believe he's like st. augustin or king leer. in fact, there's one only person that comes close to newt gingrich, a science fiction writer so grandiose that he created his own religion. newt gingrich, the peddler of myths and fantasies, is the modern incarnation of the late el ron hubbard, the founder of scientology. thanks so much for watching. dylan ratigan is here to take us forward. dylan, i'm sorry to encroach on a few seconds of your time. forgive me. >> guess who is here today? >> i have absolutely no idea today. >> the sheriff of wall street himself, eliot spitzer, and we're going to be talking about your favorite subject, though it is one that is remarkably somber and important, not nearly discussed enough, and that is the reconciliation between the extractive banking policies and the consequence of social unrest to the risk of potential actual global conflict. that is where this ends if we

don't reconcile it, and i'm excited to talk to the governor about it. >> sounds interesting, dylan. take it away. >> here we go. show starts right now. ♪ so this is christ mass >> well, the big story, war is over. good wednesday afternoon to you, i'm dylan ratigan. nice to see you. note the question mark in the statement behind me. the remaining 5,500 u.s. troops in iraq are packing up. good news. ready to hand full control over to the iraqis by christmas of this year, nine years after the u.s.-led invasion but after they come home 16,000 u.s. contractors on our tax payroll and personnel will stay behind in baghdad wearing our identity and doing our work. in fact, baghdad will be the largest u.s. embassy on the planet for the united states.

president obama today at ft. bragg admitting the iraq we leave behind is not perfect by his view and that success was never a guarantee. >> the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has led to this moment of success. now iraq is not a perfect place. it has many challenges ahead. iraq's future will be in the hands of its people. america's war in iraq will be over. >> and amid growing instability across the arab world as we all know, the u.s. departure from iraq leaves that very country vulnerable to its immediate neighbor to the east, iran, not to mention additional disruptions from the kurds in the northwest with turkey and syria which has been at or near a boiling point for the duration of the year. washington and our country believes, and they are correct,

we need a strong ally in that region. but critics say that ally will never be iraq. just look at the celebrations today in fallujah. they wanted u.s. troops gone years ago when the iraqis revolted against an allied force in the most intense urban battle that the u.s. military has been engaged in since the war in vietnam. here's how one iraqi political analyst described it to al jazeera. >> i think everyone lost this war. there is no winners there. >> we start today with two iraq war veterans, john soltz who only recently returned from another tour in iraq to chair his position at votevets.org. matt ho, a former marine corps captain and state department official who serves as a senior fellow at the center for international policy. i have learned much from both of these men, and they have a perspective that those of us who have not been to these wars

simply could never have. john, first off, welcome home. obviously everybody must be delight that had you're here safe and sound. >> i'm glad to be here with you, dylan. time to fire it up like the old days. >> all right. if you want to do it, then let's do it. what do we -- you're the person in this conversation most recently in the country we're discussing. what is the canary in the coal mine for people like myself and every other american as we try to gauge whether america's security in that region is increasing or decreasing as we view the news coming out of iraq over the next year? >> well, i think the first thing is it's -- it's very humbling for the people who fought in this war so many times in the last eight and a half years to get home. it's a welcome home moment for everyone. in regards to the future of iraq. there's going to be violence in iraq. it won't increase necessarily because we left because we never dealt with the political problems on the ground. there was violence long before we left -- long before we entered and violence long after we leave. the iranian influence in iraq is a huge concern. most likely we're going to see

sunni groups press the maliki administration, trying to probably to continue their objective to assassinate key government officials, and -- and the iranians are not going to do some type of invasion of iraq like the right wing has pointed out. they have huge political influence inside the iraqi government. i would expect to see testing of the iraqi government and violence to be what it's always been, a good clip of civilians getting killed across the country. >> matt, when you go back to the beginning of this war and its broadest man tate in the context of 9/11 and the context of the war in afghanistan, forget any of the stated objectives. it is clear that america commits foreign resources, its soldiers and its treasure in order to pursue its own security and the security of its allies around the earth. if you were to look at our current position, if you were to look at the stability 1 of our relationships in the middle east, both militarily and

