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tv   France 24  LINKTV  April 21, 2016 5:30am-7:01am PDT

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>> reporters plus -- >> welcome to live from paris. a rare sign of humanitarian progress in syria. the u.n. began evacuating i've hundred people from deceased areas held by both government forces and militants. cooperation council summit kicks off in saudi arabia with u.s. president barack obama in attendance.
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counterterrorism and iran are expected to top the agenda. happy birthday your majesty as britain's longest-serving monarch marks her 90th birthday with a series of celebrations that take place nationwide. also coming up, japanese investigations amidst -- a company reveals it lied about the amount of fuel its car has been using. the countdown for the rio de janeiro summer olympics begins with the traditional torch lighting ceremony in agent olivia. -- ancient olympia. ♪ first of our top story, the united nations estimates 40,000
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syrians have fled the civil war as fighting escalates between government troops and militants, despite a shaky cease-fire. in a rare sign of humanitarian progress, the u.n. has began -- has begun evacuating 500, including sick and wounded, from four besieged towns. evacuations, those we are in beirut. >> this is the case of 500 people being evacuated, 250 each from disco sets of towns. the first are in the north and inland province. have towns next to the lebanese border that are rebel held and under government siege. them, there have been
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previous truces and eight allowed in and this is been part of long-standing negotiations and the truth is separate to the main cease-fire across the country. dozens of people have starved to death and eight was allowed into the area. these towns are only a small number of the overall number of places that are under siege across the country. as many as half a million people still in the deceased areas -- ed areas. -- besieg >> country's main opposition suspended u.n. brokered discussions, saying that -- violence on the ground signals a dangerous escalation. the syrian government stressed it will push direct -- push ahead with indirect indications.
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counsel corporation summit kicks off in saudi arabia with the u.s. president, barack obama in attendance. under regional stability and counterterrorism, expected to talk -- top the agenda. strain relations between historic allies linked to washington's warming ties with iran. >> a snub on the tarmac, speaking of saudi arabia was -- the king of saudi arabia was not waiting for barack obama. what is behind the diplomatically chilly welcome? saudi human rights abuses, a u.s. bill that would allow victims of 9/11 to sue saudi arabia and there was even -- and
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even bigger elephant in the room when obama sat down with the king, iran. the saudi's and their north allies see the iranian nuclear deal as a threat to their new role in the region. >> we are concerned with iran's constant destabilizing behavior in the region. its interference in other countries and its support of terrorism. thursday,ks prior to the u.s. defense secretary tried to smooth things over. >> the united states retains sanctions regarding both terrorism and ballistic missiles. those sanctions did not go away when the nuclear agreement was made. >> obama's position is a departure from previous u.s. presidents' rocksolid support for saudi arabia. he called for the sunni kingdom to get past their differences with shiite iran.
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obama said quote, they need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and to institute some sort of peace. is in the u.s. friends with saudi arabia, obama replied it is complicated. to copeuador struggles with last week's devastating earthquake, the president has announced a series of drastic measures, including increase in taxes and compulsory wage contributions. estimates that rebuilding the country could cost as much as $3 billion. quake was the worst to hit in decades, flattening buildings and damaging roads and key infrastructure. three people have died in more than 100 -- after an explosion tore through a chemical plant on
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the gulf of mexico's southern coast. produces the zardous industrial chemicals -- some injured are being treated for minor burns and broken burns while at least 2000 people have been evacuated from the area as precaution. michigan,. state of three officials face criminal charges amid the water supply in flint. they are charged with missing from -- misinforming the u.s. government about the state of the water while another is charged with tampering with water test results. -- exposing residents to high levels of lead. at least 10 people have died and thousands more have been poisoned. in flint, cap water used to look like this.
