The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 31 March 2020

Air Date: 
March 31, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:   Larry Johnson, Sic Semper Tyrannis, in re: ICU nurses.
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 1, Block B:   Paul Gregory, Hoover, in re: Virus and Switzerland
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 1, Block C:   Joseph Humire, Center for a Secure Free Society, and Senator Maria Cabal (Colombia), in re: Venezuela and Colombia—the virus
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 1, Block D:   Joseph Humire, Center for a Secure Free Society, and Senator Maria Cabal (Colombia), in re: Venezuela and Colombia—the virus
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:   Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: We’ve never before stomped on our economy.  Japan.  The president has got in hot water for raising hopes that there may be therapies —hydroxychloraquine and zithro—as well as blood plasma treatments developing, and others. Ways to mitigate the severity of this disease. Modelling is all guesswork, but it’s got a little more refined. I suspect we’ll see the peak incidence in the US within a month. J&J has news.  If the disease resurges in the fall, perhaps we’ll have [better medical solutions] by then.  I think the guess is that we’ll lose half a million jobs[?].  The CARES Act is designed in many moving parts.  It's designed to get cash in the hands of small businesses, esp so they don't furlough or dismiss  their employees. Banks are waiting for direction; over the next weeks, businesses will have incentives and cash in hand. If any of your listeners owns a small business (with several reasonable caveats), you can now get a loan to keep your business going.  You can now borrow from a bank for payroll, utilities, rent, and money to keep the firm going; you can return the money or pay 3.7% to the bank.
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:   Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: Joe Biden. He’s campaigning using video packages from his basement. He’s charmingly warm, rather like Mr Rogers.  EP: His major challenge is that his appearances on networks have been horrible. He’s not good in this context. He’s struggling to put together any kind of presentation with a message.  It’s not good for him to adopt as vicious a line of attack as Pelosi and Schumer have (Pelosi: “Trump has blood on his hands”).   During the swine flu epidemic, he didn't do anything.  I think that the more people see of him, the less of an advantage he’ll have.  The enthusiasm difference between him and Trump in enormous.  As a result, the Biden camp is pushing mail-in voting, called “ballot harvesting.” Bernie Sanders: 17% of his followers say they’ll vote for Trump.
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Joseph Sternberg, WSJ, in re: Boris Johnson and Margaret Thatcher.  . . .   Thatcher in 1987 said, “There’s no such thing as ‘society’; there are individuals”  What she was saying is : There’s no impersonal society; rather, a complex web of individuals.   BoJo now asserts that “There really is such a thing as society.”  We’re at a Churchillian moment . . .
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 2, Block D:  Joseph Sternberg, WSJ, in re:  Life in London during the virus.
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 3, Block A:  David J Blumberg, @davidblumberg, founder: Blumberg Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm; in re:  Startups surviving in virus. 
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  David J Blumberg, @davidblumberg, founder: Blumberg Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm; in re:  Startups surviving in virus. 
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  Commercial space bankruptcy reorganization 
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 3, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: Mars’s volcanoes.
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 4, Block A:  Frank A. Stasiowski, FAIA, and CEO & founder of PSMJ Resources, Inc., dedicated to  A/E/C (Architects and Engineers ) firms; in re: AEC and the virus.
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 4, Block B:  David Beckworth, Mercatus Center; in re:  Recovery and the Fed.
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 4, Block C:  Marc Coleman, author and banker in Ireland;  in re:  Economic recovery in Ireland after the virus.
Tuesday 31 March 2020 / Hour 4, Block D:  Bud Weinstein, director of  Maguire Energy Institute at SMU; in re:   The energy markets.