washington within a 30-mile radius of washington to recover unknown soldiers from that war. they brought them here to this part of arlington. after the war, these teams recovered the dead, the unknowns, from chancellorsville, pots of money, the other great battlefields, and meigs had a huge pit dug your, this spot, and had been buried in a mass grave in 1866. 2111 unknowns buried here at arlington. this is at the edge, the end of mrs. lee's garden so it is another instance of meigs', not only taking the opportunity to honor the war dead, but also to

be wrecked a barrier to the lees returning to arlington. . .

>> the word to big to fail hinted that the fact i have been writing about things that are too big to fail for a long time. when a single company goes down, an entire system it can go down. i started writing about two big to fail eight years ago. i wrote a whole book on that. i continue that conversation, analysis and "cornered." i am proud of that word. it is pretty cutting-edge.

thinks to the meltdown, or then year meltdown or the collapse of the auto industry people are starting to pay attention. i have gotten some real attraction surprisingly mainly in the uk with the tory party. [laughter] but tonight i will not talk about too big to fail. i did more than 100 events in bed discovered when you really lay out what to big to fail means it does not make the audience members very happy. so what i thought instead what i would do tonight is talk about the people that are responsible for making our banks banking systems and industrial systems to big to fail. this is the monopolist. in america.

that is something one 1/2 years ago i said monopolies in america you're out of your mind. this is the most free-market competitive fantastic economy in the entire world. but we have actually learned a few things over the last year and a half from the near meltdown of the system after one bank went down. we learned some lessons from the insurance debates that there are lots of little monopoly is. the basic story is we live in some kind of market paradise. i just want to take us on to our what had happened for

this country with the reagan administration. let's start with eyeglasses. if you go shopping for eyeglasses you might go to lend crafters, pearl vision, you might go sears or target optical if you're on a budget. but the fact is these are the biggest chains that sell eyeglasses are owned by one company, a giant by italian firm. i will not go to a change or the upscale boutique. the fact is it is also a manufacturer. separate image in the boutique that you go to coakley, donna karen, you are buying the same product. you are standing in the

store and you see a huge array of boxes in front of you. all the choices and brands. two companies are almost responsible for every single to of toothpaste. do you know, what the two companies do every day? they collude. there is a practice called category management. that means the two companies get together and decide how they will display m price products together. you'll see a bewildering away of options but if you pay attention to the pet food recall, five other six companies that sell branded pet food in this country and

a 17 out of 20 companies that sell private-label pet food they all source their commands and pouches of food from one company, one plant from kansas that is called manufoods. not long ago i was in a wal-mart in tennessee. you see the cold case options. gallons with the name federico were great value which is the private label of wal-mart. after words i did a little research and found that pet theory and mayfield are owned by the same company that also provides wal-mart with most private label milk. you see and do you have these choices it is all one company.

and, having a rival bid controls half of the united states the other is called dairy farmers of america. they also pretty much, pretty openly cooperate and collude with much of their work. i can go on and on walking down the aisle, but i don't have to do that. but consider some of the stores we would shop been. if we all know wal-mart is big but we may not know that wal-mart's controls 30% of most of the basic sale of goods in this country. in many cases it is above 50%. soap, detergents, pet food but it is not just discount but high in department stores. one generation ago there was

more than 1,000 independent department stores coast-to-coast now there is macy's that have 1,000 department stores in that one chain. the ingredients inside the food that we buy. lot of us know the processed food has cornyn side of it and read probably suspect most of that comes from feed stock from monsanto. but you know, ascorbic acid, vitamin c used to preserve all of that, 100% of ascorbic acid is controlled by the chinese vitamin cartel. this stuff that we buy in our country. the materials inside the store that i man o' war, the steel beams, aluminum shelving, three countries almost control the entire supply of iron ore and

aluminum in the world. two of them tried to merge pretty openly. the entire systems in our company have monopolize. of you go around and look at the automotive industry here is a case of where we have real american and cowboy capitalism even the most companies are no japanese. 12 companies or more. selling all of these different brands and types of cars. as these were outsourcing the activities over the last and rolling up control over suppliers coming here you see many heads the down below what you see one body. will just to sum up, i could go on and on.

