The World and Everything in It: February 26, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. Hello, this is Melissa. I’m the executive director of Choices Pregnancy Resource Center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. 

And I’m Sandy, the advancement director at Choices. Melissa introduced me to WORLD, and now both of our husbands also listen to WORLD. We hope you enjoy today's program.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Good morning! Today on Legal Docket: Lies by omission. Can investors sue companies that withhold information?

DAVID FREDERICK: When the truth emerged, their stock price fell by more than 40 percent in one day.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today the Monday Moneybeat. We’ll talk student loans, President Biden, and moral hazard.

And the WORLD History Book. Sixteen years ago, a memorable moment of classical music diplomacy.

MAAZEL: Ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues at the New York Philharmonic and I are very pleased to play in this fine hall today.

ROUGH: It’s Monday, February 26th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Jenny Rough.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

ROUGH: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: GOP primary race » Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are campaigning in Michigan ahead of tomorrow’s presidential caucuses.

DONALD TRUMP: Michigan’s coming up. We’re doing great. The auto workers are going to be with us 100 percent … because they got sold out by this country.

Trump heard there after his victory in South Carolina Saturday night. He won 60 percent of the vote to Haley’s 40 percent. He’s won every state thus far, and Haley faces increasingly long odds. But she told supporters, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

NIKKI HALEY: We’re heading to Michigan tomorrow. And we’re heading to the Super Tuesday states throughout all of next week.

The former South Carolina governor again vowing to fight on, saying voters deserve an alternative to President Biden and former President Trump.

SOUND: [Fighter jet]

New U.S., UK strikes against Houthis » American F-18 fighter jets launched from the deck of the U.S.S. Eisenhower over the weekend.

SOUND: [fighter jet]

As U.S. and British forces struck 18 Houthi targets in Yemen, targeting missiles, launchers, rockets, drones and air defense systems.

The latest strikes were an answer to a recent surge in attacks by the Iran-backed terror group on commercial ships in the region.

Netanyahu on Rafah plan » Still no deal on a new temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas as Israeli forces gear up for a major offensive in the city of Rafah, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls the last remaining Hamas stronghold.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: If we have a deal, it will be delayed somewhat, but it will happen. If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway. It has to be done, because total victory is our goal, and total victory is within reach.

And he said the victory is only weeks away, once the Rafah offensive begins.

But U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan Sunday again expressed serious concerns about deepening a humanitarian crisis. He said Rafah is home to more than a million people:

JAKE SULLIVAN: Who have been pushed into this small space in Gaza because of military operations elsewhere. And so we’ve been clear that we do not believe that a major military operation should proceed in Rafah unless there is a clear and executable plan to protect those civilians, to get them to safety and feed, clothe and house them.

Israel says it has been working on a plan to minimize harm to civilians in Rafah, but the U.S. officials say they’ve not yet seen that plan.

Russia sanctions » Sullivan also said a new round of sanctions against Russia will help prevent the Kremlin from getting the goods it needs to build weapons and will slow down the Russian economy. And he added that more sanctions will be added going forward.

SULLIVAN: Inch by inch, we believe that will reduce Russia’s capacity to wage war and threaten its neighbors, and that is our intent.

President Biden announced a new round of sanctions on Friday, a week after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic penal colony.

Ukraine 2-year mark, troop deaths, funding plea » It is now year-3 of the war in Ukraine. Saturday marked 2 years exactly since Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have tragically died in the war.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

But Kyiv says that’s only a fraction of the number of troops Russia has lost.

Zelenskyy says Ukraine does have a realistic plan to win the war, but that it “depends” on continued help from the West.

Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova echoed those remarks, telling CBS’ Face the Nation:

OKSANA MARKAROVA: We see on the battlefield that this war is still very winnable if we have supply of weapons and support. But also it’s a war that unfortunately can be lost if the support is not there, we run out.

And British Ambassador to the United States Karen Piece said Sunday:

KAREN PIERCE: If President Putin isn’t stopped in Ukraine, the world will become a more dangerous place, and ultimately, that will threaten all of us. So it’s very vital that they get this aid.