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the pipes used to supply it seemed just as bad, loaded with lead, they poisoned tens of thousands of people. for 18 months, authorities did not do a thing to stop the contamination. a court is now examining who is responsible. the first three people charged our state and local officials accused of tampering with tests that prove the water was polluted. >> these charges are only the beginning. there will be more to come, that i can guarantee. >> the scandal began in 2014 when flint changed the supply system to save money. instead of getting water from lake huron through detroit, it started taking it from the local flint river. that water was corrosive, damaging the pipes which released lead into homes across the city. authorities ignored alarms from scientists and residents for months. >> flint michigan was a wake-up
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call for our nation. the wealthiest nation in the world, yet we have inadequate water infrastructure in america, that is affecting the health of our children and families. it is a primary function of government to provide safe drinking water for its population. >> flint is one of america's most vulnerable cities, with more than 40% of its population living in poverty. many residents are black and some say that is why authorities ignore the problem. -- activistry act harriet come in is going to be the first woman and african-american to be featured on a u.s. bank note in the last century. she will replace president andrew jackson on the front of the $20 note, while he will now appear on the back. initial plans to replace america's first u.s. treasury
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secretary alexander hamilton on the $10 bill -- >> andrew jackson is being demoted, moving to the backside of the $20 bill. at the front, replaced by a woman who thought slavery and defended women's rights. >> harriet tubman is one of the great american stories. born a slave, illiterate for her whole life. she brought many people out of slavery. she did intelligence for our army during the civil war. after she worked to get the women's suffrage movement going. public image has been deteriorating for over a decade. a hero of the 1812 war, he strongly criticized for owning hundreds of slaves and applying brutal policies against native americans. >> minorities are clearly not
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represented on any dollar bills, any of our money, so i think it is a good improvement to have harriet tubman included in the list of presidents and other important people. >> i have great respect and i certainly appreciate everything that harriet tubman did, however, tradition is tradition. i feel jackson did as much if not more for our nation. >> jackson was in the treasure -- was not the treasury's first choice. the initial plan was to replace founding father alexander hamilton, but america's first treasury secretary has recently grown popular. in runway musical celebrating his career has even won the pulitzer prize. protested, the treasury department decided to leave him where he is. britain's longest-serving
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monarch, queen elizabeth is marking her 90th birthday celebrations taking place nationwide. we are showing you a light image of the queen meeting and greeting officials in windsor before taking presence from the people to celebrate her birthday. well-wishers are lining the streets. have a listen to some of them speaking. generous to all of us with her time, her love, her passion for the country. i think she wants to share. i never get to -- i never get the feeling -- she never makes us feel as we are intruding. there is a warm. if you could send out some coffee, that would be nice -- if she could send out some coffee, that would be nice. [laughter] >> i got all the little pictures
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of her, showing her happy side and sat side. >> she takes something of a walkabout in windsor. for the latest on the celebrations happening nationwide, we have reports from london. >> celebrations are getting underway in the united kingdom. gun salutes will take place around the united kingdom starting from noon. the prime minister is going to lead attribute in the house of commons to the queen and britain's longest-serving monarch. he has pointed out what a rock of strength the queen has been. traditionally, today is a quiet day as she has two birthdays. today is the real birthday, celebrated in private, but tonight, along with her husband
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, she will likely begin, the first of 900 begins lit up and down the country. there will also be a step -- special dinner in her honor given by her son in windsor wille and tomorrow, she have lunch with president obama and his wife, michelle. the next celebrations will be in andwith lots of horse shows june when the official birthday is celebrated, expect lots of pomp and circumstance and lots of celebrations up and down the country with a huge gathering outside -- outside buckingham palace. majesty.thday, your finally, the countdown. each narrow summer olympics has begun with traditional torch lighting ceremony in ancient
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olympia. the torch being lit by the sun hits -- did take some time to take off, it being a cloudy day. total 12,000 athletes will carry the torch, set to arrive in brazil on april 27. once there, it will pass through hundreds of towns and cities. the torch journey will end at the stadium where the olympic season woman kickoff. -- season will then kick off. a rare sign of humanitarian progress in syria, the u.n. began evacuating 500 people from he areas held by both government forces and militants. the gulf cooperation council summit kicks off in saudi arabia with u.s. president barack obama in attendance. it comes amid a strange time --ween washington and
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counterterrorism and iran are expected to top the agenda. happy birthday your majesty, as britain's longest serving monarch, queen elizabeth, march for 90th birthday with a series of celebrations. changing pace now, business news. cheatingwith the scandal at mitsubishi motors. >> investigators have raided the offices of mitsubishi after the admitted to submitting allstate on how much you'll their cars use. the scandals have wiped billions of dollars off the company's value. had to bes -- sustained -- had to be suspended. >> moving in a mitsubishi, investigators arrived at the assembly plant in japan to collect evidence about false i've will economy data on at least 600,000 cars. >> based on the finding from the
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raid and internal reports from the company, we would like to reveal the extent of the inaccuracies as soon as possible. we will deal with the situation in a straight manner and would like to ensure car safety. >> the company's president admitted wrongdoing and apologize for the misconduct on wednesday, saying tests show cars were using up to 10% more fuel than data submitted to regulators. strict,ed to apply global standards, just as most like in got slapped with very severe sanctions, mitsubishi motors needs to face tough measures so we can be sure the company will change. >> mitsubishi has struggled to recover from the safety scandal in 2000 which prompted a per massive recall -- fronted a massive recall. -- prompted a massive recall.
