>> next on booktv, les leopold talks about the hidden world of hedge funds and hedge fund managers and argues they are bad for our economy. this is about an hour of time.

[applause] >> thank you for having me here. thank you to c-span for coming and i want to tell you you have a heck of a deed here. i've known mike is imagine for a long, long time and he taught me a great deal about writing. the thing he taught that was most and if you've got to put passion in your writing. you can't just be a boring person. you've got to let it rip. he actually does that. i could tell you one thing that blew my mind. he once wrote a book review about this philosopher, hey go, who if you think i'm going to push you to save companies should reading hagel. this book review ended with a passionate love same between something that scott hickel wrote about. so if you can write with passion and turn it philosophers try

words into a bloodstained come you can write with passion. so i've never forgotten that. we are dealing with tonight, let me see if i can get it going here. why write a book like this? why write a book about earning a million dollars an hour? what i was trying to do or three things. i'm trying to raise the most fundamental question about how we can have it value is produced by wall street elites. what is it that they did it so valuable? the second thing i want to look at is what are the root causes of the increasing inequality in in our economy? it's the gaps between the superrich and everybody else is growing. where's that coming from? the third day was to kind of revisit the economic crash that happened in 2008 to see if we can get a deeper understanding of what happened because i must

admit when i wrote the book i was kind of naïve. i didn't realize that there really a. so this is taking us into new territory. let me start by asking you a question. with a fair hourly wage for you? what are you hoping to earn when you become journeyman? what is a good hourly wage? by the way come i forgot to tell you that is my fee for tonight comes to thank you very much, dean merrill. what is a good wage? fifty-six dollars an hour. what do you think? elect to get 60? okay. let's go for it the $6 to $60 an hour. why is someone going to pay you $60 an hour?

[inaudible] okay because of the skills you have to do the job. it's not just the skills you have. it's actually applying the skills you have to do the job. so why are they going to give you money? what is in it for them? [inaudible] there's risk involved. what else? you're providing services to send to the prophet. -- to make profit. [inaudible] right, you develop your skills to go through this whole apprenticeship program, including a couple years college a minimum. [inaudible] >> ray, you are producing a building. your commercial electrician is putting up a building.

you're making money for them as well, yes. >> you're producing a high-quality product that has incredible value to the people hiring. fair enough? said the mystery we are going to try to figure out this afternoon is what do these things called hedge funds produce? before we got there, let's look at some of the occupations in this country that have the highest incomes and see what it looks like on an hourly basis. let's start with here at the tent -- by the way come in the first chapter of the book we look at the wealthiest occupations in the country. so here are the top 10 movie stars from 2010. takes a while to put a book into production, so those are the latest numbers we had.

you can see the dicaprio leads the list. his income is $779 divided by 2080, number of hours you work in a year in its hourly income is $37,009. the average for the group was $21,290 an hour, the average for the top 10 as you can see include adam sandler in the bottom of the list is angelina jolie. in make a good living. so what do they do to make all their money? how come they get paid so much? [inaudible] >> absolutely. i [inaudible] >> they have a lot of bargaining

power. >> a go. they sell moving ticket. so what is behind the movie tickets? a simple exchange here. we like watching them, so will pay to watch them, right? in exchange they get uneconomic entertainment. so it's something we all understand. do we begrudge them? it's kind of fun to watch them. we'll keep going. we don't go on strike and stay out of movie theaters. we are not protesting over the $10 tickets. so let's take a look at the top occupations in the country. let's start with the bottom. this is from 2010. you can see the top ranked insurance ceos roughly $8000 an hour and by the way i did not make the top 10 in 2010. i'm working on it for 2013.

do your top that way. by the way, that would be tiger woods. top ceos companies issued, top celebrities like opera was number one on that list. i was surprised to find out the top of this whole group removed the direct heirs. makes sense. so what we did is this thing called hedge funds managers office chair. $842,788 an hour. is 40 times that the movie stars make. what do they do? we don't know what they do, do it? you go ask anybody what they do advocate a stair. i don't know. are we paying to watch them

perform, hit a golf ball? we don't know what they do, but they are making way off the list, right? so let's take a little closer. what is a hedge fund? this is a college so you got to get a multiple-choice test. here are your options. a wholesale garden supply business to focus isn't trimming hedges. become a mutual fund or anyone can rest a hedges against tough times. an investment fund for the superrich and large institutions we need at least a million dollars in wealth in order to invest. a comment be or c.? i did make the test harder not. i'll talk to your teachers about that afterwards. so that's what it is. for more than just wealthy investors who got pensioned funds that want to get in on the action. lots of large banks want to invest in the sun. the person who runs them gets 2%