but you may know jim grader at -- jule graner -- jim cramer from mad money. a couple years back when the justice department approved whirlpools takeover from maytag that gave a 75% control over all washers and dryers in this country, he said if there was ever any doubt in your mind that we have a government of and by and for the corporations, if you thought for one second we were not right back in the gilded age, if you have the least downs of faith in our regulators to do the right thing, you should give it up right out and went on and said auntie be i play a guy he was just out to make you money. but if you're not trying to get rich you should feel free to get mad. so in one generation of this

country we have seen a true revolution of the structure of our political economy. how does this affect us? we know from seventh grade civics class monopolies affect us as consumers. the chinese vitamin cartel once they had power they jacked the price 400%. we know that is what happens. that is the way it goes. we should keep in mind but with a variety of product and quality of product put in front of us, but how aboutobs? that is a big issue to date i am sure the president will talk a lot about jobs. simple common sense tells us monopolization will reduce the bargaining power of the people who work for those monopolies.

but to give you a sense of how this works it is the advertising industry. if you watch that tv show madmen? it is about all of these very scrappy little companies all of those companies in recent years have been bought under control of the three holding companies wpp and on.com. those people are compared even 10 years ago they have a lot less ability to trade labor on the free market. but monopolization also affects a number of jobs in this country. mergers of 10 disk-drive jobs.

pfizer the world's largest drug company was allowed by the government to take over why if and a $68 million deal. they said we will do it because it will allow us to get rid of 19,000 jobs. that is just one case. and in some ways not the biggest issue because monopolization really does not just to eliminate existing jobs but eliminates the potential to create new jobs. a couple of ways. one of these makes sense, monopolization for a big company, it essentially eliminates incentive to create new jobs. if you own the market, one of the first things you do is cut back on cost. you can't get more by charging or paying your people less. in recent years we have come

to understand most new jobs are created by small companies. the problem is when you have monopolization at the upper level there is less and less space for the company's to occupy. a few niche to move into. they may have a better idea or an entirely new idea, but the powerful are so powerful , there is no place to bring that idea. in the united states of america, the markets are increasingly close. with the issue of jobs, it is not only an issue of salary jobs. there's a lot of folks in this country who have could dream to own their own business and pay their own way and be their own boss. some people regard that as a right to. there was a recent o.c. ed

study that came out over the summer. 22 rich nations do know where the united states came out and percentage of the population of owns its own business, 21st. [laughter] luxembourg. [laughter] we're behind france and sweden and japan and germany. here, in one generation is proof we have had a revolution in our political economy. in this case it is a social revolution in. over the last generation come in millions of families and small business people have run out of the retail businesses, farms, service sector businesses like

optimetrix. two realize how revolutionize this is the people that tried to shape the previous system in america at the supreme court justice douglas of 50 years ago in a case in which big oil companies were attempting to take control of independent retailers. he said when independence are swallowed up by the trust and entrepreneurs become absentee owners the results days result is serious loss of citizenship and he too was a leader in the town becomes dependent on outsiders one and then it will take the place a proprietors behold then to nobody. what he said reflects a very simple vision that america

should be a nation composed of independent citizens in which prisoner is distributed out to the states and communities. and anyone who is a little bit older will remember until reagan came along, that was pretty much the way it was with retail and farming. there was a true distribution of power. today, the generation after they changed the laws, to put it into perspective, i know i am repeating myself, more than 50% of lines of business have been concentrated in the hands of the people who own and operate one company, wal-mart. how is this revolution accomplished? the simplest answer is that we were taught to view ourselves differently. in this country, for 200

years we view ourselves as a decision. what you want and what you seek is liberty. about one generation ago, we were told that we were consumers. consumers don't what liberty, they want stuff. we want a lot of cheap stuff. it is important that i am not making a hit the ranting against materialism but actually talking about the law. that idea that americans are not citizens but consumers was actually used and to refrain how we enforce the entire body of law which is the anti-monopoly law. for two centuries in this country will we protect ourselves as citizens and

concentration in of power the independent retailers and producers against from corporate capital power but the top of the institution. this is in the anglo-american tradition going back 400 years back to elizabethan times and in some cases back to the magnet carter a. the reagan administration administration, in 1981 changed less. it said the most important, from now on we will not worry about antitrust in terms of citizens, we will use it to protect the welfare of the consumer. it is important to know when the reagan administration did this, they have helped.

