>> john: my friends, every time convicted cover-up master oliver north goes on fox news and calls benghazi a cover-up, an angel sticks its head in a 1980s paper shredder. once again senator elizabeth warren has shocked our nation's capital by actually doing her job. she wants student loans to have the same interest as the banks get. republicans are listening to warren's proposals and promise her they'll filibuster them all with an open mind. >> bangladesh proves that thanks to overseas child slave labor walmart workers aren't the ones most exploited by walmart. today is the birthday of the great actor albert finney who still has never won an oscar. also the birthday of general john ashcroft and grammy winner

songwriter william martin joel turns 64 today. next to organized labor goods made in america and thriving middle class billy joel is the popular comeback we would most like to see. this is "viewpoint." >> john: good evening i'm john fuglesang. this is "viewpoint." thank you so much for joining us tonight. if you think medical bills in this country are insane, you my friend are correct. but just how crazy really began coming into focus this week after a massive data dump from washington's center for medicaid services. now nobody is disputing the life saving health enhancing work that medical professionals here in america perform or their remarkable drugs technologies and techniques they use in hospitals every day.

no one's criticizing the quality of care. but any attempt anyone who can count up to ten on their fingers has to be blown away by the out-of-control, beyond belief cost disparities between different hospitals and that's revealed in the data which these hospitals have also kept secret up until now. or as white house press secretary jay carney put it on wednesday... >> it is a question that i think consumers justifiably ask. why is that hospital charging three times more for the same service that a hospital, in the next town over may be charging? >> john: no way jay ya think? i hate to tell you this, mr. carney but if you think charging three times more for the same service should get customers to notice, try this item from "the huffington post." it costs nearly $100,000 per patient at the bayonne hospital center in new jersey to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which, as it sounds, makes it hard for one to breathe but around 20 miles away, at the lincoln medical and health center in the bronx the

identical treatment costs just over $7,000. as for cost discrepancies that can soar hire than that, jonathan blum, who directs the center that released the data said, and i quote... >> john: perhaps gordon gekko from oliver stone's "wall street" came up with the best argument when he told an audience of fictional investors greed is good. but greed also hurts. according to a 2009 study by harvard and ohio university, in 2007, over 62% of bankruptcies nationwide were medically related even though nearly 80% of those bankrupt families had medical insurance anyway. as dr. steffi woolhandler one of the study's authors told cnn and i quote unless you're a warren buffett or bill gates you're one illness away from financial ruin in this country.

and for more, i'm pleased to be joined by wendell potter, senior analyst with the center for public integrity, former head of public relations for cigna and author of "deadly spin," an insurance company speaks out on how corporate p.r. is killing healthcare and deceiving americans. what a pleasure to have you on "viewpoint" this evening. >> thank you. >> john: how have hospitals kept these incredible cost discrepancies secret from us all these years? >> healthcare providers and insurers have really spent a lot of time to make sure that their costs are kept secret. they call it proprietary information. and they've been able to get away with this for all of these years. just now the government through the centers for medicaid and medicare services has released what is really important information that we should have had all along. >> john: indeed. what role, sir does the private insurance play in driving up the insurance costs and how does that contribute to differences

in price. $100,000 or $7,000 for identical treatments. >> what this shows is a complete failure of the unregulated healthcare marketplace both healthcare providers and both healthcare insurers, this is unknown in other parts of the world. in other developed countries. if you think these numbers are bad, just look at these -- the average cost of various treatments or procedures in hospitals with those abroad. insurance companies have not been able to control costs in this country as they have said that they could do. in fact, what they do instead is they kind of anticipate what their medical claims are going to be during a given period of time and then they price their premiums on top of that so that they're guaranteed a profit so they don't really do very much good at the bargaining table with healthcare providers anymore. they just tack on additional amount to ensure themselves of a sizable profit. >> john: i'm pretty sure we're still the only country where inability to pay healthcare

costs is the leading cause of bankruptcy. does medicare -- >> it is. >> john: glad to know it or maybe not. does medicare, sir play a role in these disparate billing practices. who pace the over when hospitals charge fees, way over what medicare will be willing to reimburse? >> you have to keep in mind that medicare probably pays what is a reasonable amount of money for some of the procedures. hospitals have gone into debt, they've -- they get the latest bells and whistles that they don't really need because the hospital across town has it. so you've had an arms race among hospitals to have all the equipment that, in many cases is just surplus equipment. it is a duplication of services. so because that exists, they have to make up for that. they have to pay for it some way. they pass along -- they shift costs to insurance companies but the worst person -- the one who

