The John Batchelor Show 02-08-2009

It's Sunday night, and that means it's time for John Batchelor!





Here is his website.

The show starts at 7pm Eastern, and continues for six hours of the best radio you will find anywhere, as only John Batchelor can deliver it with his stable of experts...

And here is where you can listen to the show live online:

New York, WABC-AM 770 7-10PM ET;
Washington DC, WMAL-AM 630 7-9PM ET;
San Francisco, KSFO-AM 560;
Los Angeles,KFI-AM 640;

And here is where you can find the podcasts of the show: the first three hours, and the last three hours.

Schedule for Tonight: (all six hours are on the same link now)

The first two hours are below to whet your appetite:

The New Great Depression Special  

705P ET:  Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, What Is Congress Stimulating?What's most striking is how much "stimulus" money will be spent on the government itself.  Video: A Stimulus for Congress  Wonder Land columnist Daniel Henninger asks why our government needs stimulus money.  Bank of England readies £50bn asset purchase Bank will start pumping money into businesses next week as the number of failed companies jumped by more than 50 per cent

720P:  Larry Kudlow, CNBC, Jobs Down, Stocks Up? Big moneygrowth means the economic future looks better than the past.  Re stimulus bill in Senate, re SectTreasury Geithner's High Noon bank rescue plan.  Treasury Plans Wide Bailout Approach  Treasury Secretary Geithner's bailout revamp is likely to include a bigger FDIC role and help for homeowners.

735P: Professional Roundtable  Jod Schneider CQ,

 John Fund, Wall Street Journal, re the Daschle fiasco, re the stimulus bill needs Ted Kennedy, re theCollins/Specter exception.  Senate Leaders Reach Stimulus Compromise  Senate Democrats struck a deal with moderate Republicans on a U.S. stimulus plan, which was valued at $780 billion but could be pushed closer to $820 billion by tax breaks. Congress Is Divided Over Competing Stimulus Bills  The House version of the stimulus bill emphasizes helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts, while the Senate plan focuses more on tax cuts.

750P:  Continued re the White House plan to move the Census Bureau out of Commerce and into Rahm Manuel, with Bruce Chapman.  Boehner blasts WH on Census

805P: Heidi N. Moore, Wall Street Journal, re the Obama administration bonus caps, re Leaving Big Firms 
For Boutique Shops  Obama's moves to limit banker pay underscore a shift in power to foreign or boutique firms that don't need bailout money.

820P:  Henry Miller, Hoover Institution, Chinese Woman Contracts Bird Flu From Poultry  BEIJING -- A 21-year-old woman in central China has been infected by the H5N1 strain of bird flu in the country's eighth reported case this year, the Health Ministry said.

835: Financial Roundtable, with Jim McTague, Barron's John Tamny, RealClearMarkets.com, Simon Constable, Dow Jones,  Aaron Task, Yahoo Finance, re Geithner to unveil bailout plan Geithner is expected to unveil the W.H. proposal to tackle foreclosures and toxic assets Monday.

850P: Continued, re the bank bailout may be in trouble, Paul Krugman: On the Edge It's as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened -- yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there's a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated."  Kudlow: With all the fiscal mania and Keynesian government-spending-multiplier talk in Washington these days, most folks have forgotten Milton Friedman's dictum that money matters. Indeed, money growth could well produce the biggest economic surprise this year. And as Art Laffer has taught us all, taxes also matter--a lot. In fact, the only real stimulative part of the behemoth stimulus package is the simple fact that marginal tax rates will not be raised.

905P:  John Miller, Wall Street Journal, Nations Rush to Make New Trade Barrier  The WTO called a meeting to discuss a fast-rising wave of barriers to commerce, as governments scramble to safeguard key industries, often at their neighbors' expense.  (Below, steel industry public stocks, a century low, February 1933.)