The World and Everything in It: January 22, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is brought to you by listeners like me. Hi, I'm Richard McAdams, and my purpose in life is to love the Lord, our God with all of my heart, mind, body and soul. I do that, imperfectly of course. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Some say federal agencies have too much power. Today, thinking again about the Chevron Doctrine that gave them all that power.

KAVANAUGH: The reality of how this works is Chevron itself ushers in shocks to the system every four or eight years.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today the Monday Moneybeat, Davos, housing, and defining some economic terms.

And the WORLD History Book. 15 years ago, a mom, her octuplets, and media obsession.

DR. PHIL: You said that you had this void from this dysfunctional childhood. Are they born with a job of filling your void?

REICHARD: It’s Monday, January 22nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: It’s time for news now with Kent Covington. 

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: DeSantis drops out » With New Hampshire primary voters set to head to the polls tomorrow, it’s now a two-person race for the Republican presidential nomination.

With his poll numbers lagging in upcoming primary states, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made this announcement on Sunday:

DESANTIS: I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.

It was a surprisingly early exit for a candidate who once seemed poised to give Trump a serious challenge.

Just over a year ago, the governor was riding high off a landslide reelection win in Florida.

DESANTIS: After four years, the people have delivered their verdict. Freedom is here to stay!

In the months that followed, a few polls suggested that DeSantis might’ve even been the frontrunner for the party’s presidential nod.

And last February, just 13 points separated Trump from DeSantis in Republican primary polls.

But that gap began to grow after the first of a series of indictments against Trump last March. And on Sunday, the governor said it’s clear that most GOP voters want to give Trump another chance.

DESANTIS: They watched his presidency get stymied by relentless resistance. And they see Democrats using lawfare to this day to attack him.

Donald Trump on Sunday informed his supporters in New Hampshire of the governor’s decision.

TRUMP: And Ron is dropping out. And in doing so, he endorsed us.

DeSantis said Trump’s only remaining GOP rival, former ambassador Nikki Haley, represents the Republican party of “yesteryear.”

New Hampshire campaigning » But campaigning in New Hampshire Sunday, Haley said the governor has it backward.

HALEY: And this comes down to - what do you want? Do you want more of the same? Or do you want something new?

Speaking to her supporters, she celebrated winning the campaign within the campaign that was the race to become the GOP alternative to Donald Trump.

HALEY: It’s now one fella and one lady left. [cheers]

In the latest average of New Hampshire polls, Trump leads with 50 percent, followed by Haley with 35 percent.

But tomorrow’s vote is not a closed primary. Independents can also vote … which could make the race even closer.

Missile strike on U.S./Iraqi troops in Iraq » Several U.S. service members are being evaluated for traumatic brain injuries after Iran-backed militants fired ballistic missiles at an air base housing U.S. troops in Iraq. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The attack over the weekend follows nearly 150 recent attacks against U.S. forces inside Iraq by Iran’s proxy groups.

U.S. Central Command reported that militants fired multiple ballistic missiles and rockets at the Al-Asad air base.

The base houses U.S. and Iraqi troops whose primary mission is to counter ISIS militants in the region.

Air defense systems intercepted most of the missiles, but a few found their mark.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Border talks » The U.S.-Mexico border crisis will be a hot topic again this week. Lawmakers and the White House are still trying to hammer out a deal that would help to secure the border while also funding aid to Ukraine.

Republicans, like Texas Congressman Michael McCaul want President Biden to restore Trump-era rules that he scrapped. That includes the so-called Remain in Mexico policy for those seeking asylum at the border.

MCCAUL: That was a direct cause and effect, as Border Patrol Chief Ortiz told us, once that policy was rescinded, then the magnet pull factor came in.

The president hosted a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House for talks last week about the border and Ukraine funding.

Mayorkas » House Republicans will also continue a push this week to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Congressman Mark Green chairs the Homeland Security Committee.

GREEN: Right now, we are assembling articles of impeachment to present to our committee. We’ll mark those up in committee very shortly after getting back, and then [after] passing the committee, they’ll go to the floor for a vote on the floor.

Some GOP lawmakers accuse Mayorkas of subverting U.S. immigration laws.

Weather » Freezing temperatures are wreaking havoc across much of the country, causing pipes to burst and turning roads into dangerous ice rinks.

But Bob Oravec with the National Weather says relief is on the way for many.