is the real loser here are people who don't have insurance or people who are insured and have very high deductible health plans. >> john: what about those folks? 45 million americans without health insurance who allegedly will be helped when the affordable care act goes into play. how do they fit into this picture? >> well, they fit in the picture very poorly. this week, a study released showing that half of adult age americans between 1964 are either -- 19 and 64 are either underinsured or uninsured. if you're underinsured, you may as well be uninsured. half of the country is affected by the high prices and more and more, families are filing for bankruptcy or losing their homes. >> john: here is i guess the million dollar question. does the affordable care act also known as obamacare make the situation better or worse or do nothing? >> it should do some good

because it brings more people into coverage and so you won't have all of that cost shifting to the uninsured because it will be fewer uninsured people. it does not do, however nearly enough good to control costs and that's something we've got to do -- we've got to focus on down the road. >> john: isn't this the best argument we've seen yet for single payer opening up medicare for all? >> absolutely right. and again, as i said earlier what this shows is absolute failure of the so-called free market, unregulated healthcare marketplace. it just does not work for anybody except the hospitals's insurance companies. >> john: william potter, many thanks to you for joining us on "viewpoint." what a pleasure. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> john: for more, i'm delighted to be joined once again by forbes.com contributor rick ungar who wrote a terrific story about this everyone should read in this issue of forbes entitled the great american pricing scam exposed. we know now why healthcare costs are so artificially high.

rick, great story. even better title. >> thank you. >> john: was hospital pricing always this crazy? >> no, it wasn't. this followed a progression. in the early days, a hospital would figure out their costs and then they would add on some profit which was appropriate to make the hospital better or if it was a for-profit to make some money. as time went on, they started adding in costs from other departments into a procedure that were not relevant to it. they started adding in this mostly adding in the losses from the uninsured that would come in and that took it to a certain level. there is no way to explain how it got to where it is today. >> john: was there a point when the discrepancies came into focus? >> you can probably look back over the past 20 years when this really started to happen, before that, there was a bit more rationing you know, something to grab on to, you could say, this is why it's happening. in the past ten years, there is no way to figure it out. as the gentleman from medicare said, you can't come up with an

economic rationale. >> john: there may be a reasonable explanations for why costs are so different from region to region or state to state, is there any serious explanation for how one hospital can charge ten times as much for the same treatment as another hospital 20 miles away does. >> it is hard to -- look, clearly there are cost differentials from region to region. there are even cost differentials when you look at a situation where a hospital might be a teaching hospital. we know they have a higher overhead and it is worth paying that overhead for the benefits you get. you could argue that a certain hospital has better results and as a result, might want to charge more. what we learned in the data that came out yesterday and i can't overstate how important finally having access to this data was. what we learned is that take something like copd which was the bayonne case you referenced. copd is not a curable disease. it is not a situation where one hospital has this fantastic cure rate and the one 20 miles away, not so great. they can't be charging for that.

it is a situation where you're maintaining the patient, trying to control it and trying to make them more comfortable. the procedures aren't that different. >> john: right. >> maybe they have a little hire cost of overhead in bayonne. i question how that could be but maybe the bronx -- 1,000 times percent more? definitely not possible. >> john: when this data dump came out, i'm a bit dismade we haven't seen more mainstream media coverage of it. i think a lot of people don't know until they see a bill. is there any hope in light of the data dump, we might see it help push down costs either from the insurance providers or the hospitals themselves? >> it is hard to know. look i am personally aware of the efforts being made by a couple of the major hospital associations to try quickly to come up with the talking points to beat this down. they'll have a hard time. will people connect to it? i don't know. it is very complicated stuff. but hopefully they will. it is going to take the public connecting to it but the biggest problem is most people do have