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-- launched a joint investigation. after dropping 15% on wednesday, mitsubishi motors shares plummeted 20% on thursday and were suspended before the end of the trading session in tokyo. shares hit an all-time low, wiping out $2.5 billion in just disco days -- just two days. of a deal being reached over volkswagens emissions scandal. >> a federal judge has given the carmaker until today to present a plan axing 600,000 diesel cars which were fitted with devices to cheat emissions test. be framework you will presented later today, volkswagen will offer to buy back half a million of the cars. >> let's turn to the european
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central bank which will announce its latest decision on interest rates very shortly. >> last month, mario draghi connected measures looking at boosting the eurozone. earlier, we spoke to the chief market analyst without a trade and what we can expect. >> he is hoping to buy more time and will say we need to see how these strategies are working, and that perhaps we would be able to fine-tune our strategies accordingly. >> what other markets watching out for -- what are the markets watching out for? >> we have never been in the negative interest rate territory, so no one knows exactly what is going to happen with this negative interest rate. the u.s. has done quantitative easing, that it has been difficult. will he say one element that we really love, is he going to
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comment -- they will say we are looking at it but in very much academic terms, nothing in the real. he will have, perhaps, more .eforms perhaps emphasize more reforms and civic quantitative easing cannot push -- the quantitative easing cannot push if reforms are not there. the main markets are a little bit in the red, just coming up to that interest rate decision from the european central bank and the markets follow what mario draghi said in his press conference very closely. we will be watching that to see what happens. one story that is moving shares -- as of this offer,
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valuing dirty at 779 million or 992 in euros, almost 50 maya moore that an offer. shares are up 17% on that news. albumally, adele's latest -- >> they have named her britain's richest ever female musician, worth 85 million pounds or around 108 million euros, increased by 35 million pounds since last year. was released to critical acclaim and huge sales, over 15 million copies sold worldwide. she chose not to release the record to streaming services like spotify and that has helped to bring her in a bit more money. >> a very good move. >> a good businesswoman. >> a beautiful voice.
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thank you very much. time now for our press review. timbre look at what is grabbing headlines around the world. -- time for a look at what is grabbing headlines around the world. former slave and someone who helped start the underground railroad will be the new face of the $20 bill, harriet tubman is going to replace andrew jackson, who will shift to the back. this is a process launched 10 months ago. the public was asked which woman they would like to see on the currency and harriet tubman one most popular -- won most popular. the process turned out to be rather contentious as well and in the end, the treasury
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secretary decided they were thinking too small and that they would expand the redesign. the first time a woman has been on american currency in 100 years and the first time ever for an african-american. >> new york times is talking more about the new face of these redesign bills. getting ay the 20's redesign, the five dollar and $10 bills. is the firstilton treasury secretary, also a founding father. he will stay on the $10 bill. initially, that was the bill that was going to be redesigned first, but there was a lot of controversy about removing him from the face of the bill. he will be joined on the back with five leading leaders, susan b anthony and sojourner truth among them. the five dollar bill also gets a redesign, abraham lincoln stays on the front but the abraham lincoln memorial will be stage
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for -- eleanor roosevelt, arrange for the concert in front of the leak and memorial and will go on the back of the five dollar bill with civil rights leader martin luther king jr.. >> this decision has not pleased everybody and has proved quite controversial in some cases. >> our first treasury secretary 's super popular right now, having a bit of a renaissance with his musical on broadway that just won a pulitzer prize. legions of new fans really did not want to see him go. that ended up getting this shift into what else we could do. editorialys and the in the usa today says that without careful consideration, when the program is launched, the treasury department finally
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did get it right and decided who be the appropriate man to be demoted. >> there are some who feel that harriet tubman should not at all be on a $20 bill. and the surprising washington post is reporting on this other controversy. they said that the move is insulting to her legacy and frankly, ironic. they quote a feminist writer who says i'd imagine that the treasury art masters of irony but i'm mulling over the irony of a black woman who was bought and sold being commemorated on the $20 bill. however, time magazine takes the opposite approach and says that she is the perfect person to be on the $20 bill. she was intimately acquainted with the economic side of slavery and in 1869, it says that she asked abolitionists for $20 to help free her parents and that the sum of her pension also
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$20. it makes sense for her to be on the $20 bill because she knew that people could do great things with money and that her face on the new bill will be a reminder for us to try to do the same. >> completely different takes on whether it is a good idea for her to be on the $20 bill. let's move on to something different. it is happy birthday to britain's longest-serving monarch, queen elizabeth. >> 90 years old and showing no signs of slowing down and to commemorate this milestone birthday, she commissioned a series of photos by annie leibovitz. she is known for photographing hollywood royalty for vanity fair. the front page of the daily mail has the queen with her great-grandchildren and as we take a look inside the paper, we can see a bigger picture that
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shows verdasco youngest grandchildren as well -- shows her two youngest grandchildren as well. also, there was a photo of her and princessúbq ..
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ok i think it's a science-fiction magazine that joe campbell used to publish that my dad subscribed to. i used to read for ratio sleep. to read voraciously.
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when i was eight or nine years old that was like 196 no o hadeen to the backside of the moon at that point. in the story, these astronauts are going to go to the backside of the moon and figure out what is on the backside of the moon. everyone has always wondered. we have only seen the front side. and theyin the capsule sign off, radio silence, it is going to break the radio waves. they are going to turn off the vacuum tubes and save the leg the city. 1960 toss. -- save the electricity, 1960's. they look out the window and there is this cast. a debate breaks out. shall we tell them? would see. what they
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a crashed spaceship? a lost civilization? lizard people? what is on the backside of the moon? they were so horrified by what they saw that it almost turns into a fist fight in the capsule. eventually they come to the conclusion that they were just going to say it looks just like the front. we are not going to tell anybody. because the backside of the mood was made out of the two by fours that they made roller coasters of and it held up a canvas for lock that held up the front start. -- front side. a hollowed-out thing. i think it is a perfect metaphor for our economy.
