tavis: good evening. smiley. -- i am tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with michael shifter, president of the inter-american dialogue. then paul krugman in the wake of record-breaking week on wall street. we're glad you joined us. both conversations coming up right now. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only about halfway to completely eliminate work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out.

yourd by contributions to pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: venezuelan president hugo chavez was called a hero and a tyrant. he used his vast oil reserves to benefit the poorest citizens but he infuriated many when he ridiculed george jenna bush in an infamous speech at the un and staunchly stood by raul castro and president ahmadinejad.

i met him in venezuela after that speech after he denounced president bush as the devil. his words. he insisted that perhaps his choice of words he was not anti- american, prompting me to ask what it was against in here is what he said. >if then you're not anti- american as some are want to review, what are you anti? if you are not the anti- american -- not anti-america, what are you against? >> i am against any pretension of hegemony in the world. i am against the capitalist new

liberal model that said the lead -- that the aelite want to impose on the world with weapons and bombs. >> during me now is a georgetown professor michael shifter, president of the inter-american dialogue. this is an impossible question and i will ask it anyway given that history is starting to regard hugo chavez's legacy. where is your sense that this historic journey will take us with regard to how he will be remembered and recalled? >> i think he will be remembered as somebody who had enormous promise, a great charisma, a lot of money, and ability to connect with venezuelans, and politically, a real true character. almost a genius, but because she had such a great appetite for power and concentrated the power

in his own hands and made the decisions in venezuela for 14 years, he ended up with a system that did not work for well and did not deliver results. i think the bottom line is this was a lost opportunity. there was great promise when he came in but we see the problems today in venezuela in terms of economics, the crime situation, highest inflation, debt and deficit, food shortages, a deteriorating infrastructure, and so venezuela could have been something different and he could have made it but he squandered the opportunity. tavis: with all due respect when you started running that list of the dysfunction, i thought your talking about the united states of america. there literally was nothing on that list that does not apply to our country including budget problems and crumbling infrastructure. my point here is every question, every country has its own problems but the numbers are clear that hugo chavez, whenever we think of him, was committed to elevate the trial of the poor

in this country, yes? >> there is no question. he deserves a lot of credit and that is his greatest contribution. he put his finger on legitimate grievances that the venezuelans had about social inequality and he will be remembered. the question is whether he was able to create an appealing alternative. no one in latin america that looked at as well after 14 years and said, this is an attractive model. this is an attractive system and we want to be like venezuela. here was a country, when oil was less than $10 a barrel in 1999, went over well $100 a barrel, he had all the resources in the world. people loved him and he could deliver. it is what been as well could have become, it could have gone to a different level. it is true that every country has its problems and i recognize the united states does as well. this was a real opportunity. quite a remarkable figure the could have done great things for the country and i think we see

some really profound problems that are going to be very difficult to undo. >> we're talking about venezuelas future in a second. since we're talking about poverty. i had a chance to ask about the issue of poverty and the issue he is been given the most credit for. i talked to him specifically about what he thought he could do in his lifetime to eradicate poverty. here is what he had to say. >> i could go and give you a basic guideline which i believe profoundly. get rid oftial to poverty. we need to empower the poor. empower the poor. to transfer power to the poor. because themselves, without power, they will be the main

actors in transmitting power that is across their bearing. the first power we should deliver, to give them, is knowledge. light. and enlightenment, culture. the great cuban revolutionary, we need to be cultivated to be free. knowledge, simon bolivar, the great revolutionary said, a man without studies is an incomplete being. we have been dominated far more by ignorance than by force. >> chavez was a voracious reader. he had a literacy program, a

reading program where they gave up looks pretty would publish books in their native language and give them out free to systems across the country. he mentioned a book by noam bookky, he put chomsky's new york times best- seller list. when you are trying to raise the country, does that not put you against headwind? does that make you automatically a heated and reviled figure by at least some people in the country? >> it depends on how you manage it. he had an opportunity to reach across and deal with the elite in this country, with the managerial and technical class. this is an oil based economy.

the only thing that venezuela produces is oil. everything else the imports. chavez got into power and polarized the country, he attacked the elites and they left the country. the national oil company became politicized and suffer from low investment, declining production. the irony is that here is someone came in and had an opportunity to diversify the economy, to make it a more broadbased basis for economic growth and he is more reliant on the oil sector than ever. he is more reliant on the u.s. market than ever, even despite his attacks against the united states, so i think that is the question. he could have -- he clearly came in and had to exercise control. he pointed the country in a different direction. the country was in awful shape when he came in. the elites had filled the country, they were corrupt and mismanaged the country, they

stole a lot of money. the problem was he antagonized the leads and he needed people with some professional, technical capacity to sustain the economic course of the country and that is what he lost. tavis: hugo chavez is one of a long list of people who came to power, and said clearly they owed some of that to the charisma of hugo chavez, but chavez got a lot of heat and was very controversial for the figures he stood next to. people ahmadinejad from iran. -- like ahmadinejad from iran. he stood next to the leader of iran and said we were brothers. how should the american people view your standing next to these people?

