July 13 - An Update on Gaza and How Tactics Trump Strategy in Israel; Putin's Visit to Cuba and Latin America; Uber and the Old Economy Versus the New

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with escalating military activity in Gaza where Israeli forces are massing on the border for a possible ground invasion, following naval commando raids on sites where Hamas is launching rockets aimed at Israeli cities. We will go to Israel and speak with Avrum Burg, a former leader of the Labor Party and the One Israel Party who was Speaker of the Knesset from 1999 to 2003. We discuss his latest article in Ha’aretz “Refugees First” and the absence of any clear endgame when it comes to Gaza, the policies of the Israeli Right, and the lack of a vision from the Israeli Left, where in each case; it appears tactics have supplanted strategy.

Part 2

Then we go to Cuba to speak with Marc Frank, a freelance journalist based in Cuba who works for Thompson Reuters, the Financial Times, ABC News, The Economist and Argentina’s Clarin. We will discuss Russian President Putin’s visit to Cuba, Nicaragua, Argentina and Brazil, where after the World Cup final, he will attend a summit of the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa. We examine Putin’s forgiveness of Soviet-era Cuban debt and economic development underway in Cuba with a new Brazilian-financed port and free trade zone in Mariel that promises to position Cuba as the Singapore of the Caribbean.

Part 3

Then finally we look into new Internet-based businesses like Uber, Lyft and Sidecar that are threatening the long-established taxi industry as well as the room-rental service Airbnb that is impacting the bottom line of existing hotel chains. Matthew Mitchell, a Professor of Economics and a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University where he is the lead scholar on the Project for the Study of American Capitalism joins us to discuss his article in Sunday’s LA Times “If you like Uber, you would’ve loved the jitney” and political intervention by the taxi lobby to curtail the growing popularity of emerging new business models.