Wednesday 15 April 2020
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleagues: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, and David Livingston, The Space Show
Hour One
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block A: Niall Ferguson, Hoover, in re: The slow recovery. Not a V-shaped recovery; more like a tortoise shell. Vaccine mid- to late next year. A lot of normal activities will be impossible till 2021. Those predicting a V-shaped recovery in our near future are the same people who predicted a V-shaped recovery in 2008, and they were wrong then. Useful to go back to Keynes’s piece, written during the epidemic of 1918, which predicted that the successive debt burden imposed on Germany would have bad consequences: inflation (of which there was, indeed, perhaps the worst in history), and that “vengeance would not limp” after Versailles. . . . We’ve closed down California and New York, . . . Federal reserve system injected trillions into the economy for Americans whose jobs have basically been abolished or put on hold. Keynes might say you’ve created fiscal shock, but opened the floodgates. In ’20-21: currently a very deflationary environment, but next year— will it require even greater austerity? The question is enormously difficult.
Two-tier recovery: one with the vaccine being medical, and the other, economic. Or three stages: 1. Resembling normal service; 2. Vaccine, people can go to normal places; 3. The extraordinary fiscal and monetary [activities]—enormous growth in the deficit in all major economies, being financed almost entirely by the central banks. Close but not the same as Modern Monetary Theory of dropping money from helicopters.
Bottom line is, at some point there has to be a fiscal adjustment. Radical Uncertainty, Decision-Making beyond the Numbers, by John Kay (Oxford) and Mervyn King.*
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block B: Niall Ferguson, Hoover, in re: Radical Uncertainty, Decision-Making beyond the Numbers, by John Kay (Oxford) and Mervyn King.* Chicago drew the difference between ____ and _____ . We’re sitting here desperately trying to work out what to do about a disease but we don’t know its reproduction or how many people have it. You can plug in all the guesstimates to your epidemiological model, but . . . Pandemics are rather like earthquakes or wars; can't attach probabilities. Trillions of dollars are being tossed around; we don't have formulas to say what this will do to this generation or the next. Same time, hundreds of billions in loans to companies that would otherwise be laying people off without the loans. In the short run, the right decision to avoid a total economic collapse. T some point the epidemic will die down but our economic distortions are [staggering]. The Fed is buying junk bonds. Is there any mkt discipline left? Overkill in that the lockdowns are a blunt instrument in a pandemic, and the cost probably exceeds the benefits. I think the Fed should not have gone into the junk-bond mkt nor that people should be paid more than they would have earned.
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*Numbers offer false security; we need instead robust narratives that yield the confidence to manage uncertainty. Some uncertainties are resolvable. The insurance industry’s actuarial tables and the gambler’s roulette wheel both yield to the tools of probability theory. Most situations in life, however, involve a deeper kind of uncertainty, a radical uncertainty for which historical data provide no useful guidance to future outcomes. Radical uncertainty concerns events whose determinants are insufficiently understood for probabilities to be known or forecasting possible. Before President Barack Obama made the fateful decision to send in the Navy Seals, his advisers offered him wildly divergent estimates of the odds that Osama bin Laden would be in the Abbottabad compound. In 2000, no one―not least Steve Jobs―knew what a smartphone was; how could anyone have predicted how many would be sold in 2020? And financial advisers who confidently provide the information required in the standard retirement planning package―what will interest rates, the cost of living, and your state of health be in 2050?―demonstrate only that their advice is worthless.
The limits of certainty demonstrate the power of human judgment over artificial intelligence. In most critical decisions there can be no forecasts or probability distributions on which we might sensibly rely. Instead of inventing numbers to fill the gaps in our knowledge, we should adopt business, political, and personal strategies that will be robust to alternative futures and resilient to unpredictable events. Within the security of such a robust and resilient reference narrative, uncertainty can be embraced, because it is the source of creativity, excitement, and profit.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block C: Michael Yon, East Asian journalist; in re: Virus in Thailand, and then in Hong Kong. Distinction between Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Bangkok started getting aggressive about the virus in January, incl tracing. Have been about 4,300 deaths so far. No overflowing hospitals. I think they take people’s temp everywhere, incl grocery stores, pharmacies: if you have a temp, they call t he police and make you go home or to the hospital. Citizens believe the government here. Recollect the fear of SARS. Every body wears masks anyway against air pollution. Stores are full of merchandise. Usually I hear aircraft going over my office, but haven’t heard one for weeks. Can drive 500 mi to Bangkok; en route, police will check your temperature. Thais often have a less-than rigorous attitude toward life; am surprised at the few infections and deaths.
Hong Kong: 1,000 people positive, and four deaths. Modest numbers. Economy has taken a terrible hit, but the insurgency is very much alive. Mong Kok area is the highest population density n the world, but still low numbers. Masks are everyday, and the govt closed the schools early, and they still are closed. In Thailand, some are gloomy, some are fine. Ordinarily, Thai people have a don't worry, be happy attitude. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8217471/First-case-DEAD-patient-passing-coronavirus-medical-examiner-reported-Thailand.html.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: James Holmes, Naval War College, in re: Japan and Taiwan watched the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and five accompanying vessels, a carrier group, which passed through the Miyako Strait, then passed east of Taiwan. China claims to have zero flu cases in its military (impossible), while the Theodore Roosevelt has a goodly number of cases and now, sadly, one death. An opportunistic passage by the Liaoning as the US Navy has reduced capabilities in the region.
Japan has a capable battle force; are they alarmed? Chinese maps with thick lines around Japan are a matter of concern. Bad blood between the two at least since the 1980s.[?]