health insurance and they looked at this and they go well, it's not affecting me. >> john: exactly. >> but it does affect them because what they're not realizing is how complicit the health insurance companies are in this game that they play. why aren't they complaining about it? they're not complaining because as the numbers go up, as wendell pointed out, they figure their premium costs and their profits based on it. bigger numbers, better for the insurance company. but anybody who has insurance who thinks this is only a problem for the uninsured no. this is a major reason why your premium rates are so high. you're paying the bill. >> john: a more sane society might realize profit-driven healthcare itself, getting rich off someone else's disease is creepy. but under this system, we're outlining here who suffers the most? the uninsured or the insured with low income? >> you're talking like a socialist. my goodness! [ laughter ] >> john: has any other country abandoned socialized healthcare to have the kind of system we have? >> look, i always like to point out of all of the industrialized

nations, the united states is the only one where owning a gun is a right. healthcare is a privilege. that's always good to keep in mind. >> john: thank you. >> obviously the uninsured as wendell noted they're getting the brunt of this. because they have to go into the hospital and pay if they can pay, full rate card. these ridiculous numbers. the insurance companies use the number. they gave you the 50% discount and all of that. not quite as bad. i'll tell you what, everybody seems to think if you're uninsured in america, everything is paid for because you can go to the emergency room. it's not true. the e.r. will stabilize you. if you need chemotherapy, no e.r. >> john: here's the thing. let me ask you what i asked wendell potter, is there a better argue for single payer than this because the white house is acting like this data dump is a victory for them. maybe if they're trying to sell single payer or public option to help get it passed but at this point, obamacare doesn't address this. >> what the white house is pointing out is you can see how

the costs are getting so high. but i have to agree with you look, single payer is not only more rational, you've heard me say this too many times. it is inevitable. i don't care if you like it. i don't care if you hate it. get used to it! it's going to be the only possible system in the not-too-distant future. >> john: rick ungar you will be with us after the break for the rest of the show. >> i will. >> john: there is another pricing inequity you may have noticed between college students and banks and we'll bring you that and another reason to love senator liz warren right after the break.

>> john: today's thing of the day is today's final resting place of the day. the body of tamerlan tsarnaev, the boston marathon bombing suspect killed by police last month has been interned into an undisclosed location. we covered this last night with a christian theologian and muslim activist and wherever

tsarnaev is now, he can't hurt anyone anymore and we can't blame him for anymore than he's already done. it is up to the rest of us to screw up the world more or make it better. here's a crazy idea. what if college students could borrow money at the same low rate american banks do? it is an idea so crazy logical that it could only have been proposed by massachusetts senator elizabeth warren since being elected in november, of course senator warren's goal has been to shake up the status quo of wall street culture. making headlines for her tough questioning of bank regulators in february be, senator warren was just getting started in her mission to protect the middle class from a system that seemingly awards the rich at the expense of everyone else. her student loan bill would allow college students to borrow at the same rate as banks. a rate that's below 1%. with the stafford loan rate scheduled to end in july to go from 3.4% to 6.8% for some seven million students, if congress doesn't act soon, it is the future generation of our country who will be burdened most. something both they and the rest

of us simply at the moment can't afford. so for more on this, i'm pleased to be joined once again by forbes.com contributor rick ungar and also joined by executive director of the american values institute alexis johnson and my old friend from d.c., republican strategist and ceo of christie's strategies llc, you didn't come here in person, ron christie, but we love you anyway. good evening ron alexis. ron, i want to talk about the warren bill because i know you're a fan. this would for one year, make the interest rates on student loans 7.5%, the same rate that the banks are able to borrow at. ron, isn't making college more affordable and putting more money in the pockets of graduates exactly the sort of long-range thinking that will help the economy and not force graduates to pursue fields that simply pay the most bucks? >> well, i think we all want to make sure students are able to attend college or a vocational school and receive the assistance they need if they don't have the assets and means

necessary to do it. john, this might be the case where you have a professor warren dropping a piece of legislation as opposed to senator warren. the basis rate the 0.5% is the amount of the interest rate that banks are charged by the federal reserve for a short-term loan. short-term loans deal with the short-term liquidity basis. you're talking about a matter of days or a matter of weeks. senator warren is talking about a year. the system is not designed to do that. the department of education isn't the right entity to also facilitate that. so it sounds good but an application that just won't work. >> john: okay. i hear your point. let me bring alexis in. would not the long-range goals remain the same of putting less of a burden on america's college students? >> i have a crush on elizabeth warren. what she's doing in this moment is actually trying to create a big vision of who this nation needs to be. and we're talking about educating the future generation, not just in terms of taking care of itself but in terms of

