tv The Dylan Ratigan Show MSNBC November 10, 2010 4:00pm-5:00pm EST
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will fact check some of the claims the former president is making about his handling of the economy and job creation. plus thi-- >> my son couldn't escape the horrors of serving two tours in iraq, he couldn't forgive himself for some of the things he did and he thought of himself as a murderer. >> well, as america prepares to honor its veterans, a look in the hidden wounds of war. we will talk to the filmmakers behind a gripping new hbo documentary as well as one of the soldiers featured in that film. good wednesday afternoon to you. the show starts right now. nice to see you. we begin this afternoon with some developing news a sweeping proposal for both deep cuts in spending an tax breaks to rein in years of spiraling federal budget deficits. the chairs of the president's
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bipartisan commission releasing a draft of their report today ahead of a final version to be release ted end of the month. they use it to hammer home the seriousness of the problem. >> this debt is like a cancer that will truly destroy this country from within if we don't fix it. >> on the table, both domestic and defense spending caps, estimated, they say, to be $200 billion in savings by 2015. additional savings through cuts ranging from farm subsidies to foreign aid. meanwhile, the proposal includes comprehensive tax reform that would both simplify the code and bring down rates for all working americans and reduce the gap between taxes on wealth and work it would also eliminate some tax breaks, most notably, the one that allows home owners to write off the interest on their mortgages, incentivizing people to buy homes but not to actually own those homes, simply to pay
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off the banksters on an ongoing basis. the biggest headline from today's report, a proposal to raise the retirement age from 652068 by 2050 and 269 by 2075, a proposal to reduce the annual cost of living increase for people already on social security. now, before you get too excited or too upset about any of the prossals, all face an uphill battle gaining support from the rest of the deficit commission, not to mention all the lawmakers on capitol hill much yet for all of us now, as we prepare to engage some very difficult decision making is what will win out this time? real transparent problem solving or partisan politics that result in finger pointing, generational warfare and broken solutions? joining us now with his first reaction to today's draft proposal, the fiery deficit hawk
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himself, hailing from texas, republican ron paul. dr. paul what do you think? >> well, i'm always hopeful but i'm very doubtful. i don't think much will come of this i think they will fight over it. i mean, they are talking about cutting to some military spending, which i am all for. as a matter of fact, i wrote a letter along with some others to recommend this and they have at least addressed the matter and talked about bringing a third of our troops who are stationed oversea bus they are liable to put them into afghanistan. so i don't think these are real cuts, i just think they are dealing with this in an incorrect fashion. it's not strictly a budgetary problem t is a philosophic problem, a philosophy of government. as long as we are going to be policemen of the world and pretend we are going to run a welfare state from crad toll grave it is not going to work. these figures hour can you rely on these figures? how do they know what the revenue somebody they don't know what the employment rate will be in a couple of years. so i'm not all that hopeful.
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they are not going to start anything until 2012, talking a total $200 billion cut by 2015? i mean, what does that mean? last year the nation a debt went up $1.6 trillion. so, i'm skeptical but i'm for all the cuts that we have there. i don't think i would vote against any cuts that they have suggested. >> if you were to be able to set the north star, however, for a conversation about not just the deficit 'cause the deficit obviously is symptomatic of a philosophical operating system in this country, not just the federal government but the state government and all the rest of it and for that matter, a financial system a bond mark that's indulgings the politicians' behavior, where would you begin the process of correcting it if you think this is philosophically misguided? >> well, i would say that we should have a new foreign policy and bring all our troops home and defend our country and not police the world. and i would ween ourselves off the welfare state but i think there's one law that you could
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pass that would bring both of those issues to a halt and that is prevent the fed from monetizing debt. so, if congress spends too much, which they always dork the fed comes to the rescue and they buy these bonds in order to keep the interest rates low but if the fed wasn't there, they are the perpetrators of this, because if the fed didn't do that interest rates would go up. interest rates would go up and hurt the economy and the members of congress say, hey, why are interest rates up? we are hogging all the capital and it would have to quit. but we are -- that system is so engrained and that would be an overwhelming task, not very many people would entertain that thought. i don't think theron on the verge of changing their philosophy. think we are working towards a dollar collapse, as long as they are buying our bonds and all,thy think will continue. i think there's hints they are buying our bonds less enthusiastically than they did a few months ago. let's talk about that let's presume the disfunction comes from the ability of politicians to spend money they don't have
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and the ability to spend that money is empowered by virtue of the federal reserve and the central banking system which allows money printing. if you were to lock at the world's reaction to that at this point as we see obama traveling the earth, it is wholesale critical. basically, the -- america is accused of currency rigging against the world, the same way we accuse china of its currency rigging. commodity prices are at records. that's clear indication of people's skepticism of the value of currency in general a reason cotton is up 100%, corn, gold, oil and the world bankhead floating the idea of tying currencies once again back to gold as opposed to having fixed interest rates which is what the federal reserve obviously advocates for. when you look at all the little pieces, the explosion in commodity prices, the political backlash, forget china being a currency manipulator and more and more rhetoric aligned with
