JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:  Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus, in re: The SBA for many years has been woefully inadequate in responding to any disaster. The PPP, payroll protection program, is not specifically a disaster act, but it’s become a nightmare for applicants.  Even the 7A loan has always been ghastly to deal with: burdensome in its application, and the SBA is simply not responsive.  The application has intrusive and offensive demands that in no way correspond to the  CARES Act.  In Katrina, the apps made it easy for the banks to deny because it was easier to deny than offer the loan. Meanwhile, the inefficient SBA is overwhelmed.  Ninety-plus per cent of American businesses are defined as “small”—having fewer than 500 employees—but it’s easy for huge businesses, such as chain restaurants, to apply for each of its stores.  And they have a lot more  practice.  “Certifications and authorization, No. 2483: I certify that to the extent feasible I’ll purchase only American-made products.”  Of course I will, but the point of all this is to be prompt, and how can I know what percentage of an item I buy on Amazon is US-made?
     How will the SBA train all the staff it needs right now?  After Katrina, it was still backlogged for three years, and actually dispersed some tiny amount of the loan requests.  Same for 2008.
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The Mercatus Center's Veronique de Rugy <https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mercatus.org%2Fscholars%2Fveronique-de-rugy&data=02%7C01%7Ckbrown%40mercatus.gmu.edu%7Cb8be791f111944060a8a08d7db273ab4%7C3935d3b92ba64346b5fc782c3b401577%7C0%7C0%7C637218833851912001&sdata=7VQduuggU6Dm80%2B42Rrow0MF5B4GrhAJf5Qo9worY%2BI%3D&reserved=0> says this additional money being allocated is no surprise, given all the small businesses that were forced to shutdown amidst the pandemic. But the SBA has a terrible track record responding to emergencies and there shouild be a better way to institute this funding:

It was obvious from the start that the $350 billion originally allocated for the Payroll Protection Program wasn’t going to be enough. First, it was wholly inadequate to cover all the small businesses that were forced to shut down their activities by state and local governments around the country (according to the SBA, 99. 7 percent of businesses in the US are small with fewer than 500 employees). The strain was made worse when congress broadened the definition of small business to include hotel and restaurant properties from large hotel and restaurant chains who wouldn’t otherwise qualify as small. It will also be strained by the fraud that is likely to take place when employers with too many employees fire them to fit in under the 500 employee limit.

That said, increasing the program without finding a better way than to channel it through the Small Business Administration is a big problem. The agency has a long track record of failing during emergencies. In addition, SBA is not fit to handle so many loans in such a short period of time. For PPP to succeed, you need more than additional funds.

Finally, Congress needs to look at the ways that PPP and the unemployment benefit interact with one another. The extreme generosity of the UI program may cause some small businesses to lose their employees preventing them from applying to the PPP without any fault of their own.
 
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block B: Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus, in re: Small business is the driver of American business and progress. If they can't sustain employees, then the CARES Act is supposed to be designed to protect the in this crisis:  100% salary plus $600.  This is generous is many ways, and flexible; considering that businesses are shutting down by order of the government, this is fair. When we’re allowed to go out and work, it's important that everyone return. Some will decide they're getting more not working than working, and in a way it interacts poorly with the payroll protection program.  Another provision is that people are getting checks for $1,200  . . .
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block C: Joseph Humire,  ,  and Senator Maria-Fernanda Cabal, Colombia:  In The Guardian, tragic photos of bodies just left in the street in Ecuador.   Population is 16 million people. The mortality rate in Ecuador is 5%, but 1% in Chile.  Most of the infection is coming from the port city of Guayaquil.  Two hospital beds per thousand people. Government wholly unprepared. Distributing cardboard coffins.  Colombia’s southern border is Ecuador.  Colombia’s governor of that province is worried about medical treatment, and also Venezuelan refugees.  More than 400,000 Ecuadorean migrants living in Spain, many of whom returned to family in Ecuador carrying the virus. Both Cuba and China have endeavored to use medical diplomacy to insert themselves in South America.  A drug named Alph2B is Cuban, is being presented as a possible virus cure and it is not. Venezuelans are walking back to their families from Chile, Peru, Ecuador.  Situation is very difficult for the poor. Many have been pushed out of their rentals; Yesterday and before, police helped families to get to the frontier, where they’re very badly treated buy their own guards.  One said they’d all be isolated.  They suffer, have run away to find enough work to eat. Now they see that all they have is their families in Venezuela.
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: Joseph Humire,  ,  and Senator Maria-Fernanda Cabal, Colombia:  Venezuela, an oil-rich country—the largest oil reserve in the world— is out of gasoline. Massive mismanagement. Hugo Chavez kicked out the best oil engineers, who fled, and installed cronies who knew nothing It's heavy crude, needs to be refined; many of the refineries are in the US.  And yes, there’s extensive hoarding, of food and gas, by the military on orders from Maduro, who apportions these to those he favors and keeps others without food. Colombian presiet maintains diplomacy with Venezuela, in view of local narcotraffickers and other matters.  Cocaine, gold and minerals: these are physically stopped. I think the time of Maduro is drawing nigh.  Russia is quiet; it's China who’s prolonging Maduro’s power.   In Brazil, an article blaming China for the Wuhan virus; China aggressively pushed back, in propaganda and its “medical diplomacy.”   Bolsonaro and team prefer the US, but still has to deal with China in large business operations that persist.  Ecuador’s tragedy dwarfs those of others.
 