of the money off the top in 20% of the profit. so the question becomes what is the invest in? the top hedge fund guy of 2010 date $2.4 million an hour in 2010. that's as much as the average family makes in 47 years. and about that. one-hour work. did you go to work today? one hour would be called a family income for a lifetime, 47 years. if you do that in our economic system, you'd better be producing a lot of value for the economy. building something that will last for a long time is worth 10 times more than the skill you put into it and the service it

provides, it better be true here or we've got a big problem. so let's explore that question. there's another one. the top 25 hedge fund earned as much a 658,000 teachers to teach 13 million kids. just giving you a sense of how big these guys were. but they put another dimension of this puzzle. i'm what you do get curious about what these people do. let me make you even more curious. in 2010, the top hedge fund made as much money as apple. apple has approximately 700,000 employees and contractors all over the world. the top hedge fund had under 100 employees. so with under 100 employees, they supposedly produced as much economic value as apple was 700,000 employees. what do they do? what do they do for all that

money? we have to be feeling their impact. they are to be doing something great, stupendous for the american economy. how is that possible for that much money to exist? are hoping to get 50, $60 an hour and you're well on your way to doing that. where does all the money come from? any questions so far? there's only one charge of this whole talk that she hang onto. this chart will do you welcome the rest rest of your life. but reflection at here is that top-of-the-line is a measure of u.s. project tvd. are people talking about how much output you put out? a certain number of jobs done?

if you measure for the whole economy, it it measures the level of work level of organization technique, technology come to scope that exists in the whole economy. what's amazing about the american economy is every year the last 65 years, every year except tiberius about productivity whatnot. the way they measure it is the total amount of what we produce divided by the number of hours it takes to produce it. not how much it costs, but number of hours. we are able to produce more and more per hour every year. that study line measures the wealth of the united states. up, up, up. that's why we've got so much stuff. you probably rbc new techniques come in come the u.k. to use a different kind of switching box or something.

he gets to do the job faster, better, more efficiently. sometimes even better. so between world war ii and through the mid-1870s, every time productivity went up, the average worker's wage also why not. in real terms after inflation. too many people here are my age, but if you grew up when i grew up in the 50s and 60s, he would've noticed among my parents were working-class immigrant people and their standard of living, little box house out in the burbs. you can see their standard of living is going up every year a little bit. if that air conditioners for the house. they even went on a vacation. they wound like a cruise for the

first time in their lives back in the 60s. they were able to send me to a private university. they could my older sister because they didn't have the money then. the real wage went from $400 a week after you take care of inflation in today's dollars, went up $746 a week. that's average for working people across the economy. did you notice something weird happened. the two lines split apart. we just start going down, productivity starts going up. something quite amazing happened when those two lines split apart. any ideas come to mind? [inaudible] >> it comes later. comes in the 80s. there was technology involved. but these two lines in europe don't split apart because it made the same technology. here's something special happens. any ideas?

baby, yeah, son. actually started under a democrat. any other ideas? [inaudible] >> the stock market had been around a long time. >> that was one piece, declining unison. [inaudible] >> overstock market crashes in there and turbulence in the economy, yes. there's definitely some of that. great. it's very interesting you should say that. i tried to do some research on the history agreed and i think it's been with us a long time. but you raise an important question because the societies can do this can tenet or let it

go. it's something that can move. deregulation. let me talk about deregulation. by the way, from a business point of view, what's the number one regulation that business wants to get rid of. take a guess. number one. [inaudible] >> minimum wage. yeah, if you're low income business. in general come on business has to get rid of regulation, what are they thinking about the most? taxes, unions. the first audience that is just a. [inaudible] shir professor? well done, well done. unions are the biggest regulation and business faces because you are right there.

government regulation making get around. what happened was the economy was getting screwed up during that period and if we got our two lines that begin? dairy cow. there is a turbulent period in the economy. a bunch of economists and policymakers got together and said we need a new theory of how to run this economy. we should deregulate, which is unions, but also we should regulate finance. if you deregulate them, producing the things. so with make it tougher unions, get rid of taxes, especially on the rich people because what happens is you put that together and took it a boom in all of us are can arise. does the theory.

this gentleman whose brother mentioned creed, they wanted cookery together for the american economy. as you can see, productivity really took off, but the wages didn't and the gap between those lines had to go somewhere. worded echo? the only chart that looks like this one is this one. they split apart. they're together. this is the wages in the financial sector versus everything else. wall street wages versus wages in the industry. the two were together in the other pictures at once deregulation takes place, a few years later the wages on wall street shoot a rocket.