diplomatically, how would you characterize them today, and what are the key drivers as to whether that relationship deteriorates or improves? >> thanks for having me on, dylan, and welcome home to john and the other men and women who are finally getting out of there. tom ricks wrote a book called "fiasco" about the first part of the iraq war, and i don't know if there's a better or more apt title. you look at what the costs were, and you look at who benefited. let's just talk who benefited from us invading iraq and occupying iraq. iran did because now their enemy, the bulwark against iranian power in the power, iraq and saddam hussein is gone. al qaeda benefited. our invasion and occupation of iraq was probably the biggest recru recruitment tool that they had and in terms for the iraqis, you know, a handful of iraqi exile who we brought back into the country benefited by being put

into positions of power and becoming rich, but for the united states, the costs were physical costs in terms of 4,500 dead, over 30,000 wounded costs over $1 trillion and it cost us our prestige and honor and so, you know, getting -- i'm not sure that we'll talk about the president's speech today and getting back to the president's speech i was disappointed he didn't acknowledge that. the president was right about iraq in 2003 and 2003 when the majority of the country wanted to go to war and now the majority of the country realizes iraq was a mistake and so i'm disappointed that the president didn't say that to the world. that would have made a big difference not just to the iraqis but also to a lot of people in this world in terms of getting the image and the prestige of the united states back again. >> and i ultimately believe it will be the behavior of the american people themselves that will exhibit that prestige, and i can't think, john, of a better

opportunity to represent and our communities and selves best than the desperate need for assistance and resources and employment that is upon our nation today, whether we want to discuss it particularly or not, that is to address the ptsd and the unemployment and the family situations for so many of our returning veterans, where it's difficult enough with a job when you return, it has to be absolutely excruciatingly painful without a job. i had a long conversation, john, with paul rycoff who runs the iraq and afghanistan veterans association a couple weeks ago. i actually ran into him at a david lynch benefit for transcendental meditation, believe it or not, and he was bearing a stack of statistics, bet on transcendental meditation and xarnion dogs as being tremendously beneficial to veterans upon return from war, and i'm interested in your view on -- on some of those more novel therapies and also what we need to know about escalating

2012 into the year of the veteran for this country. >> well, obviously that's one of the things we do at vote vets is take the veterans' voice and put it in political debate so we ensure our issues are taken care of. we'll go after politicians bad to the military. we went after mostly republicans who went against body armor so we're very interested in getting veterans in the debate. coming hope, it's hard. went to get $1,000 out of a bank account to put a down payment on an apartment here and the girl behind the desk says to me, hey, is this the current address? i said no, i've been gone for the year. i said i was in iraq. were you on vacation? nothing like having a dog, he's your best friend so i'm all about the dog thing and the bottom line it's very difficult to come back. look, people today don't realize that the president went to ft. bragg because the second brigade of the 28nd airborne division came home which was one of the last brigades that was actually on the ground conducting operations. they have no idea so it's difficult to come back and

transition, the one part of the president's speech i really, really liked. i thought overall it was a great performance but this part that when the first lady came out and introduced him, i mean, she had a really good understanding of the unemployment challenges the veterans will face. she really understood the role that military families took in thanking him and the president said that your sacrifice, you know, isn't going to be forgotten and you're going to get when you earned, when he said you earned it. that's true. a lot of republicans, 25 of them in the u.s. senate, voted against the new g.i. bill. 15% unemployment, no better thing than we can do is get the people skills to be employable. they are saying you earned these -- these things in our society. earned the right to go to college and the fact that the president said they earned it, probably the nicest thing that i've heard since i came home because we've earned our place in society. >> to said least. you'll get the last word on this, matt, but america embarrassed itself and shamed itself in many ways after the vietnam war and the nature and the manner in which it treated

and dealt with returning vietnam war veterans because the point of view on the war was mixed up with the soldiers themselves who were obviously in service to a broader mandate and not the ones responsible for making policy. how significant is the opportunity for all of us in america who are the 99%, by the way, who have never fought in war? there's another 1% in this country and it's not just rich people, gentlemen like yourself who have fought on our behalf for the past ten years. walk me through how significant the way the 99% of us relate to the 1% returning is to the successful movement of our country forward. >> it -- it's significant, and it means a lot when you get thanked for your service. i tend to find that people either don't want to talk to me about it or they want to put you on a pedestal and neither one of those is right.