there is parts of the consumer movement that came to their aid. when robert bork of the chicago school came up with this consumer welfare frame there was a lot of amen from the democrats. to be frank, the clinton administration in terms of consolidation in this country was in most cases, the worst than what the reagan people did. but we should make no mistake about western western-- mr. bork and his fellow friends did with the current welfare frame. this was to passing essentially into law, efficiency argument that has been favored by monopolist for centuries. what do i mean? john d. rockefeller, jpmorgan, they

all basically had a single message, competition is wasteful. centralization of control in my hand is efficient. but consider how the logic of the consumer welfare argument plays out over time. the logic goes like this. consumers want low prices, they are achieved through economies of scale, ergo monopoly is the best friend to the consumer. here we are one generation later, and it is proven effective again, we see the greatest concentration of power in this country and one century. in some cases, it is actually worse because the last time around they did not get their hand on to the farms and/or the retailers.

if we view american history through the lens of our anti-monopoly law, we see for era is. first, the first half of the 19th century. with power and opportunity distributed vary widely through the system. extremely egalitarian. the second era began after the civil war. first we saw a power concentrated by the boards using corporations and banks said resaw in the progressive era, the state get into the mix and for the next 30 years corporatism in this country. the third era began 1935. there are two new deals the second began when the supreme court rejected the national industrial recovery act.

nine/o decision in 1935 burma after that we sought an entirely different political committee built by the populace to were repressed and came out of the box, passed laws and were distributing power the way from washington and wall street to the states and communities and into the independent citizens. since 1981, a concentration, corporatism concentration, corporatism, financiers have all control. last in the atlantic simon johnson published an article that is a really big deal which i don't think is attracting enough attention in this country. your hair you have the chief economist of the ims spending his time in russia, indonesia, and what

does he see? pcs in america what he called a financial oligarchy. i have read -- written "cornered" for many reasons mainly to highlight the degree of concentration that has been achieved in this country. i don't know what other people have focused on this but it is trimark journalistically i am trying to flush out there indeed was some sort of two and a social change that was extremely significant. i also to show the destructive the fax it because when they use corporations only to extract capital what not to make things more jobs the assets and properties under control of those corporations are destroyed. i also wrote it to get a sense of what the principles

of the previous political economic system looks like that was overthrown by the chicago school and reagan and then the overthrow was ratified by clinton. what to do? the simplest thing is to make our corporations and banks all lot smaller. we have the laws they just need to be retrained the way they be her. price of laws, a monopoly laws, there are a myriad of laws americans of previous generations were released mart. what we have to do essentially is rebuild all of the markets that were closed. of the last point* i want to make is there has been a lot of talk of populism the last few days and we have seen it

this week in "the washington post", james brooks wrote something in "the new york times", thomas franken the "wall street journal" rightabout populism. but we need to be clear that in terms of real populism there is two forms. the first form or one of them is destructive and kind of four barrick it is a kind of populism in the rich and powerful were merely ignorant to direct the people's anger and power against the people's own institutions that own government. we're seeing a lot of that no. the government is the only tool we have to protect ourselves from concentrated power. the other populism is routed to the republican tradition that goes back from brandeis

to madison and jefferson based on the conviction that the doctrines of the separation of power in checks and balances must be applied to the political economy just as to the political system. it is a principal populism and constructive populace of focusing on a breaking of the concentrations of private power that threaten the rights and liberties of the american citizens. right nablus i don't know which populism we will choose. i do not think when i wrote the book that choice would come upon us so fast. i hope "cornered" helps people to figure it out. thank you for coming. [applause] >> we will have plenty of time for questions and