actually competing better globally. i think a lot of other nations are thinking about this in a way that the united states isn't. we're still focused on whether or not we should fund the banks or we should fund the students and it is completely off-course. i think that these are the right questions. i forgot your question. >> john: you're not alone in that. rick, let me did you and ron you're going to love this. s what about the idea that some have said of going even further into full-on jubilee mode and canceling all student loan debt altogether. could that work and help our economy or is it too impossible to imagine? >> it is interesting. there is a bill that's been proposed in the house by my old pal, congresswoman karen bass to do precisely that. real life, it's never going to get through. >> john: of course. >> but there is a really good argument to be made it would have a benefit to the economy. i think reason ron would agree with me on this. there's no question that the amount of outstanding student debt is a real drain on the economy. the amount of money it's taking

from people as they're trying to make their way through the world today is a substantial issue. you know, there is some moral hazard when you start talking about debt but if we're going to take a purely economic point of view on it it may, in fact, be a good idea. >> john: ron, he makes a good point. when my wife got out of college she had such incredible debt, i had to take a job hosting america's funniest videos. >> very ugly. >> john: let me ask you. when you see warren interrogating the bank regulators and imposing measures to help students, on the other hand you see the chairman of the house financial services committee skiing with reps in the banking industry, doesn't this damage the republican's brand of the very people they're trying to reach? how could working class americans not see it as the old cloudy shave one party working for wall street and the other standing up for main street? >> i think it is an interesting way that you phrase that, john, frankly, my old chief of staff in the white house used to say

that the best educator in washington is a lobbyist because the lobbyist has a lot of information and a lot of facts. the fact of the matter is you could flip the coin and look at it the other way and say you know what? why is it a lot of the democratic members of congress are beholden to the labor unions? the labor unions are an increasing reason why many of our students can't afford to go to school. my beloved home state of california, the unfunded pension liability in california is crowding out all other discretionary spending. so we could look at this both ways. i think that you could still represent main street even if you -- oh, my goodness, happen to be a committee chairman or a member of a regulated committee dealing with the banking of the financial services industry. it is just an attempt to demonize people and demonize the industry. one last thing, if the interest rate goes from 3.4% to 6.8%, you're only talking an addition of $20 a month that student would pay back at the end of the loan and finally we all know that the federal government, under this administration, pushed out the private lenders.

the federal government is make $34 billion a year off of the money that they received for student interests. why don't we put that back in the system and help student loans? >> john: let me go back to the original question in terms of branding and how the g.o.p. is perceived. because while we can agree it comes down to how is it perceived? the one party is the party of the job creators. the other party is setting up for the job doers. if the republicans want to reach out -- this is the problem with mitt romney and many of my republican friends thought he was a terrible nominee and terrible spokesman. >> i don't think we have an image problem. the democrats have far more of an image problem of being behold ton the public labor unions that are destroying the equity of the country than republicans for trying to deal with a regulated industry. >> john: ron, we all now it was the labor unions and banks not financial for the financial meltdown. president obama spoke in austin in his jobs and opportunities tour in an attempt to refocus

the conversation on jobs. ron, i'm about to jump into your party for the endless campaigning. take a look at what the president had to say. >> obama: corporate profits have skyrocketed to all-time highs but that's not good enough. we've got to make sure that middle class wages and incomes are also going up. because most families haven't seen their take-home pay rise for years now. >> john: according to a new pew research poll between twine and 2011, the richest 7% gained $5.6 trillion of net worth this is during obama's term as well, while the rest of the country lost $669 billion. alexis, could it be said that while the country recovers, the level of economic inequality is still getting worse under this president? >> i think a lot of economists would tell you the same thing. inequality is actually the number, the driver we should be looking at in terms of the health of our economy. we're still looking at it in terms of whether or not we should apologize for the lobbyists or the teacher's

unions and we're talking -- overlay, when you overlay race on to the conversation of equality and emerge that on to demographics, you have a really fundamental challenge of what this nation is going to look like moving forward. and so these are very fundamental issues that i think the president is trying to dive in. >> john: rick? >> i was so glad he made that speech today. this is the number one issue we face today. all of those numbers that the president gave us today they're not always correct. today, they were correct. what we're seeing now is people are being brought back to work after the difficult years. they're being brought back to work at lower wages than what they had before they lost their jobs. just taking that curve that's been going this way since the '70s right off the edge. >> john: a lot of liberals want to know what are democrats going to do for it? we're out of time. rick ungar alexis mcgill johnson and ron christie. was this a lovefest or what, ron? >> a big-time lovefest.

i'm feel the love tonight john. >> john: alexis and rick will be joining us later in the show. coming up shortly we'll meet a methodist minister who may be defrocked for performing his own son's same-sex wedding. that's coming up.