Ukraine funding » Meantime in Washington, a group of House lawmakers is still working to drum up support for a House bill that would provide that aid to Ukraine. GOP Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick:

BRIAN FITZPATRICK: What this bill does is it combines border security with this foreign aid, both existential. And we are forcing this bill to the floor to make sure that everybody acts, because as President Zelenskyy said, they have weeks, not months to get reinforcements on the front lines.

Unlike the recently passed Senate bill, the House legislation would fund only military aid, not economic or humanitarian help.

It also calls for the return of the Trump-era remain in Mexico policy at the southern border.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Telling the whole truth on Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: It’s Monday, February 26, and you’re listening to The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. Good morning! I’m Jenny Rough.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

Two oral arguments and two opinions to cover today.

The opinions are quick, so let’s tackle those first. Both of them were unanimous decisions. One held that the double-jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment prevents the state of Georgia from retrying a man for killing his mother.

The other had to do with so-called choice-of-law clauses in maritime contracts. The court ruled that these provisions spelling out where to litigate the disputes are valid and generally enforceable.

Now the oral arguments. One case involves securities law and the second, a drug bust.

ROUGH: And I think there’s a common thread here even though they may seem unrelated. But here’s what jumped out at me: These cases are connected by the question, What is a lie? And is it ever okay to tell one?

The question almost seems to answer itself: Is it ever right not to do right? Of course not.

But what about extreme circumstances? Did Corrie ten Boom, for example, owe the Nazis the truth? Wasn’t she not only right, but courageous, to lie about the Jewish people she was hiding during the Holocaust?

My favorite so-called “good lie” is in Les Mis. I’m talking about the incident in which Jean Valjean steals silver from the bishop. The bishop gets on board with the false story that the silver wasn’t stolen. It was a gift.

He did it to give Jean Vajean the chance to become an honest man. Love the irony!

EICHER: But aren’t there different types of lies? I mean, let’s get to the realm of the law where one type of lie might be a false statement made, another might be a true statement withheld. Lies by omission.

ROUGH: Exactly! And that’s at the heart of the securities case.

It involves a dispute between investors and a publicly-traded company, Macquarie Infrastructure.

The investors say Macquarie lied by omission. It withheld the truth.

Here are the facts: Macquarie is a conglomerate. It’s made up of many companies. And one of those companies owns storage tanks that hold fuel for ships.

EICHER: Specifically, that hold a very dirty fuel oil known as Number 6, with a high concentration of sulfur. It contains around 3 percent of that pollutant.

But a new environmental regulation was in the works that would ban fuels with sulfur content that exceeds zero-point-five percent, not three.

Some predicted that if the regulation went into effect, it would be okay, because emerging technologies could reduce the sulfur content. Others predicted the new environmental regulation would drive down demand for dirty oil.

And that’s exactly what happened. Demand plummeted. It hurt Macquarie’s business and drove down demand for its stock.

ROUGH: Investors argued Macquarie was required to disclose to them that this environmental law was on the way and the effect would be significant. Macquarie didn’t do that.

So investors brought their suit under a broad, age-old securities law called 10(b). An anti-fraud statute.

Rule 10(b)5 is a regulation under that statute. It says companies that buy and sell securities can’t make false or misleading statements.

EICHER: That’s what companies can’t do. What the rule prohibits. And other securities rules [that govern disclosures] say what companies are required to do. Turns out there are very high expectations on publicly traded companies.

PAUL KISSLINGER: There’s a lot of things. Page after page of things they have to tell investors in their public statements.

ROUGH: That’s Paul Kisslinger, a lawyer in private practice who has expertise in securities law. I got in touch with him because he used to work for the SEC, and so he’s handled both sides of cases like these.

KISSLINGER: They have to have balance sheets, they have to have all this stuff.

Important for our Supreme Court case today is a special disclosure requirement called MD&A.

KISSLINGER: Management Discussion and Analysis. … It’s supposed to be a plain and clear narrative where the company is explaining trends in the marketplace, what they see upcoming on the horizon. How things could impact your businesses.

The requirement to disclose something called “known trends and uncertainties.”

KISSLINGER: So like if you’re Amazon, you’re going to tell the public COVID is really hurting our business because it’s backing up all the shipping.

