The World and Everything in It - June 28, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The U.S. Supreme Court is in its final week of this term. We’ll review the ten opinions from last week that include protections for private property and the separation of powers.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat with David Bahnsen.

Plus, the WORLD History Book. 30 years ago this week, the death of a TV icon.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, June 28th. 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: Time for news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Rescuers continue search in rubble of collapsed Fla. condo » Rescuers are still digging through the rubble of a Florida beachfront condo as families of the missing continue to pray for a miracle four days after the building collapsed.

The daughter of one missing woman said she still can’t believe it happened.

AUDIO: I never thought I’d get a call from my dad in the middle of the night about this. I never—this is unheard of.

As the death toll rose Sunday to nine, relatives were growing increasingly desperate and frustrated by slow progress. No one has been pulled alive from the pile since hours after the collapse on Thursday morning.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said for first responders, it is an extremely difficult and dangerous task.

RUBIO: Inside of there, there is anything from toxic chemicals, fire, smoke , all kinds of other hazards. And they have to be careful. If they move one piece of rebar here, the rest of the pile can collapse somewhere else and either hurt the responders or hurt any survivors who might still be down there.

More than 150 people remain unaccounted for in the Miami-area community of Surfside.

Reaction to Chauvin trial remains mixed » Reaction remains mixed to the sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

On Friday, he received a sentence of 22.5 years behind bars following his conviction on murder charges in the death of George Floyd.

Prosecutors had asked the court to send Chauvin to prison for more than 30 years.

Former Obama White House adviser Van Jones noted that Chauvin might only serve 15 years of that sentence if released early for good behavior. Jones, now a CNN commentator, described the sentence this way…

JONES: It’s a punch in the gut. This guy’s life was worth more than 15 years.

But Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told ABC’s This Week.

ELLISON: You can’t replace the life of George Floyd, so true satisfaction is simply not available to us. But I think this is a sentence that reflects the seriousness.

But Ellison added that the case is not fully resolved. Chauvin is still facing a federal civil rights trial.

Trump rallies Republican voters in Ohio » Former President Donald Trump rallied for GOP candidates in Ohio over the weekend.

TRUMP: We are going to elect an amazing slate of proud America-first Republicans next year, America first...

He showed up in support of Max Miller, a former White House aide who is challenging Republican Congressman Anthony Gonzalez.

The congressman was one of 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump after the January Capitol riot. Trump has vowed to back those who run against those 10 Republicans.

He also took aim at President Biden, calling his presidency thus far “a disaster.” He once again claimed that he won the 2020 election, and stirred further speculation about another White House bid…

TRUMP: We will make America great again! Thank you, Ohio! Thank you!

The former president drew loud cheers at the mention of the 2024 election.

New poll finds strong opposition to abortion after first trimester » A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center suggests a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal during the first trimester, but most oppose it after that.

In the survey of just over 1,100 adults, 61 percent said abortion should legal in most or all cases during the first trimester.

But in the second trimester, about two-thirds of respondents, 65 percent, said abortion should be illegal in most or all cases.

And in the third trimester, 80 percent of respondents oppose abortion.

The margin of error for the poll was 4.2 percent.

‘F9’ marks return of major summer blockbusters » The summer blockbuster is officially back in a big way.

TRAILER: He’s got his own private army. We need help.

The newest installment in the Fast and Furious franchise is drawing moviegoers back to the big screen in droves. F9: The Fast Saga raked in $70,000,000 over the weekend, easily the biggest weekend haul since the start of the pandemic.

The summer’s other big hit so far, A Quiet Place II finished second with another $6 million in ticket sales.

TRAILER: There are people out there worth saving.

The sequel has now grossed nearly $140 million.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: A look at ten big opinions from the Supreme Court.

Plus, History Book. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday, June 28th and this is The World and Everything in It. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. The U.S. Supreme Court handed down 10 opinions last week, and so Mary and I will bat those back and forth today.

REICHARD: Ok, well let’s get started!

First up, a unanimous ruling that protects the sanctity of the home.

Police have authority to pursue a felon into a home and they don’t need a warrant in such a case. But if the person they’re pursuing is merely suspected of a misdemeanor, police do need a warrant to enter a home.

