>> dominated the world. it became famous for its military. and for having rule of law. and a stable currency. people could rely on. they built beautiful buildings, roads, aquaeductus, art and literature. rome flourished for more than 200 years in relative peace and prosperity. but then it crumbled. why? political leaders grab power. that power turned many into tyrants who indulged in debouchery and corruption. they raised taxes to pay for war and increased regulations. when the masses complained, they tried to please them with

handouts. sound familiar? is this what is happening to america? 1,000 of us have gathered here to debate that question. that's our show tonight. >> and now john stossel. tonight i'm in las vegas, nevada, for a special edition of our show. i'd like to say that all these people came here just for that, but they really came for freedom fest, the world's biggest gathering of free minds. this year's topic: are we beginning rome? now, free minds, that's the phrase we libertarians like to use to describe ourselves. this is basically a big conference of libertarians and i think our minds are unusually

free, right? we had to free our minds to get these concepts. but a lot of people think we're crazy. but on to tonight's' topic, rome, is the united states abouf the fall as rome did? here is a depiction ofstat barbarians sacking the city. is this our future? first we hear from a o conservative,ur historian and a libertarian. the conservative, steve forbes of forbes media. you have some libertarian leanings, but conservative i would callll you. historian, carl richard is the next expert on rome. matt, you first. >> i think we are. i think the parallels are quite ominous. the debt, the expansion ofe foreign policy, the arrogance o executive power taking over ourl country. but i do think we have a chance

to stop it.f >> carl? >> i think there are similarities not only with thepi fall of the empire, which is what most people talk about when they talk about the fall of rome, but also the fall of the republic, which was 500 years earlier. there i see romans engaging in unconstitutional acts, political leaders and so on and i see some of that. >> unconstitutional acts like stuffing ballot boxes, corruption? t >> that did happen, sort of, ani that's bad obviously. but it doesn't bother me as much as the overt things. for instance, mayorious was collected counsel six years in a row, even though under the constitution, it was term limited to one year. and people just kept voting fora him, they knew it was unconstitutional. that kind oft stuff. >> now we have congress passingu laws they haven't read? >> right. and we have presidents of bothls parties legislating by executivs order, saying i'm not going too enforce certain laws because i don't like them.

bureaucrats legislating through regulations. we have supreme courts saying it's constitutional for the government to take your property and sell it to someone else because he can give us more tax revenue. there are a loft examples. >> steve? >> well, yes. you can always find parallels, but the fact that we're meeting i think shows that the antidote is coming about. we thepa people have not gone te way of being totally corrupted the way the roam bees were. we're not passive. we saw it with the tea party, despite irs suppression, the tea party movement is coming back again. you you'll see it in 2014 and 2. they may try to feed us to the lions, but we're going to own the lions because we believe in free enterprise.ions >> that's a happy thought. i wish i were as optimistic as

you.. but i fear we will become rome. let me just poll the audience. are you as optimistic as steve? how many of you think we're going down the tubes, we're in deep trouble? most. how many ofk you think we're going to turn it around? again. you're in the audience because you're libertarians. right. whacko birds, according torig senator john mccain. that's what he called some libertarian minded politicians. walking around here at this conference and seeing the tea party move and people sellting investments in gold and game shows that test your knowledge of dead economists.

why do we get our reputation ase wonkish and different. is this unfair? is this fair?dif >> no. >> come on, isn't this group>> mostly men, mostly badly dressed men? my going to libertarian events, this is what i notice. it's people who care about numbers, less about how they look. i think steve forbes is a perfect example of this. the epitome of the wonkish geek. is this unfair? >> you're sounding like my opponents. i didn't expect that from you. let's face it, people who make things happen. you could describe our forefather, revolutionaries in the same way. there are alwaysfa minorities wo see something wrong, go out persuade, become agitates and

change the world. question it once and we're going to do it again. we are going to be the leaders. you of all people should know, don't look at the superficial. look at the substance. we've got the substance. that's why we're going to ultimately win. >> i admire -- this is the optimism that makes america possible. matt, what about my libertarian slur? i look at your side burns and i think people would say, this is not a normal guy.hte >> definitely guilty as charged. >> you go to 1,000 of these meetings. are the people different? how? >> we're different because we have read books and we do care. but social awkwardness is not aa sin in the defense of liberty.