here is what he told me. >> i could ask the american people, what mr. ahmadinejad did against the u.s. people? nothing. he has done nothing against the american people. many americans, however, have been poisoned by the mainstream media. and they repeat, he is the devil, they now consider that chavis is ami. that fidel is an enemy, that ahmadinejad is an enemy. what did he do against the american people? nothing, nothing wrong. however, americans and the u.s. government have done a lot of fraud against the cuban people. tavis: what ever one thinks about chavez, nelson

remember him giving ted koppel the business. he said you do not tell us who our friends are. we make those decisions. it is ok for nelson mandela, why is it not ok for hugo chavez to decide who is friends were? he did do things his own way, yes? >> there's no question about it. he has the charisma and he had the money to do that. money is important to understanding hugo chavez and he had the best aid program, cooperation program in venezuela. 19 countries get subsidized oil. they are grateful to him. he was generous -- a generous benefactor, the most generous benefactor that latin america has seen. he gave home heating oil to low income citizens in new york and

massachusetts and elsewhere. he was -- he strode the international stage, the global stage with a lot of money, with a lot of confidence, and he did exactly what he wanted to do. he defied the united states and he made his friends on the basis of those who were adversaries of the united states and that is the way he operated. >> what happens next inside bed tavis: what is the impact of his death and what will it mean to latin america, to the region? >> in venezuela their election schedule is for april 14. there is an opposition candidate who lost to chavez on october 7. manduro has the edge. the outpouring of grief has been remarkable and quite stunning.

the opposition after two electoral feats is not in great shape. the odds are is that manduro will be elected. when the economic problems become more acute, that could be a recipe for some turmoil in -- and turbulence in venezuela down the road. i think a lot of people are wondering if the support that venezuela has provided them is going to continue. my sense is that it will continue. in the short term, the new government is not going to want to cut off abruptly the aid to all these countries. support to cuba will continue. over the long term given their economic problems, it will be hard to sustain the current level of support that venezuela has to many countries in the region. tavis: is this a new opportunity to write a new chapter in regard to venezuela-u.s. relations or is this business as usual? >> they government will have

some -- need some political oxygen. he will not able to operate the way that job is this pretty does not have his money or a curse or political astuteness. he will look for other ways to govern and there the u.s. could be helpful. especially on the economy. he has got to bring oil production back up. they need investment in the oil sector. the u.s. will be helpful and the u.s. should take advantage of that opportunity. tavis: michael shifter from the inter-american dialogue program. thank you for your insights. >> thank you. i appreciate it. tavis: our conversation with economist paul krugman in a minute. stay with us. the battle over budget cuts continues to paralyze washington while at the same time prompting some serious burble brick throwing from both sides of the ideological divide. president obama conducted a

series of meetings designed to unlock the gridlock. our friend paul krugman, good to have you back on the program, professor. >> good to be on. tavis: let me start by asking whether or not you think the dow reached by the president across the aisle -- that the outreach by the present across the aisle will have impact. >> here is a fundamental divide between the parties in terms of visions of the future and it will not be changed because they made a nice small talk over dinner. it is not going to be -- if there is going to be a break it will be when the american people are so outraged by what is happening, some republicans are willing to defect from their collection. until then it is not. this is not something that can be done by having good manners. tavis: i take it the american people have not been sufficiently outraged as yet. why not end when?

>> ok. the answer is the public has not seen the full impact. so far, we have had a lot of shipping at the edges but people have not seen the impact, but to correlate with the sequestered and all that. the real problems of central government service cutting back has not started to buy. that will take time. the public has not appreciated fully just how radical the public agenda -- republican agenda is and that will take longer. we will have to wait several months. people who thought that there was going to be a mass uprising against the sequester the moment it kicked in were misjudging. this is a much more fanatical republican party than most people have yet seem to realize. give it some time. tavis: your "new york times" me what you -- tell

believe what you're hearing the market say to us. >> ok. we have been told for years now we must cut the security -- social security and medicaid. you must cut the budget or the markets will punish you. interest rates will rise. you must not be critical of business or try to extend health care to americans who lack it because that will crash the stock market and guess what? we have not cut social security measures or medicaid. we have extended health care. interest rates are at historic lows. all the people claim to know what the market will do what's the market will punish you unless you do what i want. that turned out to not be believed. tavis: which leads me to the next question about whether or not the time is right or wrong to have a conversation about deficit reduction. you have been clear for those that read your stuff that the time is not right. i had a guest who said i love