Hour Two
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  John Catsimatidis,  Red Apple Media, in re:  I find it very disturbing to see New York as a ghost town for more than two or three days, for exmple during hurricanes, snowstorms, 9/11. Here, we can't see the enemy. Will it change all our lifestyles in the city? We have theater, Yankee Stadium City Field, vast numbers of things to do.  It's a bad science fiction movie. Easter Sunday is coming; 2,000 churches will be closed. Found a church on Madison Avenue, where I sat for a bit to feel better; now it's closed.  This afternoon, a few of us were talking: the CDC has decreed that no matter how someone dies, he must be said to have died of the virus if he shows evidence of having had the virus.  What are the real numbers??  We can't know right now; at some point, we’ll get the numbers.
Another success is that leadership is coming to the fore. Andrew Cuomo is giving good information.  I always appreciate it when a politician tells the ruth. We have Donald Trump for two hours a day, and it feels as though we have Andrew Cuomo for two hours a day.   Joe Biden will be the nominee at a virtual convention. What happens in November?  In times of crisis, unless the incumbent makes a terrible mistake, Americans tend to say, Let’s vote for the guy we know.  FDR got four terms; I think our democracy is safe.
In Gristede’s, all managers have thermometers to test all employees as they arrive, and we've installed sneeze guards to protect the cashiers.
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  John Yoo, Berkeley, Hoover, AEI, in re: China withheld, and still withholds, critical information. It’s pellucid that the virus came from China, and that Chinese officials know that it was transmitted from human to human; demanding that vials of samples be destroyed.   China has a veto at the UN Security C9uncil, and rejects international court rulings against it. Best thing to do is for he US and other nations is to enforce international rules of the game.  US cannot sue China in any intl court—it's been very good at corrupting intl institutions, such as the WHO; countries would have to go to their own national courts. This is what nations did historically We're losing a trillion dollars a month, and hundreds of thousands of people are dying around the world.
Chines property in the US. Trade with the US.  Parallel with the Versailles Treaty?  . . .  China will keep doing this. Pandemics keep originating in China, and their pollution poisons their neighbors.  We need to show them the cost: impose trade sanctions; cut off scientists coming here; seize Chinese corporations’s property and use that to compensate our own citizens. Italy could reclaim its ports and let China have to sue by claiming, “No, we’re not responsible for the virus.”
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Simon Constable, Forbes; in Edinburgh, in re: We have plenty of food; all the shops are closed and people keep a polite distance.  Take-out doesn’t include Guiness since all the pubs are closed.  The sun is returning and the birds are cheerful .  The cost tot the economy of keeping everyone out of work is enormous.
Boris Johnson, once an ally to Scotland and then something of an adversary. Independentistas in Scotland didn’t care for him; but as the PM grew ill and the Queen made a speech, we’re all sticking together. He’s got mojo and we’re all cheering for him.  The Scottish health minister resigned because she violated her own advice—twice.
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block D: Hotel Mars, episode n.  David Livingston, The Space Show, with Bill Harwood, CBS Space News, in re: NASA and how it deals with the virus. About 75% of the civil service staff is working at home.  Some work must continue, incl ISS.  Moscow.  Hubble Space Telescope.  Orion. Benu.  Osiris Rex.  ESU. Quarantines. Soyuz: Baikonur. 
 
