Podcast 234

Market Plunge. If it wasn’t for Ebola, this week’s Market Plunge would be the top story and we’d all be talking about it. Was it really less than a month ago that President Obama said the market and economy had come roaring back? And this week the market gave back all the gains so far of 2014. Will it come back. Analysts aren’t so sure. As the rest of the economies in the world contract, all hope was placed in US economic growth which the fantasy world created by the media hyped. Bad retail sales numbers this week dashed those hopes. Meanwhile the world’s governments and central banks that depend on inflation to wipe away debts, are very concerned about disinflation turning into deflation. Are lower commodity prices a good sign, or a bad sign? In the final analysis, the US economy will probably not be enough to act as a counterweight to fading growth in the Euro Zone and China, even with lower commodity prices. The worry on Wall Street? Faltering demand among consumers. Surprise! While the President touts economic ‘recovery’ the number of Americans on SNAP benefits (in other words Food Stamps) skyrockets, the clearest indication yet that the newly employed are in low wage part time jobs, and those out of the work force may stay out as long as government programs pay them to. Not a good combination, and certainly not one that indicates dynamic growth. What’s going on? Steve Forbes has five suggestions that are pretty good. The upshot? We’re a long way from the kinds of radical reforms that will change the scope, cost and size of the Federal Government and get things back on track. It isn’t gridlock causing the problems, its the people. It’s our politics. How do we put away creaky old Keynesian concepts moderate Republicans, democrats and progressives have championed going back to the New Deal? How do we cut away regulation, spending and taxation and reduce government power, so that new decentralizing technologies can empower the individual to innovate, generate tomorrow’s successes, and power the US out of the malaise we find ourselves in? Yes, there are Republicans afraid of radical change just as there are democrats afraid to reduce the size and power of government. We have to stop expecting creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial instincts from politicians. News Flash! Your congressman is not Steve Jobs. Not by a long shot. Some ideas to consider when thinking about the other major story chronicling the failure of ‘big government’ these days; The economy. Sponsored by Depotstar. 

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Podcast 232

Obama and Ebola. As another health worker is reported to have contracted the Ebola virus, the President cancels a fundraiser to hold an emergency meeting with his ‘Ebola Team’ to make sure ‘it doesn’t happen again’. The meeting raises yet more questions, even as it raises the stakes for an embattled President. As predicted weeks ago by The Bob Davis Podcasts, Ebola now dominates news coverage, in the fantasy 24/7 news cycle. And, in the Magic Kingdom of the News Media, whatever steps taken to combat problems like Ebola, the feeble economic recovery, or a threat like ISIS just have to work…unless they don’t. Still, questions not answered continue to multiply. Why did Amber Vinson – the third person with Ebola in the US and second health worker to contract the disease at the hospital in Dallas – get on a plane and fly to Cleveland, from Dallas, and back … with all the stops in between. That seems like a lot of ‘contact tracking’ for the ‘experts’ at the CDC to do. Are charges about containment procedures being ignored at the Dallas hospital true, and if so, does that mean we should be monitoring more than a little over a hundred people from there? What does ‘self monitoring’ mean? And, why was a person who was supposedly being monitored flying around the country? Moreover, experts keep saying we don’t have enough data to know if the Ebola Virus can be spread more easily than what ‘experts’ say, or whether it could mutate into a form more easily transmitted. Finally, if this is what happens when one terminal Ebola patient shows up at a hospital, what happens when 3 show up? What about 10? What about 100. How many ‘SWAT Teams’ of ‘pros from Dovwer’ does the CDC have? To add insult to injury, if you’re concerned about the response to Ebola infection in the US (such as refusing a travel ban for people coming from West Africa, which Columbia and the tiny Caribbean Island of Saint Lucia’s have done) you’re panicking? Then there are the markets, dropping because of concern about economic slow downs in Europe and China. Oh yeah, let’s not forget ISIS which is not cooperating with Obama’s strategy to ‘degrade and destroy’ them. If this really is the Democrats ‘October Surprise’ its not working well. As polls show more momentum with Republicans on the issues those surveyed care most about, it suggests voters that decide who to vote for at the last minute could pick Republican candidates. The only bright spot is cheaper gasoline, as Saudi Arabia pumps like crazy, hoping to force American oil companies to slow or stop production, which is reportedly not profitable below about 90 dollars a barrel. Just a word of caution; A drop in the price of commodities is really not a good sign when every major central bank in the world is pumping cash into the banking systems. Will these problems go away? Or cascade into catastrophe? Only time will tell. Sponsored by Baklund Research and Development. 

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