ORAVEC: The cold air mass moves off the coast and some warmer air starts to build North eastward. So a lot of the cold below average temperatures that we have had over the past few days will begin to moderate and actually by mid week early to mid week we'll have much above average temperatures across a good part of their country east of the Rockies.

As of Sunday, millions of people from Southern Michigan all the way to Texas were under freeze or winter storm warnings.

I’m, Kent Covington. 

Straight ahead: Fishing for a change to Uncle Sam’s regulatory powers on Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 22nd day of January, 2024. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. It’s time for Legal Docket.

The Supreme Court heard two oral arguments back to back last week that could limit the power of federal agencies.

The possibility has liberals concerned and conservatives hopeful about a change in legal doctrine that’s 40 years old. Back in the 1980s the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Chevron v Natural Resources Defense Council.

NICK EICHER, HOST: What came from that ruling is known as Chevron Deference.

It allows executive branch agencies to take an ambiguous law and write unambiguous rules. It’s what prevents the courts from checking the power of the administrative state.

The key word in Chevron deference is deference, and courts give that deference so long as the agency’s interpretation is considered “reasonable.”

REICHARD: Plenty of fudge words there. And over the decades since Chevron, agency power has grown to the point that conservative critics cry foul. Those critics include justices on the high court, like Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito.

Here are the facts of these two disputes. A federal law called the Magnuson-Stevens Act passed in 1976. Its mandate was to regulate American fisheries and prevent overfishing. Part of that required placement of federal monitors on board fishing vessels to ensure regulations were adhered to.

EICHER: No one disputes that part. What is disputed is a rule the National Marine Fisheries Service passed decades later during the Trump administration. It requires fisheries to pay for those on-board federal monitors. The cost comes to about $700 per day, and represents about 20% of annual profits for some businesses.

In the text of the Magnuson-Stevens Act you’ll find nothing about payments.

Yet the agency decided that because Congress said nothing about it, that was ambiguity it could exploit. So the agency claimed authority to shift the cost of enforcement directly onto the fishermen.

REICHARD: So the fishermen sued and then landed a formidable advocate, former Solicitor General Paul Clement.

Clement brought the fight to the Supreme Court and argued Chevron’s got to go.

PAUL CLEMENT: Commercial fishing is hard. Space onboard vessels is tight, and margins are tighter still. Therefore, for my clients, having to carry federal observers on board is a burden, but having to pay their salaries is a crippling blow. 

Nonetheless, the court below deferred to the agency because it viewed the statute as silent on the "who pays" question. There is no justification for giving the tie to the government or conjuring agency authority from silence.

On the other side representing the Biden administration, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

PRELOGAR: The Chevron framework is a bedrock principle of administrative law with deep roots in this Court's jurisprudence. Overruling a precedent is never a small matter, but overruling a precedent as foundational as Chevron should require a truly extraordinary justification, and Petitioners don't have one.

The liberal justices seemed keen to follow Prelogar. Justice Elena Kagan mentioned Chevron’s use across industries, not just fisheries. Here she is addressing another lawyer for the fishermen, Roman Martinez.

JUSTICE KAGAN: You think that the court should determine whether this new product is a dietary supplement or a drug without giving deference to the agency, where it is not clear from the text of the statute or from using any traditional methods of statutory interpretation whether in fact the new product is a dietary supplement or a drug?

Sometimes law runs out. Sometimes there’s a gap. there’s a genuine ambiguity. And I, I don’t know. In that case, I would rather have people at HHS telling me whether this new product was a dietary supplement or a drug.

EICHER: Besides that, Justice Kagan suggested it’s up to Congress to do something about problems applying Chevron.

Clement for the fisheries argued too many in Congress have no incentive to fix it—because Chevron allows them to duck difficult legislative issues. And bureaucrats don’t have to face voters. So there’s no political accountability.

CLEMENT: But my point is it's really convenient for some members of Congress not to have to tackle the hard questions and to rely on their friends in the executive branch to get them everything they want.

I also think Justice Kavanaugh is right that even if Congress did it, the president would veto it. And I think the third problem is, and -- and fundamentally even more problematic, is if you get back to that fundamental premise of Chevron that when there's silence or ambiguity, we know the agency wanted to delegate to the Agency. That is just fictional, and it's fictional in a particular way, which is it assumes that ambiguity is always a delegation.