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we have been through this before. we have teetered out what our economy is like and what to do. we have figured out the solution. to call up the swedish economist and ask, how do we fix this? there is an economic part to it also aou but there is philosophical part. why would someone put into place economic policies that essentially haven't destroyed the american -- have destroyed the american middle class. we are still in the middle of the crash of the 2008. it never resolved. bubble gum and bailing wire. they held off for rational political partisan purposes. the obama administration is doing the same thing, trying to
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hold off until november 2016. the difference is he has got the entire republican party trying to bring it down around his years. hold it not able to off. it still blew up. -- stock market hit 16,000 80% of the stocks are on the top 20%. that is the wealth of the wealth. we are not looking at the economy. they say the economy is great. all these houses. -- a veryge of those large percentage of those houses have lost money. people rents cars. the equity has been taken out. mess ofhis0
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physicalness of this, -- my fatherdream went to japan as part of the occupation. back on the g.i. bill, he went to college. he wanted to be a history professor. be a phd. he and my mom met and fell in love and got married in 13 months later i came along. mom had already graduated. he had not. he got a good job. he ran the office, knew the machines.
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a sinking company. because he had a good union jobs he was able to buy a house. note. a three percent guaranteed by the federal government. was he went to college she paid to go to college. it was free. he had the house paid off at the end of 20 years. in 2006.re he died he had attention which not only survived him but hate for my mom, and to. -- but paid for my mom, too. occasion. he bought a new car every three years and turn the old one in. this was the american dream. he had it all. the basement with 20,000 books, most of which he had read. we did not live high on the hog,
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the house he bought was a three-bedroom one bathroom house that he bought in 1956 and there was me in three brothers but it was fine to us. -- he died that was the american dream. lottery dream came along. now the dream is to be the next guy who invents facebook. you cannot build an economy on a few billionaires. it does not work. pointed out -- does anyone have a copy of my own that i may borrow? thank you. and thisnted out -- was not unique -- i remember this from the 1960's. we went and bought magazines and
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finally found the article. it pointed out that from the george washington administration to the ronald reagan as productivity increase, and that is the amount of stuff increase per unit of labor, as part of vivid productivityas increased from the cotton gin to industry, wages went up along with it. those two lines. it starts in 1947. they tracked each other. thatrkers do came more of turned into higher wages or lower working hours. 40 hour work week now.
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70 hour work week at the civil war. in addition to lower numbers of hours worked, people made more money. that continued. continue.ty our businesses continue to make things. wages have been flat since 1980. this cap has opened up. has opened up. corporate revenues go up. there is a lot more money. that has not been going to the middle class. wages have in flat all this time. in therage wage earner .960's was $20,000 people like to quote household income, which i think is to set it. household income is $43,000 per year.
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if there is a reason why. -- but there is a reason why. that is because there are more than onepeople -- more person working in the household or more than one person working more than one job. 1970's throughout the t to work.m wen two people started working, raising a family. that was not enough. to maintainsaid, our standard of living, let's tap out our house. my brother sold his. let's tap into that equity.
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they took equity out of their homes. then credit cards. 1970's x, i was running a business. and i were running a business. that year i make more money than my dad and my dad was real proud of me. i was 25 years old. i finally qualified for an american express card. i had never been able to get a credit card. you could not get a credit card unless they knew you were solid. you had to pay it off every month. if you were one day late they would take it away from you and it took a year before you could apply again. no-nonsense. the average credit card debt in the united states runs from $9,000 per person up to $20,000 per household. it has exploded.
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getst who died last week credit card applications. then it was like, ok, what are we going to do now? we have wiped out the credit cards. we have rented a car. .et's put the kids into debt i went to college. i did not graduate. michigan state. over an anti-war riot, which is a hole on -- whol e other story. lived in in 1968 and the park. a whole other story. i paidwent to college, my way through college by working a weekend job as a dj. absolute minimum wage. as a worked at a big boy cook and a dishwasher.
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and when the waitresses went on strike i was a waiter, and ever since then i have been an in scene tepper -- an obscene tipper. i worked at a gas station. you cannot do that anymore. when i went to college, 80% of colleges were paid for by state governments. abe lincoln came up with this idea. you give them a chunk of land so that the college can work that land so that the students could go to college for free. abe lincoln was not the first to come up with this idea of free college. thomas jefferson created the university of virginia which was the first free college and he was so proud of that that on his tombstone it says founder of the university of regina -- of virginia. those were the things he was
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real proud of. that was his legacy. free college. byhe time i g tre, 80% s pa for. tuition s a coup of hundd dolls her term. it was not a wholeot. now it is upside down. collegesf the cost of paid for by tuition and 20% by the state and federal and local government and the college of self. -- college itself. looking not at what , described to you, this gap wrotes 1966 that "time" this article. productivity had followed the wages. they said it is going up.
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robots. computers. what are we going to do? what is it going to meet? what is the year 2000 going to be like? they concluded that if wages totinue to follow to the -- " everyoneuctivity, in the u.s. will be independently wealthy." "even nonworking families will have an annual income of 40 houston dollars." $40,000. how to use leisure meaningfully will be our problem." that would be $200,000 in today's money. how did this happen? what is the philosophical story behind this?
