>> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care consulting business unit, hillco health. and by the mattson mchail foundation in support of public television. and also by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. and also by the alicee3 kleburg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you. >> i'm evan smith, he's the feisty host of a daily msnbc talk show whose first book greedy bastards rails against government -- it hhs him exploring the root causes of unemployment from one end of the country to the other. he is dylan ratigan, this is

overheard. >> ♪ >> smith: dylan ratigan, >> ratigan: it's a pleasure to be here. ú&anks so mucc for having me out. >> smith: nice to have you. i want to ask please the next ttme you wwite a book i would prefer a title with a point of view. >> ratigan: you know, we. [laughter] >> smith: no, no point of view at all visible in this title. >> ratigan: well, with this one we didn't wwnt to let people on to our point of view early. we. >> smith: make them wait. >> ratigan: . . .we wanted to sort of encourage them to read it to figure out what we were trying to go for. >> smith: right. you, you -- you, you would not be wrong to say that the genesis of this book and of the argument in it is anger.

>> ratigan: yeah. >> smith: .although as you pointed out to me a few minutes ago you're notú really angry anymore. >> ratigan: yeah, well, it's an interesting -- writing the book was an interesting experience and quite honestly verything that you just described, having the opportunity -- to be able to communicate and meet as many people as, as you're able to meet in a situation like this is actually remarkably inspiring. that book was actually three books. the first book was just a documentation of everything that was crooked that i could find that would have mm in a frothing rage. >> smith: could be a multi- multi-volume set actually,3 right? >> ratigan: i wasn't sure whether it was, i was writing a book or whether it was just some sort of, a personal exploration of, of -- of frustration and anger. and i got to the end of that and it was clear that it was not worthy of publication. was it useful? i saw no point in writing a book that tells you how screwed up everything is. because i'm quite certain that everybody in america knows things are screwed up. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: there's a great debate about why they're screwed up, how they got screwed up, how you can get them to be, to be not screwed up, we don't need a tremendous amount of journalism that just explains to you that things are misaligned, that we have wealth inequality, unemployment, poverty.

two -- basically, that we have two sets of rules as a country. everybody knows we have two sets of rules, one or greedy bastard or greedy bastard-like behavior and one for everybody else basically. the question is if you're going to insert yourself as i've hosen to do into this conversation, is what is the solution? what is the path forward? for me, it's been an interesting transition and very rewarding. >> smith: and resulted actually in your being optimistic. >> ratigan: i have never been mooe optimistic actually. >> smith: imagine that actually, optimistic about the future. >> ratigan: yeah, see, kid -- people think i'm kidding. i've never been. >> smith: that's almost illegal these days. >> ratigan: .more optimistic actually. well, the thing is be careful. don't mistake me for a hopium dealer. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: like there aae people out there that. >> smith: hope, hope, hopium. ú& ratigan: hopium, yes. >> smith: hopium. >> ratigan: there'' hopium dealers everywhere. that's a good business. and they, they, they set you up with the hopium and you take a big shot of that. you're like, ahh, feels great. it's going to be -- then it wears off and you're like hang on a second, i still don't have a job. there's still no investment in our country. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: we're still in these wars. go down whatever the list is. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: and sooi think it's critical not to, to

confuse understandable optimism that is contingent on the way we choose to act. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: and hopium as a &-political power, commercial success, whatever that might ú&. and the reason i'm so optimistic is because in writing this book i was.when you look at healthcare and you're like, man, 5% of the people in this country account for 50% of our healthcare costs. >> ratigan: it's not because they're bad people. it's because they're sick. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: 95% of us aren't sick so you're like, okay, that's reat. but then if you look at how we manage our healthcare we don't focus on the 5% that are spending 50% of the healthcare costs to help them be healthier, we just make sure we have lots of really, really good sickness treatment system so that when ou get a.have to go back to the mergency room for the third time in a week, they have another machine for you. that is an atrocious system and remarkably expensive. >> smith: well, in fact we don't, we don't even go beffre the 5% gets sick, we don't do nything at all to, to modee, you know, kind of preventive care. >> ratigan: we don't sell health. >> smith: model behavior to prevent ... >> ratigan: we seel sickness treatment. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: i talk about dr.3 brenner in the book from

