn't. Little pieces of the pie.  Constitutional/Supreme Court ruling, and ___  .  I think the Court got it wrong; the Executive has he right to end the program since it was created by Executive order I fear that the bar is now set too high: an Executive order becomes almost a fiat. It’s Congress who needs to fix this issue.  Will Congress continue to refuse this?  Perhaps under current situation. Trump: “Does anyone really want to throw out accomplished young people, some of whom have served  in the military.”  Unfortunately, some Republicans simply oppose it.  By definition, need to be in school with no felony conviction. Six or seven hundred thousand have applied; probably well over a million here.  We need them. By now, DACA children have their own children/.  Comprehensive immigration reform. We need to do this piecemeal.  Two-thirds of Americans support legalizing them.   Stephen Miler and other advisors on the farther right are dead-set against it.  
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 1, Block C:   Joseph Sternberg, WSJ political economics column; in London; in re: Protest in general, income inequality, safety.   Mass anger, twitter mob, Internet shaming, firing editors for wrong-think. Outrage has always been a source of political capital.  We have an outrage hyperinflation right now.  Each portion becomes worth less, so need more and more to maintain the level.  People trying to generate more outrage to cut through social media noise.
Cancel culture, “wokeness” never takes yes for an answer.  Once Greenspan called a bubble “irrational exuberance.”  Are we in a bubble-bldg phase?  Yes, an outrage bubble.  People can leverage it into speaking contracts, publishing. TV appearances.    Now, there’s so much you have to tune some of it out.   Bubbles collapse when no one says it’ll go higher.  One way may be when people realize you can't buy anything with this money any more. Already won’t buy social peace.  When will companies stop giving in to twitter mobs? 
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 1, Block D:   Joseph Sternberg, WSJ political economics column; in London; in re: Boris Johnson, who was elected for Brexit but has become the virus minister, has decided that two meters’ distance is no good for business; will use one meter.  Not much science on the topic.  Scientists said it’s a political question; pols said the needed scientific data.   We’ll have to accept a little more risk for an economy to function.  Traffic is picking up again; more people shopping wearing masks. Reduction of social distancing will help a lot—not just how many a store, but convenience.   Is the recovery V here?     Govt subsidized 80% of salary where the funds went through the employer to employee, maintaining the bond.  Brexit: are the EU and UK “whispering happily” to each other? Depends on whom you ask.    Can't predict how it’ll resolve at the end of this year.          .
 
Hour Two
STRATCACHE REPORT
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 2, Block A:  Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: US and global economies. The market keeps going higher; NASDAQ is leading the Dow. Today’s housing number was the most recent in a series of better-than-expected, up 17% over April.  No one has any idea how this is happening because we’ve never done this before.  Right now, it's clearly a V-shaped recovery, also in the UK, EU and China.  Pent-up demand, esp in housing.  Company burdens itself with too much debt in a new landscape? The scars of the 2008-2009 recession were deep; lack of liquidity was prominent. What we’ve seen here is companies’ preparing for the worst.   Rates are near zero.  All their numbers were wrong; why should we have confidence?  They decided to err on the side of caution. I give them some slack; the question is, where do we go from here?  The shutdown was damaging on the health front, from suicides to cancer patients’ not getting treatment.   We won’t do a shutdown again.  The extra $600 per week on unemployment insurance has prevented many from seeking work. 
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 2, Block B:  Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: Why are young people attracted to [chaos] in the public commons?  What alarms me is that the cancel culture refuses careful debate and demands [commonalty of thinking].  As for the elite schools that foster this, we should stop giving them money and tell them why. My friends do the first, but won’t say why out of fear of their own children not being given preference, or of their becoming unpopular with their associates. Woodrow Wilson segregated the military—appalling.  Talk of renaming Yale (Elihu Yale).  This is coming from a well of utter ignorance. Much of this has zero to do with Black Lives Matter, such as a Denver memorial of the Armenian genocide,  The effort to obliterate our history is to obliterate all that formed us. Note that people still seek to come here from all over the world, 
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 2, Block C:   The New World report. Joseph Humire,  ,  and Senator Maia Fernando Cabal of Bogota; in re; Israeli finds evidence of the murder of Nisman in Argentina, now linked to Iran and then-president Kirchner, Mme Kirchner is back in govt.  Allegation is that Kirchner was getting offshore funds allocated in her son’s name.  We still need more evidence.  Prosecutors are searching. If they find what’s needed, it's a game-changer.  Fifteen years ago I was director of intl affairs; got official confirmation request from Israel to get information about the Iranian agents [involved] who had visited Colombia.  Explosives that blew up AMIA came from Iran via Lebanon, through Hezbollah.  Venezuela: Maduro’s effort to drag the US into armed confrontation Bolton’s sole plan was that there’d be an uprising supporting regime-change.  Good to support Guaido, but have a Plan B in context of all South America.
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 2, Block D:  
Medellin is part of an older culture from an early migration, much Jewish and some Basque. Most white people in Colombia are from there. Many are deeply Catholic.   The mayor created a program of collective ___, thus finding those who were infected with the virus; results are very good in comparison to Bogota.  This is the most prosperous town in Colombia, very hard workers.  
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 3, Block A:  Bill McGurn, WSJ Editorial Boars, in re: Detroit.  Chief James Craig conducted policing so there was no damage in this [recent round].  . . . The huge difference between Detroit and New York is that in Detroit the police chief has the support of his mayor.
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 3, Block B:  Eugene Kontorovich, George Mason Law School, in re:  Israel’s friends are right to take the question of sovereignty seriously.  After decades, 53 years, of Palestinian rejectionism, all are suffering, Palestinians and Israelis, alike. Note the PA pay-for-slay program and its deeds in intl organizations. They’d rather shut down their entire govt than stop paying people to murder. 
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 3, Block C:   Dr Armand Balboni, Appili Therapeutics Inc, in re:  Inability of governors to protect elders in nursing homes.  Oral prophylaxis. 
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 3, Block D: Bill Whalen, Hoover, in re: The year 2024.
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 4, Block A:   Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew RobertsStephen Thorne (Narrator), Penguin Audio (Publisher). Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 4, Block B:   Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew RobertsStephen Thorne (Narrator), Penguin Audio (Publisher). Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 4, Block C:   Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew RobertsStephen Thorne (Narrator), Penguin Audio (Publisher). Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Tuesday 23 June 2020   / Hour 4, Block D:  Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew RobertsStephen Thorne (Narrator), Penguin Audio (Publisher). Audible Audiobook – Unabridged