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with the familiar conservative worldview. my father was conservative and republican until the day he died. when i was 13 i went door to door for eric goldwater. two years later i was getting tear gassed that msu -- at mus. -- msu. understood russell kirk. he wrote a book called "the conservative mind." ,n animated william f buckley barry goldwater. it is the idol of the modern conservative. it is still in print. still wildly -- widely read.
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intelligentsia will speak of this book. it was not a villainous philosophy. shouldat how society the. the conservative and the liberal way. johnattle goes back to adams and thomas jefferson. they started whenever he came through town. it haso it the way always been done. jefferson said we need a revolution every 20 years. he saw changes a good ring. two fundamental worldviews.
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thomas payne eventually supported the american revolution. he spent two weeks at his house. he got into this too-weeklong battle. wrote an entire book, "the rights of man," as a rebuttal. here is the modern english version. a ruling class and everybody else. manays it does no harm if a is servile as a candle maker. he iss violence if allowed to participate in the government. way, is the same kind of thinking that has animated laws across the united
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states. suppress the vote. john adams wanted to use that with people of lower means. we do not want the rabble participating. kirk basically predicted the american middle class was growing. it is something the world had never seen before. if he keeps going like this and this happens for another couple of decades, you are going to see people who are going to have this leisure time and they a going tcause trouble. thiss the rble. ,o bac to thomasobbes without thiron fisf church or sta life wod the nty, brutish, a short
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being the first of modern-day conservative philosophy spurs. -- philosophers. kirt predicted there would be got if the middle classs too big. so let's slow down the pace of stuff. he understands the arc of history. wrong with that. legitimate worldview. his book had been out for a couple of decades. a soft-spoken lawyer , i spokesented tobacco with him, read about him,
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watching videotapes about him, and have come to the conclusion that he was actually a good and decent man of good heart and thought he was doing the best for his country. there was no villainy in this. in 1971 it looked like russell kirk's production was coming true. young people were having sex like no tomorrow. women were demanding the right to participate in the work place. young people were smoking dope and taking lsd and saying i am not going to the war and -- you had thens civil rights movement.
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cities that were burning. gay people saying, what what about us? in 1979. happened it was as if every sector of society had just interrupted. -- erupted. everywhere these guys looked, what they saw was chaos. they genuinely believe they .hought this was not good chaos this is the kind of thing that leads to bolshevik revolution and brings down government and destroys society. people were not going to church. the force. women were openly talking about war since. -- about abortions. people know that they were simply abortions. there are was a lot of discussion about this kind of thing.
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all these things that happened, challenges to the established order. that societyt should move slowly and gradually. this was a horror show. was that in part 1965, 1966, rachel carson wrote "silent spring." inticides not only killing out-- insects but thinning and shall so that the birds were not hatching. the planes are spraying ddt over our house. wether or not ddt is toxic, and there is some indication it is toxic, it is definitely toxic to birds and bees in one day we are
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going to wake up and the spring is going to be silent and that is the beginning of the death of the earth. you had the whole industry under intact from an environmental movement. and that, did you seriously fix ande the gas tank decided not to do it because only one out of 10 people would sue? cheaper not to put the bolt in? this is the stuff that was being exposed. the corporate lawyer and the social conservative look at this and said, we are under siege. we have got to get control of public opinion. we need to create ink tank's
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that will put this out. instead of rachel carson on the it's one offe," our guys. broccoli, came the heritage foundation, the coke the american enterprise institute. we have got to take control of state legislatures. they vote on model legislation that gets induced -- introduced. we have got to get control of colleges. hotbeds of marxism. but given what is going on on campus. we have got to do something about this. corporationsarge funding chairs where only
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conservatives are allowed to be hired to teach. we havgot to te controof government ielf. we havgot to te controof thcourts. federali society. more than half of our judges are federalist society, very tense vervet of. -- very conservative. take control of the media. , went to richard nixon and said every day we come up with talking points for republicans and we send them out on airplanes to tv stations all over the nation on tapes. before the internet. we will call it "goptv." all these notes on the margins. nixon said we cannot afford to do that.
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good luck. find a billionaire and do-it-yourself. is the chairman of fox news. let's stabilize business, society. from my dad's perspective, reasonable. what these things did was they open this to the predators. the people that game the system and take advantage of the system -- let me explain about commodities. this is not the big thing that caused the crash, but more responsible than anything else. all own theat you bakery. midwest.ed out in the it is the beginning of the
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growing season. is goingr, the wheat to be expensive. you want stability. good price of bread. i take half my crop and put it on the futures market. wheat is a commodity. i will sell this in advance. we can budget for a year. we are guaranteed to buy that wheat. if it is higher we win. if it is lower, we lose. it does not matter. stable business. these are called commodities futures. all about stability. weather it is we, poor alleys for the bacon industry -- pork itly for bacon, whatever may be.