camden, new jersey who &-thh population of camden, new jersey was 30% of the healthcare costs. -nd he goes anddhe asks for a meeting with them and says i see you go to the emergency room three times a week. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: now do you enjoy and they say, well, no. smith: no. >> ratigan: .i don't, you know. and then we say, well, how would you feel if we got somebody to work with you and maybe reduce the number of times a week you're going to the emergency room? simply by having you take your diabetes mediciie regularly, which you're not doing. or simply by having ou take &-every day.d the block >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .which you're not doing. anyway, this sort of, i mean, this remarkably simple stuff collapsing the cost of healthcare by 50% in camden, new jersey, 50% reduction by targeting the right 1% of the population. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: david kennedy with crime. 2/10ths of a percent of the violent crime in our inner.south central and new orleans and detroit, all the sort of real, hardcore violent crime that you read aaout and hear about and have fear about in this country, it's committed by about 2/10ths of a percent of the pooulation of those communities. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: david kennedy out of the ohn jay school of criminal justice is not on no big national campaign,

no huge undertake.he says why don't we get about 14 or 15 of the most powerful and interested people in those communities, the coaches, the moms, the dads, the, the, whoever and go sit with one, one of the kids in the 2/10ths of a percent and ask them not to shoot people. >> smith: seems, seems like a simple idea. >> ratigan: how about you don't shoot anybody? >> smith: righh. >> ratigan: guess what? 50%, i'm not making this up, there's a 0% reduction in violent crime. and so for me as i see the people that are doing it right, whether it's david kennedy, whether it's dr. brenner, i can go on with that. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .you realize that what we need to do is look at these sorts of things, okay, and then look at our own communities and say how can we apply some of these techniques in our hospitals, in our sccools, in our communities? it's a stunning moment in time. and, and -- and, and we're, i really believe about to see a really, a renaissance in terms of super &->> smith: yeah.ctual. >> ratigan: .solutions.

seeing where the cost of things are going to go down going to go up a lot. >> smith: before we, i mean that, that's exactly the, the, the takeaway from this book. i think this is probably the cause for your optimism and the optimism of anybody that reads the book. but i want to come back to this question of. >> ratigan: yeah. >> smith: .of the two sets of rules because this is very much of the moment, this idea whether it's occupy wall street and the idea that, you know, the, the 1%%have a set of rules. >> sith: .and the 99% have a set of rules, whether you agree with that or not, this whole conversation abouu vulture capitalism that wee heard in the south carolina primary where companies come in and they buy their own set of rules, enrich themselves at the expense of people. and iiknow you make a point of saying in the book i'm not anti-capitalism but there's a problem when the system ultimately produces the small number of winners and large number of losers. >> ratigan: well, you have, we have to. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: .understand a little better what capitalism actually is. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: capitalism is the act of investors and entrepreneurssand educators aligning interests to solve problems. if they do it ell, they create jobs and make money. it's a very simple thing.

capitalism. >> smith: do you think people agree with that definition? >> ratigan: it doesn't matter whether they agree with that definition. &->> ratigan: if you're going to use the word capittlism. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .and you're going to have a system that doesn't have any capital in it, you're a liar. [laughter] >> smith: right. >> ratigan: so you got to come up with a new name. i call that extractionism, right? >> smith: is, is mitt romney a liar? >> ratigan: mitt romney's a liar if he calls what he's doing capitalism, yes. anybody who claims that, if, if i take all of their money and then i take aal their money and i buy you. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .and then i sell off your arms and your legs and your eyes and your ears. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: .and i get a bunch of money for it. and then all the risk of my not being able to sell your body parts is. >> smith: borne by them, right. >> ratigan: .but all the upside if i sell all your body parts is kept by me. >> smith: if you sell my body parts for an amount greater than you took from them. ratigan: well, it doesn't even matter. >> mith: right. -> ratigan: .because basically all i'm going to put in is a dollar. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: the whole point is. >> ratigan: .or preferably nothing. >> smith: or nothing. right. >> ratigan: i was rying to put in nothing if i can. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: but it depends how much money i can get off of these fools. right? >> smith: right. >> ratigan: and so what i'm trying to do is see how much money i can get off of them. if i can ultimately get enough money off of them,

