tv [untitled] RT August 17, 2010 8:31pm-9:01pm EDT
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the. city center in southern russia. bomber kills one policeman in the republic of north a. former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. john bolton says that if israel is to attack iran's nuclear plant just three days left to do it because any military strike after the facility goes later this week would risk radioactive catastrophe. for football fans new state of the art stadium built from scratch the key selling points to a visiting fifa delegation in. the soccer world cup in eight or twelve years time. next analyst max kaiser and his co-host stacy herbert look at economic sickness and health.
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i am max kaiser and this is the kaiser report where we have been documenting for you the collapse of the global economy is saying all the federal reserve bankers and all of the king's brokers can't get any inflation started anywhere because the system is systemic lee shattered. let's bring in political analyst all around great gal stacy yes max it is and you know what three years into this depression the guardian asks the viewers in this poll are we heading for a prolonged economic depression thirty six point four percent say no the world economy is over the worst and growth will be slow but steady sixty three point six percent say yes the excesses of the financial crisis have yet to be purged well you
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see in the united states that the government is desperately trying to hire new workers to basically become more of a state run economy because the free market capitalist system has failed due to the proliferation of predatory banks nobody did anything about them and they gobbled up the infrastructure the money the credit and now the u.s. government is desperately trying to emulate france or other state run economies because these are the only economies that will survive of course the u.s. has started q e two right there q.e. light some people are saying but here's a headline about the u.s. u.s. is bankrupt and we don't even know it this is laurence kotlikoff boston university he's an economist and he points to a fiscal gap of two hundred two trillion dollars if you put everything on the balance sheet that's
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a big number well it's fifteen times more than the official debt and the discrepancy between the official debt and the actual net debt. it reflects what economists call the labeling problem what is a labeling problem well it's when congress labels most of its liabilities unofficial in order to keep them off the books and into the future so the question is as laurence kotlikoff was asked by bloomberg presenter but is that to say that they are effectively lying to us. you know they're effectively long tours there's no question about it yes governments are lying to you. wow what a revelation well how can you tell they're lying to us well take a look at this other video from america and its third world america tens of thousands of americans outside of atlanta georgia fight to get an application just
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an application for public housing and here is again the presenter he's just arrived at the scene and look what he says when he first arrived it was the first thought that i had when we pulled up on the scene here was whether we were in america and i have to be very careful as a reporter not to overstep my bounds but this was a very disgusting scene that we saw here in metro atlanta today dozens upon dozens of people passing out from the heat standing in the heat just to get an application to upload my public house well you know states never the same thing happened three hundred years ago two hundred fifty years ago as the indigenous population of america was pushed onto reservations now in the u.s. of course if you're poor or you're considered to be part of the underclass and the tendency now is to push the poor people on to reservations ghettos this type of thing of course ghetto management is a hugely profitable business for the prison ghetto industrial complex and those stocks are listed on the stock exchange so if you want to get a stake in
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a prison industrial reservation type complex company you can buy into it on the new york stock exchange this is different than in the past like and. in europe in the thirty's and forty's you can actually buy stock in those camps and profit from on the exchange which today thanks to the magic of the new york stock exchange and the wonder boys on wall street yes you too can own shares in a concentration camp in america what else so the question is is there an economic depression and we've looked at these videos of tens of thousands of americans fighting just to get an application for free housing and we see from college that the u.s. government is actually in two hundred trillion in debt next we look at not the poor people but the rich people and bank profits are soaring so it takes us to this headline from steve keen who models financial instability and it reads bank profits a sign of economic sickness not health and when he models financial depressions what he finds is that one symptom of an economy that is headed for a depression is
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a rise in bankers' share of income at the expense of workers and capitalists so if you look at his chart you see that it's between five and six percent of g.d.p. this is in australia is from bankers and he's saying that the stable amount is at one percent so this is why we're going to have continuing. instability until that gets down to one percent we're going to continue with this he says the missing thing for guys like lloyd blankfein and jamie diamond would be those magnificent pimple beals maybe a purple felt with a feather sticking out because basically their pimps their wall street pimps and they're making an outsized profit for their pimping and as a result the normal economy that exists outside of the ghetto is shrinking you know steve keen also says the only way to get out of this depression is to shrink that income to the bankers down or to abolish large slabs of debt which brings us to the