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the people who are selling or buying are called counterparties . this is how the commodities market works. it was regulated by federal agents see the commodities futures trading agents the in washington, d.c. regulated through the exchange on which commodities are traded at a chicago, the chicago board of exchange. there was this guy called ken lay who wanted to get a couple of things done. he had a problem with the banks. 800 companies. he was running a ponzi scheme. put all of this profit in another company and took nine paychecks out of the profitable companies. the bankers started to figure out what was going on. banks, savings banks,
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mortgage banks, were not allowed to trade in stocks. stock brokerages, investment banks were not allowed to issue a checkbook. ken lay was very concerned that banks would figure out his scam. he wanted to get into the commodities trading business. energy, whicht was not something that could be traded on the commodity market -- you can drive down the street and see acorn silo. electricity? it does not fluctuate wildly from year to year in ways that would justify being traded as a commodity. he had figured out a way to make money at this. he started lobbying the federal agency. wendy gramm was the head at the time. the wife of the senator from texas.
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he lobbied this agency to allow energy to be regulated. , that6, wendy gramm said is cool. we will eight you do that. that is not an off. then she left her job with the federal government and went to a well-paid job as a member of the board of directors of enron. that was not enough for can. he also wanted to be able to have his own bank said he could hide what he was doing. he wanted his own bank so that he could gamble. down auld require taking lot that was set up in 1935 to prevent banking crashes. the united states has never gone more than 15 years without a major nationwide tank can it. -- bank panic. they separated these types of banks. -- gamblingnks banks went down all the time, but in commercial banks, your checkbook with dave -- was safe.
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when the caution husband -- wendy's husband introduced legislation that did what he wanted. -- blew up will out the law. anyone can own a bank. we will change how banks are regulated. commercial banks and investment banks can merge. ken was excited. secondly, he pushed through a bill called the commodities futures modernization act. we can take futures, commodity we have been wheat talking about and they do not have to be physical things. it can be other things. insuranceen trade in on things as if they were commodities. he started doing this with energy to stop then enron blew
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up because of this. the banks got this and they started doing it with mortgages. mortgages is cool, because you cannot drive down the street and see mortgages. you cannot say that a house is underwater or has a loan. you couldn't see that. they push together these clumps of commodities, mortgages. they called commodities. then they went to aig and said, we want to buy insurance. we do not want this to go bad. lse, and it is literally a bunch of guys in say, you, they would have $1 million worth of mortgages and a $10 million insurance policy. we will buy $100 million. $100 million in
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the fact that the policy may go bad stop someone else goes along and that's. someone else comes along. they say that that $10 billion policy will not go bad. each one of these, because they have this underlying value, from which they derive their distance, these are called derivatives. here are the numbers. the gross domestic product in , it is roughlyes $15 trillion. the gross domestic product of the entire plan is roughly 65 million -- exceed $5 trillion. before they made these changes, there was virtually no serious trading of derivatives. this was a brand-new word for all of us. 2008, according to a bank of
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international settlements, in 2008, the amount of money in ,erivatives that these banks this is what they were writing. trillion dollars. gdp of the planet is $65 trillion of stop if you look at a number like that, you go that something fishy is going on. when the crash happened, it got back up. it is back up now. we have got to do something. we have to unwind. we have to roll back the reagan revolution. make if ioint i would mentioned in 1976, the year that i got my first american express card and make more than my dad, the next year, our cpa said, you
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guys are taking too much hay out of this company. we were competing with a guy who eventually ate our lunch. we were doing pretty good. he said, you guys are taking too much money. i just bought a brand-new volvo. i was having a great time. client he said, you will be paying 50% in income tax. he said it is crazy. whenid, take your money you sell your business. take it as capital gains stop put it back in the company and buy some new advertising. do some research and design. do with american business does. why thethe reason average ceo pay was three times average worker pay. wasake more than 30 times crazy.
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you would have a 74% income tax. reagan dropped down to 28% of stop the money comes flooding out. it is the same thing that happened in 1921. there will privatize things. there was less government regulation. the first thing he did was he rocked the top tax rate. all the money flooded in. it created a wild speculative double. they both burst. we were off to the races. we are repeating the exact same mistake. stop to undohat will with that, i will wrap this up. i will take some questions and answers. thank you for showing up. [applause] >> let go right to it. if this crash happens, how
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serious will be social disruption be? crimes, riots, class warfare. what can we do to prepare for it? >> i do not agree with the gladback dystopia, get your guns. if we look at the history of crashes in the united eight, the great crash of 1929, people pulled together. in 1896, people pulled together. 1857 led to a civil war, regionally, people pulled together. in the american revolution, people pulled together. i'm strongly of the opinion that this could be a healing ring. it will be a painful thing. it already is. the great depression as a phrase was not used until the 40's. in the 1930's, they refer to it as the panic, or "current
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difficulties." from now, we will look back on right now and call it be great to russian. we are still in the middle of it. it has to unwind it help. in terms of what to do, i am not an investment advisor. good economist who seem to know this kind of stuff suggest that , youthese crashes happen can buy stuff for a whole lot less than it used to cost. values fall. you want to be debt free and have as much cash as possible. some of the great fortunes in america were majoring the 1930's. they could buy up land for pennies on the dollar. i had another guy on the program y that iyou cann be debt ee, bs idebt as ssible. [laughr] that pushes the edge of fraud.