i'll buy you, sell you off. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: i get rich. if it turns out that the deal goes bad they take the losses. capitalism by its definition is a very simple thing. it is take capital. >> smith: yeah. >> it is take capital, which is all human potential and money. align it to invest in the development of solutions to your problems. you do that with capital requirements, meaning if you don't have mmney you can't invest because you don't have money. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: okay? you can't use two sets of rules to say, well, i know i don't have money, but i'm a rich white guy from new york who knows a lot of other rich white guys. >> smith: who has access tt people who do have money. >> ratigan: and i can get their money, so it don't matter to me. >> smith: yeeh. >> ratigan: you know what i'm saaing??3 >> smith: right. >> ratigan: and so that's soot of the current version of capitalism, right. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: and that's not, and, and everybody in this country knows that's not whaa capitalism is. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: .because whether you're a rancher, a farmer, a small business operator, somebody's who made a.everybody knows that they've had to basically manage for the use of money and resources and the quality and nature of the work hat they're putting out. and that they've been punished severely or rewarded depending,

depending on the success in doing that. >> smith: well, the fact is. >> ratigan: spend it in new york. you're talking about don't have access to people who have that kind of money. ii is a point of fact, right. they wouud never have that opportunity to make that3 kind of money. >> ratigan: it's everybody's, it's everybody's pension. >> smith: right, well, that's true. >> ratigan: so what you do is you take the pension for all the teachers, all the cops, all the judges, all the civil servants. >> smitt: right. >> ratigan: .all the private employees in the country and then you say to the pension mannger, you say, so listen, i see that you got a vvry free spending governor here in the state of texas. &->> ratigan: i don't know, i'm not familiar enougg with texas but i am playing tt the room. >> smith: my, my -- my response to that is no, actually. [laughter] >> ratigan: okay, welll fine. >> ssith: yeah. >> ratigan: thennwe'll come back to.in new york we got a free spending governor. >> smith: let's, let's just say, yeah. >> ratigan: and so, we have a free spending governor and the governor's like, well, we're broke. i got no money, what're we going to do? he goes to the pension manager and he pension manager says, well, i just talked to these guys at goldman-sachs nd thee aid we can get 17% returns on your pension if we give our money to hem. whereas, if we put the money into traditional investments it's 2 or 4% and then. -- 2 or 3% nd then we're going to be out of luck.

the governor sayy, well, wwat if you mark the average returns so the pension at 7 or 8% a year for the next 20 years? just make it up. you can do it. the pension manager says okay i'll do that. all of a sudden the state has a budget. all offa sudden everybody's happy. all of a sudden there's a demand for this, this chicanery coming off of wall street. can but then when you look at the actual returns that the pension managers are getting, so like how are your returns? i'm getting, i'm down about 1%. >> smith: yeah, it doesn't actually turn oot the way. >> ratigan: you're like but we got the budget at 7%. >> smith: as, as promised, right, yeah. >> ratigan: and so, the whole, the whole, but the reason that's happening. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: .is because when you do not have retained risk, when the individuals involved in an undertaking. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: .do not share the risk, the quality of their decision making collapses. can i give you an example? >> smith: please. >> ratigan: the best example i've ever seen of decision making without reeained risk on a perronal level is, is you guys ever heard of edgar bronfman, jr? >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: he was a. >> mith: liquor baron. >> ratigan: .he was the heir, so basically. >> smith: seagram's. >> ratigan: .seagram's was the parrnt company. seagram's was born out through the prohibition. they were bootleggers. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: and so they were bootleggers during prohibition. they got rich. so along comes edgar. he's iiheeited all this. >> smith: yep.