discussion. i will call on you from here and we will have a microphone that circulates throughout the room. let us know who you are, where you are from and state your question or comment quickly and clearly. and i need to turn that on. but you heard me especially about the part of the crisp and concise questions and let us know who you are. starting right here. >> i am a position position -- physician and what is the thought of health care and health insurance? >> generally i am trying to avoid that question because it is complicated. [laughter] but what i have seen of the health care argument argument, debate, discussion , there has not been a real

effective discussion about how to use competition rivalry to achieve what we want. most of what i have seen is how we concentrate power to exert power down on to the providers of services and dictate the services they will receive? this is something, i know the purchasing organizations there is a case where the adr was to create the powers, the buying cooperatives putting power down on to the people with the syringes and medical devices and that has been an absolute disaster. those organizations have been taken over by the suppliers and pushing product onto the hospital's beckham .

i don't see any creative thinking abo competition in that discussion. >> i really care about jobs. that is a very important thing to help define people and who they are and have a mechanism for doing that. what how you go about shifting that or changing the culture which says having jobs is lots more important than having a gazillion dollars? is a value system. >> the people who want jobs need to get together and cooperate so they can make their wishes known to those people was just one day gazillion dollars. because right now the system

is run by the people that want a gazillion dollars if they are laughing about it right now. there dismissing the obama's administration for the banks because they are not serious efforts. the simple answer is just to focus on the, not think about how we will provide this job or take it with this tax over here to create this job, just focus on the people who have the power or exercising their power in ways that destroy jobs. that would be much simpler and wholesale approach to dealing with this problem. >> hello. i am here as myself. one note of caution, i would caution in describing the period of jacksonian democracy which is what i think you are referring to in nearly 18 century

description coming with egalitarian you might want to choose say different adjective i thought it was a little snarky. [laughter] but also a i think the chicago school owes more to him then bob bork although there is the whole argument. but my question would be, why was the chicago school, i will push you harder because it is a matter of political philosophy and economics, why do we think the chicago school was as successful as it was? some people will say the writ tin financial had been written about so there is a golden moment bet your critique, maybe you do in the book, i have not read it does not take on hard enough that allowed that philosophy to be as rampant as it clearly was because that is

the economic context. >> that is a great question. before i get to it. if you notice i did not use the name of andrew jackson. is a problem. part of the challenge here is actually to pull out or extract what was really good about the first half of the 19th century from what was not so good. [inaudible] >> you had to parallel economy is it was a remarkable thing and characteristics about that. the other was pretty awful. as far as milton friedman, yes he deserves his do. in so many ways, he was the father of this revolution. if you go back and read

carefully the one book from 1962, it is a very slim book but the basic argument has been made ever since about free-market and free trade trade, who owns the corporation, they are in there. they're actually not arguments but series of assertions. in terms of how was achieved and how were those arguments pushed on to us? it is a complicated question. you have the fact you have a revolution in of thinking in the democratic party. the consumer movement worked as an echo chamber for what was being done. it was essentially a throwback to the classical progressive era and there were many elements in the consumer movement that brought distribution of power. how you create a consumer

movement going back at least through 1914? so this is a concept that came at of an era in the united states that was very corporate is that people believed in top-down control so basically you had an alliance between what you could call the as a fair people which is essentially let the people -- laissez-faire people and those who expected to pick up the power afterwards those people want to be in control. it has happened at various times and it just happened no. we have the corporatist embrace right now. one of the things we have to do is understand the degree the people on the left wing the groundwork for this revolution affected by the

chicago school. >> with a major thesis you have described but i will voice a little conundrum. one of the things that those that provoked consolidation say is that in order to compete in the world, one has to continually improve upon productivity and agriculture is a good example. it actually began a long time ago and has produced as they say the of the product that has had a consistent balance of trade, the price of food has gone down in relation to everything else and we give a lot of it away. how does one reconcile this constant quest for more and more productivity with distribution that we should

enjoy from the industrial center? >> if you look at what was put together, the political economy structured, actually we see a balanced economy meant to do with the very things that you are discussing. the people of the second new deal were not radical or a bunch of hillbillies. what they said in certain cases, we need a monopoly. that is the only natural, necessary rational way to do with this problem but they should not be run by private people for private profit but run by the people in directly or directly for the people's interest. than they have a system for the heavy industrial sectors like making metal or cars or chemicals. they did not break down the

chemical industry or break down the car industry they left them in place engineering some rivalry the case in point* would be alcoa there was a 100% monopoly on making aluminum in the united states. after the end of the more they sold off the budget plans that the government runt and they sold them to kaiser that is why we had three companies making aluminum in this country but we did not have 100 companies. we had three. then you have another sector with retail retail, restaurants, plumbing services, there is really no case to be made their consolidation actually boost productivity.