i think the importance is to continue support for our vets in the future. i have a marine of mine who lost both his legs. the veterans administration, they have got him set up so he can drive with his hands on the steering wheel. is that program going to be around 15 to 20 years from now? that's what i'm concerned about. the other side that you alluded to, dylan, is we have to hold policy-makers accountable. you brought up vietnam. hey, we're all about the same age here, and we were all in high school and we were in college, remember there was a vietnam syndrome. i would love for there to be an iraq syndrome. i would love for the specter of iraq to haunt policy-makers for decades so that we don't make the same mistake which is difficult though because you look at the gop presidential crowd, they all think iraq was a good idea. they seem to all want to stay in iraq, and you hear in d.c. the constant drum beat for war with iran, so i -- i get upset because we're not holding people accountable for poor decisions. who was fired because of the iraq war, fired a couple of guys

over the walter reid scandal? no generals or civilians were ever held accountable for what was possibly the greatest foreign policy disas it every all time so i think keep taking care of the vets but hold the folks in d.c. accountable for their decisions. >> yeah, and that's a critical distinction that we got backwards out of vietnam, holding soldiers to account for policy. we now have an opportunity to help our soldiers heal and welcome you home and listen to you, hear your stories. i would love to hear your stories and ultimately then turn our attention appropriately at the policy making body. john, once again welcome home. matt, it's a pleasure. this conversation is one we'll be continuing for a long time to come, i'm afraid. matt and john. coming up here on "the d.r. show," all we want is a congress that works. new poll slapping the title with the worst congress ever. and they are living up to it yet again today. plus, the sheriff of wall

street is in town, ladies and gentlemen. eliot spitzer on the ominous economic signs of our times, and speaking of signs of the time, is marriage so over? the stats proving the swinging '60s have nothing on us. that's all ahead. [ woman ] my boyfriend and i were going on vacation, so i used my citi thank you card to pick up some accessories. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪ ...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline, with no blackout dates.

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this is the route. the money is the route and unless we find route strikers willing to strike at that we'll never forget that problem. >> get money out, out of boston

with jon stewart last night, as we all continue to escalate the temperature for a great 28 debate in this country. you'll be hearing more about it as we all head into 2012 and see the impact that this influx of corporate and special interest money is having on the nature of our government. we all know we need a 28th amendment to get money out of politics and we verse the citizens united decision that made corporations people. a big win last week in l.a. with a new call to action for the 300,000 get money out petiti petitioners and route strikers who have joined the movement to get money out. they are asking all of us to follow the l.a. city council and get our home towns to pass similar resolutions to get money out if congress refuses to listen to the people. we will build momentum in towns

and cities across america, until they simply cannot ignore it, and one person on the hill who has gotten the message is democratic congressman keith ellison who proposed a 28th amendment already. clearly states in his language that corporations and other business organizations are not natural persons or citizens, and congressman, your thought on this new effort from united republic, lawrence lessig and the get money out crowd, to address municipal resolutions modelled after los angeles to turn the temperature up on some of your colleagues. >> this is extremely encouraging. you know, but i want those folks out there to know that they do have friends in congress. not only have i introduced a constitutional amendment to get money out, but donna edwards has done so, my fred ted deutch down in florida has done so and there are others, john conyers. there is a groundswell around this nation at the community level and municipal level and even in congress to get money out. it has a corrosive effect on democracy, and we have to do something about it. >> it would seem that the most