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you, do you have any faith that the financial markets might demand the changes from our government that our politicians are incapable of demanding? >> oh, oh, eventually and just think of the different attitude about the $600 billion proposal compared to the 1.7 trillion injection. theed a ought attitudes are ch they are important. once they get inflationary expectations, seeing the inflation on the commodities, pretty soon that will be injected into the future, everything the fed does to lower interest rates will raise interest rates. you know, just printing money eventually does the opposite. i'm afraid that is what we are moving into. that's why watching some of these interest rates carefully will give us an indication and what the foreigners are doing and what china is doing. to just jump on china say they can at fault without us looking at our deficit and the way we manipulated our currency that is a cop out.
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>> i agree with you in that regard if we were to back away from this for just a moment though and look at the complexity of this problem and the need to avoid generational warfare in the country between the old ant young, the demonization of the chinese, any foreign entity, we try to deal with the problem solving here, how do we create an arena for problem solving, we look at the riots emerging in london we look at what's going on in china, we look at what happens when you basically barbarically try to address that, that barbaric is my word, how do we alter the path to create an environment where we can really have a conversation globally, china, the middle east, western europe and america that address the fact there is $60 trillion in debt here? we all note numbers. we need a real meeting in the world at this point and doesn't feel like the american political leadership is creating the space for that to happen.
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>> that is right. that is where our responsibility to congress, they have responsibility for that and what they should be doing. now, another suggestion that could work if they wanted to because, you know, conservatives will argue you don't cut a nickel out of military. i say that's not defense as military and we should look at t but what about another suggestion just go through the process and try to whittle down a budget, get it as low as you can and then have a rule and say, well, the budget is so many percentage, it is 20% over budget, cut every single program exactly the same. you don't have to do it in one year have a ten-year period and cut down a certain percent until you get it balanced it would send a signal if they agree to it they are not going to i have heard a couple of our freshman saying hey there is not much we can cut, we can only cut the nondiscretion funds shall not enough there to cut and certainly can't cut military. it bother mess freshman are
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coming in with that attitude and throwing up their hands, nothing left to cut. but the alternative -- they don't want the pain of the cutting but the pain of destroying the currency, as you know, is going to be much worse. that's what i'm trying to head off. >> and the more we i could have a bridge to you and you to me, truly, without the proper theater to address this problem and with the kicking the can down the road being what it is the commodity traders who walk around new york talking about the blue dollar trade, buying commodities, buying gold and waiting for issuance of the new currency in their minds that should be avoided obviously if we can do it, without creating the conversation -- the beginning of that conversation no way to get to the end of it. thank you, dr. paul, for everything you do in that regard. >> thanks for having me. >> ron paul. coming up here on the dylan ratigan shock the truth about the bush economy, why his statements about his record do not tell the whole story. we will mix it up. also, stay out of my bedroom and stay out of my bank account.
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is there room in america for a third party representing those of us, like myself who are fiscally conservative but socially liberal? we are back with matt miller on that after this. [ woman ] you know, as a mom, i worry about my son playing football. which is why i'm really excited. because toyota developed this software that can simulate head injuries and helps make people safer. then they shared this technology with researchers at wake forest to help reduce head injuries on the football field. so, you know, i can feel a bit better about my son playing football. [ male announcer ] how would you use toyota technology to make a better world? learn how to share your ideas at toyota.com/ideasforgood. bankers are known to be a little bit in love with themselves.. trust me.our ideas are we going up? we can get the next one. i'd like to get your advice on hedging -
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presidency was lower than ronald reagan's by half, lower than my dad's. i think the way to look at it is the debt relative to the size of the economy, that is the only fair way to judge previous administrations to this -- to my administration and our debt-to-gdp was one of the lowest in modern history. >> president bush telling part of the story. at the start of his term, did he have a relatively low debt-to-gdp ratio, thanks to clinton, but during his custody of our country eight years in office, it got worse and at an alarming rate. our debt relative to the size of the economy surged almost 30% during the bush era, 30 percentage points, i should say. and what about those bush tax cuts we have been hearing so much about? >> nearly 53 weeks, we had consecutive job growth, the longest period in -- one of the longest periods in american economic history. the tax cuts and my judgment stimulated economic vitality and a lot of jobs were created.
