Podcast 539

Podcast 539 What Now? Election 2016 is a bust. Primary voters and the party political process selected the two worst possible candidates. No one can make the case that one will be worse than the other, despite the constant attacks and demands that each side ‘bleed red’ or ‘bleed blue’. Hold your nose and vote for the ‘least worst’. Which one is ‘least worst’? The tragic story in this whole drama? If Trump wins, Republicans will be the most shocked and disappointed by what he does. Meanwhile, Trump trails Clinton 6 points with serious deficits in key battleground states. If the democrats maintain this lead, republicans won’t have to face the reality of their decision to embrace and nominate someone who seems to be both a republican and a democrat, when it suits him. Someone who has doubled down on rhetoric and ‘earned media’, someone who doesn’t really stand for or the carry the standard for ‘traditional republican values’, whatever those are. In Podcast 539 Now What? Election 2016 is bust, time to go back to the drawing board. What is a liberal? What is a conservative? What are the issues? What is grassroots? What do we believe? What do we stand for? What do we want? Building a movement strong enough to take on the establishment, especially now that rules have been changed to prevent such movements in both mainline parties, is going to take more than a few protests and some meetings on Tuesday nights. Guess what? An establishment that stands for nothing except maintaining their hold on political power isn’t going to reduce the size scope and and power of government, and I’m talking about republicans. Podcast 539 Now What, as a beginning, asks some of the questions that need to be asked. I don’t expect answers and don’t answer these questions, but think about them. Meditate on them. Answering questions, and making a good plan are only a start down a very long road. The sooner we start, the better. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Brush Studio.

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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 206

Boardwalk Empire and the 1920’s. A new guilty pleasure and obsession is HBO’s award winning ‘Boardwalk Empire’. 1920’s America was a time of great upheaval, social change and prosperity. Innovations like Radio, telephones, automobiles, commercial flight, electricity and mass production enabled some to make enormous sums, but also created a burgeoning middle class. As the nation’s wealth doubled, the Jazz Age began. Prohibition, depressed crop prices, waning unions and progressivism, the shift of population from small towns to cities gives this era real bite. What’s not to like about the 1920’s. ‘Boardwalk Empire’ is doing a great job showing the good – and the bad – from 1920’s America. If your image of the 1920’s is crowds milling around Wall Street in October of 1929, you’re really thinking about the 1930’s. In fact the 1920’s was an era throughly embraced by its young people, for its raw growth, music and opportunity. But it was also an America that had not been fully transformed by a national ‘image’, a time when cities were smaller (Chicago only could claim 2.5 million citizens), and every place still still claim some level of ‘uniqueness’. Even train travel as we know it today was still relatively new. Still ahead was the depression, the run up to World War II, and the post war world. Behind the 192o’s was World War I. It was a time of peace and prosperity. Generally speaking, good times. How does this era compare to the 1920’s? What kinds of discoveries, innovations and developments are on the horizon to explode, and transform our world – for the better – if and when prosperity returns? Sponsored by Autonomouscad.com. 

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