Podcast 257

Weekend Update. Extreme weather in Buffalo, New York drops at least 6 feet of snow; more in one day than they get all year, and that’s extreme, even for a place like Buffalo. This weekend the Bills have to play in Detroit due to the snow. Speaking of Football Stadiums. Minnesota has one of the worst professional sports stadium deals in the country. That is, Minnesota taxpayers will pay a larger share of the new Vikings Stadium than taxpayers in other states pay for theirs. Imagine Vikings fans surprise when they learned from The Minneapolis Tribune, the Vikings will pay a larger share for ‘their’ stadium. How much? A little more than half a million dollars. Yeah. Kudos to the Star-Tribune for providing the people of Minneapolis-Saint Paul and the state of Minnesota with a free ad for the Minnesota Vikings. We’d like to see them pay a lot more, like about 600 MILLION more, but that will never happen thanks to so called fiscally responsible republicans in the state legislature who did the stadium deal back in the day. Minnesota Senator Al Franken is all up in Uber’s grill because of comments made by an executive of the company ‘threatening’ a ‘journalist’ — and revealing the company keeps electronic records of all their clients’ travels. The Senator wrote an angry letter to the company demanding to know whether it is keeping data, confidential. Isn’t it nice, with all the other issues; immigration, Keystone, and War, the Senator found time to stand up for a journalist. By the way, that little ‘I Agree’ button is something he might want to take a look at. And speaking of parasitic capitalists: When Tesla’s Elon Musk isn’t profiting from energy subsidies or selling carbon credits to his direct competitors, he’s braying about artificial intelligence and how it will destroy humanity. Always good for positive media coverage from reporters who don’t know what AI is anyway. But the Japanese are forging ahead with FEMBOTS! Soon they will be receptionists, TV presenters, even companions! And Japan doesn’t care if they take over, since everyone is too old to work there. Then there is Bill Cosby. While the media acts as judge, and jury it is important to remember Cosby has never been charged, or convicted of anything. Is it ok that the media gets to decide whether someone is a rapist, murderer or thief? What about spy? Just sayin’. Finally some thoughts about work. More people these days are leaving corporate america to start their own small businesses. Never before have the tools been better for amplifying the individual. With as much as 13 percent of the work force is checking out of the cubicle, into their own businesses who can blame them? Working for most of today’s corporations is nothing but drudgery and people are getting sick of it. What will the future company look like, and how will people work for them? Sponsored by Depotstar.

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Podcast 255

Immigration Reform. (Midweek update, a little late due to a long podcast with Andrew Richter and Jason Bradley. The point of podcast 254 is that you can stop unelected regional boards from encroaching on your town. While critics of organization say you have to have candidates who inspire people to get involved first, where will the candidates come from? Local politics is one of those areas were individuals can have a huge impact. Thanks again to Community Solutions MN for joining the Bob Davis Podcasts.) President Obama prepares to issue executive orders granting amnesty to some three million illegal immigrants across the US, igniting a political fire storm. The President wants Republicans to pass the Senate Immigration ‘Reform’ bill, which has been languishing since last year, Republicans don’t want to pass it. So, the President will issue orders that accomplishes the same thing. Sort of. The idea of using executive orders to ‘legislate’ from the White House is controversial; one of the oldest constitutional arguments in the Republic. Courts have supported Presidents who use executive orders in an ’emergency’, but that doesn’t make them any less controversial and politically provocative. George W. Bush got into hot water with detentions , surveillance and ‘Gitmo’. Obama questioned how far he could go on immigration as late as last year, suggesting to supporters in the Latino Community that he could only use executive power related to existing legislation. Now he appears to have changed his mind. Since the President and now minority Democrat leadership in the House and Senate are moving to the left, expect more executive orders designed to ignite debate and draw attention to their issues, and their agenda in preparation for 2016. Don’t expect President Obama’s actions to be designed to help Hillary Clinton. Rather, it might be suggested the President, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are moving to the left, to lay the groundwork for an Elizabeth Warren presidential run. Deflation is now the number one financial news story after being featured on the Bob Davis Podcasts last month and earlier in November, 2014. With Japan in recession, Europe on the brink and China in trouble, central bank stimulation and big government public works projects are not working. The solution? More central bank intervention and public works projects! Really? Meanwhile, depending on what fourth quarter US economic numbers show, get ready for sandbagging. Already defenders of more public works projects and cotton candy from the central banks are pointing to ‘cold weather’ as the reason for potentially (hasn’t happened yet, but just in case) negative economic numbers. We have had earthquakes, hurricanes, hot summers and cold winters during economic boom times as well, but suddenly ‘the cold’ (which has lasted two weeks) is causing an economic slow down? Keep in mind as late as a week ago the media was telling us the reduction in oil and eventually gas prices would act as a boon to the US economy. What happened to that line of reasoning? “Cheaper gas acts like a tax cut” they say. Really? Bottom line is, Keynesian economic policies don’t work. One thing cheaper gas means, according to Bloomberg.com, is people will be flooding onto the nation’s highways for the Thanksgiving Holiday. A whopping .1 percent increase as compared to air travel this year. The Bob Davis Podcasts will be out on the road to report on this story. If you plan on driving to this year’s Thanksgiving feast at the relatives, Podcast 255 has some suggestions on how to avoid the traffic. Sponsored by Baklund R&D.

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Podcast 252

The Gathering Storm. Business and Economic News. The latest headlines include a Mayor who throws alleged gang signals to curry favor with unsavory characters, a video of an MIT Obama Care ‘architect’ who says the law was poorly written to fool ‘stupid’ voters (what a surprise!), and the mainstream media election 2014 chatter is increasingly vapid. Time to turn to an issue no one seems to be paying attention to, save for the financial and market watchers. As commodity and housing prices decline the mainstream media tells us deflation is bad, because falling prices mean people will ‘wait’ to make purchases. Never mind we have had deflation (dropping prices) for things like flat screen TV’s and tech for years, and people keep buying. The real problem with deflation is that governments need inflation to pay off their debts. Inflation is how governments have robbed Americans of purchasing power and hidden the ill effects of profligate spending for decades. Central Banks and governments all over the world are trying, and failing, to create inflation. Now they are terrified that slow, or no economic growth may finally be creating a deflation, which means debts will become more difficult to repay. What the mainstream media isn’t telling you about lower oil prices is, major economies all over the world are stalling, lowering demand for energy and everything else. The EU, Japan, China, Russia, India, Brazil, even the US have anemic economic growth, or they are contracting. Housing is not cooperating with efforts to stimulate. Half the people in this country make less than $28,000 a year, the average college graduate has at least 26,000 dollars in debt, making some wonder what the millennials will be buying houses with. Years of anemic economic growth is taking its toll in people out of the labor force, stagnant wages and substandard job creation. The statistics look good, but don’t tell the real economic story in the United States and the rest of the world; Things aren’t going so well. The gathering storm isn’t deflation, it’s the political reaction to it. Bill Gross said recently, stimulative efforts by governments and central banks aren’t ‘working as well as they used to’. The cure? More of the same! What about the idea that what they’re doing just isn’t working? Politicians aren’t addressing this issue at all, whether they be democrat or republican. Does this mean a disaster is brewing? Democrats want to double down on failed economic policy (basically print and borrow more money) and Republicans don’t seem to have an agenda which will lead to the growth we need. Add to this, chaos in the world as the US withdraws … a confused foreign policy … and you have a recipe for disaster; A gathering storm. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and by Depotstar.

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