powerful thing right now is for everybody in this debate to remain aligned on the principles of demanding an elevation of the quality of this debate and explore the debate on corporations, people, money and speech and not get lost in partisan bickering or arguments over words in a given amendment. is that a fair characterization? >> yes, i think so. i think it's right. right now the movement has to recognize the good and not quibble over the minutia. we need to basically get people aligned around the principle that money has a corrosive effect on politics, that there should not be legal bribery that goes on and that we don't need our members of congress around other politicians spending half the day trying to raise money when they really should be talking to constituents and working on difficult problems. >> and -- and when i -- when i let you go for the afternoon, congressman, i'm going to bring in the mega panel and begin a conversation about the attachments of the keystone pipeline and other items to this stop gap measure on the -- on

the extension of unemployment benefits for those who are the most in need right now in our nation, and i'm interested in your analysis of the role money plays in creating these highly conflicted sort of back-end attachments of things like oil pipelines to employment bills or health care revisions, to tax code. how does money in politics create that sort of insanity? >> you know, they are all mixed up in there together. you know, there's money. people who want the pipeline, they spreading money around. let me tell you. $130 million was given in campaign donations. the top six banks alone gave $50 million in -- in lobbying money, and, you know, 94% of all elections are won by the candidate with the most money. at least that's a 2008 number, so the fact of the matter, is you know, whether it's the keystone pipeline or you name it. let me tell you, if the unemployed had a lot of money and we were throwing it around washington, they wouldn't have to drop one in a cup before they

could get some unemployment insurance. >> you can say that 1,000 more times and well said, congressman. thank you for your time and thank you for helping to raise the temperature in this country on a necessary debate. congressman keith ellison. >> thank you. >> thank you, sir. the mega panel is here. imogen, jonathan and rob. is there any -- can anybody, you, jonathan, are you a brilliant man. you are a friend of mine, you are a man who knows more about the sort of motivations and intentions of the political culture of the city that runs this country right now. is there some -- can you play horse whisperer, did you play dog whisperer, can you give us insight as to what these people think they are accomplishing by having the government almost shut down again tomorrow. >> yeah. >> by -- by basic conflating jobs bills with energy bills, with tax bills. they all need to be solved by the way. they are all valid. this is insane and crazy. >> this is insane and this is crazy. >> what are they thinking?

>> they are not thinking. >> no, no. >> they are thinking something. what they are thinking is short-term political gain. that's what all this is about. >> the president of the united states says do not attach anything to -- to the unemployment extension and the payroll tax cut. don't -- do not do that. i will not sign it, and what do they do? >> right. >> they attach it to the bill. >> short-term political gamesmanship while rome burns. your thoughts on this, rob? >> there's no discipline. there's no disciplining force either. market forces have completely failed us. you and i talk about this all the time. we don't have the 7% bond yields that the italians do which galvanized them to a technocratic government which says, you know what, stop horsing around. we actually have to stop worrying about the little things. got to figure out big, big things. >> we're basically driving a car because of the reserve currency and we can print the money that has no brake pedal. last word to you. >> markets are actually looking at the euro zone and they are distracted by the euro zone, not actually concentrating on what's going on in congress to an

extent. fundament atherley looking towards next year, there will be a fallout, anti-incumbenty is fever? some of these politicians will be suffering. very, very short term that we're talking about. >> tragically it's the american people and american business and investors who do not have a functioning capital market to engage in, american labor and individuals who can't find jobs, and the nation as a whole who sits with a apparatus of health care, energy and education that dates back to dwight eisenhower. embarrassing. we spend too much time being embarrassed about these things, something a little more frivolous, or maybe not. is america's marital bliss over? according to new numbers from the pew research center, it is. barely half of all adults in america are now married. that, my friends, is the lowest is has ever been ever. compare that to 50 years ago when 72% of all adults were married in the united states. once around the horn, play

