Podcast 307

Mitt Quits. Updates for the first week of February. While neighbors enjoy the Superbowl – enjoy their muffled screams through the wall – The Bob Davis Podcasts goes to work. Mitt Romney has decided not to run for President in 2016, provoking the Washington Post to name Jeb Bush as the front runner. Meanwhile a new poll of voters in Iowa, where the nation’s first presidential primary will be held, have picked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker as the front runner, closely followed by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. If you are an observer of politics, and you have a decidedly anti-government bent, it sure seems like the mainstream moderate wing of the Republican Party is selling policy and tactics from the 1990’s, while voters seem to engage with politicians with newer ideas. While the actual political season for the 2016 cycle is a long way off in political terms, the media seems to want to pick a moderate as the front runner, and the people might have different ideas. Stay Tuned. The new Economic numbers are out, and they aren’t as good as expected. Surprise! After 5 percent GDP ‘growth’ in the third quarter just about everyone ‘figured’ and predicted that we would have at least 3.6 percent ‘growth’ in the fourth quarter, what with gas being cheap and acting ‘like a tax cut’. Even President Obama declared victory over stagnation for weeks, culminating in his over the top State Of The Union Speech which would make the initiated think he was presiding over the most dynamic economy in US History. In reality, President Obama’s recovery doesn’t just lag Bush and Clinton and Reagan, the Obama ‘recovery’ is the worst economic performance of all Presidents in US History. The new growth number? 2.6 percent. What does the media blame it on? Those evil frackers who created all those jobs, and now they’re laying people off ’cause oil is so cheap. In fact the media that couldn’t bring itself to write a positive story about energy growth in the US in the last six years now can’t find enough down-on-their-luck in Williston, North Dakota, stories. Fact is, most of the manufacturing jobs the President likes to tout are energy related. Yeah, cheap gas is great. It acts like a tax cut. Just keep that in mind as the European Zone disaster starts to take hold, and China’s economic slow down begins to bite, realities which the US economy won’t escape. And what are US policies? Not clear away the gordian knot of taxes and regulation that chokes business formation, and the supply side, but continued efforts to stimulate consumption and ballyhooing ‘consumer confidence’. In Silicon Valley they are mixing morning shake cocktails of supplements and additives that are supposedly able to increase your IQ. Body hacks are all the rage, so Podcast 307 ends with an effort to play catch up, with the Broadcast Bunker Juicer. Sponsored by Xgovernment Cars and Depotstar.

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Podcast 266

Rolling Stone’s Debacle. This weekend Rolling Stone Magazine admitted it did not properly fact-check a story about an alleged gang rape on the campus of the University of Virginia. So now we have a clear example of media bias in action and it goes way beyond fact checking. The editors liked the story, so they never pushed the reporter to interview the accused, or confirm the stories of the friends of the woman who claimed she was gang raped at a frat party. So, it took the Washington Post to go down to UVA and run down the particulars in the story. As this was going on, Rolling Stone defended its reporter, and anyone who questioned the woman’s story was pilloried. What did the Washington Post uncover? The discrepancies are so numerous, Rolling Stone had to issue an apology this weekend. ‘Narrative journalism’, combined with bias and shoddy editing is the order of the day in most of today’s news shops. Now the media, UVA, Fraternities, the alleged perpetrators, the victim, not to mention real cases of rape have all been thrown into question as the result of an editor and reporter, and magazine that did not do their job. And what can we say about the media? Charlatans, hustlers, think tank spokespersons, operatives are booked as guests on all the major news shows, round table shout fests, and empty suits abound. An informed populace/electorate is the one necessary ingredient for democracy, and we do not have it. America is being so poorly served by its so called media, its no wonder people cannot reason, don’t know the facts, scream and yell at each other, throw labels onto each other that are meaningless, and are deeply confused about how any process works, because they are uninformed. Who’s fault is it? What can be done about it? Have we reached the stage where the rule of the mob has become a reality? Unfortunately, it sure looks like it. Meanwhile, Mary Landrieu has lost her bid for a fourth term in the US Senate representing Louisiana, giving the GOP one more seat in the Senate, and an historic majority in the House. Wait until after January 7th for the fireworks to start when the 117th Congress is sworn in. The President has acid reflux, as does the rest of the country due to his policies. The media ballyhooed the latest unemployment numbers, but once you look under the hood, they don’t look so good. Surprise! We have yet to produce one month with over 375,000 new jobs, which is what the country needs to fully recover. It never ceases to amaze what the media thinks is ‘good’ versus what is factually needed. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. (Correction: I keep referring to the current congress as “the 116th Congress” in this podcast, and the next as the “117th Congress”. Getting a little ahead of myself; The current Congress is the 113th, and the incoming congress is the 114th.)

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Podcast 238

Economic Doom. Inflation, Deflation, Disinflation. Is the economy booming, or crashing? In the fantasy world created by the media, there are only winners or losers. The reality is somewhere in between. What is inflation, deflation and disinflation? Do we have inflation in the United States, or not? Despite the Federal Reserve pumping trillions into the banking system in America, we’ve seen only slow growth at best; Not enough growth to bring out self-mothballed workers from the ranks of those who have given up looking for work. Yet, we are told the US is reaching ‘full employment’, and that the economy is ‘roaring’ back. With only 76 percent of our industrial capacity utilized, a significant amount of that capacity in the oil, and mining sectors, the concern is disinflation, and perhaps deflation. In the Euro Zone, the ECB is worried about Deflation. In China they’re worried about a slow down. In Japan, huge inflows of cash from the central bank and government has produced mixed results. Yet, with a new set of economic numbers this month, economists, reporters and political cheerleaders are saying the US economy is ‘set to grow’ and we’re back to the Rosy Scenario. When things don’t pan out as they predict, it will be ‘unexpected’ or ‘surprising’. Reporting like this is devoid of context, and grossly misinforms the public, leaving them confused and angry when they can’t get a higher paying, better job. For instance, the much vaunted consumer is constantly told he accounts for 70 percent of the US Economy. Not true. We are being told new housing construction is up. In fact its apartment houses. We’re told the housing market is back, but a closer look reveals many cash buyers who are buying homes to rent out. A recent drop in housing sales is attributed to cash buyers pulling out of the market because homes are ‘too expensive for cash buyers’. Inflation and Deflation have both been associated with stagnant growth in various countries, sometimes disaster. We’re told ‘cheaper gas’ gives consumers the where-with-all to spend, and yet gasoline has only been somewhat less expensive for about a month. (Editors Note: Yeah gas is cheaper, but I’m not taking the money I’ve ‘saved’ on a shopping spree.) With Europe and China and other parts of the world in a seeming synchronized slow down, oil and commodities dropping, the markets moving and up and down wildly, suddenly some are alarmed and concerned. Is it possible that years of government borrowing and spending, and central bank intervention in markets have added so much malinvestment, the chickens are finally coming home to roost? Why do governments and big debtors love in inflation, and fear deflation? The takeaway is, it’s time to start thinking about what we expect these sclerotic and expensive governments to actually do, and start demanding they operate with as little debt as possible, and that our money be based on something stable like, uh…Gold or Silver. The reason? When governments can print their way out of debt, citizens actually pay the cost in higher taxes and inflation. Sponsored by Depotstar.

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