In this Supreme Court case, a man driving along honking his horn and playing loud music caught the attention of an officer who followed him into his home and conducted a search.

You can hear the eventual ruling in this comment from Justice Stephen Breyer during oral argument:

BREYER: Well, here, if we take your view, then it seems like the home isn't the castle at all for the most trivial of things. I mean, it seems ridiculous when your home isn't your castle for terribly minor things.

As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the opinion, “We are not eager—more the reverse—to print a new permission slip for entering the home without a warrant.” Police must consider whether the situation is an emergency or whether imminent harm to others is at hand before acting without a warrant.

EICHER: Next, a 6-3 victory for property rights in the case of union recruitment on farms.

California law orders agricultural businesses to allow union organizers to occupy their private property for the purpose of trying to recruit workers into the union.

Two businesses challenged the regulation, saying it violates the property-rights guarantees in the Fifth Amendment. It bars government from taking property without “just compensation” for the owners.

California defended the law, saying it limits the time given to union organizers to three hours a day for 120 days per year and because of that, it’s acceptable.

During oral argument, that didn’t seem to persuade Chief Justice John Roberts, as you hear in this exchange with the lawyer defending the law:

ROBERTS: But what do you do if there's more than one union that wants access? I mean, it's not -- it's not at all unusual for unions to be competing for representation. So does each union get its own 120 days?

MONGAN: Yes, Your Honor. 

Those parameters are not enough to justify the state taking away what the opinion called “one of the most treasured rights” of property ownership: the right to exclude people.

REICHARD: The court handed a narrow win in a class action suit against investment firm Goldman Sachs. Shareholders of the company alleged it committed securities fraud and cited general statements from the company such as “we are integrity” as a basis to sue.

The high court cut down the number of people in the class who suffered no concrete harm, and then remanded to lower court to determine whether stock prices were actually affected by general statements about the company’s character.

EICHER: The fourth opinion is another class-action matter that also cuts down the number of people in the case.

Here, thousands of people sought damages from a credit-reporting company called Transunion. They sued after finding out Transunion had flagged their names as matching those on a government list of suspected terrorists.

But in a 5-4 decision, the majority said that around 6,000 of these people in the class suffered no concrete injury, so they have no standing to sue. That left about 1,800 certified as having suffered concrete injury and so they may proceed.

Chief Justice Roberts illustrated this point during oral argument. He imagined a law that provides for damages to anyone driving within a quarter mile of a drunk driver:

ROBERTS: What is the concrete injury in my hypothetical? You were exposed to risk, but you didn’t know it, and by the time you found out about it, you weren’t.

In other words: No harm, no foul.

REICHARD: Fifth opinion: the court in a 6-3 ruling allows more time for small refineries to be exempt from requirements that more ethanol be mixed with their products.

The Clean Air Act required biofuel quotas in gas products to reduce American dependence on foreign oil. The corn and oil industries have been locked in dispute over disparate application of that law.

EICHER: Number six: a win for Alaska Native Corporations that had sought some of the $8 billion in Covid relief from the CARES Act. That’s the initial stimulus package of 2020: The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

Native tribes mainly in the lower 48 states argued that these for-profit corporations are not federally recognized as a tribe, so that money should not be distributed to them.

It came down to what the CARES Act means by the phrase: “recognized governing bodies of Indian Tribes.”

By a vote of 6 justices to 3, the court held those for-profits do qualify as tribes and are therefore entitled to a share of the money.

REICHARD: Opinion 7 of 10 total today: This one is a mostly unanimous win for the separation of powers. Many dissents and concurrences.

The core issue was whether the president is free to remove the director of the agency that oversees the federal home loan mortgage corporations Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for reasons other than the restrictive “for cause.”

That’s a big deal, because the constitution gives wide latitude to the executive branch to remove agency heads for any reason, not just for cause.

The court struck down that “only for cause” language.

And the same day this opinion was handed down, President Biden fired the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

EICHER: I’ll ask David Bahnsen about the economic meaning of that decision here in just a few minutes.

Our next case, number eight, was an 8-to-1 free-speech case.

