Podcast 351

Thanking Contributors. Podcasting from the driveway in Los Angeles, California. Finally, the list of contributors to the Mobile Podcast Command Unit 8! Thanking all those who have contributed to the mobile podcast project, or at least as many as we can find documentation for. If you sent a contribution, and your name is not mentioned, email The Bob Davis Podcasts and you will be thanked. From Los Angeles, the plan is to head north on the Pacific Coast Highway, to NAPA, and points East. We’ll keep you updated as we roll. In thanking the contributors and sponsors, a little radio history and podcasting history in this installment. The Bob Davis Podcasts also just hit another milestone in terms of feeds and audience, which is great news. This is the week Rand Paul announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President. A lot of reaction to out of context statements the Senator made in his speech. What’s the reaction to simply finding the text of the speech online and reading it? Pretty good. It looks more and more like the left will try to make ‘Global Warming’ one of the centers of their campaign to take back the US Senate and retain the White House in 2016. How? By personalizing it. Now it’s all about the President’s daughter’s asthma, even though there’s no scientific link to asthma and ‘Global Warming’. If they’re not demonizing anyone who doesn’t agree with the orthodoxy on the issue, look for them to be telling stories about how grandma was killed by Global Warming. In other words, you killed grandma because you didn’t agree with them on the ‘Climate Change Issue’, and by the way, let’s depopulate the planet and get rid of capitalism, because they cause ‘it’ too. Sigh. Meanwhile people continue to rank all other issues and problems has having a higher concern than ‘Climate Change’, especially when you ask them to allocate resources to solve those problems. Hey, isn’t Warren Buffett concerned about the environment? Isn’t that why he opposes the Keystone Pipeline and hauls oil, highly profitably hauls oil by the way, in rickety train cars that are prone to cause fires when they derail? While Tim Cook of Apple decries the injustice Indiana’s Religious Freedom law, and claims the state is ‘closed’ to gay people, Apple does business in countries that actually kill people for being gay. Imagine! And then there’s the drought in California, which continues despite recent rain. Plus some radio history and some new news regarding feeds for the Bob Davis Podcasts. (Editor’s Note: For some reason I referred to Warren Buffett and an ‘Interloper’. I don’t know if that word really describes the sage of Omaha. And, I referred to Fundamentalist Christians as ‘Iconoclasts’. Who knows where that came from, because Iconoclast really doesn’t describe the Christian Right either. Sigh. But I’m not editing those missives out.) Sponsored by X Government Cars!

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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 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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