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who in mentioned the burden to owners that these expanded background checks would cause. i'm wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the hall of her elementary school isn't as important as that. and senator ayotte's answer was something along the lines of humina humina, humina, humina but the quest for common sense soon ended when a question came from ayotte's honored guest a

local state legislator. arkham asylum is not located in gotham city but the new hampshire capital. edward gionet rose to ask if aat-shared his concern that america was headed to a revolution and they might have a need to overoverthrow the government. senator ayotte blinded from the glare on gionet's head dove through a plate glass window and ran into the arms of the nearest nra lobbyist. wtf new hampshire. you're my favorite new england get away when i can't find lodging in maine or rhode island but with lawmakers like edmond gionet maybe you should change your state motto to live free or die of embarrassment.

>> john: we now turn to a story that should have just been a family matter.

last october the reverend dr. thomas w. ogletree, a retired dean of divinity school and a minister presided over his son's wedding to another man. now, the good reverend doctor may face a trial by church authorities and it has dropped him right in the middle of a major church rift. you see conducting a same-sex wedding ceremony is a chargeable offense in the methodist church but at the same time the methodist vision also calls for open hearts, open minds and open doors. so, do we follow the law or the intent or does the law violate the intent? a group at the methodist general conference last year tried to clear that up by proposing changes in the church position on homosexuality. although that got voted down, a movement has grown to defy this law. many ministers conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies and some have been charged suspended even defrocked. joining me now is the good reverend himself the reverend thomas w. ogletree. good evening and welcome to

"viewpoint." >> good evening. it is a pleasure to be here. >> john: it is a pleasure to have you sir. i'm sorry you find yourself in this position for honoring love. what sort of punishment might be you facing? what's the worst they can do to you for what you did? >> well, in fact, their options are very limited because i'm retired. and so i mean, obviously they could defrock me but i'm not officially serving as a minister at the present time. i'm retired. so -- but it is true that if they really did defrock me, then strictly speaking, i could not provide holy communion anymore. but that doesn't mean that i couldn't still preach, you know, as a layperson as it were. so i could continue to function in many ways as a minister. >> john: i'm sure the methodist church is so overflowing with priests they could afford to lose good men

like yourself. this ceremony, seems to me to be more a family matter than anything else. you love your son. he loves his partner. apparently the church authorities found out when another minister reported your son's wedding announcement in "the new york times" did. you see this as a political gesture at the time? >> well, actually, my son arranged for the publication of their wedding. and it is because they viewed -- they really embrace the fundamental importance of a marriage as a social institution. in fact, they wanted a quotation from -- to be included in the wedding about the massachusetts court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage because this ruling emphasized the fact that marriage is a foundational institution for social well-being. so they were wanting to dramatize the fact that this was not just between the two of them. it was giving them -- building connections and that works -- networks of friendships and kin

and that that could contribute to the broader social good. so these men -- that could contribute -- and naturally i knew this was a possibility that i could be -- as it were, prosecuted because i did know the rules. i've worked very diligently with the united methodist discipline. but at the same time, as things have unfolded, ironically, it has given me an unexpected opportunity to bear public witness for a more just and inclusive society which, indeed, captures the spirit of open hearts, open minds and open doors which is the united methodist theme. >> john: it has made you an unlikely spokesman for one of the defining civil rights battles of our day. your critics say that sir you can't pick and choose which laws and rules you follow. however, when reading the bible jesus never says a thing against

same-sex relationships. a lot of our homophobic friends are picking which parts they follow. how do you respond to your critics? >> well, of course, i'm making clear that i did not just pick and choose which rules to obey. i take the disciplinary rules very seriously. but when particular rules directly conflict with the substance of the christian gospel and including the methodist vision, its vision of inclusiveness, then i have to say this is a problem. it is just like the united states saying you know, we believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the freedom of all people. at the same time, we want african-americans to be a segregate and marginalized and we want women to be subordinate to their husbands. they're not permitted to have equal standing in society. well, those are conflicts. and in fact, what i love about