>> i'm certainly awkward, too. i overcome it because i have to because i have a tv show.well but ask my friends and ask imus and he'll tell you i'm socially awkward. but what is it about people whoy like to analyze? bill clinton is the opposite. he felt your pain and then spent more money. personality type? >> economists would argue that everything we do when we fightnl for freedom, when we show up ate rallies and care about thew future of our countries, they would say that's irrational. we think it's the best thing to do because we care not only about our country, but our future and our kids' future. that's not normal in this country. and that's what we have to fix. >> but it's part of our culture, entrepreneurs, are always tryin to see things that others aren't seeing. steve jobs famously said, you do

marketing stays, he said no, because people don't know what they want until we show them. that's the entrepreneur. put it out there and see if they like it. oftentimes we fail. but that's we try to learn from failure. that's what freedom is about. take a chance, fail, learn. hope to do it better next time. if we accept the conventional wisdom, heck, we'd still be living in caves. >> we're going to try to showt them -- carl, do you have more historical perspective we should think about comparing america to rome? >> thew debt, high spending. the late empire. >> they had high debt? >> valuation of currency, there is another one.n of the empire, so-called silver coin was only 2% silver. that's how they devalued it.s it got to the point that the roman government would not accept its own currency in taxes. you had to give goods. we're not there yet. >> thank you, carl. matt, steve forbes. coming up, gladiators devalued

currency. a growing welfare state, otherh ways america is just too much like rome [applause] [ male announcer ] this is the story of the little room over the pizza place on chestnut street the modest first floor bedroom in tallinn, estonia and the southbound bus barreli down i-95. ♪ this magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. and of those who believed they had thpower to do more. dell is honored to be part of some of the world's great stories. that began much the same way ours did in a little dorm room -- 2713. ♪ this magic moment ♪

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welcome back to freedom fest. now the welfare state. america didn't invent the welfare state. europe had one and even rome hat one. i didn't know that 'til i came to this conference. and two people who have educated me are charles murray, author of "losing grounds," the book that woke america up for the destructiveness of welfare. and larry reed, of then foundation for economic education. larry, i learned from you the welfare state began about halfway through the roman empire. >> that's right. it took thet form first of payments to the form of subsidized grain. the government gave it away at half price, but the problem was that they couldn't stop there. that later there was a man who ran for the office of tribune ot

a platform of free wheat and he won and it was downhill from there. >> and they gradually raised taxes and gave stuff away. >> that's right. including free salt, free pork, olive oil. other staples of the roman diet. >> people wouldd show up person complete just pick up theiruld stash? >> oh, yeah. long lines. they had a means test at one time and did away with it so that anybody could show up andd get this free stuff. >> and everybody had to be educated by the state. well, not everybody. but they started public schools. >> well, that was late, muchls? later. rome grew to greatness with largely home schooling. the first public schools didn't appear until around 250 bc and they were not funded by thel government until very late. >> the greeks actually mocked rome for being backwards about

that. >> that's right. of course, they didn't lastht anywhere near as long as the romans did. >> so charles, you have educated us about welfare, about these handouts. you see parallels with rome? >> yeah. if you take a look at roman society as it started to decay, it looks a whole lot like we do now. it's not just because of the welfare state and the people on the bottom. it's also because of the people on the top who are increasinglye living isolated lives from the rest of them. i findwh parallels between rome and the united states right now to be very scarey. >> so clearly the welfare state poisons much of life, as horrible unintended consequences. but do we just getet rid of it? let me ask you libertarians. you're pretty hard core,, i assume. should america get rid of all handouts?

but what would happen first time somebody starves? they say charity.b charles murray, you wrote losing ground. what's yourri answer? >> well, in fact, i think if weh got rid of the entire welfare state, that the ability of thise very wealthy society to be able deal with problems would work.ah but i also would say -- i'm going to go wimpy on you. don't applaud. i'm about to go wimpy on you. i don't think it is within the realm of possibility for an industrialized, advanced societs with as much wealth as we have to ever do that politically. and i think that libertarians are going to have to strike a grand compromise with the left.t in effect saying, all right. wend will give you a big spendif if youf will give us freedom frm

government interference. so i'd say look, i'm with milton freedman, i'd say use a guaranteed basic income for everybody over 21, deposit it monthly into electronically intr a known bank account. that's a very key thing. and let people take their lives back into their own hands. they will have the wherewithal and they can deal with the material necessities of life. if they do not do it, they're going to have to talk to friends, neighbors, churches, the community. they're going to have to make their case. that's a better way to go. >> you wrote a book about this. >> called "in our hands." >> i'm going to push back. first i would say his better book is "in pursuit of happiness and good government," which really brought my mind around. but you're telling me you're going to give them the money and the crack head is going to spend