>> ratigan: right? so he doesn't have any time foo all this nonsense and deal with this. he wants to sleep with op stars and movie stars. >> smith: well, in fact he had a record. >> ratigan: who doesn't? >> smith: didn't he have a record label for a while? >> ratigan: no, not yet. >> smith: not yet, not yet. i'm getting ahead. >> ratigan: then.you're getting ahead of the story. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: with retained risk you're like okay, we don't want to blow all this, and if we're going to take with it, we want to invest it in something that has some value for somebody somewhere. and if we don't invest it in some way that has value for somebody somewhere, we'ree3 not going to, we're goong to lose our money. that's capitalism. so that way the ttreshold for the judgmenn for the deployment of resources. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .is, is there value in the investment? in edgar's case he had none of those thresholds because he had tottlly detached risk. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: so he said it's not my money.3 i want to sleep with pop stars and movie stars. let's buy universal and polygram and we're good to go. they do. seagram's basically goes near bankrupt because he blows all this money on these things. that is a classic example of detached risk. the same exact scheme of

-udgment, which is personal self indulgence without any resppct for the imperative to, to invest in a way that creates value, is the entire culture of wall street. >> smith: but, but, but dylan, i hear you and it makes sense. >> ratigan: yeah. >> smith: .but the response to this, and again i'll come back to. >> ratigan: no, no, please. >> smith: i'll come back to mitt romney. >> ratigan: yeah. >> smith: because mitt romney was a.speaking of my governor who is not free spending. >> ratigan: please, sure. >> smith: he among others attacked mitt romney in south carolina for practicing vulture capitalism. >> ratigan: mm-hmm.3 >> smiih: the argument romney made back was no, you're, you know, we have many instances in which the scheme that you've described that you derided actually has produced jobs. >> ratigan: right. >> smith: has created wealth. >> ratigan: yeah. >> smith: haa created companies that have, over thh years. >> ratigan: very rarely. >> smith: .employed 100's of thou he cited a whole bunch of other companies. >> ratigan: you want to get into citations? i mean. ú& smith: well. >> ratigan: .there's two.if you look. >> smith: .so my point i guess is it's easy to criticize when it doesn't, not you, but the royal you. >> ratigan: sure. >> smith: .when it doesn't work. >> rattgan: yeah. >> smith: but there are instances in which it does work. >> atigan: yeah. >> smith: and for those people the system seems to be working just fine. >> ratigan: i.and so here's how i would ask you to evaluatt that. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: because life is

an experiment. right? everything we do is an experiment. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: you have all varying outcomes, right? if you look at the, i, i'm not going to indulge the sort of all the outcomes but i could walk you through.for every outcome that you could give me that claims to have created jobs in an lbo structure. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .i can ive you 10 outcomes where jobs were destroyed. it's a math issue. but that's really not the ppint of what i'm tryyng to say. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: and that's not the reason i would indict mitt romney or, or that, that business. the only thing that we control as human beings in our lives for every day of our lives as long as we live is our intent. we have no control ver outcomes. we like to sort of aspire to control outcomes. we can't do it. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: which means that if you have a system and you want to evaluate that system, an educational system, a healthcare syssem, an investment system the only question to ask of that system, the tax code, thh trade policies, the banking policies is: what is the intent of that system?