so that's in the mid-70s and now the lines split apart in 1980s. the money goes up to wall street. this answers the question of how do these hedge funds have so much money to play with? because. the regulation came in a month you deregulate wall street come you can expect incredible things that inanity. so that her little room. any questions on this? yes. [inaudible] >> well, i'm glad you mentioned that. two points that i neglected to

make. the first is the difference between those two lines the fearsome in like $3 trillion. the average wage would've been a $771 a week. you guys to be looking at 100 hour. the average of the 1171. is the world war ii trend continued reported dvd would be shared on a very consistent basis of working people. so it doesn't let go vertical. best of his article on wall street. let's move on here. here's the declining union, what they wanted to see happen have been. they wanted to get deregulation and down it goes. here's what happened in the banking industry. these are the top six banks as a percent of the whole economy jumped from 14.8% to 62% comes to wall street, concentrated and

bigger. [inaudible] >> at commissure. once you deregulate come you can do whatever you want. you couldn't have a bank that operated more than one state. now you've got a citibank and chase and bank of america all over the country and there's only a few of them left. the other thing that happened of course was the richest people got a lot richer. in 1973 before the lines split apart, a percent of the total income went to the top 1%. believe me, there were so rich people when i was growing up and they were nice. now it's gotten crazy. 23% of the income goes to the top 1%. almost three times as much thanks to the deregulation plan. this is what i thought you'd like. this is original data here. we took the top 100 ceos in the country and compared it to

the average wage of a worker. in 1970, for everyone dollar a workaround, the ceos are $45. as the lines split apart, now the top ceo by 2006 is turning $1723. do you think they got that much smarter that quickly clicks to their to so much greater doing that. at the question to consider, but it sure matches are lined living apart. for every dollar you earn, they went from $45 to 1723. in 36 years. that's quite a change. so how do these investment funds actually make money?

i'm going to give you one technique. if you master this technique, you get a job on wall street. this is the craziest thing i ever came across. are you ready for this? i could go on to a different secret. i don't have to tell you this one. the trick is you've got to create something designed to fail and then you can collect the insurance on it. so is the equivalent of you going to work, wired it so it brings brings down the sake six months and then take an insurance policy out on the buildings you can collect. how long do you think your thoughts if you did that? not too long, but that's looking into. these are called financial innovations that has shown three big part of. mortgage-backed security come this cd is squared, credit default swaps, some headache ceos. when i first saw these, my eyes

glazed over. about a textbook on one that cost me $90. i read two pages and it was on that and i had to put the book down. i couldn't get past the pages. verse $90 i ever spent. here's what we're talking about. if you look at that line, the graph i have only starts in 1987. if we went back all the way to hear 21850, the line would more or less be five. this is back through time. it more or less is constant and then something incredible happened a decade ago and it shot through the roof and it crashed. so this is the economic crash. how the prices hit levels as you

probably experienced or heard, then it goes down. i'm going to give you a hit tonight about how vapid. at least i'm going to try. here are the basics. you've got to stop me if this doesn't make any sense to you. you notice subprime mortgages? denote the garbage mortgages are? your not qualified, but they give you the mortgage anyway and the issue straight starts off slow and jumps up and they say don't worry you can sell your house in a couple years. [inaudible] >> they basically look for a regular 30 year conventional mortgage and they do the subprime mortgages. so you gather up 1007 by

mortgages. they're supposed to interest and principal every month. you take the interest, poured into a bottle. all of these mortgages are not going to fail at the same time. historically 90% of people in high-risk mortgages pay, 10% were to follow. so you put all the interest rates together, all that income in these wineglasses, those are securities like bonds. he set up a system where you pour the wine, the champagne to the top producers feared dead in the middle row, then the bottom row. you see the topper bonds get paid first. so no matter what happened, if you have 20% foreclosures and 30% come you pay the top people first. so if you buy that don, you're going to be okay.

you're going to get your interest rate. he with me so far? said they got triple-a ratings, which meant they were as good as fine a government on. they gave them a nice interest rate, to because of his junk mortgages, so they pay a high interest rate. eventually they'll pay high interest rate souk at a nice interest rate of return. they sold those like hotcakes, all over the world. the next row, does her little riskier because you only get paid after the past skyscape paid. the bottom row is the gamblers -- they call them tranches. yet 20%, 30%, which are the first to get wiped out at the mortgages start to default. so what do you think -- no

problem selling the top row. of course once they start selling it, they want more and more subprime mortgages. the shyster mortgage companies kept trying to find more people to give mortgages do. he got more people buying houses and getting cheap mortgages and packaging up and selling them. to take an assembly line. are you with me? what do you deal are smart. what do you do if you can't sell the ones in the middle row? what do you do with them? [inaudible] discount, that's possible. what else could you do with them? [inaudible] >> how do you do that? she's auditioning for a wall street job. how do you do that?