EICHER: And any retailer like that would know full well the effects of government COVID regulations, so the company would have to make known to investors what it knows.

But let’s return to the legal claims in this case. When does a false disclosure—or a true disclosure withheld—amount to fraud that allows investors to sue?

And a quick point of clarification here: The federal SEC does have the power to bring cases for fraud. But this is private investors seeking their own redress. In other words: the question presented here is, when can investors bring a private suit for fraud?

Under the anti-fraud statute and that regulation we mentioned Rule 10(b)5,  investors may sue in only two circumstances. One we already talked about: A false statement.

ROUGH: The second? Well, the second is a little less straightforward.

So I’m going to quote some of the actual wording … companies may not omit a material fact that’s necessary to make another statement not misleading.

In other words, no half-truths. Meaning, tell the whole story … and don’t leave anything out … that would make an otherwise true statement untrue.

Kisslinger gives this example:

KISSLINGER: You ask your mom, “Hey, mom, can I go to a movie tonight?” And your Mom says, “Yeah, if you do all your homework.”

So you say thanks, go get yourself ready, grab your wallet and keys, head for the door, and encounter a final hurdle—Dad.

KISSLINGER: And your Dad says, “Hey, did your Mom say you could go to the movies?” And you say, “Sure. She did.”

ROUGH: You just don’t mention the homework. So what you’ve done is you’ve told a half-truth.

What you failed to disclose makes the true statement you did disclose untrue. Dad has a cause of action, I would say, and you’re probably grounded.

EICHER: So that’s one of the questions in this case. Did Macquarie tell a half-truth? If so, the investors can proceed.

But Macquarie says they can’t. Macquarie’s lawyer Linda Coberly says there’s no half-truth here. Because the plaintiffs, the investors, have failed to tie what Macquarie omitted to another statement it did make on the same subject.

LINDA COBERLY: A plaintiff must identify a specific statement. They do not refer to any specific misleading statement, any paragraph or sentence where a list was given that was incomplete, for example.

In other words, she argues the omission has no connection to a half-true statement.

A statement like, Mom said I could go to the movies.

ROUGH: But the other side says that amount of specificity isn’t necessary.

David Frederick represented the investors. He told the justices that this case involves a classic half-truth.

DAVID FREDERICK: Petitioners knew they were about to lose a substantial part of their business but kept their stock price artificially inflated by deliberately withholding information about their readiness to comply with an important rule change. When the truth emerged, their stock price fell by more than 40 percent in one day. Congress enshrined a private right of action to redress this kind of half truth.

He argued that even though the omission doesn’t tie into a specific disclosure, it does tie into the other statements in a broad sense. The entire MD&A in general! Again, that’s the section where a company must disclose known trends. He says an omission in that section is enough to constitute fraud.

The United States government also argued that day, and agreed on this point. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh struggled to puzzle through that logic.

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: How can the MD&A as a whole be misleading, but not any single statement within it?

EICHER: That idea raises another question. Pure omissions as opposed to half-truth statements.

Macquarie argues the investors are trying to create a third circumstance to allow claims under the anti-fraud statute when it only allows two. Fraud and half-truths. Macquarie argues pure omissions are a separate category.

ROUGH: But is there a difference between pure omissions and half truths? The investors say there isn’t. And Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to agree. Earlier, he brought it up with Macquarie’s lawyer Coberly.

JUSTICE ROBERTS: The distinction you draw between half-truths and omissions strikes me as one that might be hard to apply in practice.

EICHER: But Coberly said there has to be a difference. To allow fraud claims for “pure omissions” would set no limits. Companies would have to predict the future.

ROUGH: Whether investors can move forward with their fraud case will come down to the justices’ decision to apply a narrow test or a broad one.

Securities expert Kisslinger says a narrow test could allow companies to deceptively dance around disclosures. Like what’s allegedly happening here.

But a broad ruling could lead to disclosures that would take up a bookshelf and never be read. A tight narrative is what’s most helpful to the public, and not filings containing endless warnings.

KISSLINGER: Every trend under the sun, anything. Inflation, unemployment, ESG report, anything that could affect your bottom line. There’s going to be another pandemic 10 years down the line. So how far do you have to take this?