But ambiguity is not always a delegation. And more often, what ambiguity is, I don't have enough votes in Congress to make it clear, so I'm going to leave it ambiguous, that's how we're going to get over the bicameralism and presentment hurdle, and then we'll give it to my friends in the agency and they'll take it from here.

And that ends up with a phenomenon where we have major problems in society that aren't being solved because, instead of actually doing the hard work of legislation where you have to compromise with the other side at the risk of maybe drawing a primary challenger, you rely on an executive branch friend to do what you want. And it's not hypothetical. When I hear you talk about...

REICHARD: Justice Sonia Sotomayor interrupted him.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: You said you end up in gridlock, which we have now.

CLEMENT: No. What I'm saying is Chevron is a big factor in contributing to gridlock.

That led Justice Samuel Alito to ask Clement about the legal landscape in which Chevron arose four decades ago, and what’s changed in the years since:

JUSTICE ALITO: People who were very sophisticated and had a deep understanding of how judges decide what a statute means and a deep understanding of how administrative agencies work thought that Chevron would be an improvement because it would take judges out of the business of making what were essentially policy decisions. Now were they wrong then? And if they weren't wrong then, what, if anything, has changed since then?

CLEMENT: So, Justice Alito, I think they were partially right then. So let me say what's changed and what hasn't changed, i.e., what the Court missed back in Chevron. What has changed is we've come a long way in statutory interpretation. And, you know, if Chevron was a response to some of the excesses of the D.C. Circuit in the freewheeling days of the late '70s and the use of legislative history and, oh, by the way, the text of the statute appears in the margin of my opinion, and I'm not going to talk about it again because I'm off to the races. We now, I think, are all textualists. The focus is much greater on the text of the statute. And once you recognize that, you recognize the problem with deferring at a certain point to the agencies.

And let's look at the track record of the agencies before this Court. If they are so expert, they should be able to persuade you in case after case that they're getting these statutes right. By my count and by the Cato Institute in their amicus brief, since the Court last cited Chevron, the administration is batting about 300 in these cases. So expertise is not all what it's cracked up to be.

EICHER: Clement is a nimble Supreme Court advocate. He’s argued more than 100 cases before the court. And so he had at hand a ready example of congressional dereliction of duty:

CLEMENT: I would think that the uniquely 21st Century phenomenon of cryptocurrency would have been addressed by Congress, and I certainly would have thought that would have been true in the wake of the FTX debacle. But it hasn't happened. Why hasn't it happened? Because there's an agency head out there that thinks that he already has the authority to address this uniquely 21st Century problem with a couple of statutes passed in the 1930s. And he's going to wave his wand and he's going to say the words "investment contract" are ambiguous, and that's going to suck all of this into my regulatory ambit, even though that same person, when he was a professor, said this is probably a job for the CFTC.

REICHARD: The government does not want to disturb the status quo. If it does, Prelogar argued, litigants will come out of the woodwork.

PRELOGAR: There are agency regulations out there that have been on the books for decades. People have made investment decisions on the basis of that. People have decided what contracts to enter into on the basis of that.

And all of that could be thrown into disarray if now it can be subject to renewed challenge …

Disarray or not, Justice Neil Gorsuch worried more about the Average Joe:

GORSUCH: The cases I saw routinely on the courts of appeals -- and I think this is what niggles at so many of the lower court judges -- are the immigrant, the veteran seeking his benefits, the Social Security Disability applicant, who have no power to influence agencies, who will never capture them, and whose interests are not the sorts of things on which people vote, generally speaking. And, there, Chevron is almost always and, in fact, I -- I didn't see a case cited, and perhaps I missed one, where Chevron wound up benefiting those kinds of peoples.

EICHER: Justice Brett Kavanaugh picked up on something else to counter the Solicitor General’s warning that chaos will ensue if Chevron is overturned:

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: You say don't overrule Chevron because it would be a shock to the system. But the reality of how this works is Chevron itself ushers in shocks to the system every four or eight years when a new administration comes in, whether it's communications law or securities law or competition law or environmental law, and goes from pillar to post, like Professor Pierce wrote, and he had been a fan of Chevron. Now he's not because he says it's a source of extreme instability in the law. You just pay attention to what happens when a new administration comes in at EPA, at SEC, at FTC, you name it. It's just massive change. That is at war with reliance. That is not stability.

