Photo, left: The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame. It was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, in England. See Hour 4, Empire of Cotton: A Global History, by Sven Beckert.
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 1, Block A:  Phil Izzo, WSJ lead editor, Real Time Economics blog, in re: We had a dinner of the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity (Larry Kudlow, Steve Moore, Art Laffer, Steve Forbes), asked Rudy Giuliani to say a few words, which he did - and what a furor We met with Scott Walker for about an hour before dinner; he's the Reagan supply-side guy.  / Yes, it was a favorable jobs report; stabilization of those looking for and finding work. People 25 to 55: clear uptrend. Also many jobs created and some wages increased.  Walmart raised its own minimum wage.  I thought Yellin today was on the optimistic side; she kinda said, First we have to change our language, remove the word "patience." She was  in no hurry to speak of Fed funds rate increases.  . . .  If he economy hits a rough patch between now and June . . . Greece, extension in June  . . .  Lower oil and strong dollar are unambiguously good.  People are obsessing too much over the Fed. I think rate hikes are baked in to the stock market already. 
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 1, Block B: Phil Izzo, WSJ lead editor, Real Time Economics blog, in re:  Yellin: hawk? dove?  future? now?  Fed at zero to a quarter-point rate, extraordinarily low.  The actual Fed funds rate is a great deal higher than a quarter-point, so there's plenty of room for the Fed to get moving,  . .  . Agree, long and drawn-out:  they'll go really slowly.  . . .  S&P 500 is around 17 times earnings right now.  . . .  Rubin pointed out that  central banks cannot solve economic problems. 
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 1, Block C: Paul Vigna, WSJ, and Michael J Casey, Senior Columnist, Global Finance, Wall Street Journal, in re: As bitcoin price slumps, investor interest holds steady
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Bitcoin has had a rough go of it recently. In a 48-hour period in January, the digital currency and payment system declined 34 percent in value.


  Rakuten 'Probably' to Accept Bitcoin
;Wall Street Journal (blog)  Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is considering accepting the virtual currency bitcoin as payment, founder and Chief Executive Hiroshi ...

E-commerce giant Rakuten may start accepting Bitcoin payments   SiliconANGLE Explore in depth 
Dell will expand its bitcoin program to Canada and the UK.  The narrative around bitcoin has been misplaced, perhaps by early hopeful descriptions as a successor to the dollar, Rather, it’s a system or transferring value peer to peer. It's the technology that may play a roll in the payments system writ large, the underlying transfer of assets and currency. All sorts of efficiencies can be achieved with this decentralized technology. / Two easy definitions of money: as a reliable medium of exchange (which bitcoin doesn’t fit), and has a reliable store of value (equally not quite bitcoin).  . . . Yes, regulation will occur, and be different in different jurisdictions. . . .Interest in cryptocurrencies has waned among the public but is very much alive among VCs and investors.
The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order, by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; and Cumulus Media radio, in re: Prager U: Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share? ;  Lee Ohanian
Hour Two
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re: NATO must prepare for Russian attack, warns UK general.   . . .  War parties' endeavoring to upset the results of Minsk II. They negotiated for six full hours, of which many were devoted to the outcome of Debaltseva.   They agreed on something a bit similar to a federated state. War and peace hinged on the fate of the five to seven thousand men in Debaltseva.  . . . Until recently, Merkel seemed to side with those who wanted a showdown with Putin (economic, not military) but in the last ten days she saw that Kiev is collapsing financially so Putin can do what he wants, Also that the discussion of shipping weapons from the US to Ukraine was not a bluff.   (1 of 4)
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re: U.S. military vehicles paraded 300 yards from the Russian border   U.S. military combat vehicles paraded Wednesday through an Estonian city that juts into Russia, a symbolic act that highlighted the stakes for both sides amid the worst tensions between the West and Russia since the Cold War.  The armored personnel carriers and other U.S. Army vehicles that rolled through the streets of Narva, a border city separated by a narrow frontier from Russia, were a dramatic reminder of the new military confrontation in eastern Europe.  The soldiers from the U.S. Army’s Second Cavalry Regiment were taking part in a military parade to mark Estonia’s Independence Day. Narva is a vulnerable border city separated by a river from Russia. It has often been cited as a potential target for the Kremlin if it wanted to escalate its conflict with the West onto NATO territory.  Russia has long complained bitterly about NATO expansion, saying that the Cold War defense alliance was a major security threat as it drew closer to Russia’s borders. The anger grew especially passionate after the Baltic states joined in 2004, and Russian President Vladimir Putin cited fears that Ukraine would join NATO when he annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March last year. Russia’s Baltic neighbors, meanwhile, have said that what happened in Ukraine demonstrates exactly why they wanted to join NATO in the first place.  U.S. tanks rolled through the streets of Riga, Latvia, in November for that nation’s Independence Day parade, another powerful reminder of U.S. boots on the ground in . . . [more]  &   British Infantry in Ukraine Training Mission (2 of 4)