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i guess that depends on what you call a lot of jobs. the 3 million created under president bush don't look that great next to bill clinton, 23 million, ronald reagan, 16 million jobs in their president cis and employment in the private sector under bush only inched up 1% during his term and i should point out many of those 3 million jobs created in finance and housing, which as we all know was a bubble that has since gone bust. here to mix it up, matt miller, washingtonpost.com columnist and host of npr's "left, right and center" and msnbc political contributor, jonathan alter. excited to have them here. john than the author of "the promise," a look at president obama's first year in office. mr. miller, when you hear the characterizations of our economy and the suggestion that the custody of our government has been managed for the benefit of the future and then you see the deficit and you see it, is there
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anything in there that resonates with truth for you? >> no. george bush is like a driver who is heading toward a cliff for eight years and because he sort of jumped out just as the thing was going over said everything was fine while i was behind the wheel. i mean, he set us up for a disaster in terms of the -- not just the deficits that he ran up by fighting two wars enacting a big new medicare plan and big tax cuts and not paying for any of that putting the full cost of that on our kids but allowing the bubbles to use that ended up bursting in ways this put us in fiasco that we have now. i think he will rank one of the worst economic stewards in history. > how do we know the current custodians on day of the drafting release use a value system that subjects the world is on loan to you from your children not inherited to you from your parents? >> well, i think american people are beginning to understand --
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look, i want to just sort of reinforce matt's point because this was so unconscionable for this president to come out and lay this on the american people this morning. to me, the idea of his being a good steward for the economy like saying captain smith was a good steward for "the titanic." the simple figure that people should keep in mind when it comes to putting it on the credit card for our kids, when george w. bush came to office, they had over a $200 billion surplus and when he left office, we had $1 trillion deficit after eight years. that is the most -- >> biggest rate of change on the largest scale in the country ever in the history of the world ever? >> no matter how you measure it, you can work all day to get metrics to try to spin that and you would fail if you had any intellectual honesty, which he
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didn't today unfortunately. >> and moving to our next subject, many in this country look at both parties as having been, at best, ineffective, in some cases, obstructionist, to resolving this country's problems, its lack of investment, its lack of transparency, its slowness adapting to an incredibly fast-changing universe some-to-that end, matt published a new column in which he wrote, speaking to 400 professionals of all stripes in california the other day, i asked who would be seriously interested in a third major political party, one that is fiscally conservative but socially liberal? nearly every hand shot up, matt, writes, something's afoot and it is not just about the tea party. the radical center is ready to rise. so, is there room in this sweet spot of the political spectrum away from the traditional homes of the two parties, obviously, you believe there is, how is
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this time different, so to speak? >> i think people realize the problems we are facing now are so serious and the shar raids on offer from both political parties are so bald there is a real opening for something totally different. i mean, i look at it now as that both parties, their primary objective is to win elections but our fundamental problem is there is no necessary link between what you need to do to get to 50% plus 157b9d parties very good at it they are creative at it, shrewd at it. >> jerry mannedering. >> often ruthless at it. getting to 50% plus 1 has no link to actually solving our problems like sagging wages, like our international competitiveness, like our lagging educational system and that gap suspect sustainable for a great nation. i think people know there's room for something fresh that would be talking more honestly about the situation. >> i have been writing articles in "newsweek" with the headline "independent day" for 25 years now. you can find audiences like this going way back. what usually happen as soon as a
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clever politician, sometimes the president, sometimes somebody else, senses that people are there and moves in that direction. so if you are talking about liberal on social fiscally conservative, that person is going to be barack obama. that's the way the parties traditionally handle these challenges from the center. you will see him moving to the center. you will see him if not putting on the cloak that ron paul would like in terms of fiscal conservativism, you will see him as a budget balancer, you will see him talking about the long-term fiscal future of the country. some people will be convinced by it. others won't. but the idea, if you get a bloomberg in there you get somebody as a third party candidate who is socially a liberally and fiscally conservative, what does it mean you get a republican president because that person would steal a lot of votes otherwise go to the democrats. i'm not sure what it mean it is we had a third party candidate coming up the middle. i think would you change, fundamentally change the debit. if you had the right kind of