>> package them into the other row. >> there you go. when they couldn'tell the middle row, they take all the metal rose and package them together in search of process all over again. so now the wine bottle is filled with the stuff that goes into the metal rose. i guess where? they start the whole thing over again. now you've got 10,000 underlain junk mortgages put together. when you pour the wine out again , when they got done with it they want to read agency and guess what happened? [inaudible] aaa rated once again for the time. so just think about the miracle that was created.

he took the middle row that you couldn't tell, package it together and got yourself a aaa set of security szell, which demanded all over the world. he still had trouble selling the middle row. now it's even more dangerous. what do you do? same thing. okay, now this is aaa ratings you package -- by the way 70% three times.

pretty good, pretty good. i'm now the stock market prices are going straight up. [inaudible] >> big rigs. this is goldman sachs and citigroup and jpmorgan chase and deutsche banc. they have the customers and the ability to warehouse and get all the legal stuff together. but that's too difficult, too hard. there were none of dead people to give mortgages do, which is what they were doing in las vegas. the guy who did it -- actually a guy engaged in fraud was not late one of these mortgage companies got reworded as employee of the year even after

he was caught. so this is big business. so they decided to do this and do this emphatically. they can create the same things through credit default swaps. they obtained the space-time football players, right? they figured out how to do that as well. they did this whole thing is that they are not, but they didn't own them. they said the same thing up serious at-bats. pretend you on these mortgages on las vegas nbc new york and is

in florida. to see what happens to them and was at the same thing out. again, too complicated to explain. here's where the hedge funds came in. [inaudible] >> they created insurance in a period to make it work, they get the insurance premiums from someone who is batting those things will work out forever. so literally it's like an insurance company -- they become the insurance company and the person paying the insurance is the hedge funds. so i'm betting my team is going to win and you are betting my team is going to lose. it's really that simple.

the hedge funds unbeknownst to the people buying the securities, the hedge funds went out and found the worst mortgages they could find. the area of las vegas that huge number defaults. this but in this hardware is on the wearing of the brokers are actually engaged in fraud. that's going to florida where we see the whole neighborhood is unoccupied and they're never going to pay off their mortgages. so there's this case called advocates on government documents, were literally the hedge fund and goldman sachs colluded to create something like this, sold off the top row for a billion dollars to three large institutions. in the hedge fund guy that he can stay.

so if those houses into default, hedge fund guys going to win a billion dollars. but the people buying it now is hedge fund pick a mortgages. collect the insurance. the hedge funds that a billion dollars. goldman sachs gets money by servicing the hedge fund selling it and in the investors lost a billion dollars. this happens at the peak of the housing market because people were trying to unload the junk they had come securities they had. for every big bank started to play this game at hedge funds. design something that's gone to fail and take out the insurance on it. i [inaudible] there were all kinds of cake facts. -- kickbacks. the question is when they did

these kickback schemes, what do you think was legal and what was illegal? by the way, can you think of anywhere else in our economy where you are allowed to produce and thing that's going to fail so you can dedicate their? can you think of that? if you tried to fix a horserace bookies are not out to fix a horserace. [inaudible] >> that's called illegal. can you guys go out why her son did not -- you can figure out how to do it. that they would put you away. so it's probably not legal.

>> knowing which one they're going to fail. >> they didn't get caught doing not. i would be interesting if jpmorgan told the hedge fund these are the worst mortgages so it will fail even faster. what did happen as the governor came undomesticated in find old men and citigroup 570 million. guess how much the hedge funds were? zero. by the way, i wrote a piece at "huffington post" where he suggested perhaps this is a bit of a slimy thing and if hedge fund people were so smart. guess would have been.