REICHARD: One of the amicus briefs filed in support of the fishermen caught my eye. It’s from Little Sisters of the Poor, an organization that cares for the elderly poor. You might remember them as repeat challengers to contraceptive mandates imposed upon them in the name of Obamacare.

So I called up William Haun of the Becket Fund, co-counsel for the Sisters. He explained that herring fishermen, Catholic nuns, and Americans from all walks of life have a stake in the outcome:

WILLIAM HAUN: And the Little Sisters of the Poor are in this case because for the past 10 years, they have been the prime example of what happens when regulators get to tell the federal courts the scope of your religious liberty. This is why the Little Sisters have had what one Supreme Court justice called a legal odyssey because an administration after administration, when one administration's in power, the Little Sisters get a religious protection. When another administration is in power, that protection is withdrawn.

And that, say the herring fishermen, is what a written constitution is supposed to protect against.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Alright, time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and advisor, David Bahnsen. David is head of the wealth management firm, the Bahnsen Group and he is here now. David, good morning.

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

EICHER: Well, David, lots of financial journalists in Davos, Switzerland this past week. And so where there are politicians and leaders, there are reporters, where there are reporters, there are lots of stories. And so lots of ink spilled on the World Economic Forum, in Davos, and not really a ton else. I wonder whether any of that you found notable and worth a comment or two?

BAHNSEN: Um, no, I mean, I think that the newly elected president of Argentina gave a speech that had a lot of wonderful things in it that grabbed a lot of attention. And of course, there's always a lot of press around Davos, generally from the left, because they view a lot of these ideas as potentially really impactful to their agenda on climate, and other things. But then lately, there's a lot of attention from the right, too, because they view Davos and the World Economic Forum as part of a, you know, kind of sinister, conspiratorial plot. And so for both of those reasons, I tend to ignore it, because I don't really hold to either view. I see it as an event where a lot of people sit around and talk and say things that I already know they believe.

EICHER: Well, David, you mentioned President Milei in Argentina, Javier Milei, who is an economist by trade. The speech he gave at Davos thrilled, I know, the Wall Street Journal, which took an excerpt of it and printed it as an opinion column. Now, I do know, it's too early in the Milei administration, too early to appraise his overall performance. But I wonder attitudinally whether you think he's on the right track? I know, you were somewhat concerned that maybe Milei pivot away from some of the bombastic rhetoric and toward a little more sober, serious position, given how much serious work needs to be done to try to repair an economy like Argentina's?

BAHNSEN: 

Well, I think that the rhetoric in his Davos speech was not bombastic. And I think it was more academic and more intelligent. And I enjoyed most of what he said. I think when I refer to the execution, you know, the one policy thing he's done thus far was devalue their dollar 56%. And I think that he is aware of the pragmatic issues that they have in front of them. And I think that there's a theory and a philosophy that, given enough time, is going to be successful.

But what a lot of people on the right do not understand and I plead with Americans who believe in free enterprise, and who desperately desire less government intervention, I plead with them to understand: getting to the point at which you have a more ideal policy from a policy that has gone astray almost never can happen without pain. There's going to be some sacrifice, there's going to be some difficulty. And that's almost always where the poor execution comes. Because then at the sort of onset of some of the pain that goes with the transition, the political pressure becomes intense to have to change.

And the implementation often lacks what I call incrementalism, which is an extremely biblical concept, something Jesus talked about a great deal in parables and in the gospels, the kingdom of God being like a mustard seed, okay? There are things that have to grow and change and happen at a certain pace. To want to snap our fingers when it comes to the economy, and make everything better, is a very revolutionary spirit, but it is not a reformed spirit. It is not, I think, rooted in wisdom. And so unfortunately, Argentina will face the same reality.

And I plead for Americans to understand: we have a lot to alter in our economic administration, whether it's entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, government spending, government debt, the health of our workforce, there's so many things that need to happen to make for a more responsible free and virtuous citizenry. And yet, there are very few things that are going to happen overnight. And that is the economic reality we have and that's where I plead for wisdom and execution.

EICHER: Well, David, I saw lots of reporting on the housing market this past week, both in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and of course, that trickles down to other reporters. And it struck me maybe some other reporters are listening to you because it seems that they have finally caught up with you on the peculiarities of this housing market right now. I think you deserve a little bit of a victory lap, David.

