Podcast 419

Time Travel. This Walk and Talk Podcast starts out with some observations about the media reaction to Candidate for the Republican Nomination Donald Trump. The Bob Davis Podcasts will never endorse a specific candidate, tell you how to vote, or cover the presidential election process with an undisclosed point of view, with the intention of pointing listeners in the direction of a specific candidate. Comments here about Donald Trump are only observations, but one thing is clear; The establishment media’s reaction to the Trump candidacy prove he is the front runner. Punditry predictions about how Trump ‘will fade’ keep coming up, but the New York Times and The Atlantic are already treating the New Yorker like the nominee, doing their best to notch him down, starting with a hatchet job on his financial credentials and education history, a commentary written by republican moderates regarding ‘anarchy’ in the House with the resignation of the Speaker, and a ridiculous piece in the Atlantic that asserts American Prosperity until 1980 was the result of Unions and High Taxes, saying if Trump wants to return ‘White America’ to this halcyon time, he must be advocating for Union and High Taxes. What tripe! It was the Atlantic piece that began a flight of fancy on this Walk and Talk about Time Travel. If you could return to any era, would it be as history described it? Which era in history would you most like to return to? (Editor’s Note: My problem is I want to go back to all of them.) If you went back hundreds, or thousands of years, would you even be able to understand what was happening. Would you need time to physically absorb the context of the time, from language, immunity to germs and disease, smells, sounds, even a different blanket of stars in the sky. It is said history is written by the victors. How different is real history from the history we’re taught, the history we read, and the history we experience on a day to day basis in our time? Sponsored by Baklund R&D and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 396

Summer Walk and Talk. The rules of the Walk and Talk Podcast are: No prep. No Planning. You walk. You Talk. Slash and Burn, Walk and Talk. At the peak of the summer it still doesn’t feel right to get down and dirty on the political front. There’s still a sense that the topography of the political battlefield will change at some point, and it will be back to the drawing board for the scores of presidential candidates, who are as plentiful as the corn growing in those Iowa fields. Besides, there’s Sturgis, air shows, local summer celebrations, fireworks, kids playing on the lawn, charcoal fires for steak and so…much…summer. Yet, if you look carefully, the sun has changed its angle slightly and in Minnesota at least, we’re just a month away from the State Fair. Every year, at some point during the state fair, the weather changes and we all know what that means. Fall is coming. So if you’re tweeting and face booking about one of the presidential candidates, watching the 24 hour cable channels religiously, hanging on every word of every shouting match, you’re missing real life going on. While people engaged in the business of politics are busy … the average person in the United States couldn’t care less right now about the latest spat between Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush, or Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Big stories of the summer? The Planned Parenthood video is a doozy. The Chinese stock market collapse (which is being called their 1929) could become the black swan story if the perfumed princes in Beijing can’t get control of things. A calamity like this in Asia would have far reaching implications economically in the US and the world, and in terms of foreign policy. Commodity prices seem to be in a long term slump, and yet some media outlets are talking about inflation. Still, all these potential game-changers are just storm clouds in the west, on a warm summer night. A little lightning on the horizon, and maybe some rain and thunder by dawn. The romance of summer supersedes all that political noise, and it’s a good thing. Seriously, who doesn’t prefer the soft hum of summer twilight to some gas bagger on a podium? Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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Podcast 362

No Growth Economy. New numbers say the US Economy grew by only .2 percent. Yet still, the Federal Reserve says the economy should grow now in the second quarter. Never mind all the ‘experts’ predicted 2015 would be a ‘blow out’ year, and that they have been revising their predictions down all through the quarter, they were still way above what the numbers actually show. Excuses? They have a few. The weather. The work slow down at the Port in Los Angeles. The weather. The strong dollar. Did I mention the dollar? The US has now had quarter after quarter of slow, no, or only anemic growth, and yet the Obama administration and its apologists, and the bone headed financial media call it a ‘boom’. Meanwhile small and medium sized businesses all over the country know it for what it is. A no growth economy. Why do business writers believe things will change if the policies don’t change? Does the consumer really account for 70 percent of the economy? What if we’re using the wrong tools to stimulate the wrong things? What’s that old saw about the definition of insanity? Banks aren’t lending because they can make more money borrowing at the discount window, reinvesting in the stock markets. Companies aren’t investing because they’re buying back their own stocks. The US corporate tax rate is the highest in the world (by far), and the tax code is so complex it costs us dearly in productivity lost (while we comply with the tax code) and literally billions of dollars spent complying with its byzantine rules. Regulations of all kinds make it almost impossible for small and medium sized businesses to grow. What are the policy ideas we need to hear from candidates (which we’re not hearing) to fix the economy. It’s not about inequality. It’s not about ‘reformicon’ tax policies (which are actually democrat tax policies warmed over), or making the government work more efficiently. In this podcast, some ideas you may agree or disagree with, but it will definitely start you thinking. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating and X Government Cars. 

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