EICHER: Alright, let’s move onto case two: Smith v. Arizona. It’s a seemingly straightforward case. It concerns a man by the name of Jason Smith who is tried for the sale and possession of illegal drugs.

This case revolves around so-called hearsay evidence.

ROUGH: Let me explain that.

When attorneys present evidence at a trial, they can’t present statements made out of court to prove the truth of what was said. Such statements must be presented in court.

For example, say you told me it’s raining. I can’t go to court and prove it’s raining merely by saying you said so. You’d have to come in and testify about it under oath otherwise it’s hearsay. The court considers it unreliable. Rumor.

EICHER: So coming in, testifying under oath—meaning it’s the crime of perjury to lie—and allowing the jury to assess my credibility. To determine whether I’m telling the truth.

ROUGH: Right, and in a criminal case like this, a closely related concept takes things one step further.

A criminal defendant has the right to confront a witness who makes what are called testimonial statements against him. These are statements with the purpose of making criminal accusations. The accused needs to have the right to challenge the witness’s honesty and veracity. That right comes from the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It’s known as the confrontation clause.

It’s important because anybody can say anything. You have to probe a bit to get at the truth.

EICHER: In this case, before the trial, a forensic scientist named Elizabeth Rast performed chemical tests on the items seized during the drug bust. At the time, she worked for the Arizona Department of Public Safety. She wrote down some lab notes. And she also officially typed up her findings into a formal written report. She concluded the tests identified the items as marijuana, cannabis, and methamphetamine.

ROUGH: But during the trial, prosecutors didn’t call Elizabeth Rast to the stand. By the time of the trial, Rast had left the department. Instead, prosecutors put on a substitute expert forensic scientist Greggory Longoni.

He looked at her lab notes and her written report, and then he testified that in his opinion, the items seized were drugs.

EICHER: Defendant Jason Smith argues the state’s failure to put Rast on the stand for cross-examination violated his Sixth Amendment confrontation right.

At the Supreme Court, Smith was represented by attorney Hari Santhanam.

HARI SANTHANAM: Rast's statements were testimonial because any reasonable, objective person would understand that she prepared those statements for the primary purpose of creating evidence to use against Smith in his prosecution.

Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that Smith’s defense lawyer could have exposed the weakness in the state’s decision to use a substitute expert.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Why isn’t it enough for the defense counsel to be able to ask Longoni what happened in the lab? And he’s going to have to say, “I don’t know.” … You put somebody up there like Longoni whose knowledge is very limited. It seems he’s ripe for cross-examination. It could be very effective.

Arizona argued Rast’s statements weren’t testimonial hearsay. They weren’t offered to prove the truth of them or for the purpose of accusing Smith of the crime.

Rather, the statements were introduced only to show how expert Longoni arrived at his opinion.

Here’s Alexander Samuels for Arizona:

ALEXANDER SAMUELS: Evidence offered only for the purpose of explaining the basis of an expert's opinion is not and cannot be offered for the truth of the matter asserted. … Longoni explicitly testified that he could form independent conclusions and then testified that he had formed independent conclusions.

ROUGH: But Justice Samuel Alito said that’s nonsensical. Longoni’s expert opinion is worthless if Rast’s statements are wrong. So his opinion must’ve been offered to show the truth of Rast’s report, that she performed the tests, and concluded the samples were illegal drugs.

Alito asked if any other evidence existed to prove the items seized were actually meth, cannabis, and marijuana.

SAMUELS: The three substances were admitted as physical exhibits. So they were present in the courtroom for the jury. Photos—

JUSTICE ALITO: What good does that do? The jury would taste it? Or sample these drugs?

EICHER: In other words, to prove the evidence before the jury consisted of illegal drugs, the state needs Longoni to say they are. But he had no independent knowledge at all. Not necessarily that he was lying, but how does he know? More importantly, how’s a jury supposed to know he knows?

ROUGH: Exactly. For Arizona to win, it’ll have to convince the court that Longoni wasn’t just a conduit to convey Rast’s conclusions. A high hurdle.

No one is arguing that Rast lied in her written notes and report either. But Smith maintains that under the Sixth Amendment, he has the right to confront her about it.