BAHNSEN: Well, I thank you for noticing, because I had the same impression this week that some of the press seem to be into the same narrative that I've been in for some time, which is volumes, transactions, sales dropping even as prices are not. And this week, they actually put a number to it, perhaps just because it was the final December report, which meant it was the final 2023 report. And so you got year over year numbers, but year over year, sales dropped to a 28 year low. Okay? And we had a much smaller population 28 years ago, as well. A lot has changed in America since 1995. And the reason that we had such a absolutely miniscule amount of single family resident transactions happening and for all the things we've talked about here on WORLD many times, which is that both buyers and sellers are on strike, and that the interest rate policy froze buyers, because combined with high prices, housing is too unaffordable, and sellers froze because their rate on the house they're selling is so much lower than it will be on the house they're buying. So they have no incentive to hurry out of their house. And the only way to clear the market is first of all get on the other side of what the Fed is going to do with interest rates. But secondly, to build more supply. And I think that that's the theme you're going to be hearing now, the theme that we both picked up on in the dominant media this week. I think that's the theme you're going to be hearing throughout all of 2024. And there has already been, by the way, a movement in blue states that have done a lot to hamper new supply, there's already a real political pressure to change that, to relieve some of the regulatory burdens that are keeping new housing supply from coming online. But that is a huge need in our country, if you value affordability, and a healthy housing market, and we have a long way to go to get there.

EICHER: David, I'd like to start something new this week. It grows out of some of the really great feedback we receive from listeners and it boils down to this, it seems that it would be helpful to stop and make an effort to define terms to help the listener become more conversant with often-used economic and financial terms. And we have discussed this off the air, so I'm not throwing a curveball here. But get us started with our first installment of defining terms.

BAHNSEN: It occurs to me that terms I use a lot and a lot of people in economics and finance use a lot that we just take for granted. Everybody understands this idea of fiscal policy and monetary policy. And I think a lot of people out there think they're the same thing because the word fiscal and the word monetary both sound financial - because they both are financial. So it sounds like we're just talking about synonymous things. But when the word fiscal policy is used, it's a reference to governmental policy, whether it's cutting spending or cutting taxes or raising spending, raising taxes. It has to do with things that the government might do in the economy fiscally. Monetary policy has to do with what the central bank might do, interest rates, money supply. So fiscal and monetary are cousins, but they are two separate things, one being governmental spending and taxes, one being a reference to interest rates and the supply of money.

EICHER: Alright, defining terms. I think that's going to be very helpful. David Bahnsen is founder managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group. David's personal website is bahnsen.com. His Dividend Cafe each week you can find at dividendcafe.com. David, always great to talk with you. Thank you. See you next time.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, January 22nd.Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Fifteen years ago a mother successfully gives birth to octuplets.

EICHER: And the anniversary of a popular athletic shoe brand.

REICHARD: But we begin with the stories of the first and last medals of the 1924 Winter Olympics. Here’s WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler. 

PAUL BUTLER: It’s January 25th, 1924, and American speed skater Charles Jewtraw laces up his well worn skates. He and twenty-six speed skating competitors are paired up and prepare to face off in the mountain village of Chamonix, France. Athletes from around the world gather for a chance to compete against the best of the best.

Wearing wooly mittens and a stocking cap, Jewtraw glides to the starting line. Jewtraw is calm and collected, but he’s resigned to the fact that he doesn’t have a chance. He admits to Sports Illustrated that he hadn’t adequately trained and didn’t really want to be there.

In the moment before the starting flag, he bows his head and whispers: “For my country and my God, I’ll do my best.” The flag drops, and the sprinter from Lake Placid, New York, explodes off the starting line but immediately lags behind Canadian Charles Gorman. Gorman’s first 100 meters are so fast, the spectators audibly gasp. Undaunted, Jewtraw skates hard and pulls ahead midway down the track. Strengthened by a second wind, he doesn’t look back and speeds across the finish line like a bullet. He wins in 44 seconds flat.

MUSIC: [NATIONAL ANTHEM]

Charlie Jewtraw earns the first medal of the 1924 Winter Olympics.

The final medal of the games isn’t awarded until fifty years later when a ski jump historian discovers a clerical error. He recalculates the scores and finds the 4th place finisher actually finished third. The International Olympic Committee verifies the findings and issues a long overdue bronze medal to then 85 year old Anders Haugen of Norway in 1974.