paul krugman, we agree on everything except this. she went to that point about timing. when the time is right to have that conversation about deficit reduction given simpson-bowles and tell me why it is believed -- why you believe the timing is so bad to be engaging in this conversation about deficit reduction. >> ok, this is a bad time to be trying to cut the deficit. that is straight economics. cutting the deficit is a self- defeating effort. it shrinks the economy, it hurts the long run, you end up in purely fiscal terms not helping much if at all. and it is devastating for employment. now is not the time to be cutting spending, cutting back. this is the time when the government should be spending more, not less. there are people who say we should be talking about this, we should be helping the economy but we should be talking about the long run. there's the question what they

think is realistic and look at what has happened to washington for the past three years. that we have been at this. as soon as people started talking deficits instead of the economic crisis, that is -- took all the air from anything else. we barely had any political discussion of jobs. the issue of trying to do something about what is incredibly severe unemployment in america went out the window as soon as the focus turned to the deficit. people said, we should able to have a mature conversation where we talk about what we will do about the state of paying for medicare in 2025 at the same time we talk about creating jobs in 2013. i would like to live in the world but that is not the world we live in. it is not the country we live in right now. it is not possible to have all the discussion about the deficit while dealing with the real problem which is mass unemployment. tavis: i will come back to unemployment in the second. for those who think that issues like the debt ceiling and sequestration are phantom

issues, a phantom issues masquerading as a conversation about austerity, you say what? >> i say those are -- they are crazy, right? this is no way to run any country, certainly not the greatest nation on earth. that we are -- we have a party that basically lost an election, there was a referendum on what kind of policies we are going to have. what are we going to do about the social safety net, taxes on the wealthy? they lost but partly because of the quirks of our districting system, they still retain half of one piece of the government. they are using that to threaten the united states with one crisis after another. it is pure hostage-taking. and this is no way to live. there is no economic reason to be having a sequestered. there is no economic reason to have a series of debt crises. this is all about truly unacceptable political behavior.

tavis: even on the side of the election season, the campaign season, one of the things i hate about washington these days as well you -- as you well know is the campaigning never stops. how and when do we get to a real conversation about the main issue which you raised a moment ago, jobs, jobs, jobs, with a living wage for every american? >> i think the president has to hammer on this. he has tried now for again for three years to try and bridge the divide. he has to some extent bought into this deficit focus when he should not have. some of it is sincere and some of it was thinking that was the way to get the other side to agree to do something on jobs, it is not working. he needs to hammer it home. our chance of getting legislation before the next election is zero. it is not going to happen.

there are some things the white house can do what mortgage relief and so on but the legislation, nothing will pass the house. we need to vote -- make the midterm elections a referendum on job creation and we will have presidential -- the presidential election, hopefully the economy will have recovered. maybe this one will be finally decisive enough that we have some return to rational politics and rational discussion. tavis: every day there is an article somewhere suggesting the economy is slowly picking up. are you seeing signs of that? >> oh, yeah. if it were not for the mess in washington, we work -- we could start to feel pretty good. we have very -- we have had very low home construction for six years. consumers have gradually reduce their debt levels. the things that drove us into this crisis, a massive housing bubble and a huge growth in

consumer debt, a leadinleaving e we need government help to support the economy, those things are fading away, disappearing in the rearview mirror. the economy is getting ready to recover. there is a virtual circle of improving housing, jobs, falling data that is starting to take hold, bad policies from washington can put an end to all that terrible development. tavis: let me close on the question. is it your belief or should the american people be concerned about the fact that what appears to be an economy that once they get left off, are you suggesting that the economy might be hampered by the people we elect to keep us out of this mess? >> sure. this has happened many times in history before. it happened in the 1930's that the economy was recovering and premature austerity filled the economy.

it was happening in europe and austerity has killed at. if we're going to have inappropriate cutbacks in federal spending and an inappropriate slamming on the brakes, then we can mess this up. in a way it is almost more tragic than before because you can see there is -- the exit is in front of us. we look like we -- a lot of people are trying to make sure that we turn off that course and slam into a wall instead. tavis: always honored to have you on this program. we appreciate your insights. that is it for tonight. good night from l.a. and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with the always outspoken arriana huffington about the status of women in the workplace.

that is next time. we will see you then. >> we know that we're only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have a lot of work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s.. as we work together, we can stamp hong. -- hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. that is next time. we will see you then. king had that said there is right thing. we know that we are only about halfway to completely eliminate stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your