with agriculture, there are cases that say bringing machines onto the farm although people would dispute this to increase productivity, there are a number of people map point to other countries, the per person output it is often much higher in the united states and there is a huge waste in the present agricultural system despite the fact it of huge and fermenta problems. the question you raise is very important if there are certain industries in which consolidation is very important. >> apparently i am a consumer. [laughter] my question is i have always felt my dollar was a vote

did if i could choose the independent bookstore or the little corner grocery store but my question is some might wrong in thinking that i have some power against wal-mart or other companies? >> your dollar is a vote when you have a real market system with many buyers and many sellers. in the present system it is not much of a vote. of modern concept a percoset -- person has been pushed if you don't like the way they're acting take your dollars elsewhere of the father is again milton friedman again from his book in 1962. the looking at the

free-market which before 1980 most people would say who creates wealth in this country? who creates new products and technologies? most people say it is people to create the free concept of the market to the force and the power and the mechanism. actually right now there was an article 10 years ago by the theologians that got a lot of people to look at the market mechanism.

that one book was a truly remarkable achievement. >> how do feel of the ramping consolidation in the financial-services industry? is this just day example of the trend or a driver of the trend with the consolidation of the top five major banks holding companies and also the increase of overall share of the banking market with the federal reserve system. >> consolidation of financial-services and banking is a huge issue. the top five banks controlled doubled between 2000 and 2010. even so, a share is not huge compared to other countries.

until quite recently, one of the things about consolidation and financial-services other than being able to say yes or no, that consolidation did not come through the financial control system it came by the financiers over the corporations over the real world corporations and institutions. that is how they exercise power out into the real world so they did not need to pursue the kind of concentration in banking that we saw in the 1890's with jpmorgan where 1912 or other countries.

>> or is it not correlated at all? >> the real world holdings the changes in corporate governance was nobody regarded them as properties. in the old regime, a corporate institution is designed to govern corporate activities and exerts power over real people and properties. you cannot own it. the city of miami is a corporation but nobody can own it. harvard university, these are institutions. you set up constitutions that determine how you use these institutions but we have seen over the last 30 years simultaneously a shift before the corporations were controlled by unionized

labor, professional managers and the cold war stay was in every boardroom and by small shareholders. now all of the power has been centralized over the institutions and centralized into the hands of a few financiers. of the debt was not do through the exercise of financial power. it was not necessary. in the 18971912 it was financial power to have control but not this time around. >> this is great work. i am from george mason university. you did just touched on it a little bit but on the one hand ownership of the federal reserve and the connection with this and the fight over the federal

reserve as well as john perkins enhance buck talks about the military industrial complex of private industry and he creates quite a continuity from world war ii on wordpro if you could we those into your story that would be helpful. >> with the military industrial complex, we became more powerful in 1993 just after the end of the cold war. this again was the work of the clinton administration. one have been there is a secretary of defense of all the people that said you have to merge. it is confusing as 10 creates waste in our offices. merge. they went from more than 100

companies to five really big ones. those of this they will end up with a lot more control over the government then if you have 100. and is clearly an issue and it got worse instead of better after the cold war think you to the clinton administration policies. with the federal reserve, i think what i will comment on that what is interesting is that we're seeing the populist and republican party and democratic party, libertarian movement coming together. how there is no cross party more thing that we are seeing it in this case the people who are starting to come together on economic issues or concentration of

power. >> we will stack up several can't question o to facilitate some time. these will be quick and concise comments or questions. >> i am headed a group of scientists want to bring together three ideas. one. the supreme court just told us future governments is the best that money can buy. number two with the consolidation system in which we will have mayor daley running our political system. number three, narrow economics we can manipulate on how you decide. what is our future in that circumstance?