Now final word:

As a lawyer, I kind of feel the need to offer a disclaimer on our theme for the day. I’m not arguing for lies of any sort, whether inside or outside court, or lies by omission. But I think these seemingly dry legal cases do provide an opportunity for some juicy dinnertime discussion.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It, the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. He’s head of the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group and he’s here now.

David, good morning!

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning, Nick, good to be with you.

EICHER: Let’s listen to President Biden last week in Culver City, California. He’s talking about his original $400-billion-dollar plan for student loan relief.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: My MAGA-Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials, and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. They blocked it. But that didn’t stop me. I announced we were going to pursue alternative paths.

The Supreme Court blocked him, and he found alternative paths. So last week he went ahead with canceling an additional $1.2-billion-dollars in student loans owed.

That brings the total near to $140-billion-dollars canceled, again despite the Supreme Court. That’s a little better than a fourth of what he wanted to do. What do you think about the move?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think that a lot of people felt when he was trying to do the larger deal, the more wholesale just really explicitly illegal attempt at forgiving debt that the Supreme Court ended up stopping, there were a lot of people that felt it was a crass political move to generate support with younger voters. What he's done this time is basically say so.

They sent an email out, basically connecting the dots in targeting and outreach to 20-something-year-old voters. And I think it's a very dangerous precedent. There's a sense in which all politicians to some degree, oftentimes can be accused of trying to buy votes, and there's certain degrees of separation—you know, when people offer more benefits here, or more transfer payments, or I guess, in fairness, you can say more tax cuts. But this is really the first time I've seen a politician just explicitly say, out in the open, I'm trying to bribe you for your vote.

It's such bad policy. And it's so unfair to those who didn't take on student debt or didn't go to college, or this other camp of people that appear to be long forgotten, those who did take debt and paid it back. And so I remain really appalled on principle to this entire notion of wholesale forgiveness. And I also remain, as a matter of economic vitality, totally desperate for us to overhaul the student loan system going forward. Why they're trying to deal with those that already took money and got it and spent it and the college presidents got it and spent it - and on the margin, they're just trying to wipe away some of that debt - versus changing the system that is resulting in this massive higher education price inflation, and the degradation of the quality of product that is being delivered in higher education, it totally escapes me

EICHER: You say this student loan deal—basically now a subsidy—has the effect of contributing to tuition inflation. Explain how that works, how subsidies like loan “forgiveness” pushes up the price of tuition. Economically, how does that happen?

BAHNSEN: That's a great question. And it is very basic economics, but it's worth an overview. If you're going out of pocket to write a check, or you're going to have to go qualify at a bank for a loan and make an argument as to why you can afford to pay back this money, then you are going to be more price sensitive. All that analysis goes out the window and the universities know it. When you remove yourself from an economic buyer to a non-economic buyer. The government isn't interested in price competition between Oregon State University and Oregon University. They're going to foot the bill no matter what, and the person receiving it is not going to start paying for it ‘til years later. Now all of a sudden, Oregon State and Oregon know that there is a money good buyer, the federal government, who is paying. They're getting paid up front in full with no underwriting risk, no loan risk, no credit risk on the back end. So they have carte blanche to raise prices. So they can give a bad diploma, they can give a good diploma, the kids can party the whole time and learn nothing and go out in the marketplace as mediocrities into our society. It doesn't matter to the school, they got paid full boat upfront by the federal government.

So anytime you have a subsidy, it pushes prices higher because of the distortion into the market. What puts prices lower, what causes a market to work in every single other thing in society that isn't government subsidized? Competition. That's what moves prices - is I want to deliver a better product at a lower price. Someone else is trying to do the same. So we're fighting for customers who are price sensitive. So economic actors versus non-economic actors. That's what's happening here with the loans and higher education.

EICHER: So here’s an argument for student debt relief, got this on NPR, and I’ll quote it: “People whose payments are cut or eliminated should have more money to spend elsewhere—maybe to buy a car, put a down payment on a house, or even put money aside for their own kids’ college savings plan. So the debt forgiveness has the potential to raise the living standard for tens of millions of people.”

In other words, economic stimulus. How do you respond to that?