Here, the court backed the teenager who posted a vulgar statement on social media directed at her school. She was angry because she didn’t make the varsity cheerleading squad.

In response, the school suspended her from the junior varsity squad for a year. Her family sued alleging violation of her right to free speech. The majority agreed, reasoning that off-campus speech is in the realm of parental authority rather than school control.

The ruling is not all-encompassing, though. Bullying, harassment, and threats are still subject to the school’s authority to punish.

REICHARD: Penultimate ruling here, the ninth, on whether the US Patent and Trademark Office judges are improperly appointed. The answer is yes in a 5-4 ruling, because these judges are not nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as required by the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

This case is now remanded on the question of how to fix the procedures of the patent and trademark office.

EICHER: OK, here’s the tenth one. You may have heard about it. A unanimous decision that made headlines: all nine justices say that the NCAA—the National Collegiate Athletic Association—violated antitrust laws by prohibiting certain compensation to student athletes.

They still won’t be paid directly in cash; this opinion only applies to a narrow subset of NCAA rules about education-related expenses. Things like free tutoring, musical instruments, and laptops.

The justices obliterated the NCAA’s argument that to pay these particular expenses is to change the nature of the sport from amateur to professional and that that ought to be enough to shield the association from running afoul of antitrust laws. You could hear that in Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s comment from oral argument:

KAVANAUGH: I start from the idea that the antitrust laws should not be a cover for exploitation of the student-athletes, so that is a concern, an overarching concern here.

REICHARD: I’ll add that he took that idea right over into his concurring opinion. He practically invites more litigation to further dismantle the NCAA’s grip on college sports.

I’ll quote from it:

“The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America. All of the restaurants in a region cannot come together to cut cooks’ wages on the theory that ‘customers prefer’ to eat food from low-paid cooks … Movie studios cannot collude to slash benefits to camera crews to kindle a ‘spirit of amateurism’ in Hollywood. Price-fixing labor is price-fixing labor... under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law.”

EICHER: And this is the first case this term in which the Supreme Court affirmed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The 9th has acquired quite a reputation: between 2007 and last year, the Supreme Court overturned the 9th Circuit 78 percent of the time and so far this term, that percentage is much higher.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

NICK EICHER, HOST: The owner of a glass bottom boat in Michigan has seen some pretty cool things in Lake Michigan over the years, but none cooler than this!

Jennifer Dowker found an artifact almost 100 years old: A message in a bottle dated November, 1926.

DOWKER: I spotted that green bottle on the top of a fish bed. So I’m like oh, well that looks cool. So I reached down and grabbed it and noticed there was paper in it, so immediately I was like alright, this is great!

The note said simply, “Will the person who finds bottle return this paper to George Morrow, Cheboygan, Michigan, and tell where it was found.”

She tried, but found out George Morrow passed away in 1995. But his daughter Michelle Primeau was delighted to learn of the note.

PRIMEAU: It was a total shock! But knowing my dad, he always liked to do little things like, when we were building our basement, he was putting up the paneling and he put a note behind that.

Primeau thought about framing the note. But then decided giving the note back to Jennifer Dowker will help her father’s memory to live on.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen joins us now for our regular conversation and commentary on the economy. David, good morning to you.

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

EICHER: David, I’ve got questions about a couple of pretty technical stories that got a lot more ink in the financial press than might be typical and I want to start with news on the big banks passing the Federal Reserve’s so-called “stress test.” This grew out of the financial crisis of 2008—still going today—but why would a positive stress-test result this time around be a big story?

BAHNSEN: Well, the stress test passage in April of 2009 was a huge story. Now, I admit it is much less of a story because you know, they do them every year, and no one pays attention anymore, because we know they're all well capitalized. But the reason why this one got a little news coverage just because during COVID, the Fed had ordered the banks to stop increasing their dividends. And then they ordered them to stop on the stock buybacks. Now, they got the green light this week to resume those activities of dividend growth and stock repurchases. So the banks will announce what they're going to do with some of their capital returned to shareholders this week, now that they have the green light, and our estimations are gonna be just shy of $150 billion. It'll be a good thing. And just the fact that the banks don't have any handcuffs right now that the post COVID moment is further officialized in the sense of the banks being freed to go back to normal operation, I think is a good thing.