the united methodist discipline is it opens by narrating our history and it reminds us of the mistakes we made in our history. so it tells us that we know that our rules are not perfect. and therefore, we must constantly be prepared to correct mistakes, to overcome failures and we're now in a new issue that where we're struggling to do just that. those of us who are seeking to bring about change. >> john: sir we've only got about 20 seconds left. you were a civil rights protestor in the '60s. you were there doing sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. >> that's correct. >> john: how do you think the lgbt civil rights movement compares with that? >> there are clearly differences. because the segregation rules were oppressive in a broadway. but what is being denied here are marriage rights.

not colored people but civil unions. i'm intrigued the methodist discipline seems to acknowledge the equivalent of civil unions even for people who are gay or lesbian. so it's trying to stress the sank -- sanctifying character of marriage as such. of course, people who want the right to marry, same-sex marriage, are really saying we, too, are summoned to be a part of that. that's our calling too. it is not just yourself. that's clearly the vision of my son and his husband. >> john: the reverend thomas w. ogletree, minister, scholar and retired minister of yale divinity school. good luck to you and your family. >> blessings on you. >> john: sadly another garment tragedy in bangladesh and another reminder of how much our cheap clothing really costs coming up next.

>> john: welcome back to "viewpoint." on social media earlier today, i asked if you thought americans might be logical to pay 10 cents more for clothing if it meant safer working conditions. conditionkandy crowe wrote... lots of people said they would be willing to pay more for american made goods so the solution is to buy american and avoid retail stores with foreign sounding names that exploit their workers like walmart. if you have a comment for the show, tweet us at "viewpoint" ctv or at john fuglesang or use "viewpoint" or post it on our facebook page. another day another deadly tragedy in bangladesh. yesterday, a fire swept through the sweater company killing eight people. this comes as the death toll in the factory collapse at rana plaza two weeks ago has reached over 950 people. one of the first companies to

come forward and admit to using rana plaza was the italian clothing giant benefit netton. in his first public comment the ceo, biagio chiarolanza expressed the desire to stay in bangladesh. we're joined now by elizabeth cline, author of "overdressed" and distributer to the nation. >> thanks for having me on. >> john: it is great to have you. i'm sorry it is for a predictable story. what did you experience in bangladesh? >> i was there undercover as a garment buyer in 2011 and as

we're finding out now the industry, i found it to be incredibly haphazard and opaque. very difficult to get information about where clothing is being made and how. i met with a lot of middle men who had a portfolio of factories who would offer to subcontract my orders to different factories which means it would be very difficult for me to control my supply chain. and then the other thing i saw was factory owners wanting to bend over backwards to get my business. that's really the attitude there is they'll do anything and say anything to get the orders from western brand. so it is this very interesting power of dynamic where bangladesh is really eager to get these orders. >> john: when you say doing anything to get your business, they're not talking about customer service. they're talking about low wages low prices. >> well, actually, what's interesting is it's totally legal to pay $38 a month to

garment workers in bangladesh. so from that standpoint, you don't really have to do anything illegal to offer cheaply in a bangladeshi factory. some of the other things like fire safety codes building safety and things like that, that's not something that i could have seen with my untrained eye. it certainly is something the auditors have been missing as well because a lot of brands are hiring auditors to go into the factories a couple of times a year and they're obviously missing the safety issues as well. >> john: that's the most infuriating part of this. i reject calls this an accident. this was preventable. if there had been regulation in place, this could have stopped. is this the kind of situation where we can point the finger at one or two officials or one or two businesses that own the building or is it more a systemic problem across the whole industry? >> i really put the blame on the brands. you know, really the only reason to do business in bangladesh is for low prices and low wages.