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third party campaign that was sort of calling out the hoaxes on both sides, i think we don't know where the omelette would end up being unscrambled. jonathan's point that the threat -- that the credible threat of what you're discussing is enough pressure to force the two -- incumbent parties to try to adapt. >> that maybe. if they adapted with real answers that would be a good thing, historian richard hoff set iter has the great line, the function of third parties in america is to sting like a bee and die, but i think we need a loft stinging to happen, not just at the phony level, someone pretends to be fiscally conservative or says i'm going to do something about the education system. because if we don't really have solutions, we are going to have the same swing from election to election, where the bums get thrown out because we are not making real progress. >> education is a great example of where i think people get the message now, you are going to see some real progress between boehner and obama on education reform. obama already changed the terms of debate on that everybody
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recognize it is we don't train a workforce for the future, we are screwed. >> can i disagree that respectfully? >> please. >> i think one of the problems, even if we did i think obama probably has the most ambitious agenda we have seen at the federal level on education in 30 years and the outer limits of its ambition is totally unequal to the educational challenges we have. we have eight years of obama, we will still be sending the least-trained teachers to the neediest kinds in the country. even the outer edge -- >> i got it we got it. >> doesn't do t. good thing we have this tv show every day to talk about this stuff, right, better than the kitchen table. nice to see you matt, jonathan, thank you so much. thanks for the conversation, excited to have you two. my excitedment was warranted. yesterday on the show, i reported that vice president bind was meeting in secret with his transparency board. i thought that was ironic. mr. biden's office points out rightly we were wrong. he was holding a regular meeting with the head of the
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transparency board, not the entire board itself. the vice president's people note that the recovery act has been implemented with more transparency than any other government program in history, a fact we here at t"the dylan rat show" applaud. of course it doesn't take away the iron knit fact that the vice president was meeting with the head of the transparency board in secret. in the spirit of openness, we would like nothing more to use this first exchange to invite the vice president either to come on the show and discuss the transparency and the stimulus dollars or allow us to pay him a visit, he can show us himself, mr. vice president, you name the time, you name the place and obviously, we will come to you for some transparency. coming up on tomorrow's shock the one and the only dick cavet, the legendary talk show host here to talk about his new book, the state of american politics, media today. but first -- >> i don't want to talk. i don't want to eat. i don't want to sleep.
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i don't -- i don't want to move. i just want to sit in a corner and just be a vegetable. >> war torn, a new documentary showing what war does to our men and women in uniform long after they come home. you could switch for great gas mileage or seats that flip and fold with one hand. you could switch for up to 600 highway miles on a single tank of gas. or the hundred-thousand mile powertrain warranty.
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welcome back. we are breaking down the hidden wound as well of war. after seven years in iraq, nine years in afghanistan, many troops who return home are never the same, scarred by trauma and left with posttraumatic stress disorder, the effects, devastating. the va says the suicide rate among 18 to 29-year-old vets increased 26% from 2005 until 2007. "war torn" is a new hbo
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documentary airing tomorrow on veterans day telling the harrowing story of some of these heroes. >> the united states army turned my son into a killer. they trained him to kill to protect others. they forgot to untrain him. >> it is like they put him through a paper shredder, took him when he was 18, put him through a paper shah remembered and sent him become to us and we try to get to put all the pieces back together. >> we joined by two of the filmmakers, matt o'neil and john alpert. with us, sergeant william frost, appears in the film, with his service dog, chili. why the decision, sergeant, to share your story the way that you have decided? >> well, i wanted to get the ptsd out there to the public and doesn't always just affect the serviceman it also affects the family members. >> what is it that you think is
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not understood? what do you think is the most important thing to communicate by stepping into the public theater? >> most important thing to recognize that some soldiers are going to have problems and recognize and understand the disorder so you are not so scared of it. to took me and my wife a long time to understand myself. >> as a producer/director of this, how prevalent are the changes sergeant frost has with all the veteran? >> you look at billy, he looks fine and in fact, avenues hero. he has medals because he is and was a great soldier. he did his job perfectly, but the things he saw in iraq can't get out of his mind. kept go to wal-mart because he is looking around all the time thinking that somebody is sneaking up behind him and difficult. the things that keep you alive