Hour Three
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block A: Salena Zito, The Middle of Somewhere for the Washington Examiner; and NY Post and CNN; in re:  In Pennsylvania, Erie healthcare.  Remote work. How are people working at home and paying the bills?  Erie Insurance?? employs 6,000 people nationally. Decision to do telework was because of technology. Then. . . the poorest zip code in the state was just getting in gear with aid for new restaurants, bars, venues. That was all shut down, a struggle of the employees. Truck drivers!
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  Salena Zito, The Middle of Somewhere for the Washington Examiner; and NY Post and CNN; in re:  A good thirty people to one patient in elective surgery.  Today, fewer accidents because of less driving and cycling. So a lot of  healthcare workers have been furloughed.  . . .  All around, people are carefully following the governmental advice and requests. 
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: Roscosmos says the Trump Administration intends to grab planets. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 include  a clause that forbids any nation from establishing its legal framework on any asteroid, moon, planet. Now, if you can’t, you have no way of protecting the property or legal right s of anyone who wants to establish a business here. US Congress has passed law saying that anything you mine there belongs to you.  . . .  This makes the US pirates?
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: Weaker Sun cycle  2025 predicted.   The ramp up to a Solar Maximum is fast; the ramp down is slow.  Comet Borisov: going to break apart? Carbonaceous chondrites. Comet 67 TCG wasn't a rubble pile, but wasn’t packed tightly. Ice sublimates into a gas, and pieces can break off.   Reaffirms the probability that it’s similar to ancient asteroids form the early days of another solar system.  On April 11, will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo mission.
 
Hour Four
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block A: Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs, in re: Rethinking Australia t become self-sufficient.  It had a rich agricultural history, industrialized for World War I, then again for WWII, producing advanced aircraft, ships, artillery.  Great history of innovations and self-reliance; then became a “post-industrial society,” not produce. Industrial capacity was sold off. Left today is a country wit vast energy reserves that can’t even tap its own gas. In the time of the virus, sees how dependent its become.  Worry that China will dump goods on to the Australian market.  An awakening concerning impractical Green proposals. 
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block B: Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs, in re: Australia intends to build twelve new submarines (perhaps of concern to China, which thinks it can control the waters without competition), went for a French sub, intended to remove nuclear power and installed conventional; cost shot up from half-billion dollars per vessel to three billion per vessel. Overwhelmingly large, unsustainable.   Air force: wanted VSTOLs, probably can’t afford after the virus, especially not for operations or manpower. China has been highly critical of Australian defense capability. Do you see the CCP looking to take advantage of post-virus weakness, to undermine Australian sovereignty?  Yes, and all over he world. Will dump consumer products on foreign markets to prevent nations from regaining independence.   I’m getting calls even from Africa showing the anger against China is palpable.
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block C: Marc Coleman, Octavian.id ; author and banker, in re: Ireland after the disaster.  What works in Ireland will work in individual states around the world. Watch for: 1.  loose talk casts livelihood.  “If you can't be strong, you’ve got to be clever.”   Negative economic pornography.  Negative information needs to be reported in a sober manner, or it’ll be hard to recover.    In Ireland, we don't even have a government yet, after elections, but we have unity. Gesellschaft for large countries; Gemeinschaft for small countries (Weber).  . .  The liquidity push doesn’t matter if you don't have the demand pull. Need to coordinate globally. This is a perfectly avoidable crisis.  Dublin is now debating this, announced a one billion package and discussing a full lockdown or a more compromising solution.
        Gesellschaft: social relations based on impersonal ties, as duty to a society or organization.
        Gemeinschaft: social relations between individuals, based on close personal and family ties; community.
Wednesday 8 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block D:  Ryan Young, Competitive Enterprise Institute, in re:   The regulatory state.  Telemedicine is turning out to be very, very important. Until recently, it was illegal for a physician to use his personal phone. . . . The (“obscure, wonky”) Davis-Bacon Act, from the 1930s or earlier: sets high minimum wages for construction workers. Ergo, can't hire as many workers. We have seven million unemployment claims, greater than ever before by a factor of ten. 
The #NeverNeeded campaign, a campaign to eliminate needless regulations that hindered our country's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, is gaining steam, and my guys at the Competitive Enterprise Institute are heading up the campaign.
The new report in its entirety:  https://cei.org/content/how-repeal-neverneeded-regulations-can-help-responses-covid-19-crisis