that's why we've seen the industry move out of china in the past couple of years and move into bangladesh. and as i said, there is a power imbalance. it is very poor, developing country that really needs the economic support the orders from these brands. i also think that the brands have the power to do something whereas a lot of the labor groups and maybe even the government in bangladesh feels slightly powerless to change things. >> john: besides the bad p.r. which flares up after a tragedy like this, are there any other legal penalties for these businesses? >> no, they don't own the factories so they're not actually responsible for what happens in them. that's one of the many problems of the global fashion industry. the supply chains are huge. i read that benetton has hundreds and hundreds of factories in 120 countries around the world. how can they say with any confidence they know what's happening in most of them? >> john: do they have any power to improve the system themselves? could they threaten to bring their business to another factory or is it pretty much

just they're flying blind? >> i think they have the power. any fashion company that wants to have a tighter control on their supply chain can. they could have, you know, auditors or someone from the company in the factories on a regular basis working with the factory owners to improve conditions there. if you look through audits, which you can -- you can go in the fair labor association and look at a major brands factory audits. they usually happen maybe once a year. it is really a checklist. most of the times, they find problems and the factory just agrees to work on it. the changes are so incremental -- >> john: great tradition of having businesses clean up after themselves. >> right. >> john: so is there anything that the consumer can do to hold a company's feet to the fire on conditions like this? >> well, you know, i think that what we're going to see is consumers do need to give brands a period of time to correct the situation. the brands need to invest in the bangladeshi fire and safety

agreement and invest in improving infrastructure in bangladesh. if we don't see changes swift and fundamental changes quickly i think the consumers need to look at other ethical fashion alternatives that includes domestically made clothes it means fair trade clothes. i think consumers turning back to shopping in vintage thrift stores, going to clothing swaps are the alternatives. if the brands can't figure out a way to operate ethically in other countries consumers are going to cut and run. so it's really on the brands. it is really on the clothing companies to figure out how to runnethically. >> john: elizabeth cline is the author of "overdressed," a must read. thank you for your insights this evening. >> thank you for having me on. >> john: that was my conversation earlier today with the brilliant elizabeth cline. for reaction, we're pleased to be joined by rick ungar and alexis mcgill johnson. thank you both for stick around.

alexis, do you think that tragedies like the ones we're seeing in bangladesh will result in any systemic changes or is it just going to be a matter of the corporations will pay off a few families, maybe pay a fine and more business as usual? >> well, i think the real challenge is these kind of tragedies have to connect with the consumer of the brands. it is not just the corporation of the brands making the decisions. it is the people going into the. had and ms and the -- going into the h & ms and the benettons and whether or not the clothes are being made ethically. we've seen it happen with food and sneakers and other areas. that's where the tipping point is going to happen. >> john: how is the average consumer to know? not talking about folks who have to shop at walmart for the lower prices, how are folks supposed to know was it made in a decent factory or hell hole? >> alexis has this right. we need bono. we need a program created so that you know when you go to see a product if it has a certain

insigniio, it means it was manufactured in a socially responsible way. this is the only way this is going to happen. without this, this will keep happening. this will keep repeating. >> john: how much of this is the problem or the symptom of the problem. the problem being this vicious cycle. people here aren't being paid a living wage. they have to buy the cheapest possible clothes to get something for their kids to wear to school and it keens cycling on and on. how do you stop momentum like that? >> i think you're right. it is also a symptom in the united states. we could see made in the u.s.a. but there is no guarantee there is a living wage behind that label. so everything that we're talking about in terms of the infrastructure that elizabeth mentioned that is happening in bangladesh, also facing a lot of challenges here on the same levels. again, it comes back to the individual. it comes back to the consumer and how we're going to -- how we're going to get the bonos or the educators around to tie the stories together and the role in

that. >> it is what i like to call the walmart syndrome. they pay their employees nothing so they can only turn around shop at walmart. this ties very much to the segment we had earlier. there kind of thing will continue as long as you pay american workers substandard wages. they can't pay to support american jobs. >> john: exactly. >> they can't. if you really want american jobs, pay people a living wage and you'll get american jobs. >> john: you know, the whole walmart issue of having the employees buy at their own store, that money will not stay in that community. >> john: i want to get back to labeling because i can say for one, american apparel changed a lot of minds by proudly boasting in all of their ads their clothes were made in downtown l.a. that motivated a lot of people i know who didn't need more sweat pants to support it. >> until they found out about the owner's behavior with his employees. >> john: exactly. that's completely unrelated to this labor. do you think that better labeling with that, consumers