they threaten to see me. they threaten to see me for being involved in a near criminal conspiracy. it shook me. i got scared. i said this is the richest of the hedge fund. the $2.5 million an hour coming after me. so i'm thinking way, i did say he was a criminal. as a near criminal conspiracy. it's like merely having sex. this is a difference. [laughter] so i chickened out. i withdrew the peace after week that it are begotten 300,000 hits, so i got the word out, but i got scared. some phony publisher was calling

my agent to get a look at the draft of the next book and then wouldn't give their name. so i realized is a private investigator and a tail. why do you think they are so touchy? they know they skated right off the ethical edge and beyond. this is just the start of it. go ahead. >> what were they actually find for? >> excellent question. they were fined for not fully disclosing to their investors that the hedge fund was handicapping the race. that's what they were fined for. they didn't fully disclose the hedge fund guy was picking the horses in the race, picking them to lose. full disclosure laws. this is the only place in

capitalism where you're allowed to do this. go ahead. >> they do that on their executives. the college probably has one i'm being merrill because he'd be absolutely impossible to replace. the hardship involved as they are. i want to ask you, that's just one story of what they do. you up for another one? you know jim cramer on mad money? you ever see this guy on tv? talks faster than me. used to run hedge funds. he ran it for 10 years and its rate of return, his percentage

of return average was 23% a year every year. so you write this book called confessions of the street junkie and describes how he does it. it's actually an entertaining book follows his woes and everything else. but it's not a confession. he then does in every later on a website he partially owned and says what he does. i read this thing about my god, this guy saying this stuff? here's what he said. he works for cnbc and even when he ran his hedge fund, he stood. cnbc. so what would you do if you're trying to manipulate the market? them to see how devious you are. [inaudible] there you go, lie about the stock market. he knows if he says that -- he

slips it to other reporters. he says they got a tip that google has a problem with an application. he dated about apple because apple would never tell a reporter whether pursuing. if you slip false information to a choice, there's no way to check it. serzone colleagues on cnbc would report it on the stock would either go up or down based on the report. he basically says in order to run a hedge fund you have to lie. he said that in this interview. but he says if you're not willing to do these things, you shouldn't be in the game. that's pretty amazing. you heard about insider trading. we now have 70 people behind ours because they get a tip on a

stock before everybody else does. when people talk about wall street has been casino, one word. casino is a game of chance it is regulated. you could win or lose. when you make big money like this come you don't want to take a risk. so there's no chance to do the same. we're going to stop her question shortly. the book is designed for those of you want to make a million dollars an hour. it's a 12 step guide. child-centered rags to riches. if you have any problems with this, you will also explain the ethical problems involved here. anyway, this stuff isn't just fun and games. let me close with a question. should we prevent this moneymaking? if not, why not? should we let these hedge funds

do what they do? it's a free country. yes, no, what do you think? [inaudible] >> here's what they say. does not cause any problems. i'm just taking money for some other rich person. [inaudible] ..

>> that coming down was accelerated dramatically on the way up it was accelerated at that crazy finance baseball game they were playing. on the way down and got accelerated, because imagine this. if there's one underlying mortgage and 20 different bonds, if it goes down the 20 bonds go down. so when they said they had toxic assets, they really did. it all came crashing down. that accelerated the downward

push and got this. number of unemployed people, fairly steady from 2000-2008. boom. when the game ended, jumped up to 14.3 million people unemployed. it will take over 12 years at the current rate, i make this as that based on last month when he the unemployment rate went down and/or jobs created, at that rate it will take 12 years for us to get back to where we were before the crash. 12 years from today. hopefully you've got to go get jobs and hang onto jobs. >> [inaudible] >> hang out at john paulson south's. >> no names mentioned are i don't want to get sued again. >> [inaudible] >> so what do we do? what can we do if you wanted to bring some morality to the

situation, what do you do? what can we do? >> what would they say, what with hedge fund managers, defenders of wall street say, what's the value that they're bringing to the economy? >> chapter two. step too. >> we have to read about? >> you have to read the book. they are a whole cottage industry of people i call hedge funds cheerleaders, who claim that what they do is as valuable as all of silicon valley. but the things they say is they are literally, there defense of hedge funds was that they take on risks that nobody else wants and they stabilize the economic system. how did that work for 2008? in other words, all the stuff but hedge fund cheerleading in 2007 and 2006 and they claimed, they have a whole bunch of claims. that's just one of them, destabilizing -- to stabilize

the system, to make sure there's money there to buy and sell stocks come you can always do it. to have a whole series of things. i go through each one of them in chapter two or three whatever it is. i had, i think you'll find that their claims are based on wishful thinking. really, the only thing they care about, the only thing they care about is squeezing out some profit. anybody here have a new trade account? by the timecome when you press the button to buy something, before the trade goes through, there are a group of hedge funds called high-frequency traders who buy the stock faster than you do and sell it back to you for a few pennies more and pocket the difference. every single time. done electronically with these computers located right next to wall street. tell me what good that does you.