what, why is it that we waat to have the tax code be like this? what are we trying to achieve.ú >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .for our country by doing this? what is the intent of whatever it is? so what is the intent of creating a business where a small group of men can borrow other people's money to take over businesses and then sometimes reate jobs. usually not create jobs. honestly, i'm trying to avoid villainy and heroes ú&cause if mitt romney was the problem or barack obama or newt gingrich, we would round them up right now and be done with it. i can assure you there are. >> smith: they're -- they're symptoms, they're not the disease. >> ratigan: they are showing you the disease is. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: that instead of having a system whose intent is to align interest between investors and entrepreneurs, doctors and patients. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: .teachers and ssudents. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: .communities and their, their.which is the only reason you have a reason we're here. right? &-get the benefit of moreo shared information and more awareness and more &-misaligned we are and how we might be able to -- to3 realign the frustration ú&vel with the greedy bastardism that has preventing that is going up.

>> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: so you see the tea party and the occupation and you see these things happening and it's not for me.like my opinion of mitt romney is irrelevant. if you believe that capptalism is basically making money at all costs with no rules or the ability to write theerules aa you see fit, mitt romney is a great capitalist. if you believe that capitalism is the use of capital through aligned interests, both human potential and financial potential, to solve problems and work together to actually, to, to do something, then that's not what we haae. ratigan: i look at basically, there's two i call it the westernmerica. financing model, which is emblematic of a lot of what you see in places like austin, like northern california. i can point to a string of places that use it, which is basically a cultuue of how, what do you want toodo? how do you want to do it? what's the goal? what are the metrics? how we going to measure it? and okay let's try it, see what happens. >> uh-huh.

>> ratigann we don't know what's going to happen. but as it goes we'll make choices. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: we'll have clearú code with each other. that's western finance in the 21st century. then you have eastern finance, which is we can use implicit mathematical vaaue of everybody else's stuff. and then we can go to our politicians with that math equation and guarantee them cheap giveaways to the constituents, which alloos the politicians to keep their jobs, gives cheap product to the american population and allows the financial institutions to socialize all of the losses3 and privatize all the profits. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: and so there's a shift in the intent of the eastern financing model that has failed. it's like a failed experiment. it started in '99 and ended in 2008. a culture of experimentation should be encouraged. >> smith: it ended with the lehman brothers collapse? is that.? >> ratigan: well, it ended when we hhd to go to the government for $30 trillion dollars in synthetic money ú&de up at the federal reserve to cover the thing up. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: that was pretty much the end of the >> smith: so you, you don't think -- i mean, in that case you don't think that the government's decision that this has become very. >> ratigan: sure. >> smith: .controversial, even clint eastwood is now

in the middle of this conversation. government's decision in view of what happened. >> ratigan: yeah. >> smith: .to bail out the -uto industry was the correct decision or not? >> ratigan: i think that that's the wrong question. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: and i'll tell you why. if, if you have a daughter who is a heroin addict in san francisco and you rescue her from her heroin addiction in san francisco and then set her up in austin with a pile of heroii, have you done. but you had no choice to get her out of texas, right, or to get her out oo california? so i mean obviously you had to bail them out. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: well. >> smith: your perception is that the bailout fundsswere. >> ratigan: .that's not my perception. >> smith: .were, were, were essentially enabling the addiction? >> ratigan: it's not my perception. again these, it's interesting the, the, the wood choices are interesting. there's, this is a. >> smith: i'm still back on hopium so. >> ratigan: right, i understand. [laughs] >> smith: yeah, word choices are interesting. i agree, yeah. >> ratigan: so there are capital requurements on this, in, in ourrworld e get together every year that do what's called the basel iii accords, oo bbsel ii or basel accords. and the basel accords are meetiigs of mathematiciaas and finance ministers around

the world where they decide as a matter of fact how much money has to be retained at all the banks. and what they've decided with that is basically the answer is basically no money has to be kept at the banks because we can create a synthetic mathemaaical calculation of the future ability for people to pay their bills, which has nothing to do wiih capitalism. it has to o with mmth and whether people can pay their bills. and so the suggestion that upon finding out -- well, what we found out in 2008 was the math equation was wrong..3 so basically in 1999 they said we got a math equation. we're going to calculate whht everything'sswwrth and we'll see what people can pay and then we'll manage to that and we'll issue credit toothat and that's great. and so, and we'll do it with none, none of our own money so it won't really matter. and the more we leverage the more we make, we'll go 100 to 1, blah, blah, blah. well, they found out after, you know, whatever it was nine years of that, that it was an unadulterated financial disaster on a scale that no one can really comprehend because remember if you spend a million dollars a day since jesus christ was born, you wouldn't spend a trillion dollars.

