Coyote Blog

Nutty interview on Fox Business.

Stuart Varney is trying to complete a quest in which he must find information about Tesla's new board chairman.  He seeks out and starts questioning NPC Kimbal Musk, but the quest is apparently broken and the NPC only gives him information on some unrelated quest about planting a seed.

“Hi, and thank you for having me here,” Musk said after a perfunctory introduction from Varney. “I’m so excited about plant a seed day.”

Plant a seed day, you see, was the only thing that Kimbal Musk wanted to talk about Thursday morning on Fox Business. Varney, of course, had no interest in plant a seed day, what with him hosting a business show and all. He tried his level best to get Musk to talk about new Tesla chair Robyn Denholm.

“You are on the board at Tesla,” Varney said. “And you’ve got a new chair. Have you heard anything from her? Is she laying down law?”

“I am so happy for the future of Tesla,” Musk said. “On March 20, 2019 we’re going to do a plant a seed day…”

Varney interjected.

“Come on!” Varney said. “You are on board of Tesla — which is very much in the news. You’ve got a new chair to replace your brother, Elon Musk. You’ve got to tell me. Is she laying down law? have you had contact with her? What she’s saying? What she’s doing on the board?”

“I am very happy about the future of Tesla,” Musk said. “Let me tell you about a story…”

Varney interjected again, as it was clear that Kimbal Musk was about to pivot back to plant a seed day.

“I want to know what’s going on at Tesla with the new board chair, and you are on the board,” Varney said. “Can you answer the question? What is she doing? What do you know that she’s doing so far? I don’t need to know you’re happy about future of Tesla I want to know what your new chair is doing at Tesla on the board.”

“What I’d like to share I’m so happy about the future of Tesla,” Musk “And plant a seed day in 2019 will be a way for companies across America to participate.”

Varney, at that point, decided he’d had it.

“You think my viewers want to learn about PLANT A SEED DAY?!” Varney said. “THEY DON’T CARE!”

Musk tried one more time to get a plug in for plant a seed day. Varney gave up, and decided to shut down the interview.

Fox Business has done an article on the government closing of privately funded parks.

One interesting note - many state parks operate on Federal land using almost exactly the same king of lease contract (called a special use permit) we have to privately operate parks and campgrounds.  If private parks with this type of lease with the USFS have to close, shouldn't state parks as well?  For example, both Slide Rock SP in Arizona and Burney Falls SP in California operation using the same kind of lease as we do.

I will be on Fox Business Channel's Follow the Money, which airs at 8PM EST.  Not sure which part of the program I will be in.

Update: finished taping. I suppose it is good practice, but this 2 minute TV interview thing is really a difficult format for me. Producer said it was on 10est so check your local listings, as they say. Dont blink or you will miss me. I think my forbes column this week may be "what I should have said in Friday night."

From Fox Business

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress he would start tapping into federal pension funds on Monday to free up borrowing capacity as the nation hits the $14.294 trillion legal limit on its debt.

The U.S. Treasury will issue $72 billion in bonds and notes on Monday, pushing the nation right up against its borrowing cap at some point during the day, according to a Treasury official.

Geithner said he would suspend investments in two government retirement funds, which will give the U.S. Treasury $147 billion in additional borrowing capacity.

"I will be unable to invest fully" in the civil service retirement and disability fund and the government securities investment fund, he said in a letter to congressional leaders

Why does this surprise anyone?  Up to this point, government workers have enjoyed a special privilege.  All other Americans have had their retirement accounts in the Social Security system raided and replaced with IOU's, such that $0 actually still exists in these accounts.  All this does is subject government worker's pensions to the same treatment.  It is in fact telling that government employees have been a protected class on this dimension for so long.

I am sure these funds will be quickly replaced.  No such luck for folks counting on Social Security for their retirement.

I flew to New York to go in studio on the Stossel show today.  I did a brief bit on the minimum wage, a reprise from my earlier cameo on Stossel special.  It will be on tomorrow, Thursday at 9PM Eastern on Fox Business  (not Fox News, Fox Business).

The whole experience was new to me, which made me virtually unique as I was surrounded by policy wonks who do this kind of talking head thing all the time.   By the way, there was no sharing of questions or his plan in advance -- I think they want you cold.  So answers are all in real time.

Please, please, please do not write me or post comments such as "you should have said ____."  It will just depress me.  Believe me, 5 minutes after walking out I thought of 9 things I should have said.  Which is in fact why I blog rather than engage much any more in real time argument.

Anyway, I think his show will be pretty good -- he has Michael Cannon on health care and segments after mine on cash for clunkers and alpaca subsidies.  I shared the green room with an alpaca, which will probably just go to prove the old saying about always getting upstaged by kids and animals.

By the way, I think Stossel must set a different tone for his staff than is normal on TV.  I was talking to one of his producers, a guy that had come with Stossel from ABC, and I asked him if he had studied something relevant to this job in college.  I expected him to say "yes, theater" or "yes, television production."  But he said "yes, economics at George Mason."  I loved that answer.