The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 20 June 2017

Air Date: 
June 20, 2017

Photo:
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, The Kudlow Report, CNBC; and Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 1, Block A: Gregory Zuckerman, Wall Street Journal, and author; in re: Investors pulling out of hedge funds, ploughing into quants (rely on computers and algos).  Vanguard is up almost 6%, whereas hedgies are a fraction of that. Conference today on learning how to be a quant: reps rom top hedgies and Wall Street firms. 
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 1, Block B:  Gregory Zuckerman, Wall Street Journal, and author; in re:  Neel Kashkari at the Minnesota Fed wants no more Fed hikes.  Deterioration of the US economic story.  Oil, inflation rate, mfrg, production, retailing, everything, is either down or underperforming.  . . . Too long too far, with too-low interest rates, Meanwhile, the date are weakening, Absent a tax or Obamacare overhaul, how can we get to 3%?  If not 3%, no Fed hike.  Keynes: “If the facts change, [my opinion] must change.”  Quants base their research on history and can change on the fly.  Sophisticated investors a that the market is to complicated to grasp, eed someone who can grasp and integrate all the data.
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 1, Block C: James Taranto, WSJ, in re: Georgia Congressional race, voting today:   53.2% GOP, Karen Handel, to 48-plus% for Dem, Jon Ossoff.  [Ends as 53%-47%] It’s normal for an incumbent to win, but this has been a major PR fight.  Reality check for overconfident Dems and worried Republicans.  . . .  Get the bill passed that you can – all Republicans favor business tax cuts.  The clock is ticking, August recess.  . . . Depleted US military & sequestration – 2012 compromise between GOP wanting to cut domestic spending and Dems, who wanted to cut the military; so both were cut, leading to a depleted military — as the enemy of the military.  Endgame of the Middle Eastern military mess? “Peace through strength.  But Pres Trump doesn’t have the money to do that; e.g., pulling the Kitty Hawk out of mothballs—but we don't have an air wing for it or the trained staff to man it.  Cannot project that power to defend our allies. JB: We shot down an armed Iranian drone over Syria today – didn't use the deconfliction zone.  .   LK: I’m a well-armed dove. Afgh: the military has been given a green light – but whither?  JB: Afghanistan is where armies go to die. It's where we go for our budget to die. 
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, in re:  Three easy pieces [Lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 15 percent. Grant immediate expensing for new business investment. And establish a small, one-time, 10 percent rate for the repatriation of offshore cash.   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448467/three-easy-pieces-corporate-tax-cut-economic-plan-prosperity]  : tax cuts where 70% of the benefits go to wage earners; repatriate $3 trillion overseas;    .  There exits 4 days to pass everything and deal with the budget.  Might stay in Washington over the summer to get it all done.  Do not have to use CBO estimates! Health care reform, tax reform – everything is available, but the strategy must be correct.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / 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:  Frontier from the Baltic to the Black Sea to the Med.  NATO has just deployed a Canadian deployment in the Baltic; US has a tank brigade in Eastern Europe.  A Russian plane going very close to a NATO aircraft over the Baltic.  Conflict continues.  Syria, the alarming news: an F-18A Hornet shot down a Syrian Sukhoi over western Syria, to which Russia [not surprisingly] responded harshly. 
Russiagate; Syria.  When George Carlin and I were young, he had a routine as a radio broadcaster in a small town: “Nuclear war in Europe; details after the sports.”  I’ve been saying that  a ne Cuban missile crisis is increasingly possible.  Such an episode occurred on Sunday: A US plane shot down a Russian warplane [in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian president].  Moscow went silent; then on Monday afternoon made a very very tough statement: A transgression. (Recall the SS 400 antimissile system) From this moment on, Russia will target any American nonlegitimate aircraft flying in Syria—target it, warn it and, if it didn’t leave the area, shoot it down.  A day later, the Pentagon issued a statement of capitulation, wisely.   There currently are serious, behind-the scenes talks tween Trump Adm and Putin Adm on Syria. Forces that endeavored to sabotage Obama’s negotiations are doing it again to Trump.
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 2, Block B:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; & author; in re: US has just shot down an Iranian drone over a Syrian city.  Russian govt has said: “Do it again and we’ll shoot your planes down.”  Someone [American] did a provocation and has been instructed by the WH to stand down.  I assume it wasn't Trump or one of his people who ordered the shootdown, [if for no other reason] because he’s in negotiations with Russia right now on Syria.  Is Trump in control of the DoD or US foreign policy? We’ll see.   Late today, a Russian fighter plane over the Baltic Sea flew “within five feet” of a US plane.  Really?  And US media say the US plane was there for defensive reasons.  If a Russian warplane took a leisurely look at the Statue of Liberty, for example, would we consider that defensive? 
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 2, Block C:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; & author; in re:  Syria and the on-again/off-again deconfliction zone.  Ukrainian battle space. The Baltic States.  Major war games later this summer, Zapad ( = West).  Tillerson suggests that Russia and Ukraine speak directly.   Poroshenko (Ukraine) is in an extremely perilous position; fled to Moscow; asked for ten minutes to speak with Trump, which he was accorded.   Deep divisions within European countries about whom to favor in this sort of squabble, Russia or US.  US Senate passed utterly uninformed sanctions vs Russia, 98 to 2, with Rand Paul being one of the dissenters; sanctions affect a new, critical gas pipeline from Russia to Europe, Nord2.   Germany, Austria and one other, protest the sanctions; one country said that if the sanctions passed the House, it’d sanction the US. Europe is drifting away from the American position.  . . . ELF is deeply dependent on Iranian oil.  Russia takes Iran’s spent fuel and prevents it from being used for other purposes; Russia thus is the guarantor of Obama’s agreement.
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 2, Block D:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; & author; in re: Russiagate.  We’ve learned from the men at the head of intell agencies
Brennan CIA
Clapper DNI
Comey FBI
--claimed that 17 agencies had said that Russia had interfered.  Not accurate; only CIA, FBI and NSA.
. . . Brennan: “Americans who have contacts with Russians can be going along a treasonous path and not know it till it's too late.” This is paranoia and insanity. 
Clapper said in Australia and on Meet the Press: “Russia is genetically driven to coopt and penetrate foreigners.”
Comey testified under oath that he, himself, had been a secret leaker dangerous material (although he was tasked with ferreting out leakers).    
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 3, Block A:  Josh Rogan, Washington Post, in re: Otto Warmbier.
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 3, Block B:  Paul Gregory, Hoover, in re:
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 3, Block C:  Patrick Tucker, technology editor for Defense One, and author, The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?; in re:  Aircraft. http://www.defenseone.com/voices/patrick-tucker/8219/
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 3, Block D: Patrick Tucker, technology editor for Defense One, and author, The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?; in re: Aircraft. http://www.defenseone.com/voices/patrick-tucker/8219/
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 4, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com and author, Capitalism in Space; in re: 
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 4, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com and author, Capitalism in Space; in re:
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 4, Block C:   Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (part VI of VIII)
Tuesday 13 June 2017 / Hour 4, Block D:   Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (part VI of VIII)