Hour Two
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block A: John Catsimatidis, Red Apple Group, in re: The state of the city, state and Union. Suddenly, the number of deaths reported in the five boroughs shot up, based on the assumption that people who died did so of the virus even though they were never tested. It's all about the money: they added 3,700 to the number of virus deaths, and for each one the city gets paid $40,000 from the federal government. It’s all about profit. Doctors and nurses were told: “I don't care what the patient died of, write down ‘virus’.” It's also all about politics: six of seven states oppose Pres Trump; there’s an election in November. Governor Cuomo is a decent person and works hard—he and Trump are friends, their fathers were friends— they understand that they both have to play a game. Cuomo would love to be Biden’s VP. In Michigan: the governor banned buying seeds in Michigan “because it’s snowing.” She’s trying to make a name for herself in order to be chosen by Biden as VP. He’s a decent person, but he’s not the same as he was thirty years ago. People around him would [assume the duties of] the presidency. Committee to Unleash Prosperity newsletter.
President has suspended payments to he WHO pending an investigation. Should remove the top management and force he truth to come out. Facts show that the WHO is currently untrustworthy, so we have no bulwark against a future pandemic.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block B: John Fund, NRO, in re: Edits a new newsletter from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. It's witty and informative. California: to the governor, reopening means “never.” We can get there when we meet six requirements, including solve poverty and build more hospitals. Joel Hayes, USC, says the governor intends to be a lockdown czar, keep a dimmer switch on or off depending on conditions. It's preposterous. Almost 40 million people in California. San Luis Obispo County has had one death. Yet waiters have to wear gloves and masks, and must use only half the tables No restaurant can afford to stay open. The governor is a Getty-family trust fund baby, has ever held an actual job. Long-term, semi-permanent lockdown looks unconstitutional to me. Retail stores will have to take out half their shelving, so carry only half the stock. Right now there’s a slow convoy to the Michigan capital to protest: you’re forbidden to go to your Upper Peninsula home, but Wisconsinites may go there. You cannot buy gardening material, but can buy beer and lottery tickets. In San Diego, sheriffs ticketed people watching the sunset in their cars. I remember the Hong Kong flu, which was at least as dangerous as the Wuhan flu.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block C: Senator Marsha Blackburn (R; TN-7); in re: We had tornadoes. As for the virus, we follow CDC rules, wearing masks and staying at home, and look forward to getting back to business very, very soon.
The Securing American Medicine Cabinet Act of 2020: most of our prescriptions’ API, active pharmaceutical ingredients, come from China. Bringing mfrg back to the US: $100 mil for pharmaceutical firms and academe to partner. We should never put ourselves I this position of letting this happen ever again. Senators Rubio, Cotton, Sullivan, all are reviewing our supply chain, making certain we aren’t solely dependent on one country or even one factory. National security matter: our people’s health. Let's also bring back electronics, and telecommunications, esp Huawei. I believe the president and vice-president are aware of our bill, as I think is Mr Kudlow. Senator Menendez of New Jersey has joined, is the lead Democratic sponsor. It is wisdom to doubt China.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block D: Irina Tsukerman, international human-rights attorney and national security analyst; in re: In the southwest of Iran, 3 to 4 million Ahwazi Arabs, who work in the rich oil fields there. The Ahwazis have been persecuted for a long time. In the Netherlands and Denmark, on 3 Feb Danish and Dutch authorities arrested four Ahwazi activists: one in Netherlands, charged with terrorism and spying for Saudi Arabia. Why? This is not the first time such charges have been raised against Ahwazis activists in Europe, and Iran is somehow always behind it. This is a form of lawfare: using Netherlands and Denmark to prosecute people
All three in Denmark are in complete isolation, may speak with no one but a court-appointed attorney who refuses to speak with anyone, incl families. They’re accused of industrial spying—in pig farming? I was able to visit the man in the Dutch jail in a maximum-security prison where he was incarcerated with ISIS terrorists and Iranian terrorists.
One of the four is a TV presenter. Iranian propaganda talking points are being published in European papers. “Spying for Saudi Arabia” – this is a bizarre charge, since Saudis have no interest in anything in Holland or Denmark. Just before the arrest of these four, Denmark established a very lucrative deal with Iran, as did the Netherlands. In the time of the virus the Iranian regime, completely beggared by the virus, is using lawfare against four activists in northern Europe.
Hour Three
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block A: Salena Zito, In the Middle of Somewhere column for the Washington Examiner; also CNN and New York Post, in re: The flu is moving though a landscape that Salena knows well. The Capital Hill Limited is the train that comes by daily from Chicago, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh at 5:320 AM), West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland to Washington D.C. For some, this is the only way to go to Washington during the crisis, with no buses and no planes. In New York, the Acela is much cut back. Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation. This was the first year since 1971 that Amtrak trains were going to break even, with over 800,000 new riders. The virus has changed many things.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block B: Salena Zito, In the Middle of Somewhere column for the Washington Examiner; also CNN and New York Post, in re: Amtrak bailout for the virus. Sam Kenton was the namesake of Kenton County, whose jail in Covington, Kentucky, is partially releasing prison population to protect them from the virus; using virtual outsourcing, call-ins. Zoom conferences in use.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block C: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: SpaceX manned launch in May
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:
Hour Four
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block A: Cleo Pascal, non-resident senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in re: India in the time of the virus
https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/time-practice-social-distancing-ccp
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block B: Steve Yates, former deputy national security advisor to Vice President Cheney and currently CEO of DC International Advisory, in re: Taiwan and the WHO. Trump's defunding of the WHO, and https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taiwan-s-coronavirus-success-bolsters-case-joining-who-experts-say-n1179196
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block C: Hotel Mars, Harold Connoly, NASA, in re: Bennu and Ryugu asteroids.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block D: Hotel Mars, Harold Connoly, NASA, in re: Bennu and Ryugu asteroids.
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