BAHNSEN: Frederic Bastiat in the mid-19th century, and repeated by Henry Hazlitt in the mid-20th century, termed the notion of the “broken window fallacy,” which is the basic fallacy of all bad economics, that focuses on the visible and not the invisible, the short term and not the long term, and the effect on some parties, but not all parties. And the example was people looking at a brick going through a window and thinking it was a good thing for a community because now they'd have to pay someone to repair the glass, ignoring what the shop owner wanted to spend the money on - buying a new suit, buying new shoes. So they ignore what they don't see - the shoes not bought - and focus on what they do see, the sub optimal nonproductive repair of a window. That's all that argument is, is classic broken window fallacy. And it's infuriating.

First of all, if it were true, that you could give out a trillion dollars, and then forgive it, and it would cause people to go buy houses and cars, and everybody would be doing well. Why don't we do it tomorrow with $10 trillion? What's the limiting principle? If just making up money out of thin air and giving it to people to spend as a way to stimulate the economy, why stop at college loans? Why not forgive everyone's credit card debt? The reason you don't do it is because that money has to be paid for. So you still are replacing money that was spent under certain legal terms and conditions, and now we're replacing it with money that will have to be paid back in the future. We're not eliminating what happened; the money was already spent.

So sure Johnny right now who doesn't make a student loan payment, and has a few extra bucks to go out with it helps Johnny today, but it's taking from the economic growth of society. We're just simply replacing who's going to pay it back with the people who got the money. And now instead, your kids and grandkids, my kids and grandkids, they pay it back - and that takes away from future economic growth. We can't escape this idea. It's moral hazard at its finest.

EICHER: All right. Defining terms. You just mentioned it, “moral hazard.” Last week, we defined a Bahnsenism, but this week, let’s do a known and much-used term we find in economics textbooks: moral hazard.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, there's so many different examples. But it's essentially when a policy or decision takes away an incentive in the future to do the right thing. So an example is if you forgive, if you bail out a company that did a bad thing, then there's a moral hazard that a company in the future might think, “I may as well do a bad thing again, because if it works, then it's good for my business. And if it doesn't work, we already know I'll get bailed out.” So it incentivizes bad behavior. And a better way of saying it is it takes away an incentive to do good behavior. It takes away the incentive to be prudent, because the precedent has been set, which is what we mean by moral hazard, a precedent that there will be some sort of cover for you, even if you do something bad.

And to me, the great example here with the student loan issue is once they forgive some amount of student loans wholesale, if they were to do that, I don't know why anyone would believe that it won't happen in the future, that I may as well take more student debt. I may as well go and get this extra degree I wasn't really going to think about doing. And oh, by the way, why not assume that one day they're gonna bail out the credit card debts as well? That's a far bigger, more expensive, higher interest cost.

And student loans very candidly, are mostly applied to people that have higher income. Most people that went to college and have degrees, especially graduate degrees, where a lot of student debt lies. Statistically it's unavoidable that they're in a higher income bracket. So why don't we just go ahead and wipe out the credit card debt of lower income people? All of this is moral hazard, Nick.

EICHER: Ok, David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group.

Two key websites: Bahnsen.com for all things David, DividendCafe.com for his weekly musings on markets and the economy.

Thank you, David!

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, February 26th, 2024. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough. Up next, the WORLD History Book. 80 years ago, Corrie ten Boom is arrested for harboring Jews during World War 2. And, the New York Philharmonic performs in North Korea.

EICHER: But we begin with the life and death of Quaker leader Elias Hicks. Here’s WORLD Radio Reporter Emma Perley:

EMMA PERLEY: On February 27th, 1830, Elias Hicks lay on his deathbed in Long Island, New York. At 81 years old, his long life has been marked by charismatic ministry, public charity, and theological debate.

Hicks became a Quaker in his early twenties and began preaching throughout the Northeast. His strong voice and passion attracted hundreds, sometimes even thousands.

Hicks was strongly opposed to slavery, and became a leading figure for abolition. Voice actor Jon Gauger reads from his book, Observations on the Slavery of Africans and Their Descendants …

JON GAUGER: We have planted slavery in the rank soil of sordid avarice: and the product has been misery in the extreme.