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>> there are a couple years to prepare for that. this could happen next week. the thing is, for people who get hurt in these crashes, they are the people who have half the equity in their house. suddenly their house is underwater. try to get out of that pition. you sayhe futuris optimist,but theris a slo worsing of tng sinceeagan op wide u think will follow thenlightennt, and not faism? >> tanswer t second part of 1933, itn first,n hit the wor all theame. we h fdr. that is why it matters who is in the white house. it matters who is involved in politics.
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it matters that you get up there and be politically active stop humans show up. you must show up in party politics. when fdr came into office, you would that he'd paid the huge occupied movement. world war i soldiers had a coupon in 1940 four a bonus for their service. they were broke. he had an army all the way down to the potomac river. tens of thousands of people. it was a huge movement. it happens all over the country. the political will was there. it was pushing him. frankly, if president obama had come into power a year later, if we have been leaving 800,000 jobs a month for a year, or two years later, like fdr.
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in after three years of herbert hoover doing nothing. he would have had the political will. he would have had the people behind them. he doesn't right now. if we look at this history of ,rashes in the united eight when the last man who remembers the last great war dies, the horrors of the last great war died. the next great war becomes inevitable. those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it stop we are making the same mistakes. it is not just will be made in the 20's. it is what we did in the 1850's and the 1700. the good news is that every time we reboot ourselves. the 1700s, we came out as an egalitarian country stop it was the first liberal democracy in
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3000 years. we came out of the civil war with a legal antislavery. we had the 17th amendment with the direct election of senators. women being able to vote. there was positive progressive change. we came out of 1929 with the 40 hour work week. unionization. the list goes on and on. there is a lot that needs to be done. i believe that once that political will is there, that will happen. >> you have an optimistic note. you talk about the letter to your great-grandchildren. in 2090. >> you who are living 80 years from now. it does -- it takes 60 years for people to forget. and then it takes 20 years to make stupid mistakes.
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that is the cycle. we see this over and over again. 1920's, werer the harding set up the crash of 1929. he dropped the top tax rate and deregulated banking. he outsourced government function. he did the same things that we have been doing recently. had in the 1930's, along and 1950's come said if this works so well we do not need it anymore, that is the argument he made to congress. batman,ike to say that there would be people who had lived through that administration. they would have laughed at him. maybe robert burkett. but other than him, everyone was dead or talking with grandpa. they were not taking him seriously.
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that is what happens. it takes 60 years to forget or for people to die out and then some new genius, smartest guy in the room, ken lay steps in and says, let you this. in my letter to my great-grandchildren, should be have any, and we have none so far. say, here is what we went through. please learn from our mistakes. this country does not need to go through this again. we need to wake up. we are talking about leadership right now. this question from the audience that president obama and his administration have embraced the worst aspects of his corrosive trend. we see hillary clinton as the de
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facto front-runner. now my speakers were. she accepted money and speakers these from goldman sachs. does that take away her moral authority? >> here's the thing. here's the thing we have to understand. it is not about people. it is not about politicians. it is about the times. it is about we, the people. the constitution makes no reference to leaders. it makes reference to representatives. we elect people to represent us. franklin roosevelt was a wealthy governor of the most corrupt the in the united states. new york in the 1920's.
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when he was running new york, there was corruption right under his own notes. he did nothing about it. you could build a case that he was one of the most corrupt politicians. you think hillary clinton is bad? greg roosevelt was a mess. and he ran for president on a platform initially balanced budget incremental change, let's just keep doing what herbert hoover is doing. then he came into office and people were there. the great was there. the way it works in america is enough of us formed a parade, whether it is on these poker in the streets, if enough of us formed a parade, a politician will jump out in front, when they fly, and say, this is my parade. look at the tea party right now. >> it is not working out so well for them.
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i can give you a long list of areas where it is a great president obama and hillary clinton on policy. we, the national spirit, the zeitgeist of america, changes in a big way, that is what you will continue to get. you will get the same old politicians. every 80 years, we get one of these generational -- it was franklin roosevelt. . thomas jefferson we are ready. the birth pains will be the crash. we will get through the birth pains and what comes out of that will be a new life. it is a wonderful thing. i am not willing to trash hillary clinton or say she is not good enough. i personally prefer elizabeth warren.
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clinton, she knows how to take names and kick out. i can say that. if the times push her, she will do it. if the times push barack obama, he could do it. he only had 13 weeks from the time ted kennedy died where he had a filibuster proof senate. that was it for the whole, entire presidency. he had that health care legislation past. he got a lot of good stuff done. and then absolute obstruction. -- what it will take happens when a crash happens is that for the average person in america, reality rips open.