>> i am a retired economist but i have a lot of problems with my fellow e economist. i am not saying that to demand what you say in any way, they have fascinating hypothesis and theories. they make a great argument but there are a lot of people who are just as clever as you are making these other kinds of arguments. and who is right and what is going on? it seems to me to be in order to evaluate the positions one must speak of what you value most. if you go to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. more freedom and justice for

all. from that we could write something and what we have now i don't think we have those things that we value and have a place to evaluate them from. >> thank you. the last one right here. >> i was interested in what you have to say about the role of government and laws and regulations to promote monopolies. with special interest and protectionism the small companies cannot afford lawyers. >> the first question what is the future? as far as i can talk, the president trajectory is i have a couple of kids at home they will spend their lives on their knees. and they will spend their lives surveying other people and will not have much recourse of law to protect

them. and what to do about it? there are a lot of smart folks on the other side serving the powers of concentration. in fact, day are better over there so they can buy anybody they want. i have a huge faith in regular people. the last time around i spent time outside washington and talking to people all over the country in peoria, birmingham, los angeles, people outside of this town are so much more able to actually use common sense. out there, you say you should not put all of your eggs in one basket. people say no duh.

but here they say what about the efficiency? and the cost? but i have a huge faith of people in the united states. their brains operate an entirely different way. the people the world have not been indoctrinated like the people of this town. and that does work in our favor because there is an entire political economic model waiting for us to use. somebody touched on the issue how do you fix it? we have the second the new deal model and the laws and to look at what they did or how they fit together and improve on that. it is just a matter of doing a little digging into our own past. i think we will find as we often do great-grandparents' were maybe a little smarter than we were.

>> thank you very few did wonderfully and thank you for joining us. also few hours on end c-span and politics and prose bookstore. thank you for coming and enjoy your evening. [applause] >> we're here with leslie sanchez with the book you have come along way, maybe. you are an analyst during the 2008 presidential election on cnn. who was the most powerful woman right now? >> not only eight approval ratings incredible high but hillary clinton, secretary of state has proven to be a

strong leader but somebody who used to have to be so polarizing and so much baggage it is great to see the progression an aberration of conservatives and democrats have four per. >> host: the 2008 election and the effects of women, how has that changed the way a woman can be perceived? >> what is fascinating if you look back at the pervasive sexism in the media it is another reason why one candidate won or lost but it is something that i believe cent women back four years. until we talk about it of conflict and competition and the ground rules, i don't think we can advance to the level that we want too. >> the cover of your book you have sarah palin and michelle obama. >> what about the other

players? >> everybody wants to talk about sarah palin because she is a new polarizing force with viability as a 2012 candidates. what is fascinating is she is still filling the void of the republic and leadership she can carry weight like the death panel and raises a tremendous amount of money into endorses candidates to her benefit it leads to a surgeon's. she wields a tremendous amount of power but she is cheering from one side of the stadium. she is not appealing to the moderates. she has a lot of challenges. michelle obama is stretching the boundaries of what it is to be a first lady. she is very modern and of other as well as a first lady and i think she will improve the role of women

overall in terms of a professional nature. issue was a working mom before she came to the white house. >> host: is there a woman right now that you see as the next politician presidential nominee? >> as a woman it is hard to say. whether you think four years or eight years would be somebody like secretary of state hillary clinton but on the republican side i think women are moving up the channels running for governorships that is a way station for the presidency. it is 232 tell but they have to fill substantial credentials and have to do public service in this and what sophisticated in dealing with the media and have to have all of those together. >> host: with the title of your book is maybe.

is it a starter star or a true re-emergence of the female presidential candidate? >> guest: not yet but women have a long way to go. not only how we deal with each other competitively competitively, have expect the media to deal with sexism or a challenges for questions for female candidates but also cyber media, a social media, a twitter, a facebook, branding your identity female candidates have to be much more aggressive they do not want to be paid 11 ized eight subject of their efforts. >> host: thank you so much >>

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