While Hicks was instrumental in the abolition of slavery in New York, his theology differed from traditional orthodoxy. He believed that the presence of God inside a person’s heart was the source of truth—Hicks considered the Bible secondary to understanding the gospel.

In 1825 Hicks preached at a Quaker meeting house.

GAUGER: Our evidence is internal, from the communications of God himself. Nothing can convict me of sin but the evidence in my own heart.

Hicks rejected the idea of original sin, the Trinity, and the existence of Satan on earth. His followers soon became known as Hicksites, and ultimately split from Orthodox Quakers.

In 1830 two strokes left him paralyzed. As he lay dying, he made sure the blanket that would cover him upon his passing was not made by slaves.

Next, we travel to the thick of World War 2, 1944. A Dutch woman named Corrie ten Boom has spent the last four years helping Jewish refugees flee from Nazi persecution in the Netherlands.

Here is Corrie in an interview with evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman. Audio courtesy of Biblical Restoration Ministries.

CORRIE TEN BOOM: We knew that whatever happens, those who love God, all things work for the best. And so there was not a real fear, we were not afraid.

But on February 28th, the Gestapo arrest Corrie and her family after discovering that they are hiding Jews in a secret room in their house.

TEN BOOM: We were all brought into a prison. And there I was thrown into solitary confinement. But you know, I was not really alone. For Jesus was with me.

Corrie and her sister Betsie are sent to several concentration camps. Eventually, they arrive at Germany’s Ravensbrück—a women's labor camp.

TEN BOOM: I will never forget, when we came into Ravensbrück, that was a camp that was far too full. We had to live with 700 in a room that was built for 200… I said, “Oh Betsie, it’s full of fleas and lice.” And Betsie said, “Corrie, we must thank God for everything.” I said “I cannot thank God for fleas.” And she said, “We have to.”

Corrie and her sister hope in God in the midst of the filth. They start Bible studies with other women using a smuggled-in Bible after hard days of work. Many women convert to Christianity from the sisters’ efforts. Betsie eventually becomes sick and dies in the camp. Corrie is released only twelve days later.

TEN BOOM: When I was free, I knew there was work to do. Betsie had said, “We must go all over the world, because we have a message from experience, that the light of Jesus Christ is stronger than the deepest darkness.”

The ten Boom family saved nearly 800 Jews during the Holocaust. And Corrie continued to share the gospel and help persecuted Jews after the war. In 1971, she released her autobiography The Hiding Place about her experience in the concentration camps.

TEN BOOM: I saw there the devil. He was stronger, much stronger than I. But there was Jesus. And Jesus is stronger, much stronger than the devil. And together with Jesus, I am stronger, much stronger than the devil.

We end today in Pyongyang, North Korea for a concert.

MUSIC: [NORTH KOREAN NATIONAL ANTHEM]

On February 26th, 2008, the New York Philharmonic performs pieces by Richard Wagner, Leonard Bernstein, and even plays “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the North Korean audience.

MUSIC: [STAR SPANGLED BANNER]

Six months before, North Korean Ministry of Culture representative Song Sok-hwan invited the orchestra to perform in the nation’s capital. Composer Lorin Maazel addresses the audience of both foreigners and North Koreans in the Pyongyang Grand Theatre:

LORIN MAAZEL: Ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues at the New York Philharmonic and I are very pleased to play in this fine hall today.

AUDIO: [Dvorak]

The North Korean government allows unusually high access to the country, including internet access for foreign journalists. Maazel speaks to interviewers shortly before the performance. Audio here from AP News.

MAAZEL: If our concert here is well received, people feel that we want to make music for them and are thrilled that they would want us to play for them, then we will have made, I think, whatever contribution we can make to bringing our people’s trust one tiny step closer.

Song Sok-hwan said he hoped the event would invite cultural exchange between America and North Korea. And while the performance did not lead to any diplomatic improvements, it brought powerful music to an otherwise isolated people.

AUDIO: [ARIRANG]

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Perley.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: fallout from an Alabama ruling that frozen embryos are children deserving of legal protection. What do Christian doctors think of in-vitro fertilization? That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough.

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