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; (3 of 4) in re:  Poroshenko failed in Debaltseva; when his men fled, they left arms in situ, said to be American arms that had been supplied using Georgia as a surrogate.  . . .     Kiev is now subject to a genuine Fascist coup Is Washington aware of this?  Ultranationalists played a driving role at the end of the Maidan protests; they grew out of a tradition that collaborated with Hitler, use the same symbols, and pledge to rid Ukraine of Jews, homosexuals, Poles.  These people might come to power. Guess that CIA has written it up, but has that got to the White House? WH may be so invested in its policy that it can't entertain anyother view.  . . . Yatseniuk brought a  lot of these people into Parliament on his list – but the main thing is that they command battalions. Leader of Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh: "Right Sector does not accept Minsk agreement."   . . . [It’s said that Yarosh is Jewish, has a Star of David tattooed inside his Right-Sector insignia.] There are Ukraine scholars who hold that the country may soon be run by warlords.  Consistent reports of draft-dodging.   Azov Battalion.
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; (4 of 4) in re:
Hour Three
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 3, Block A:   Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & Pirates fan, in re: Cory Gardner is undeniably shaped by his family's deep roots in Colorado's Great Plains. Hundred-year-old photographs of the family business in the small town of Yuma are scattered across the walls of the junior senator's basement office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. So are photos from around the Centennial State; tiny towns like Trinidad and Burlington are represented in old thrift-shop finds that capture the hardworking frontier families who carved lives and fortunes from his home state. Gardner is the most authentic person you may ever meet in Congress, and also incredibly humble. He is energetic, self-deprecating, witty, well-read, charming and so optimistic that it's easy to see how he won over critics, political partisans, hard-nosed journalists and a variety of new voters to beat an entrenched incumbent Democrat in last year's midterm election. Click here for link
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 3, Block B:  Tamar Hallarman, CQ/RollCall, in re: GOP Offers New Tactic as DHS Hurtles Toward Shutdown  Republicans set up a new challenge aimed at splintering Democratic unity after the party once again rebuffed a GOP attempt to bring the House-passed Homeland Security funding bill to the Senate floor.
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 3, Block C:   Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: X-Prize contestants team-up to create head-to-head lunar race  The competition heats up: Two Google Lunar X-Prize contestants have teamed up to use the same rocket to get to the Moon together, where they will literally race head to head to see who travels the 500 meter distance first to win the prize.   How many people have actually purchased SpaceShipTwo tickets?  Doug Messier has done some research and has found the numbers might be less than advertised.
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 3, Block D:  Eli Lake, Bloomberg Politics, in re:  White House Lowers Bar for Iran Nuke Deal
Hour Four
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 4, Block A: Empire of Cotton: A Global History, by Sven Beckert (5 of 12)
". . . Mr. Beckert’s masterly narrative of cotton production within the framework of state power and capitalism shows how much has been missed in studies focused on the vulnerable (slaves, women and the like) without incorporating the structural advantages of the powerful. Deeply researched and eminently readable, Empire of Cotton gives new insight into the relentless expansion of global capitalism.   . . . In Mr. Beckert’s view, the cotton revolution was partly the fortuitous product of a sequence of inventions — flying shuttle (1733), spinning jenny (1764), water frame (1769) and Samuel Crompton’s spinning mule (1779).– New York Times
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 4, Block B: Empire of Cotton: A Global History, by Sven Beckert (6 of 12)
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 4, Block C: Empire of Cotton: A Global History, by Sven Beckert (7 of 12)
Tuesday  24 February 2015   / Hour 4, Block D: Empire of Cotton: A Global History, by Sven Beckert (8 of 12)
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