and we are in for $30 trillion dollars and you didn't fix the problem because the problem is a lack of capital requirements in the financial system. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: as long as i can invent debt and give it away without having.as long as i can ay to you or anybody in this room you now owe mm $100,000, start paying. that's awesome. i don't -- and i don't have ú&y money. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: that's jp morgan, that's citigroup. ttat's wells fargo, that's bank of america, so you want to buy a house? i'm going to give you a $400,000 loan, a $200,000 loan, whatever it is to buy that house. i don't have any of that3 money. it doesn't matter because i'm too big to fail and i'm backed up by the government. you're going to pay me back. i'm going to take the money. if, if the proverbial manure hits the fan, it's somebody else's problem. that system was not corrected in 2008. the banks wwre made bigger, not smaller. >> smith: yeah..3 >>ratigan: the swaps

exchange, which is where all this happens, wwich is the only dark market n the planet. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .from the 1400's, so in america we have a belief if you do it in public, chances are that it'll be less conflicted, less predatory and less obnoxious, right? so we put stocks on an exchange. we put bonds on an exchange. weeput commodities on an exchange. when we did that we took away the profitability from all these big banks because of computers and all the rest. so then ttey said, well, we nned a special thing that we can only sell to each other that's in a backroom, which is what, the, the, which is what they're doing. and what happens now is every time there's a default on that credit insurance, because it's not on an exchange and we can't see any of it, they go to the government and say, well, we've insured everything. we've insured your oil supplies. we've insured your food supplies. we've insured your electricity and housing funding supplies. and in addition to that, we have, you know, aboutt5 or $600 trillion dollars worth of idle bets just on things we think might happen.

kind of like online gaming. >> smith: yeah. [laughter] >> ratigan: and we can't really tell one from the other, because there's not an exchange and, you guys think i'm kidding. this is literally how it functions. and so they go to the government and they say why -- should we, the government says why shoold we have to ppy out on all, on $500 trillion dollars of online gaming that you guys just made between each other in new york? and yeah, there's no real good reason for that but the problem is if you don't pay &-completely annihilate your oil supply, your food supply, yyur housing supply, your electricity supply and everything else. and so it's like they walk into a room with a ag. >> smith: well, with a bomb, with a bomb strapped to their chest. >> ratigan: .that's full -- well, it's more like they walk into the room wwth a bag full of diamonds. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: actually that's not true. they walk into the room with a bag with about 4 or 5 diamonds in it and the rest of it's horss manure and then they, and it's this huge bag of horse manuree3 with some diamonds inside of it. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: and then they say we're going to ask you to pay us the full value of this bag at, at per diamond prices.

>> smith: even though it's not full of diamonds. >> ratigan: and there's a couple diamonds in there. >> smith: right. >> ratigan: .that if you lose them you're going to have a real political &-away people's energy ande food supplies you're really.i would hate to be in your shoes. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: and so diddwe have to give them $30 trillion dollars to get, to, to resolve the failed experiment that was originated by bob ruben and bill clinton in 1999 and expanded under george bush and all the rest of it? yys, we did, because it was a terribly disastrous experiment. if you're running a laboratory and the place burns, you're like, well, that experiment went badly. i guess we just burned the building there's nothing inherently evil or terrible about having a failed experiment. all of our lives are a it's totally fine. we will perish if we continue to invest in obviously failed experiments that we refuse to acknowledge have failed because of the ego of the scientists involved. >> smith: yeah. where america has found itself and that is really what the biggest issue is. >> smith: i'm being old that we're about to be out of time. let me just get this.i'm supposed to be optimistic at