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in the battlefield are inappropriate when you come home. >> when you bring this out and looking at people attempted to deal with this and strikes me as the only people that can help a man in the situation sergeant frost is in is somebody else who has been through that. >> i think we are the first step toward trying to find solution. this film was screened at the pentagon and hbo and shelia nevins, the president of hbo documentaries and the force behind this film worked with the pentagon to make sure this is being seen by service members all around the world and the fact that our men and women in uniform are starting this conversation and the people at the very top are willing to have a conversation about ptsd i think is an important part of the solution. >> posttraumatic stress is not something new, the recognition is new but goes back to every single war we have ever fought. in show the that is going to be on tomorrow, civil war soldiers
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talk about the same things that are affecting billly. it happens when you go to war it has just been swept under the carpet for years. >> but do you get the sense -- in other words, do you get the sense, sergeant, that the ability to draw the awareness to this, that the cost of the sacrifice that a man like yourself has made for this country is not just the cost of your time or the willingness for you to risk your life but the cost to you and so many others who have served wait that you have in your ability to deal with the fairly mundane reality of being in america. do you feel that there is a solution or that there is an opportunity to find a way? >> service animal sass great help to me, i'm able to go to walmart now with my service
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animal and without having a panic attack or something. so there is -- slow in coming, there is help, you have got to be able to face it to yourself and say, look, i'm having problems and get the help and a lot of service members aren't doing that because there is a stigma, a big stigma on this disorder, just saying get over it, get back to what you were doing before, i said in the film, i'm gonna say it again, do what i did and seen what i seen and you try to get over it. >> it strikes me as one of those issues in a human being's life where the willingness to admit that the problem exists is critical, just pick up on what sergeant fraas was saying, the willingness to say i have this problem, i do need help, as he
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opposed to i don't have this problem, this problem does not exist. do you get the sense that creating the publicity that the film does, johnny, does go toward making easier for people to admit they were suffering? . for years, the military wouldn't admit it you had to be as tough as a soldier, you had to be strong, back through wars over history, we have hundreds of thousands of veterans of world war ii. the greatest generation hay baghdad horrific price for serving our country. all those kept inside. the first time, you have world war ii veterans speaking about this the first time in 60 years, holding the people who watch this show and help community to us do something, you know in your hometown, saranac lake, they are starting the first holistic center for treatment of posttraumatic stress and hoping that people will come to the beautiful adirondacks, get healed, the community behind this people can do things like that. >> as a child of saranac lake, i can endorse beauty and clean air. i don't know if that is a cure for posttraumatic stress, nice
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play to go makes me proud of my hometown. i guess we have runt clock. congratulations on the fine piece of journalism, matt, john, and sergeant fraas, thank you so much for sharing your story with us and allowing all of us to come to understand an incredible challenge and an incredible cost for something that too many americans quite simply are either oblivious to or ignorant of and your efforts to educate people to it are to be hugely applauded. thank you, dr. william fraas. >> thank you. >> thank you. we will take a momentary break. the documentary "wartorn" tomorrow on hbo. we are back here on the dr show, right after this. to help protect my life. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. check with your doctor because it can happen to anybody.
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pack strapped to his had back, nice thing to do on the weekend. completing two aerial loops, the wing suit does not have a rudder. so, rossi had to stretch his arms and lech he is and back in order to pull off the stunt. rossi strapping himself back into his jet pack for the first time since a fail aid tempt to fly, no joke, from africa to europe in the jet pack last year. he had to be fished out of the mediterranean on that one after ditching halfway across, but in '08, did he manage to successfully cross the english channel in the jet pack in just ten minutes. for his next stunt, rossi is hoping to fly through the grand canyon but yet to get permission from officials here in the u.s. to do so. just ahead, from brick and mortar to point and click, will internet shopping kill off a trip to the mall once and for all and uncle sam do more to get a piece of the action when it comes to your purchases online?
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one of the most abused factions of that structure is the military, along with the retirees and students who are being harvested by the six major industries controlling our government. the more we are aware of it obviously the more we can do about it. if you have something to share, log to on right now and tweet us your thoughts, you can find me at dylan ratigan. as we turn our attention here to domestic issues and domestic consumpti consumption, hopes dimming a little bit that holiday shopping will be much of a bacterial meningitis to the economy, probably not a surprise to too many people, despite discounts of all sorts, consumers not foaling the urge to splurge, like i said, who can blame them. you look at household debt, home prices and the rest of tall.