that's the question. i tried to explore all the questions in the book. believe me, there are hundreds of arguments that they make. but when you push on them you realize they're in business for one reason only, right? they're going to make as much mud as they can anyway they can, and try not to get caught. >> if you make, if you want to make profit from the american economy you have to give a pledge of some kind of economical responsibility come here to reinvent the country, the industry. >> that's a good point. an excellent way. reason oms pod is there was come in the harvard business review, this is a psychologist, a woman from ucla writes an article about why she thinks hedge funds do with the do. she comes up with this word, she

calls it crime agenda. basically that mr. encourages you to break the law every which we can. so there has to be a sea change for the rally. so the question is how do we get there. spin my question is why is it possible for them to do this? when you have companies or industries like pharmaceuticals industries who sell drugs for inflated prices. and when the government find out what all the side effects, you know, the sec and all these instruments come into play. they get regulated. they get bumped down. they get sideswiped and generic brands, and so on and so forth. but these guys, they can't make generic brands of money in financial institutions. it's like you either roll with them or you shut it all down. >> well, when we took, let me

give you a little bit of history to uerand howe got here again. 1929 there was a stock market crash and we found out at that time that wall street firms were manipulating the stock market, including stock prices, doing all kinds of stuff. so we regulated the hell out of them starting in the 1930s. we put our foot on wall street. we made wall street a boring place to work. but then when we took our foot off in the mid 1970s, 1980s, this whole game started again. basically the genie is out of the bottle. so the question becomes how do you put it back in? they are very strong that. one of these guys has given $100 million to settle for. that has given $100 million to the public library here in new york. how do you get the genie back in the bottle?

>> would you start with creating awareness? awareness, is basically minute to what it should be. and the american public would start fighting back. >> it started happen for a while. we had occupy wall street. but there's a point where we are starting to say maybe they should pay us back for the damage they did. let me give you one -- were getting now new tv and of -- mike does not want to pay me overtime, and million and a half. [laughter] wait, it's after 6:00. it's doubletime. okay. >> [inaudible] >> there's a thing called financial transaction tax or financial speculation tax. there's 10 countries in europe that are doing this now which is a little tax on every single stock, bond, all these fancy finance things.

they put attacks and every time there bought and sold. if the tax were big enough, i think one calculation that it could provide enough money to generate to provide free tuition for every student in the country going to a public college and university. [applause] no more debt. so this is a big deal. and they're scared to do it. it wipes out trading because they'll make a few pennies out of -- they are collecting a hidden tax. this makes the tax overt. so there's a very, that's a big one. we could prohibit high-frequency trading. there's a loophole by the way. i forgot to tell you. not only didn't make all that money, but they pay less tax than you do because they have a special label called kerry interest. it was 15%, now it's 20% for the

top rate to every tax loophole there hang onto for dear life. we're talking about sequestering and austerity. that tax loophole still makes it through. there's a good case to be made that we should limit the size of the hedge fund so they can't be so big. that they can't be bigger than a certain amount. at the bottom line comes out to this, that none of this happened. nothing happen. happened. no more rounded edges is going to be brought in in less we do something about it. and you all are actually, one day, may end up being leaders in your union and in your community. and it's going to be up to you, i'm only getting a little long in the tooth here, i may no longer be registered but the game won't change until you force it to change. and it starts with awareness as you said that then it will start, then we have to make some demands to force it i believe of

both political parties. so -- >> we are all union members and from everything we're hearing it seems like this activity is against your best interest. so what do you think how should, how much force said we use to improve our economy, improve the way money is distributed? >> how do you bet against them? they bet against us. how do you bet against them? >> how do we bet against them? how do we change to put them more in our favor? >> [inaudible] >> sounds like a good idea. what else? >> design a system that can make them feel -- [inaudible]

[laughter] >> invest more wisely. [inaudible] >> what all goes into a hedge fund? >> they can do whatever they want to be. taken by companies. they can buy bonds. they can buy bets upon bets. >> [inaudible] >> if you buy a piece of real estate. i'm just thinking -- [inaudible] >> let me just make this one point. i don't think there's any way we can outplay them at their own game. i think it becomes eclectic. it's political.