it all in two months and then the social worker is going to go on tv and say the children are -- "new york times" reporter will go on and say, you're goinn to let this woman's children starve? it's not their fault. and we have a whole new program. >> here is what you're going to have. somebody who smokes it up in tho first two weeks. all right? he's got another two weeks before there is going to be a new deposit in his monthly account and he said gee, i don'h have any money. all right. he doesn't have the option of going to a social worker. you know who he has to go to? he has to go to the hee h lives around and say, i really need help. and they're in a position to say we aren't going to let you die, but it's time to get your act together. we will introduce once again the kinds of human connections thato are the only way to change human behavior. >> some who don't find those connections will die in the street and there will be -- >> the united states has in the the never let people die in thes

street. bureaucrats whoeets cannot make the distinction between somebody who needs a kick in the pants and somebodyeh who needs a pat on the back. we will put these kinds of humat needs back in the venue of human relationships where by you can apply the feedback loops of incentives and approbation and disdain and stigma and all the rest that can make these problems solvable. >> and this audience isems different from most in that thee understand that before the welfare state, there were these mutual aid societies everywhere. >> yeah. >> which helped people. th larry, tell us about that. >> absolutely. there is nothing about being a politician that makes you morei compassionate or caring than the people who sent you there. and so i have -- >> compassionate with other people's money. >> absolutely. i start from the premise that's not the business of the government to redistribute ouro stuff. it'st the business of government to protect our liberties. >> and in rome when they gave

out stuff, it often went to the wealthier people? >> without a means test, which was the case in most of romanth history, anybody could line up to get these goodies, which contributed to the ultimate bankruptcy of the roman state. >> and one telling graph about the poverty rate is that the advocates of the war on poverty, welfare can say, look how the poverty line dropped sharply fok five years after the war on poverty began. but then you look at what happened before the war on poverty began and the line was just as sharp. people were lifting themselves out of poverty. government had kept things wer improving and then stopped progress. >> the great untold story of the poverty rate is that there was a miracle that happened from the end of world war ii to the early 19 60s. war cut from 40% of adults to 20%. the war on poverty starts, the line continues to go down for ab couple years and flattens outor

where it's been a ever since. >> because we taught people to be dependent. >> the way i put it is, we changed the rules of the game that made it profitable for low income people, and especiallyt a young low income people to do things that look like gee, this makes sense in the short-term and disastrous in the long-term. >> the primary beneficiaries of the welfare state are the politicians. not the people that the welfare is intended for. somebody once said the welfare state is so named because the politicians get well and the rest of us pay the fare and i think that's exactly what's happened. >> thank you, larry reed and th charles murray. coming up, do you know that one roman emperor held orgyies and threatened to execute senators' wives if they did not attend? the creepiness of rome when we return plus presents the cold truth. [ coughs, sneeze] [ sniffles ] i have a big meeting when we land, but i am so stuffed up, i can't rest.

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welcome back to this special edition of the stossel show. we're in las vegas for freedom fest. mostme people here are libertarians. we want to shrinfk government. we don't like taxes. but hey, we need national defense and local police, some pollution control rules, too. there are some things most of ut say government must do. how are they going to get the money but through taxes? got to have some, right? yes? our taxes always tend to go up. that was part of rome's problema two people who tried to spread the word about the damage taxes do. grover norquist is head of americans for tax reform. he's somehow persuaded many politicians to pledge to neverr raise taxes. economist steve morris covers these issues for the "wall

street journal." grover, rome had high tax ratest >> not always. at first for about 400 years they had no real direct intern taxes 'cause they looted their neighbors. >> we're not advocating that, right? >> we had talks with canadians, but that may not work out. but then even that wasn't enough. so theyt started having dramatically higher taxes, the amount of money they spent on the armies to occupy those other guys cost more perhaps than they were able to extract. taxes -- >> they started with tariffs. >> they had tariffs. augustus brought us the first death tax. constantine brought us the first income tax. all the stuff that we are now living with, they were thinking up. f property taxes. so rough that people were actually abandoning theirp property and just saying, leave me alone. then they had to pass laws to not let you leave your property. so you had to stay there and farm it so they could loot you.p