HAUGEN: They presented the award and I received it…

Two years later, radio journalist Bob Brill interviewed Haugen—who said he didn’t want the medal. He thought people would misunderstand, thinking he was dissatisfied with the judges and results. He wasn’t.

HAUGEN: …so I just took the medal and said nothing.

Next, January 25th, 1964, accountant Phil Knight and olympic track and field trainer Bill Bowerman strike a gentlemen’s agreement with a handshake over some shoes. Here’s Knight in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning.

PHIL KNIGHT: It was always a crazy idea to the outside world, but it never really was to me. It was always a big hope.

That “crazy idea” is founding Blue Ribbon Sports—an athletic shoe company based in Beaverton, Oregon. Five years earlier the two men met when Knight was a college track athlete at University of Oregon. Bowerman was his coach. Bowerman was known for taking apart and then reassembling shoes to be lighter.

KNIGHT: Well, he would make them out of goatskin, and so they would just have almost no form in the upper. They were pretty ugly, but they were light.

Knight runs in Bowerman’s shoes. Later, while studying at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Knight turns in a business plan assignment proposing selling inexpensive shoes made in Japan.

Two years later, Knight runs the idea past his former coach. To his surprise, Bowerman offers to become a partner. The athlete turned accountant secures shoe samples from a Japanese company and begins selling them out of his car at track meets.

KNIGHT: People would say, “Oh, hear what Knight’s doing with his standard MBA? He’s peddling Japanese track shoes.” That was a pretty big joke at the time. But I wanted it, so I said I gotta try it. I gotta try it.

Blue Ribbon Sports soon begins making their own shoes in Japan to sell abroad. They change their brand name to Nike in 1971—and introduce the famous swoosh logo, a design they pay $35 for, designed by college student Carolyn Davidson.

CAROLYN DAVIDSON: Maybe the price wasn’t great at the time—they paid what I charged, though.

Nike has seen its fair share of controversy over the years: from polarizing spokesmen, to accusations over sweatshops and child labor. But it has immense international staying power. The company has seen its market share decline in recent years, but it’s come a long way from selling prototypes out of the trunk of a car. Nike is now worth more than 150 billion dollars, and sells over 20 billion shoes annually.

And finally today, the 15th anniversary of a live birth that becomes a media circus:

TV COVERAGE: This was the scene moments ago as photographers swarmed a SUV that carried Nadya Suleman…

Nadya Suleman gives birth to the world's first surviving octuplets on January 26th, 2009.

NEWS CLIP: Nadia Suleman is inside of her LaHabra home at this hour. She showed up here about 30 minutes ago. She was greeted by a crowd of onlookers…

Suleman started in vitro fertilization treatments twelve years earlier at age 21 under the care of Dr. Michael Kamrava resulting in six children over a five year span. In 2008 the divorcee and single mom had six snowflake babies yet unborn. So she asked her physician to place them all in her uterus at once, fearing they would be destroyed otherwise.

Kamrava did more than that. He implanted a total of 12 embryos from his clinic, eight survived to birth. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine expelled doctor Kamrava for his departure from protocol.

DR. PHIL: Well, I’ve got lots of questions for Nadya, and I think she has some questions for me…

Suleman became an instant media sensation, making the rounds on daytime TV as the Octomom:

DR. PHIL: You said that you had this void from this dysfunctional childhood, so you wanted this big family. Are they born with a job of filling your void?

Suleman nearly lost her kids following a string of poor personal decisions, but she eventually came to her senses, got clean, rejected her Octomom persona, and left the public spotlight—though she’s still a perennial favorite of tabloids this time of year.

Five years ago, Suleman welcomed 7NEWS Australia into her home for a day as the kids celebrated their 10th birthdays…

SULEMAN: I think I was young, dumb, irresponsible, selfish, reckless, yes. But the hate? Imagine all the world around you hating you. Imagine how that would feel as a mom. You can’t…

Today Suleman seems at peace and focused on her 14 kids. She’s active on Instagram, but doesn’t share more about their lives than they approve.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler with reporting assistance from Emma Perley.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Pro-lifers who blocked access to an abortion business back in 2021 are set to go on trial in Tennessee. We’ll tell you about the case. And, a somber visit to Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The psalmist writes: “Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.” —Psalm 20:6-8

Go now in grace and peace.

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