it's the rules of the game allow allowed them to get going. in other words, when you regulate they can't play this game. when you deregulate they can play this game. so it's a question of whether you want more regulation and how to get them. yes? >> [inaudible] >> it's just like all things that have fallen by the wayside. unions and people sitting together have fallen by the wayside because something like this is allowed to happen because people are allowed to stand up for the own. disregard the other people around them. people have become lazy to stand out on the corner and protest. in france, for example, they protest at the drop of a hat. if they say they will change a couple words and law and 50,000 people will come out and protest against the over here it is under done. its unity. it takes people standing

together. it takes 50 letters to your congressman cummings getting a facebook. >> is it our own greed that doesn't allow us to go out there and strike our show our unity together? for example, nowadays you have, a lot of people are talking the they got the strike coming up soon, and it's on social media. people don't do it. people don't want to strike. they don't want to go out and take a day off from work. they don't want to take those days off to show the unity. a lot of times our own freedom doesn't allow us to show what we want to do or what we really want. >> we've lost power. >> [inaudible] >> we have a government that is allowing this to happen and a lot of these officials are bought through campaign funds and stuff like that. so sometimes you have to start from the roof and say how did

this allow, how did this get allowed to happen. our government officials think, allows them to get out of control. so maybe we should start, focusing, putting back in place that kept under control for so long. >> i think all the union members who have -- [inaudible] more people to understand again. >> from your lips to god years. spent tonight to be a conference call with governor cuomo who is supporting campaign public financing for all state government elections in new york state, like we have a new your city. public financing of elections. dilemma, the influence of real estate and wall street

installation. that's actually something that we can directly get involved in as citizens in new york state, could help lead the way in the country to limit what was talked about, money and elections. >> let me make one observation. let me put a couple things together. when the hedge fund guy came after me, it was an interesting thing because it reflected something that i hadn't thought about before, which is how could they be so touchy? what are they worried about? hey, if i could make a billion dollars on the deal and i didn't -- why would i care what the qubit lobbyist says? i'm not exactly in "the new york times" every week. what i realized was they are word about a popular uproar against them. they are worried that something like occupy wall street is going to happen. because this happened before occupy wall street.

they weren't a bunch of people are going to go to the streets and demand their heads on a platter. and they're worried that could really change things. they are more worried about change than we are about making it. they have, they are afraid that we can be more than we think we can do. so it makes me think that they are vulnerable. the other thing i just want to point out, i don't know if you remember this, the four occupying wall street it down the street here, the country was talked about austerity, all this talk and about austerity. occupy wall street, the whole conversation changes to the 1%, to 99%, wall street, the whole conversation change. assist occupy wall street disappears, now we're talking about austerity game. so the is power and it makes me think that next time something like occupy wall street happens, we better be there. because if there's a lot of -- how to build it, that's we have

people like sandy here. go ahead. >> i just want to say something about -- [inaudible]. >> stand up and address everyone. turnaround. there you go. >> okay. not just the big ones like presidential elections but common you know, these congressmen who get elected, the two years in between who wall street lobbies do, to back their little no fees or taxes on the money that they get, we need to not let them. they're coming up for reelection. we need to not vote for them and vote for people who are going to

take care of working people's interests and the other side, you know, the people who buy the homes and get ripped off by these banks and companies. we can do something in power. we just need to do it. [applause] >> what you were saying about the guy coming after your head, hedge fund manager, i think not that he was just afraid of an uproar, and you turning into a million people, i think one thing that he did that most people on the other side are not doing is he's exercising his rights. he has the right to come after you. he has a right. and he's using it. whether he's afraid of not come he's got money can he doesn't

care. but he wants to intimidate you. bison, ma you know what, i can do this and i'm going to do it. >> got my attention. spent if we all collectively got together as people and what did the same exact thing, because we can, nobody can stop us from having a rally, you know, or any other function, you know? at the end of the day we can do whatever it is we need to do to make it happen. the problem with us, most of us is either we don't have the information, we don't have the finance, or we are just afraid. because we're going against the million dollar guy, or the billion dollar guy. >> good point. >> the last time i touch it was in economic disparity was in the great depression, right before the great depression. which led to the new deal,

create jobs and reform the financial sector and pick up the economy. based on the economy today do you think there will be a new new deal? >> well you know, i've been struggling with this question which is why is the response of different after this crash compared to 1929? because we, it's very disturbing. so after 1929, pretty much we jumped in. >> i would say back then a lot more people paid attention to what happened around the. right now people are very easily distracted. with the stuff we have around us. it's very easy to just also, i feel like there's a lot more people alive these days than back in the day. it was hard to get away with it back then than it is now. spent it could've been more

severe back then because now we have unemployment insurance. there is protection. >> a financial system where back then, back in the great depression you didn't have money and there's no way for you to get food. so it was a very real, you know, you were hungry, literally. but now we have a debt-based, you know, financial system where even though we know that is wrong and we know at the end of the day everyone here can still get what they want and you are procuring light, you know, make believe that no one is what hungry like they were back in the '30s and the 70s. >> we have time for one more question. >> i was just going to say that speaking to the database society, that it's government that sets the example for that.