things got -- towards the end it got very, very rough and it's part of why things didn't work.y >> one penalty for not paying n your taxes was being sold intob slavery. >> or killed. >> that's the modern day irs, right? that's what they do to us now.e when they would demand payment in gold and silver, the only way to get it was to sell in some cases children into slavery, one's self into slavery, to get currency. it was that bad. >> but 1% i read was the highest income tax. >> what happened, grover iss exactly right. and what happened in rome, one of the reasons rome fell was they kept collecting more and more money from the tributariesm the outlying areas and it all went into rome and you had a massive revolt among the people all over the country who weren't in rome. and by the way, that's happenig in america today, i think. people are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars sent tg washington and none of it coming

back to the states from whence it came. that's one of the reasons i think we should lower federal taxes and let states do this. that's one of the great things about america. we're a federal system. the states created the federal government. the federal government did notar create the states. right? >> the reaction to the tax farmers that they had that would collect the taxes. >> they called them tax farmers? >> tax collectors. it was so bad, that in one revolt in asia minor, they killed about 80,000 of them in a day or two. >> we don't advocate killing tax collectors on this show. >> it was a four-year war that they wage to do put down that revolt. it was clearly a serious tax revolt. >> john, to your point when yous asked me about the 1% tax, i don't know what those tax rates were in rome. butt, when we created our federl income tax in the united states back in around 1913, the top income tax rate, when the income

tax started was 7%. within ten years, the top incomo tax rate went from 7% to 70%.y and then it remained high ever since. that's why i've always believed steve forbes had it right. we ought to go back to an 18%ved flat tax. get rid of all the deduction, all the loopholes. make it as simple as possible. by the way, the people most opposed to the flat tax, the people most oppose ready people in washington, d.c. because you take the power away from, washington. >> when we went into revolt 1774, 1775, americans in the colonies were paying 2%. our oppressors, the brits in london were paying 20%. it's expensive running an empire. we need to go back to 2%. i like 2% better than 18. >> to be clear, we're at 40%. >> that's right.t. b

>> if we include state and local. >> yeah. you want to get towards 2%, wel. function fairly well beyond that and the reason the british were taxing themselves at 20% is that they were running an empire. >> thank you grover, steve. cominga up, when governments can't raise taxes anymore, they find other ways to police people, like devaluing the currency. rome did that. hey, america is doing it now. what does that do to a country? didn't work out so well for rome.i that's next. yeah. everybody knows that. did you know there is an oldest trick in the book? what? trick number one. look-est over there. ha ha. made-est thou look. so end-eth the trick. hey.... yes....

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fixodent, and forget it. welcome back to the freedom fest conference, the world's biggest gathering of people liko me, people who care first about liberty. now, most of this audience hates taxes. actually even many politicians don't like them because taxing

people makes people mad. so forever politicians have found sneaky ways to fund their spending. roman emperors put less and lesa silver in coins they issued. that caused inflation. a bushel of wheat that cost 8 roman dollars by the next century cost 120,000 roman dollars. ben powell, economist at texas tech and jeffrey tucker studied currency debates and say we better be careful the american dollar is already going down th tubes. what do you mean? i feared that and yet, inflation is low. >> are you kidding me? look over time.i greater grandmothers rolling over in their graves right now. any young person that's heard someone say, i remember when that cost a nickel, thingse didn't all of a sudden get more expensive in terms of the labor. what's happened is the occurrencely lost its value. it takes $23 to buy today what

one dollar could back in 1913. >> you have to go all the way back to 1913.j paul cryingman will tell you look, inflation is 2% a year. tl historically, that's pretty good. >> this isn't a big mystery, though. the federal reserve has created a lot of money with qe whatever now that we're up to. but the banks are holding most of it back. it's not going into the price level because they're holding it as extra reserves because the feds started paying them interest on their extra reserves. if that gets lent out, then we'll see higher inflation. >> that's a form of robbery. >> explain that to people. >> yeah. it's a serious issue. you can't get a return on your money any more from savings. you can't sustain prosperityymor without saving and investment. that's precisely what these policies are discouraging. >> let's go back to the romee parallel, free trade rules. they prospered. then they started -- they did

what politicians do. >> their empire kept expandingmo and they were bringing in morecn people that they can't basically loot and bring back to rome and then they hit the maximum extent of theiry empire and there was o one left to steal from. and then they started resorting to other ways to raise money, which was debasing their currency and continuing to take the silver out of their coins, raising tax rates and over time, this was the downfall of rome,o was the big government destroysf rome. it wasn't thee barbarians. they came as the government was collapsing under its own weight. >> nero issued coins that werehe 95% silver. the next emperor, this is one of those which was 85% silver. all the way down to -- >> you've got a good one. 85% silver. it ended up becoming 15,000th of the silver content of the original by about 300 or so a.d. >> this is what governments do when they can't tax people. they start to debase the currency. this is essentially what's gone on in this country for the last