shrink to the world or at least america. why is this happening? >> i wrote a book about why it is happening. >> oh, how beneficial. >> well, i know, very useful and it went to 17 countries around the world and it's becoming more and more. >> what's the title? >> it's called "the single girl's guide," gone around the world, but to an exyoung people under the age of 30, many people are thinking marriage is passe. 4 in 10 americans is seeing it. we're seeing economic problems. $1 trillion worth of student loan debt and record rates of youth unemployment, highest since 1948, so fundamentally people can't become adults and get mayor you had. they don't have the money to. >> over here. >> you see household formation, they call it, when you have economic distress. i mean, a wedding is expensive. marriage is expensive. >> children. >> and getting out of a marriage is really expensive so people do tend to stop doing it. interesting to see what the trend is. i mean, the real question -- not to get all sappy here, does this -- is this the death of

love? i mean, is it -- are people actually -- >> don't do that. >> and i don't think that is the case. >> that's the last thing we've got. >> i think marriage is a construct and a symbol of love, but i -- i don't think you can put anything on it. >> this is not the death of love. there are hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian couples who are dying to get into the institution of marriage, and they can't because of state laws, state constitutions and the -- and the federal so-called defense of marriage act. if you want to save marriage. >> yes. >> let gay people get married. >> i -- i could not agree with that more. >> sure we're not just fudging the numbers if we do that? >> i'm kidding. >> we're cooking the books. >> no. >> stories like this, oh, marriage was happening, it's dying. i mean, meanwhile, you've got sam and robert standing there saying, hello. >> marriage is a symbol of love it should be allowed. >> exactly.

>> thank you. >> we've solved that problem. if only we could solve all the other problems. >> a book, analysis and a plan to wiggle forward. >> yeah. >> after this, the panel stays and a trade-off as the latest jab in what our specialist author peter navarro calls death by china. juice drink too watery? ♪ feel the power my young friend. mmm! [ male announcer ] for unsurpassed fruit and veggie nutrition... v8 v-fusion. could've had a v8. try bayer advanced aspirin. it's not the bayer aspirin you know. it's different. first, it's been re-engineered with micro-particles. second, it enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. the best part? it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin.

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call it a little tit for tat with globalismcations, china announcing it's placing a new tax on us specifically on our car's, american cars with big engines, theoretically in retaliation for u.s. trade policy. if you're retaliating against this policy, i don't understand, but anyway, it's likely to make american cars more expensive in china where the duties and taxes is 25%. that is compared to a 2.5%

tariff that america charges on imports from china. but instead of escalating this forward, a new and novel approach was suggested in a new op-ed today. he says the u.s. should play the role of regional balancer and conciliator in asia by specifically embracing russia, is being and japan in order to manage, as he puts it, china. let's hear what our professor has to say about that. peter navarro joi us, co-author of "death by china." >> subtle, no? >> you're talking to the author of "greedy bastards." >> there you go, a race to the bottom for subtlety. your thoughts on an interesting proposal from dr. brzezinski. >> i caught the column this

morning and i think what he misses is the role of economics in politics, and we've gotten to the point now where china has so decimated our economy and manufacturing base that we are incapable of playing any kind of regional role that he would suggest. the problem is china wants to drive the pacific fleet back to hawaii. they are engaged in the most rapid military buildup since the 1930s. ironically much of that buildup is based on the technology they stole directly from us, and we've reached a point now where they are feeling their oates, japan, korea, are freaked out, want the u.s. to come to their rescue in this containment vessel, but, hey, dylan, it can't happen unless we have a manufacturing base and we're making weapons which here which are dependant on parts made in

china so it's quaint. one of my favorite expressions is don't play checkers in a chess world and brzezinski is playing checkers here. >> let me play devil's advocate here. >> don't look like the devil. can you not do that. >> hugh hendry's short china fund is up 52% for the first time this year. for the first time this year the chinese will spend more on their internal security than the military. they looked at the arab spring and are worried. clearly there's lots of problems inside china. >> yes. >> should we really be that worried about it? it looks like it could implode. >> we should be more worried because of that because china has had a long history of using nationalist fervor to overcome internal problems so the worse it gets the more likely japan would be the one to hit on and not in a good way, so this is a volatile situation. we have not a communist party in china. we have essentially what is a new dynasty.