look at our deficit. and it is an illusion. were basically living on this allusion and that's why it hasn't affected us the way it had in the last century. because we have a solution that everything is okay. your tv turned off, it's all good because you go to sleep, he could happen more and you could work and you can use your credit card the next if you don't have cash and. but when it falls apart, what's going to happen then? unfortunately the way it looks is until the falls apart, not much is going to be done about it. people continue to live in this allusion, how many people don't have $20,000 sat in the back pocket? i will pay off eventually but it's there and it's the fact that we're all living in different until somebody says this is a moral. this another way to look up into one of those countries are collecting against our government i don't think much will be done about it. >> we should do all not the workshop on debt. guess how much debt of our hold that, guess how much china owns of our debt?

spent about 80%? >> any other guesses? 8%. is who owns most of our debt? we do. social security, anyway, let me end with this, this little note. the biggest difference between the '30s and now i think was the upsurge of mobile action from the trade union. points us in the same direction you should all be talking to, political engagement, mobilization, organizing to i want to thank you for this opportunity. [applause] >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers. watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv.

>> maurine beasley as professor emeritus journalism at university of maryland and a former reporter for the "washington post." she's written a new book called "women of the washington press." what was it like to write for the "washington post" in the 1960s and '70s? >> i was there from 1963-1973 and that's what prompted me to write this book because i remember that the were a group of us women there, and i remembered how hard women had to work. some of these women were so incredibly talented. i knew the struggle they had to get assignments that were equal with men. i think it's interesting that tonight we're here at the national press club, and you are interviewing me right under the infamous balcony where the women were pinned up during the 1960s. you know, they were not allowed to sit down on the floor with the mint and the at the luncheon tables, even though the

government had main speakers here at the press club. united states government had a policy of having foreign dignitaries speak here at the press club. and so women who were assigned to cover these people were cooped up here in this hot, ms. will balcony where they couldn't eat, and here they could see men, colleagues down here on the floor having a nice lunch. also, they couldn't hear of the. they didn't have enough room to take notes. mr. kibble. but that was indicative of the status of women in those days. there was a woman at the "washington post" i knew well who is in this book. she was taken off a prize of civil rights assignment at the post because the people who were involved in this civil rights protests were going to have a meeting here at the press club. and because women were not allowed in the press club, the

post instead of complaining about this just as well, we will assign a man do it. that's the way things were. >> what was your be at the "washington post" to? i had a bright of these at the post. i covered the suburbs of the city of alexandria, but i also then later covered the court of general sessions which is now the superior court. i covered welfare and a covered education, d.c. public schools. i was on the metro staff. >> not only were your reporter for the post but a journalism professor at the university of maryland. you been in the field a long time. what is the difference now for female reporters and the 1960s and '70s? >> there's a lot of difference of course. i'm still at the university of maryland. i'm the director of the college of journalism there. women have many more opportunities now than men do,

but i still think it's harder for women to crack the glass ceiling. one of the things about this book do that i end with is how ironic it is that now women have the chance to beat -- to be the leading figures in journalism. and they have a chance to the editors of major newspapers. they have much more of a chance than they used to have, ma probably in television even. although that might be disputed. but certainly in print they have more opportunity. however, the business is changing so. they got to the top of of the d and in the field crumbled away under their feet. >> maurine beasley, the author of "women of the washington press." thank you. >> thank you. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. here's our primetime lineup for

tonight. >> that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> up next on booktv, "after words" with guest host krissah

thompson of the "washington post." this week, author and professor benjamin wiker and his latest book, worshiping the state. and it he argues that those on the political left are organizing a complete de-christianization of western civilization and plan to replace personal faith with the collective dependence on the federal government. the program is about one hour. >> host: >> "worshipping the state" is written with a sense of urgency. can you talk about why it was important to write this book now? >> guest: i want to be frank. over the last, serving over the last four years am i worried about this administration. and that i think part of a long-term trend as i've outlined in the book, that it is using more and more state power to impose a particular worldview. april 2 i called liberalism and i will go to a