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new survey by citigroup says half plan to cut their gift bucket, more than a third will cut the number of people they will give gifts to and one in four said they will give homemade gifts. fewer shoppers coming through their doors, more and more brick and mortga and mortar stores are shrinking. we are with joined by eric with this. a tax debate about to emerge or could emerge in that regard. what is your sense of the rate of growth or deterioration in the american psychology of consumption this year? >> we are heading into our third christmas holiday, holiday season, shopping season, a challenge for retailers the last two years and expect we will see fairly flat performance for retail overall as we head into the final weeks of the year here. now there is a silver lining in our business at mercent, we are working with retailers to expand
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their e-commerce business. you look at the numbers in e-commerce, the online shopping, numbers are up 16 to 20% to over last year. in particular, when you look at companies like amazon and google, they represent nine he rate issers in that space, numbers posting much higher, 40, 50, 100%. >> that said, when you look at the deficit commission and the need for -- they will be looking for tax revenue. you look at the threat of the numbers you just posed, the growth in online as a threat to bricks and mortar, it brings up where is the law here, the main street fairness act, hr 5660 would force online retailers to collect sales tax for all purposes, would affect 20 states agreeing to stream line sales and use tax agreement. how much of a threat is a consumption tax to or value-added tax online for the reasons i just mentioned and i'm sure a few more? >> i think there's practical
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considerations for the merchants and the states and then also this more ideological policy discussion. from practical standpoint, if i'm shopping on my cell phone in new york, purchasing from a retailer in ohio, shipping to my grandmother in los angeles, and i'm also picking up part of that order in store in atlanta, let's say, figuring out how states are going to ensure compliance -- >> a federal bill what do you mean? i pay the tax to the federal government, not -- none of those states matter in this context, right? >> the bill is federal but actually applies to 22, 23 states that have opted into a tax efficiency project. so it is -- it is not universal and it still leaves a control over participation. >> i understand that at the end of the day, are we not moving in that direction? >> i think we are. i think eventually, we are going to see retailers taxed on online purchases somehow, some way.
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today it is based on nexus, where is the retailer located, the state in which they operated where they have mick bric and mortar stores, i expect there to be a function where the consumer is shopping and buying or where those products are being delivered. >> if you were to look at the implications of that and in general of austerity or the culture of austerity that is being at least debated in our government and being witnessed in western europe and the rest of the world right now, what are the imp police cations for consumption, consumption taxes, the debate of the day. >> i am a proponent of the austerity movement, i just call it but the ceo of a small business, so i understand the impact that i can have in terms of employment, at a grassroots level. i think e-commerce is a great -- a perfect case study in terms of
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their broader debate over government taxes and growth from the private sector, you look at amazon, 40% growth, you may have seen the google announcement today they can announced $1,000 bonus for every employee plus a 10% salary increase, so it really does come -- ecommerce, as well as the broader economy it comes down to this question of whether or not you are going to leave those dollars in the hands of innovative companies pursuing r&d, mobile shopping, social shopping, more efficient distribution networks or better served pursuing government services, you know, regional government services? >> sure. and i guess the final layer in all that would be if we leave the capital in the businesses, which somebody like myself would a sue a better place for it don't we have to address the incentives as to what you do with that money? >> right. >> the incentive was to take the money out of the country or incentive to take the money to new york for a hedge fund to use
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it in credit gambling, you are not going to solve too many problems. i feel like we get into a situation, the bush tax cuts, value-added tack that we are discussing now that are basically about creating money. here's how we create money. going to tax this print some money at the fed, whatever it is but never talk about how misaloind all the incentives are for somebody like yourself or me or anybody else who has the responsibility, the custody of capital, a little or a lot and if the best way to make money with it is to take it out of the country and hire in china or india, like i said, to take it to gamble in new york, tough to back up the innovation argument we get from our politicians, is it not? >> an accountability question on both sides house, are the dollars going to be spent, go to our state or federal government, the other hand, where are the controls in place? it is important for me to differentiate between the startups, you know, the innovative new companies that
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are seeking venture capital and our business carely falls into that category versus some of the very large organizations in high-scrutiny categories like real estate and high finance v a major distinction there. >> do you feel like the political -- and i adoctor that. the jobs in this country, the solutions in this country come from new business hurricane they don't come from other places they come from that moment of newness, that moment of solution seeking. do you feel that the government differentiates between institutional legacy business interests that are threatened by new business and new businesses that are looking to solve problems regardless of a threat to an old business. do you think that line exists? >> we have seen evidence of that for the last few years, comes back to our industry, ecommerce space, my hope is that it's still early days for companies like amazon and google, a lot of
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growth potential, clearly employees and consumers are benefiting from the work they are using as well as mercent. so, i think there is that -- that market space that industry has room to run. got it listen, a pleasure to make the acquaintance, thank you for spending time with us, eric best, the boss at mercent talking retail and macroeconomic tax and investment policy. probably wasn't expecting that. coming up on "hardball," chris talking with two-time academy award winner kevin spacey about his new role as one of washington's most notorious lobbyists, jack abram move. first, the turk himself talking mongols, midterms and gays in the midtary. trust me it will make sense when you hear his daily rent, cenk uygur, three minutes out. mmmm.