there's certainly a lot of trouble in that land, but if you just do the numbers on it, and, i mean, if they can build 1,000 jets and we can only build 100. if they are putting five aircraft carriers in the pacific to challenge ours, it's only a matter of time before what's going to happen is going to happen. >> didn't something happen at the asia-pacific economic conference where china was basically dressed down by other member nations and there's an agreement between the united states and australia since military cooperation, military base which the chinese viewed as the united states coming into its backyard? >> we put a few marines in australia as a signal and china promptly retaliated. you do not dress down china if you're japan or vietnam or any -- any country in the pacific right now. they have the power. they -- there's no question about it. so i -- i think these are dangerous times, and, again, the important point here is that

when people like brzezinski talk about this issue, they think that we're still the america of old, where we had a strong manufacturing base and an economy where we could produce the weapons and technology to be a regional power broker through strength. we don't have that anymore and it gets worse every day. >> rob? >> what is the specific policy response? if i take your argument that -- that death by china is imminent, what -- what are you actually specifically saying we should do? >> what should be the key issue in the republican and democratic presidential campaign this year should be restoration of our manufacturing base in our economy, putting americans back to work and thereby having the strength to confront china on its unfair trade practices, so the policy initially is not a military one, it's an economic one. it's to build back this country into what can be a credible threat in terms of posing a counterveiling force to chip. right now we don't have that. we're -- we're running weapons that are made by china.

that's -- that's ludicrous. >> professor, it is always a pleasure. nice to see you. >> good to see you all. >> you bear some fairly stark and startling commentary i think for a lot of folks who are really not ready to have a conversation on the scale that you're asserting it, but like so many other things, whether it's in the banking system or energy issues, it is only by even beginning to acknowledge, ending the denial of these things and acknowledging the scale that we have a chance to solve them and i thank you for your courage. >> and i thank you for talking about them and you're out there talking about this. >> absolutely. >> thanks to the mega panel. john cox and john cape hart and imogen lloyd weber. see th holiday cookies, paula deen and butter smuggling, you'll like this one. the employee of the month is...

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there's a new european crisis brewing right now, rivals anything we've seen this year and i'm referring to butterlessness. i know this is not a word, but people, for the love of biscuits, how are they supposed to cook for the holidays without the butter? do you have any i have of hour holiday cooking involves butter, cookies, pies, cakes? we've crunched the numbers up here, 97% butter in everything you eat. such a large part of our lives, in fact, that stephen colbert took the shortage of butter as an opportunity to trump america's lead in the field of fattiness. >> let me say to all nye norwegian viewers, in your face, norgies. america lives again because we live in a putter toneia.

we've got stick butter, tub butter, whipped butter, honey butter and spray butter. we have so many god damn kinds of butter that we've produced a product called i can't believe it's not butter. >> some are blaming norway's shortage on a new low-cash diet that's sweeping that nation. others are saying a wet summer crushed milk yields. i have a different theory that behind me is what kids here you see it, what the kids are calling an internet mime. regardless, demand for butter in norway was up 30% last year and it's gotten so bad that authorities nabbed somebody trying to smuggle in 200 pounds of butter from germany, so what do we do? surely we can't hang our nordic friends out to dry and their cookies which is why even though i know it won't be popular in this current political environment, and it's a breach of everything i stand for, but because it is the holidays i am

proposing an american-led butter bailout for the norwegians. let them eat butter. next, truth and consequences. the threat we face if governments around the world do not step up to acknowledge the scope of our problems and resolve them with solutions of a similar scope. a frank conversation with what's at stake with our friend, the sheriff of wall street, eliot spitzer. try bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles so it enters the bloodstream fast and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta can help you get there, like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities

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we're back talking about the consequences of inaction by governments in our own country and around the world. "time" magazine's person of the year is the protester representing the disenfranchised of the earth from tahrir square to zuccotti park, all of them frustrated by the juxtaposition of record poverty among the 99% next to the record profits of 1% next to the obviously corrupt and rigged methodology being used by the 1% to preserve the current status quo government architecture using money. there are consequences to this, and it has not just economy. social injustice when unabated can create levels of violence that lead indyed deed to war, so how long until we collectively return to a world where it is not us versus them but it is just us with compassion and resolve? and how do we do that? back with us today is the sheriff of wall street, former new york attorney general and governor eliot spitzer.

governor, nice to have you back. >> dylan, always great to be here. >> you became widely known in this country a long time ago by the incredible aggressive nature you took relative to financial institutions. you've continued to be very vocal since that time in every capacity available to you to continue to make that point. >> right. >> folks look at you and think maybe he just hates banks or hates bankers or whatever, maybe he's just upset at whoever it is. the fact of the matter is the stakes for global economic dysfunction and wealth inequality are remarkably high, an would i hike to hear what you think they are and what motivates you to be so aggressive for so long. >> look, let's keep it domestic to the united states. what got me so upset was that we saw, many of us saw you, i, many others, a cataclysm coming if we did not address the structural problems. if you believe in capitalism as a wealth creative form of economic structure, as i do, it

needs to work properly. it isn't working properly here which means we're getting this enormous bifurcation. the 1% is doing extraordinarily well and the 99% are not doing well. the evisceration, the destruction of our middle class over the last 30 years is the most important social trend that we have failed to observe until very recently. this has been going on for decades. only now are we beginning to appreciate the social costs, the economic costs, the political costs. just one little one. the political volatility that we're seeing in one election we swing to the left. next election the tea party. the next election we're angry at the republicans. people are grasping for answers, none of which have been presented to them, and that's why it's whiplash politics. people are desperate for an answer. >> when you look to history of economic dysfunction as it relates to unemployment and social unrest. >> yeah. >> and you look at the decision after world war i to not reconcile but to hold -- to hold germany specifically and account for the debts that it did create

in the context of prosecuting that war only to watch the unemployment rise in germany, to watch the hyperinflation emerge and the money-printing in germany to pay back the reparations and then you watch the resolution after world war ii. >> right. >> which was catalyzed through unemployment and a lot of this distress. >> that's right. >> the decision after world war ii was to give germany forbearance on its debt and give germany forbearance on its debt, to institute mercantilism like we do now to china to those countries and then roll out a marshall plan. how determinative is the quality that have decision-making as to what happens? >> well, i love being a guest here because you can just give the speech. >> i apologize. >> no, no, i love it. i want to say, you are right. that's exactly the right historical metaphor. after world war i, reparations, germany in particular, we said pay. >> or else. >> and we drove germany over a cliff which led to therize of the third reich and after world

war ii what we learned is if you expand the economic universe, the marshall plan, we created 50 years of prosperity, growth, pulled more people out of poverty than ever in the course of history. that is the model we have to mbas. i don't think we're doing it right now. we're not investing that way. not permitting flow of capital where we need it to go. that is precisely the model we need. >> do you believe that there is anybody in the federal government of the united states, the president, leaders in our house of representatives, leaders in the senate or aspirants that can -- >> there's nobody on the republican side. newt gingrich, you think some days he'll have a light bulb go off because he appreciates history. mitt romney talks about cutting taxes, bizarrely because he's from the financial sector, i don't think he's quite as willing to articulate. he might get it but won't say

out loud what will generate growth. on the democratic side, yes, there are people in the white house, people in the obama candidacy who understand, and i -- i always go back to joe stiglitz and paul krugman and go back to robert reich, the three leading voices who write and articulate the sorts of investment. give you an examle. the treasury today went into the bond market and borrowed at virtually zero. if you can get money at zero, with the reserve currency, and you can get a return on that investment of 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% per year do it. that's what the government should be doing. we shouldn't be concerned about the deficit nearly as much as we should be concerned about the lack of investment capital in the areas where we need it. >> very quickly, can you released type of activity that you're discussing without doing some sort of global debt restructuring on a sovereign level a la germany and japan after world war ii and the next threshold down without at least addressing the swaps market