100 years. about 100 years ago w the creation of the federal reserve, we nationalized the dollar, put it under sort of socialist style control, under our kind of cartel arrangement. we've seen its quality diminish over the 100 years, which is w faster than it really happened than rome, if you think about it. >> it's hard to get peopleea worked up about this because they look around and say by and large, america is still pretty well. >> there is a great deala of distortion. people thought the real estate market was doing pretty well in 2007. there are surprises around the corner. especially with the government that refuses to fund itself honestly, this is dishonest. the very fact of the existence of the fed makes the government too big to fail. the politicians don't have to worry about spending restraintse the did she issue you have

unlimited spending. the fed is there to bail everyone out all the time.i >> issued wage and price control. >> therm be finally divorced from guilty. what came right after? when he opposed wage and price

controls. some people areon. always eager to turn a profit. blessings from the gods, our shared humanity. i hate it when people use greeds to explain something.m greed is constant. that can't explain a price increase or decrease. look, the oil companies guilty less greedy. it doesn't work like that. >> one solution some people say, government playing with the currency is the gold standard. gold standard for a while really worked.l >> pure gold standard wouldwo be -- >> before you answerer that, for this libertarian a audience, do any of you on gold, either actual gold or investments? i imagine you watching out there, it's not so high. you're different.

why? >> really great gold couldn't have the government involved. >> it has fallen. some of you people lost a lot of money. >> maybe this is bad advice.v >> well, gold investment and gold standards are two different things. there is always speculation. just -- doesn't mean you have tn have it as an investment.. >> it seems like theyin would go together. >> that should be embodied in the price of gold now so -- wefh think everybody else is too pest miss insist or too optimistic and that tells us whether it's a good investment. >> what about bitcoins? >> i'm a big fan. i think they're a great innovation. there was one in a long

succession of digital -- >> bitcoins for those of you who don't know, internet form ofq currency that been limited in order to protect you against devaluing dollar. >> very innovative. by comparison to the dollar, bitcoin makes the dollar look like a dinosaur. like there has been no improvement in our money in a very long time. it's for the digital age. more like physical property. best thing is the government is not involved with it at all. it was created by the market itself. it's a beautiful thing. the most and plausible sort of currency, if you had said ten years ago would the market create a currency that would allow me to trade with anybody in the world, even if you didn't have a credit card, would that happen? no, that wasn't happen. but it did happen. >> on that't note, thank you, jeffrey and ben.ng coming up, roman emperors spent

big bucks on stadiums like the coliseum used for things like fights between gladiators. sometimes fighting animals. there are american parallels to that too. that's next. what super poligrip does for me is it keeps the food out. before those little pieces would get in between my dentures and my gum and it was uncomfortable. [ male announcer ] just a few dabs is clinically proven to seal out more food particles. [ corrine ] super poligrip is part of my life now.

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welcome back to freedom fest. the question, are we rome being on the route to collapse? we ancient rome's rulers, trying to keep the people happy despitengt the based currency and corruption offered distractions and bribes.s one roman poet called it breadb and circuses. and sometimes it was an actual circus or chariot races or gladiators sometimes fighting to the death.ee now america doesn't allow thatw, yet, but sports economist says government still does fundbu circuses. todayry they take the form of sports stadiums. >> well, it's a very common thing in a community where politicians says boy, we really need something to pull our community together, to keep us happy and a sports stadium ists just what we need because it

will increase economicus development. the community will rally around it and we'll all be richer. >> they say they'll pay for themselves. they don't. in atlanta, the county would receive $200,000 per year in parking revenue. they got 30,000. >> right. that's for the guinnet county. >> it will pay for itselfl from day one. >> right. absolutely. these facilities never do and the thing that is so frustrating for me to see this is it's beenn studied so much.t >> economists like you have explained it. you say gee, the football team has eight home games a year.e how is that going to be economig stimulus? >> let's go back to the bread and circuses comment that. is not a positive comment about human species. that's saying they're being placated. oh, give them bread and circuses. they're giving up freedoms because politicians gave them what they wanted. i think citizens today like sports. sports are popular. so youp say well, why don't ia