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it cracked open. leonard:, -- cohen, the light comes through. someone s in and says, here is the solution. we do not have to call an ecomist fr sweden. we kw how too this. one wonders if there's any segment of our society that will be affected stop who will be hit the hardest? >> the people who are in the process of building your equity. we have seen this. have our own recent history to look at. the people who have invested in the stock market. it is in a bubble. , there are market places where it is starting to go back into a bubble. basically it is middle america who get hurt the most. the working poor are always hurting stop the very rich always the great out. some of the biggest fortunes in
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america were made in the 1930's. the rich and profit. they will profit. >> i have a few headlines from recent days to throw out at you. here in california, we were facing a state budget of $60 billion underwater. we just learned that this year it will be 2.4 billion. is that a sign? sign of a crash coming? >> i do not think that relates to the crash. that is really good news. california is leading the way for the rest of the country. a lot of that is coming out there be change of how you redistrict. it reflects the will of the people.
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a few hours ago, i got a newsletter. the new headline, and this is the guy who protected the crash last time, he is pointing out top something percent, i forget what it is, it is the same thing in united eight, it has gone from being a couple of hundred percentage points being richer do hundreds and hundreds of percent richer. wealthy couldly be the salvation of our economy will stop i can dig it out of my phone, but it would take a few minutes. these kinds of conversations are starting to be had. solid-statek to a for the economy. >> i have immediate question. there were a couple media questions. audience, one of the few progressive point.
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y is tha a qution frothe audiee, to what dege is our4 hour ns media helping or hindering our expectations? >> one of the things that reagan did that was most pernicious and that needs to be rolled back 1982 he stopped enforcing the sherman antitrust act. the last guy who did that was jimmy carter who broke up at&t. richard nixon started that process. when reagan came into office in 1980, and some of you may be old enough to remember this, they used to drive across america. every town was different. every downtown was locally owned. every shopping center was locally owned. now you can drop out of a plane from 100,000 feet and land anywhere. you would have no idea where you are. it is all macy's and mcdonald's
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and whenever. the same thing happened in the media. this incredible consolidation started happening. the consolidation is being run by corporations who are not real fond of the methods that i have been sharing. on the other hand, there is an audience for stop they like making money. they will sell you the rope that you hang with. i should not say that. hand, we haveher seen some changes. when the big radio networks. state.a big swing there were four major stations. it is the same thing in florida. we were pulling incredible numbers. they replaced us with a sports station. it ner made e kind omoney we made.
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you have to look at those decisions and say, are these i do not wantens? to get into a huge conspiracy. on this, but the fact is, rupert yearch lost $100 million a for five years. secondly, if you look at these conservative institutions as shelley a olson -- sheldon adelson referred to himself, when they put money into politicians, they are getting a return. they are getting lower taxes. they are getting less regulation. they are getting lower wages for their workers. george soros gives money to liberals, and he is jacking up his own taxes. it just makes sense that you would have a whole lot more conservatives running everything from the media and what not to
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philanthropy. traditionally, we have seen in these cycles, there is a conservative overreach. harding, coolidge, and hoover were classic examples. franklin roosevelt had to deal with william randolph spurs. -- hearst. when enough people wake up, and it is typically caused by a crash, then progressive change will happen. they can out shout the voices of great wealth and por. a 13morgangreed toell -- agreed to a $13 billi settment. put that in perspective for us. that seems like a lot of money. practices in connection with -- it is not a lot of money. jpmorgan has $20 billion just thing in a on, waiting for this
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kind of thing. they will be able to deduct a lot of this in their taxes. all you have to do is look at their stock price. this was announced and their stock price went up, not down stop that should tell you. every now and then, i waxed like about ronald reagan. in 1983, he deregulated these evenings and loan industry -- savings-and-loans industry. three years later they crashed. reagan investigated over 1000 people, put 600 of them in prison. john mccain almost went down. rating put these guys in jail. l nationalized the s and industry. he told the stockholders that they have lost everything. ownsederal government these snl -- s and l's.
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he was on my show a couple times and he died recently. he put him in charge of the thing and said, you have 20 years to unwind this and re-privatize it. this is what sweden did in 1997. they nationalized their banks. this is we should have done in 2008. >> someone asked, what could be done to get workers to join a union? interesting well about co-ops. >> more people work for worker owned co-ops and unions. it is astounding. there are some states that make to form aeasy worker-owned co-op. other states make it difficult. we need to push for it to be easy. wherever democracy is in the
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workplace, the workers are owning the work days or they are members of a union. egos i, a couple of harry truman, but it got passed by a republican congress. it has allowed these days to do their thing. frankly we need to reverse that. >> we have time for one more question. someone asked, will the obamacare history of low over in time for the 2016 elections? >> there is an interesting article in the new york times about how the republican party has changed their messaging on this. they are asking members to push out to all of their mailing list , do you have obamacare horror stories? they are making this a very concerted effort. they know. they have experienced medicare and a redacted it would be a disaster.
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they saw this as social security. they predict t would be a disaster. at least they did not try to sabotage it. once people get benefits like this -- >> we are the only country in the industrialized world that does not do this. >> and we're working on in a half-baked way. they know that this will be very successful and that success will help president obama and the democrats. they are trying to kill it. i do not think they will be successful. i think the american people are smarter than that will not -- then that. i just started talking about this on radio and tv. you talk about states like louisiana with bobby jindal and they say they will not take this hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds to care for than $3000make more a year but less than like $20,000 a year.

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