which specifically trades in private, and i can't tell the difference. no one can tell the difference between valid or speculative swaps. >> probably not. i don't pretend to be an expert in the swaps market. >> i don't think what they have done in europe is a cole in. there's not been a fundamental readjustment of the european economy. we have de-leveraged the wrong way. why? took all the private debt that the banks built up and moved it over to the public sector. i'm not as concerned about the public debt as others are because i'm worried about a lack of investment in education, infrastructure, human capital. that's what we need to do and if we don't do that soon, we'll be in trouble. >> do you mind if we call you the sheriff of wall street? >> i've been called everything and anything. >> that's a name that will stick. thanks so much. coming up on "hardball," chris covering the big grudge match. mitt versus newt. and panic setting in by all accounts in the romney camp, but

first texting while watching tv, listening to music and searching for gifts on your computer all at the same time. ari melber in the daily rant can we really do it all? ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ tylenol is the pain reliever orthopedic doctors recommend most for arthritis pain, think again. and take aleve. it's the one doctors recommend most for arthritis pain... two pills can last all day. ♪ [ coughing continues ] [ female announcer ] more pollution from power plants means more childhood asthma attacks. [ labored breathing ] there's technology that makes the air cleaner, but too many plants don't use it. we can't wait. epa must update power plant standards to protect our kids. [ baby coughing ]

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we're back. time to focus on on ari melber ready to rant about the ntsb's call for a nationwide driver cell phone ban. ari, take it away. >> thanks, dylan. what are you doing right now? you're watching tv, sure, but that's probably not all. maybe you're also on the internet. maybe you're using your phone to text someone. about 75% of americans use the

internet while watching tv, according to a recent nielsen study. look, we've become a nation of multitaskers. it's like nothing is good enough anymore to stand by itself. everyone wants to do more than one thing. at a time. but if you think about it, that's crazy. it turns out that for most tasks the brain can only handle one thing at a time. in fact, the very word multitask describes an imagined activity that may not even exist. here's how earl miller, an m.i.t. gnu science explains it. quote, switching from task to task you feel an illusion of paying attention to everything around you at the same time, but you're not paying attention to one or two things simultaneously. you are switching between them very rapidly, too. now, that is one reason why driving with cell phones is so dangerous. people believe that illusion. they think they are doing the two things all at once, and they don't realize that the phone removes them from the act of driving, even if only for a second, and that's what i want

to highlight today. maybe you've heard this, but at any given moment about 13 million americans are driving while using hand-held phones, and according to a study from the traffic safety administration, it turns out that last year over 3,000 people were killed in accidents involving these distracted drivers, and safety experts also point out that's probably a low estimate because many people don't admit to using the phone during a crash, and if people die, it's harder to detect than alcohol abuse. now robert summalt, who serves on the advisory board of the safety administration, argues that distracted driving is basically the new dui. now yesterday the safety administration, an independent federal agency, called for a national ban on cell phones and texting while driving. ten states currently prohibit hand held cell phones already, and 35 do ban texting while driving. a national ban is more controversial for people who want to leave everything to the states, but this is a mounting problem, and i think it requires government action and a really

big shift in how we all think about these issues. in the last two decades, for example, drunk driving fatalities have fallen about 50%. i think that's thanks to both tough laws and a change in the culture. there's a much greater stigma attached to drunk driving nowadays. we've got to develop a similar stigma against all this distracted driving. that's tough because people really do like the myth that we're all efficient multitaskers, and it's hard to legislate against myths. dylan? >> you know what we need? we need mothers against distracted driving. >> right. >> already did this one. >> right. >> can even use the same icon, same logo, same everything. >> right. >> the barrier obviously is there is an appeal -- people don't think oh, i'm going -- it's going -- it will be easier when you get drunk and drive. they are like i'm drunk and i've got to get home. >> not a goal. >> so i guess i'm going to drive the car. whereas in this case i'm driving and while i'm driving i can do this and this and this and that would seem