EICHER: Alright, and I want to follow up on a Supreme Court story we reported a moment ago, this one was a separation-of-powers case concerning the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The legal upshot is that Congress created this agency and restricted the president’s power to remove the director. The Supreme Court said the legislature cannot bind the executive in that way. Pretty straightforward, conservative court decision. But economically, is this a major story or just a minor one?

BAHNSEN: No, it is, but it's not from the legal side. It's a major story from the derivative. And so let me explain. Legally, I think they are right, legal I think Mark Calabria could be fired. But then now to your question, economically, I think both things will lead to a very bad consequence. I think Mark Calabria was a really good leader there, was definitely philosophically committed to removing the burden of risk off the taxpayers towards a path of responsible and reasonable privatization of these entities that never should have been in bed with the government to begin with. So to the extent that taxpayers still continue to hold on to this risk, 13 years post financial crisis, I think it's ridiculous. And this ruling will, most certainly, and by the way, dramatically decelerate efforts to cut the cord of Fannie and Freddie from the Treasury Department, therefore, by implication, the taxpayers.

EICHER: Question on the infrastructure policy fight between Congress and the White House—just one thing that appears part of the package is, as The Wall Street Journal put it, the supersizing of the IRS. Giving it more resources to do more audits and squeeze more money out of the taxpayer. What’s your sense on the wisdom of beefing up the Internal Revenue Service?

BAHNSEN: My understanding is that what you're referring to is that they're tripling the amount they believe they're going to be able to collect. They're pretending they're going to generate more money, because they're pretending that they have a problem with enforcement. I've made this point a couple times. First of all, I think almost everyone listening to us right now would agree that these people are not to be trusted about enforcement. So let's just put that out there. That's easy enough, frankly. The second point would be I don't think they have any belief or rationale or credibility to say that they will, in fact, be able to raise more revenue. I think it's guesswork at best. But then the third point is the logic of saying, we know there's $80 billion dollars out there that people are getting away with not paying. Well, if they know that, then why aren't they going and collecting it? So they don't know it - they're making it up. And they can't model what fraud is, you can't model something that is conjecture. So I think that this is really what a private enterprise you're doing this with from accounting standpoint, it would probably be illegal. I'm not against people paying their taxes and I'm not against people paying their taxes that I don't think they should even have to pay. Like I think even if it's a bad law, I think people, you know, need to do everything they can legally to minimize their tax burden with the key word being legally. But this notion that they would somehow fairly and equitably go about doing this, I don't trust them. And I don't know why anybody would. And I don't believe that that much money is out there unpaid, not illegally unpaid. So this is bad on all fronts.

EICHER: Finally, David, any economic data points last week catch your attention, worth commenting on? The recent rise in personal consumption expenditures seems of note.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, the personal consumption expenditures didn't go up the way that some were expecting relative to the way CPI went up. And so I still think that there's a lot of base effect numbers from last year. A lot of these commodity prices have totally rolled over, lumber is now down almost 50% from its recent high, but the big story this week, to me, was durable goods orders were up this week. And that was encouraging. And it was largely led by a pretty big amount of new orders for commercial airlines. But then when you look at the capital goods orders, which is ex aviation and ex military, the number was actually down 0.1%. And I'm not gonna make anything out of one month's data and I don't want to minimize when people start saying, well, x this and x, that it's not as good. Well, you know, the commercial plane orders do represent economic activity, it does represent capital expenditures. But overall, just from now, all the way to the end of the year. That's the kind of date I really want to be focused on because it really does point to what's happening in the supply side of the economy.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, financial analyst and adviser. He writes at dividendcafe.com. And that’s your Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything In It: The WORLD History Book. Today, television fans mourn the death of a Hollywood icon, a centibillionaire celebrates half a century, and Congress puts some parameters around food and drug makers. Here is senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

SONG: “THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED,” HAMILTON

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: No one knows “how the sausage gets made.” But 125 years ago, on June 30, 1906, the United States Congress shed a little light on that process in passing the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Author Upton Sinclair had gone undercover for two months to document unsanitary practices and upsetting working conditions in meatpacking factories. In February 1906, he published his findings in The Jungle. This Librivox audiobook recording is read by Tom Weiss:

AUDIOBOOK: There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage. There would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected and was moldy and white…

The gruesome descriptions horrified the public. So, Congress took action with consumer protection laws. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 banned the selling of adulterated or mislabeled food or pharmaceuticals from foreign or interstate origins. And it directed the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry to inspect and monitor for offenses. It’s also the reason you see “active ingredients” on drugs’ packaging.

