Podcast 293

Wash Cycle. Updates for the new work week start with laundry in the Broadcast Bunker. You’ve probably been feeling pretty good lately, what with all the stories about how great Christmas Shopping was going and how cheap gas was like a tax cut, and how we’ve finally turned the corner on the economy, with the multitudes heading back to work, right? The toward the end of last week, someone punched the mute button on the celebration. Now, this won’t stop the President from taking credit for ‘booming’ economic growth in the United States in his State of The Union message, but new numbers temper the enthusiasm a little bit and may even explain why more than half of Americans aren’t so sure we’ve got the party started yet. As with almost every development related to President Obama and the economy, the compliant media continues to paper over mistakes, and grasp at green shoots in the economy. Unemployment is 5.6 percent! We’ve created over 250,000 jobs! What they don’t tell you is today’s 5.6 percent isn’t the same as when Bill Clinton was president, since there are 65 million some people who apparently are out of the work force permanently. Moreover wages, which have been rising slightly, are not rising fast enough, or high enough to sustain economic growth, say some analysts. At the end of last week, the compliant media was again surprised – stunned in fact – to see that retail sales actually contracted in December, a whopping .9 percent. Economists (astrologists) had predicted only a .1 percent drop. Remember when cheap gas was supposed to act like a tax cut? Gas stations got hit the hardest. Auto sales got hit. And, even though we ‘created’ two hundred fifty thousand plus jobs last month, there were 314,000 applications for unemployment, up 19,000 and the highest number in four months. Note to self; A tax cut is a permanent reduction in a tax rate, allowing people to plan for the long term future by investing, or purchasing big ticket items, or starting businesses. A reduction in a price is not a tax cut. Meanwhile the energy price and commodity price rout continues, and now banks in the oil patch, manufacturers like CAT, rail roads and energy states are taking the hit. Oh we’ll take the cheaper oil, but the media needs to stop crowing about how great a commodity price collapse is. It should be viewed as a danger sign, because the rest of the world economies apparently got the wrong flu shot. What’s wrong? No one is asking whether or not we should be stimulating supply, rather than demand. Are conservatives proposing dynamic, proven solutions? Finally, the IRS wants more money. They don’t have enough employees. Has anyone bothered to report how many employees the IRS actually has? You’d be surprised. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing. 

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Podcast 284

Polar Vortex 2015. Perhaps we should start off by saying, “Previously on Polar Vortex”. It happens just about every year around this time in the Upper Midwest. It gets real cold. We call it winter. A few weeks of below zero temperatures with little relief. It’s been colder. Where are the cavalcade of ‘economists’ (astrologists) predicting the inevitably dour economic effects of the ‘polar vortex’? Surprise! Now that a Republican majority is about to take office ‘economic experts’ are optimistic! Touting 5 percent GDP growth, lackluster employment statistics and a host of other debatable ‘facts’, some formerly doom and gloom analysts are finding  rose colored glasses not used since the Bush administration. As a new Congress is about to be sworn in, scolds to tell Republicans, “It’s time to govern”! Isn’t ‘governing’ something both parties and all branches of government engage in? Not just a majority and not just one branch of the government? Freedom Works has declared Speaker Boehner ‘must go’, and thus the factional battles in the new Congress begin. Freedom Works instructs you to write, call or email your congressman and demand the speaker be retired! (Editor’s Note: A waste of time, since interns answer the phones, review emails and open letters, even writing replies. If you want to get your congressman to pay attention to you, you have to control votes or money, and preferably both. If you want to write, call or email, go right ahead, but don’t fool yourself. Until you’re organized, you’re nothing to them.) Next we have the ‘Restore America’ crowd. ‘Restore’ in this case means turning back the hands of time to 1950, everywhere in America. Uh…no thanks, there were no smart phones. Want to bet this will be Jeb Bush’s campaign slogan in 2016? What America needs isn’t ‘restoration’, but new ideas that meet the challenges of new technology and a world that doesn’t look anything like 1950. Now there is one place in the world where it is, in fact, still 1950. North Korea. Here’s a question; What if the Sony Hack wasn’t the work of North Korea’s ‘army’ of hackers? The FBI’s contention – and the President’s – is under fire from tech security companies. If it wasn’t the North Koreans and the President ordered a retaliation, this could be the first major Obama Screw Up of 2015. Stay tuned. Back home in the land of ten thousand lakes, and taxes, Minnesotans should prepare themselves for a gas tax increase. Democratic Governor Dayton has decided that while cheap gas acts ‘like a tax cut’, it just isn’t expensive enough for the dancing peasants, so we need an increase in the gas tax. Or something like that. Minnesotans need new trains, and bike trails and bridges are falling down, right? Not really, but it works every time. Meanwhile, Kurt Daudt, Republican Speaker of The House says there will be “give and take” this session. Sigh. And a final parting shot at ‘morning people’ and their arrogance. Nocturnal People Rule! Sponsored by X Government Cars, and Depotstar.  

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The Bob Davis Podcast

Podcast 274

Story Lines. A few loose ends on the big stories, heading into the weekend. Frustrating that most media outlets continue to peddle the story that all the President has to do is ‘order’ relations with Cuba normalized, and they are. Then comes all the stories about how it got done, who benefits, the businesses that are chomping at the bit to get into Cuba. Thing is, the law concerning sanctions on Cuba is different. These aren’t sanctions placed entirely with executive orders. A welter of laws regarding just how relations are to be normalized with Cuba will have to be repealed, or the President is going to have to demonstrate to Congress that Castro Land has suddenly become a free country. Meanwhile there is mounting evidence that ‘normalizing’ relations with Cuba will strengthen a murderous regime, and has enriched itself, and left the people of Cuba with nothing. These facts are apparently not interesting to the  media in the US. The President says sanctions haven’t worked against Cuba. Aside from asking ‘which ones?’, if sanctions don’t work why did Secretary of State John Kerry not say, just prior to sanctions being placed on Russia, ‘Sanctions work’. Well? Which is it? If they don’t work, why waste your breath on Russia, or for that matter North Korea. The US now says North Korea hacked Sony, with help from China and Russia. But it’s all Sony’s fault, right? Let’s look at it this way; Sony just got raped by a fraternity of North Koreans, Chinese and Russians and we’re blaming the victim? It gets weirder and weirder everyday. The Sony hack, and the company’s reaction, as well as the reaction of the United States Government, will have far reaching consequences. The President seems fine standing up to right wingers, clinging to their guns and religion, but apparently not when it comes to China, Russia and North Korea. With Obama on his way to Hawaii, for yet another vacation, don’t expect him to be standing up to anyone in the near future. The good news for the weekend? The IRS head says the agency may have to shut down for a few days because of budget cuts. Merry Christmas! We now know how to stop government spending. Just keep cutting the IRS until it closes, and they won’t be able to collect taxes, much less raise them. And, a winter storm is headed across most of the country for Christmas. In the upper midwest that will means snow. Sponsored by Depotstar. 

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