just go ahead and support this? i'm not going to punish the politician for supporting it. >> let's go back to the rome parallel because our stadiums do pale compared to what they did. the gladiators. this was entertainment to keepad the people pacified because they were getting ticked off? >> not even just that they're ticked off, but it's just someeb form of entertainment to distract us from other things that are going on. if i know that a politician put a football team on the fieldof d i like football, i'm reallyct going to focus on that. i'm not going to focus on the declining schools. i'm not going to focus on the roads falling apart or otherg things that may be going on.focu and maybe some of those thingso politicians really can't help,gn but it is certainly something that individuals and citizens can focus on and say this is a positive thing for our community and that's why they're so's a popular. >> some of the things i've learned in this conference that most gladiators were slaves or prisoners of war.di 90% of them survived the fight because it would be expensive ti the owner of the slave if they

were killed? >> right. i believe if you end up the slave was killed, you would have to pay the owner, so you didn't want them to. this was the entertainment for the time. at the time, seeing death on the streets every day wasn't something that was that uncommon. so it's something that people enjoyed and wanted to see. i luckily we have much more pacificist sports. we're trying to make them safer. it's the difference in the way that we view those competitionso today than they were once viewed. >> the arrogance of the emperors increased. in 169 bc, 63 african lions and leopards, 40 bears, elephants69b were hunted down in a single two-day show. tigers, crocodiles, giraffes, they would bring them in from all over the world to kill them and the emperor would sometimes kill them himself. h >> today we have sausage races, club seats, luxury box.

it's more and more extravagant. that's the same type of attitudy that they had in the t roman empire that we have today. >> so at least problematic as our politicians are, they are not that bad. thank you. when i said that bad, we barely touched the surface of how bad the roman rulers were. that's next welcome back. how is everything? there's nothing like being your own boss! and my customers are really liking your flat rate shipping. fedex one rate. really makes my life easier. maybe a promotion is in order. good news. i got a new title. and a raise? management couldn't make that happen. [ male announcer ] introducing fedex one rate. simple, flat rate shipping with the reliability of fedex.

is america rome? no. thank goodness, we're not as bad in 100 ways. our taxes are actually higher than rome's. but we don't have slaves. do and we don't kill people for sport. when we go to war, misguided or not, we don't conquer or plunder and when we win, we usually leave. that's different. in america, poor people now live better than the emperors did. we have air conditioning, google, pain killers, flushette toilet, longer lives thanks to the examples set by george washington, our presidents actually leave office voluntarily. and although our currentv president wastes money on

extravagant travel like his recent $100 million trip to africa, nero was much worse. he nevera wore the same clothes twice. when he traveled, he traveled with 1,000 carriages. the emperor set up a brothel in the palace. tiberias established an office of imperial pleasures, which gathered beautiful boys and girls from all corners of the world, as he put it, he could defile them. caligula is said to have made his favorite horse a senator as depicted here. >> allow me to introduce a new senator! you will treat him as your peerr in every events. >> even president obama wouldn't

do that. so arrogant as our politicians and as repugnant as many are, they are at least not emperorse, who like cal ickes gula held ories and executessed the senators' wives who didn't show up. but rome matters because empires do crumble. rome lasted the longest of all of them. the ottoman empire was next, it lasted 600 years. then the spanish, almost that long as did the british. we've lasted less than 300 years. we're doing better than alexander the great. his empire only lasted 13 years. but in our 250 years, we've accomplished amazing things, amazing prosperity. we just can't take it for granted because freeee and prosperous is not the natural state ofof things.t in human history, it's rare.i we now are starting to look a lot like rome and we ought tore

worry about that. that's our show. thank you for coming. see you next week. hello. i'm greg gregg jarrett. glad you're with us. >> good to see you. i'm arthel neville. topping the news this hour, president obama spending his last day in paradise before heading back to d.c so after all the fun and the sun in hawaii, what can he expect when he returns to work? we'll have a live report from honolulu. >> making the olympics safe after a series of deadly attacks hit russia, so is the kremlin up to the job with the winter games weeks away? >> and usa to the rescue. an american coast guard cutter is heading south to help those chinese and russian ships