The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 made it illegal to tamper with or mislabel meat intended for use as food. And it required strict sanitation standards in slaughtering and processing.

These laws were the precursor to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. Despite the stomach churning this topic can induce, the results were undoubtedly positive for public health.

Moving from reforms of the early 20th Century to… the future. Well, rockets to Mars and autonomous self-driving cars sure do feel like the future. And Elon Musk, a powerful force behind those futuristic technologies, turns 50 this week.

Musk was born June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997, and only five years later founded SpaceX, an aerospace and space transport company. At a 2018 SpaceX event, Musk gave a surprising answer to a question about how he runs his business.

INTERVIEWER: How do you plan a business, the rocket business, where you know some of these things are going to blow up on the launch pad? How does the business plan work?

MUSK: I don’t really have a business plan. (laughter)

He still serves as CEO and CTO of SpaceX, and along the way he became an early investor in electric car maker Tesla. He's the CEO of that one, too. He’s founded or invested in other cutting-edge companies: SolarCity, OpenAI, Neuralink, and the cleverly named Boring Company, a construction drilling operation.

As host of Saturday Night Live this year, he made headlines by announcing in his monologue that he’s on the autism spectrum:

MUSK: I’m actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL. (applause)

One of many history-making moments for the centibillionaire—and likely more to come. His latest effort is a joint venture between Tesla and SpaceX—a potentially hypersonic transport system called the Hyperloop.

SONG: “CRAZY TRAIN,” OZZY OSBOURNE

And for our last entry of the day, the death of a TV and movie icon.

HART: When Michael Landon learned that he had inoperable cancer in April, he knew the odds were against him...

That’s Entertainment Tonight’s Mary Hart reporting Landon’s passing on July 1, 1991.

When he was just 22 years old, in 1959, Landon began his run as Little Joe Cartwright on one of the first TV shows to be broadcast in color—Bonanza.

MUSIC: THEME FROM BONANZA

It was his first starring role, and Landon was a hit with viewers. He received more fan mail than any other cast member. That gave him leverage with the producers. He began writing and directing episodes of the series. That show ended after 14 seasons, and the next year, in 1974, he began his starring role as Charles Ingalls in NBC’s adaptation of the classic Little House on the Prairie.

MUSIC: THEME FROM LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE

Next came Highway to Heaven, a show that had Landon playing a probationary angel whose good deeds would eventually earn him his wings.

Landon was less of an angel in real life. He admitted he was a heavy drinker and smoker. Married three times, he fathered nine children.

He developed a headache on a ski trip in Utah in early April 1991. Tests revealed he had aggressive pancreatic cancer. The diagnosis was terminal. He went on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to thank fans for their prayers and letters, and to condemn the tabloid press for its outrageous headlines.

LANDON: It seems so totally insensitive to me… that a tabloid would write, “Four weeks left.” Or, “It’s over.” Can you imagine that? It’s unbelievable… that’s the cancer in our society. (applause)

Landon died in Malibu, less than three months after his diagnosis. His headstone reads, "He seized life with joy. He gave to life generously. He leaves a legacy of love and laughter."

LANDON: I’ve been a lucky guy. Very lucky guy. And I know I’m in your prayers. I’ll do the best I can. Live every minute, guys.

That’s this week’s History Book. I’m Katie Gaultney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Technical improvements. The Senate has approved a bill it thinks will boost America’s competitiveness in the tech sector. We’ll tell you why some analysts say it’s unnecessary.

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.

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The Bible says: For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.

Go now in grace and peace.

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