Wednesday 01 April '09 show

• Quote: "There is nothing that war has ever achieved we could not better achieve without it.", Havelock Ellis.
• Quote: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." Rogers, Kung Fu Monkey.
• Article: Obama Putting Our Tax Dollars On Auto Pilot: Major media pushed for bailout billions when many knew it was throwing good money after bad. Dan Gainor.
• Article: GM and Chrysler: Pragmatism, Not Socialism, Angus MacKenzie.
  "You could hear the collective gasp across the nation yesterday as President Obama announced that, in effect, the government was taking control of the destinies of both GM and Chrysler. Within minutes, the "S" word was being bandied about by numerous commentators; by their reckoning America was now well on the way to becoming -- shock! horror! -- a socialist nation.What nonsense. Yesterday's announcement was about pragmatism, not socialism.

  The Obama Administration has clearly realized something regular Motor Trend readers will recognize as a familiar theme: the American-owned auto industry needs to get smaller, fast. It needs fewer workers in fewer factories building fewer cars and trucks. It needs to be right-sized for 21st century market realities, not 1970s market expectations. ...

  Free marketers may be apoplectic at President Obama's unprecedented intervention in the affairs of private companies (although without our money, neither of these companies would be in business today, so it's perhaps not unreasonable we taxpayers have some say in how they are run). But these are unprecedented times. And the myth of the free market collapsed along with the American financial system last year.

  The bottom line is our government has a duty of care to protect its citizens from harm, including economic harm."

• Article: Caterpillar managers held hostage by French workers in new 'bossnapping'.
• Guest: Dan Gainor, the T. Boone Pickens Fellow and the Vice President of the Business & Media Institute. His article about the president telling the chairman of GM to go. Angus MacKenzie blog. Caterpillar managers held hostage by French workers. Why are the French protesting when America, which is harder hit, is not? He said their sense of entitlement. Thom said because protesters did not have the same worried about losing jobs, 401(k), education.
• Bumper Music: Speed of Sound, Coldplay.
• Bumper Music: AM Radio Everclear (video).
• Article: Aso lays bare G20 split.
  "Angela Merkel, German chancellor, warned last week that spending more public money in a co-ordinated stimulus risked creating an unsustainable recovery.But Mr Aso said Japan's fiscal stimulus policies played a critical role in restoring growth after the country's asset price bubble burst in the early 1990s.

  "Because of the experience of the past 15 years, we know what is necessary, while countries like the US and European countries may be facing this sort of situation for the first time," he said."

• Riots in London because if the G20 meeting. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Japan has twice the debt as a percentage of GDP as America. "The phenomenon of industrialised countries pressurising their banks to give preference to lending at home does present a problem", said Manmohan Singh, Indian premier. Senate passed a watered down buy America provision. China, India, Indonesia, Russian, Brazilian, French and Argentinean acts of protectionism.
• Article: Pledges fail to turn back creeping anti-trade tide.
• Bumper Music: Mr. Spaceman, The Byrds (video).
• Article: John Yoo Arrested.
• Revolution.
• Guest: Ravi Batra, professor of economics at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Author of "Greenspan's Fraud: How Two Decades of His Policies Have Undermined the Global Economy" and "The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos".Dan Gainor spoke disparagingly of his book predicting the great forthcoming crash of the 1990s. His timing was a little off. He teaches at a private university funded by private donations. SMU is to be home of the George W Bush library. Where are we at right now? Beginning of a depression, not the bottom. Excessive wealth. They have postponed it by creating more demand. Productivity and therefore debt rise exponentially. The source of supply is productivity, the source of demand is wages. The government does not know this and is misdirecting spending. 70% of US economy driven by consumers, 10-15% by investment, and they are focusing on banking - the 15%. Instead:
  1. it should be spent on a 20% tax credit for buyers of American made cars (whatever the nationality of the manufacturer).
  2. call an international conference, explain the cause, persuade everyone to raise minimum wages, else we will devalue the dollar to achieve trade balance.

  What if we devalued the dollar? Non-tariff barriers to trade. Productivity statistics reflect the number of jobs sent abroad. Form state banks. Tax rates. Probability of inflation. Has he contacted the Obama administration? He isn't listening. Would kibbutz be suitable for homeless? Economic democracy. Unemployment free economy. Definition of consumer.Going after General Motors to reduce wages is the wrong thing. Work on the inflexibility, give the workers the shares.

• Bumper Music: In Too Deep Lyrics, Sum 41 (video).
• Bumper Music: I've Changed lyrics, Josh Joplin Group (video).
• Bumper Music: Peaceful World, John Mellencamp.
• Guest: “Everything You Know is Wrong”: Dr. Shelly Tochluk, anti-racism expert, author of "Witnessing Whiteness: First Steps Towards an Antiracist Practice and Culture". We need to be able to see ourselves. How segregated is your life? How to adopt a new way to be white in the U.S. Economic legacy. White privilege. People tend not to say they are part of the white community, though they may refer to the black community.
• Bumper Music: Go to the Mirror Boy, The Who.
• Flooding in the Fargo region.
• Guest: Larry Scott, founder and Editor of VA Watch Dog. "The American Veteran's On-Line News Magazine". Veterans' issues. New features on their web site - Twitter, special reminders, notices of Congressional hearings, special reports from the VAO and the VAOIG, etc. Go to Twitter and type in vawatchdog. A new page called "Under the Radar", information that does not get written into articles. For example a rumor from Alex Jones..."RUMOR CONTROL -- I've been getting lots of email with photos that purport to show "mass graves for U.S. citizens" being dug and crypts being installed at the VA's Phoenix cemetery (and other locations). This disinformation is coming from websites that pander to the paranoids and offer the most outrageous conspiracy theories as fact. Disregard this nonsense! Here is what is happening... http://tinyurl.com/cydpom Just planned cemetery upgrades. 4/1/09"

  Contaminated endoscopic equipment, colonoscopy, flaw in VA self-reporting procedures. Vets recalled for testing, some have unspecified viral infections. Nevertheless the VA tends to be better than private hospitals, but they deal with far more people.

• Bumper Music: You're the Voice, Heart (video).
• Guest: Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Update on his case. For the story so far, please see the transcripts from April 29, May 08, June 17 and the show notes for 08 July '08, 25 July '08, 30 July '08, 29 August '08, 30 September '08, 19 November '08, 01 December '08, 09 December '08 and 27 January '08.  The 11th Circuit has ordered him back for re-sentencing, after they threw out two of the charges, and he's facing the same US attorney in spite of the change of administration. Usually the attorneys are replaced on change of administration, but this time they are staying in place until replacements are approved. Selective enforcement is how Eamonn Fingleton said China keeps people frightened. Seymour Hersch said yesterday that Dick Cheney is bragging about still having moles in the administration. Should there be a crusade to get him pardoned or cleared? Wait for 11th circuit first. Holder said he was withdrawing prosecution against Ted Stevens, he could do the same for Siegelman. A pardon sounds like an admission of guilt. Thom emailed Joe Madison, putting them in contact, as he knows Eric Holder.
• Bumper Music: We Could Be So Good Together, the Doors (video).
• Quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines". Ralph Waldo Emerson.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. President's press conference with the Prime Minister of England. He met the queen of England, giving her an iPod with video of her visit to the United States. This morning she did a Republican radio row and they are saying they want to cut the Obama deficit without raising taxes, to spend more money on small business, to get rid of the tax increase for charitable donations. Obama said the US was responsible for not regulating the new instruments.