may go for fair trade clothing? >> i think we've seen that happen in the food market, right? i think that we've seen definitely an energy that started, elite center, i can afford to spend the extra dollar for you know, cage-free range roaming chickens and that actually made a huge difference in people going in to ask and people going in to bodegas saying where is my organic apple and avocado. there is a shift that can happen in the conversation. we see that with people pushing back on things like even soy. >> you also don't need all americans to do it. remember, in the business in this, you just need to reach the tipping point where it becomes more worthwhile to a manufacturer or distributor. >> john: i've heard a lot of tipping points that wound up to be false tipping points. i relate to what we saw in bangladesh directly to west texas which i'm shocked is still not the biggest story of the year. because both of these accidents

were not accidents. they were completely preventable, caused by negligence. someone is to blame for it. is this something the government should do more about or is this just -- private sector, let the free market work itself out and get government out of our way. isn't government getting off of business's backs exactly what causes bangladesh? >> yes. also west texas. also bp. there are a number of examples where the government has kind of allowed corporations their freedom and allowed them deregulation at the expense of workers and families and you know average working americans who would be the people who consume those products. so it is a huge issue that we -- again, it is about tying this thread that we have to look at -- you know he, when i go shopping, i'm not thinking about what's happening behind the label. i'm thinking about does this fit me or make my butt look big. >> i'm not thinking about that. >> john: we have to go to break. and it doesn't. after the break fox news -- i

agree with you completely. that's the challenge in a country where we're all struggling so much to put clothes on our o kids. fox news is to dangerous it has managed to destroy a popular rhetorical concept through the use of oliver north. we'll explain that in just a moment.

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>> john: we gather to mourn the sad passing of irony. it first showed us how white supremacists continue to be the best cause. it was irony that revealed people must get stoned to realize when dylan sang everyone must get stoned, he wasn't singing about getting stoned but alas, the pressure of being the expression of one's meaning typically for humorous or emphatic effect became too much for irony when fox news interviewed convicted government cover-up master former lieutenant colonel oliver north about an alleged cover-up in benghazi. the levels of irony mixed at the lethal cocktail of hypocrisy and ignorance proved too much and

led to irony hanging himself. now we'll all remember how tough eye noney was and how misunderstood. remember the day people confused irony with alanis morissette is? that was so ironic it sent irony into a deep depression back in the '90s but irony my friends, was finally done in by this. >> the abysmal lack of human intelligence, the evidence of massive bureaucratic ineptness incompetence misfeasance, the falsified talking points provided to people who are going to speak publicly about it. >> john: law enforcement reported mass incidents of being called black by pots and malfeasance, 2,000 dictionaries committed mass suicide. the irony of this interview was lost on the fox viewing audience who know oliver north not as the former national security council staff member who shredded thousands of documents that would have exposed his

participation in a wide range of crimes related to the wide sales to iran, violating the act by funding -- and obstructing any government legislation and lying about all of this to congress but rather they know him as the guy who makes sean hannity so excited, you can see sean's nipples protruding through his polyester suit. irony was so overcome with irony, it took its own life to avoid more irony. colonel north said the entire reagan administration knew about the plan which he described as neat. he was subsequently convicted of obstruction of justice and shredding documents. north also called the contra's freedom fighters, the same phrase the reagan administration used for the taliban which led to irony's first suicide attempt. irony couldn't handle the fact that reagan and bush pledged to never negotiate with terrorists then had north sell weapons to bay lieutenant, lied about the

amount of weapons and shipments. used the money to fund the civilian killing in south america and reagan testified he couldn't recall authorizing the sale of weapons to an enemy nation. oliver north lied to congress, got off and a technicality on christmas day 1992. they all walked away clean and bill clinton got impeached for whipping it out in front of the help. of course, any republican will tell you bill clinton wasn't impeached for sex. it was for lying under oath. the irony being if republicans were concerned about lying under oath, north wouldn't be working for fox. fox news plans to follow up the oliver north cover-up interview with segments featuring tax tips from wesley snipes,. [ baby crying ] on o'neil parenting suggestions and relationship advice from jodie arias. i want to thank my new bff ron

christie. have a great weekend everyone. current tv still here. good night mom. >> joy: tonight i'll talk with a very talented actress isabella rossellini and the outrageous niecy nash is here with advice about film and marriage. david alan greer will find time to squeeze me in and who doesn't love to be squeezed. all of that and more next. >> joy: my first guest tonight is an actress model and filmmaker born into show business in 1986. she captured all of our attention in one of her first films, blue