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you don't love me anymore do you billy? what? i didn't buy this cereal to sweet talk your taste buds it's for my heart health. so i can't have any? if you can deprive me of what can help lower my cholesterol... and live with yourself. right. mmm, i worry about your mother. cry herself to sleep every night over my arteries, but have yourself a bowl. good speech dad. [ whimper ] [ male announcer ] honey nut cheerios tastes great and its whole grain oats can help lower cholesterol. bee happy. bee healthy. and its whole grain oats can help lower cholesterol. le anhis day starts thwith his arthritis pain.. that's breakfast with two pills. the morning is over, it's time for two more pills. the day marches on, back to more pills. and when he's finally home... but hang on; just two aleve can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol.
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we are back again, the young cenk uygur, don't ask, don't tell. i have been warned this particular rant does include a reference to the mongols. cenk, the floor is yours. >> thank you, dylan. let's bring t democratic senators are now backing away from repolling don't ask, don't tell because of republican pressure. it looks like gop senators have scared the democrats away from the issue. who is surprised by that? almost no one, right. first, don't get me wrong, the democrats are the worst. 75% of the country, the president of the united states of america, the secretary of defense and the head of the joint chiefs all agree that don't ask, don't tell should be repealed but that's still not enough for the democrats to gather up the courage to fight. but the only thing worse than the democrats, if you're a gay voter, is the republicans.
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of course, not every republican but the party overall is fighting against your rights every step of the way. so, i have a message for gay voters, what part of this don't you understand? they are just not that into you. they don't like your lifestyle. they don't like who you choose to sleep. they don't like who you choose to love. they think you live in sin. how much clearer do they have to be? they don't like you. and the last election in 2008, 19% of gay voters voted for the gop, as if that wasn't mental enough, 2010, it was 31%, does it seem like the gop warmed up to you over the last two years? people will say gays don't vote on just one issue and they don't all think alike, to which i say, of course, i know that, everybody knows that can a gay man be conservative economically or be in favor of the iraq war?
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of course. those are aren't great ideas either but they can be, it is a free country. of course, gay men can and do have those opinions. and women as well. but those other issues are overwhelmed by the fact that they are against who you are as a person, the mongols invaded baghdad when it was the largestity? world and killed every man, woman and child in the city if a citizen of baghdad came alive after all that and came out and said, yeah, but i like their tax policy they would have been missing the point. i'm not comparing the republicans to the mongols, they don't want to kill you, but they did fight against your rights at every turn. your right to get married and join the military are in danger now, before, it was your right to a job, your right to adopt and your right to have sex at all. when the supreme court finally ruled the laws against gay sex were unconstitutional, it was 2003. that was just seven years ago. and every justice that voted
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against you was appointed by a republican president. justice scalia wrote in his consent if we can't outlaw gay sex? what's next, we won't be able to outlaw masturbation. i'm serious, he wrote that here, we just had a republican, christine o'donnell, in delaware on the anti-masturbation ticket. the republicans have come full circle. the next election, the number of gay americans voting for the gop should be 0%. gay voters, wake with up and smell the hate. they are not on your side. >> are the democrats on their side? >> well, you know, as you see them back pedaling from don't ask, don't tell, you wonder, right? but the reality is that people who are pushing the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, of course, are democrats. >> if you were to look at all of the issues to which democrats have been looked to, financial reform, health care reform, dealing with the military and the wars and disappointed on over and of other and over, why would
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