the end of thiss >> ratigan: mm-hmm. >> smith: this is what you -- this is what you tell me? [laughter] you're optimistic because. >> rattgan: i've never, it's on. >> smith: .you are bumming me out actually. >> ratigan: no, no, that's okay, listen. it's one of those things where you first have to fully comprehend. >> smith: okay. >> ratigan: you, you can'tt3 cure cancer. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .if you don't understand the cancer. >> smith: all right. >> ratigan: and so just, you got cancer, you can say llsten. i don't know what it is but i'm going to go in with a knife in the kitchen. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .which is what you see a lot of our political solutions are like that. they're like i know you, you got cancer. here'' the kitchen knife. i'm coming. and you're like please don't cure me. okay? and, and what i'm saying is we have to have a collectively, a better3 understanding of what the, what, what.let's not forget analyzing. they want us to be confused all the time. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: if we know what we're intending to do, which is to have aligned interest with investorr and eetrepreneurs, doctors and patients, teachers and students in all of our communities all over this country, i guarantee you that is what will happen. >> smith: okay. well, there's the hope. there's the optimism. >> ratigan: and that is the realization, which is that. >> smmth: right. >> ratigan: .when you disengage from playing that

sort of new york, washington shell game for power. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: .the democrats want power. no, the republicans want power. no, the democrats -- well, hanggon. all you guys are taking money from the exaat same people and you're bbth doing the same thing with the tax ú&de. you're both doing the same thing with the banks. you're both doing the same thing with trade. our entire investment policies, and so you haveeus fight about, you know, all these things that have nothing to do with the core. >> rrtigan: .and then, and, and the more we all fight with each other, as long as we don't agree to anything, all of us, nobody agree to anything, then they keep power. all of us, nobody agree to anything. then they keep power. >> smith: yeah. >> ratigan: as soon as all of us agree to one thing, they've ot a problem. and, and so my goal is to encourage people to find the disagree to because that's -- >> my head is spinning. >> it's going to be great. come back, talk about solutions, politics. >> come back on your tour. >> 100%. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, dylan ratigan. [ applause ]

>> funning for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, texas ggvernmmnt affairs health care consultingobal business unit, hillco health. and by the mattson mchaal foundation in support of puulic television. and also by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community.3 and also by the alice kleburg reynoldssfoundation and viewers like you. thank ou. of the best of europe.

venice seems to be every italy connoisseur's... prague has always been beautiful... germany... the irish civilization... the eiffel tower was built... hope you've enjoyed the magic of... lake bled,slovenia's leading mountain resort, comes complete with a fairy-tale island, cliff-hanging medieval castle, a lakeside promenade, and this region's most sought-after cream cakes.

slovenes travel from all over the country to sample these famous cakes, first cooked up right here. while lake bled has all the modern resort-town amenities -- including shops, restaurants, and hotels -- its most endearing qualities are its stunning setting, its natural romanticism, and its fun-loving wedding parties. [ accordion music, singing, and clapping ] saturdays are wedding day here in bled, and the lake is festive with wedding parties. gondolas, called pletna, are the romantic way to tour lake bled and visit its historic island church. a steady procession of newlyweds, cheered on by their entourage, head for the island.

it's tradition for the groom to carry -- or try to carry -- his bride up the 99 steps which lead to the church. about four out of five actually reach the top. will he make it? [ bells ringing ] [ cheering ] the island has long been a sacred site, specializing in romance. an 8th-century slavic pagan temple dedicated to the goddess of love and fertility once stood here. this baroque church of st. mary is the fifth to occupy this spot. traditionally, slovene newlyweds ring the st. mary's bell to make a wish come true. ya-hooo! crowd: come on! ugh! good thing; he just made it.