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next headline from ireland irish debt under fire and fresh bank jitters so ireland's borrowing cost of so. again and part of the reason is it's just emerged that the european commission revealed this week that it had approved government support worth twenty four point three billion euros for anglo irish bank a b. which is significantly higher than what dublin said it would be in the spring while they created the bad bank. and that's an open ended slush fund and the number of bad debts in ireland will continue to increase as they disclose magically no more bad debts oh look the little leprechaun with a surely stick let us to the end of the rainbow and there's more bad debt and this will just continue on as the pimps in the irish banking system get out there surely stick green felt hat and they're driving around in their little irish print moby oh and they're abusing the population like we've seen other countries the head of the
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irish central bank patrick hone a hand fumed they were agree just in a league of their own saying of ai be if it hadn't been for them the losses would have been manageable the net cost to the irish state of recapitalizing the banks is twenty five billion euros or fifteen percent to sixteen percent of irish g.d.p. it is nearly all the result of a ib like a shopkeeper at the end of the year after having everything stolen from them saying well my business would have been manageable had it not been for the fact that i got robbed yeah that's right the irish economy is sinking into oblivion because it was robbed there not performing any function that's useful to society it unless you consider larceny to be useful to society unless you consider the parasites of the irish banking system somehow creating a symbiotic relationship with the citizens of ireland somehow there's a mutual beneficial relationship going on but it doesn't appear that way it just appears as though they're thugs stealing money from irish people getting their
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irish people getting absolutely nothing in exchange except a continuation. the collapse of the housing market well max you've mentioned lloyd blankfein and as he says you know they're doing god's work these bankers nuns accused banks and five million dollar lawsuit so germany's deutsche bank and u.s. investment bank morgan stanley are facing a five million dollar lawsuit led by a group of irish nuns so these irish nuns were sold a whole batch of you know these crazy derivative products to hedge all their potential risk and of course they ended up losing their investment right they were sold from wall street a product that was sold to them as a risk management product you know actually it was karmic justice because it wasn't the catholic church selling indulgences back in the medieval days to people rich people who wanted to avoid having to go down to the nether regions of the underworld for having committed sins of the church sold them indulgences remember
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the story of the pope's was selling indulgences now these nuns karmically the wheel of spawn and they were sold indulgences by wall street. to avoid the risk of their normal investment activity that didn't need to be sold these activities to begin with and so there you have it now what comes around goes around comes around again well we've talked about riots over housing and outright fraud and theft from the irish citizens and nuns now take a look at this headline bounty hunters to cut benefit fraud by one billion pounds one billion measly pounds in the u.k. private agencies are to be paid by the u.k. government to reduce benefit fraud by one billion pounds no not the theft of one trillion pounds in the u.k. by banks this is to go after normal joe schmo the ones writing for the public
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housing cameron says we are looking urgently at different options for reform tougher penalties for fraud more prosecutions and courage. those who know fraud is taking place to come forward and making greater efforts to reclaim money that's wrongly paid no david cameron i'm very disappointed in david cameron because he owes me by my calculation ten billion dollars why doesn't he hire us to be bounty hunters to go get the one trillion lost oh no don't tell david cameron it was done billion dollars we've been doing it for years so knowing that these banks in the u.k. who are the barclays boy lloyds bank of scotland. member we said six months before the collapse of northern rock bank that it was going to collapse of the very reasons it did collapse where is your finder's fee where's your bounty that's ten billion large you owe me dave cameron don't make me fly to london right now go down to number ten downing street and have to shake it out of your pockets don't make me do it you only oh i see you're going to pretend like you
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don't know how the banking system works and anyway i continue to continue on this benefit fraud thing chris grayling defends plan to use credit rating agencies to help catch benefit cheats the welfare minister chris grayling in the u.k. saying that if there is a huge mismatch between the way you are living your life and the amount of money you are supposed to be receiving from the state and benefits surely it is a right and proper that we should be saying how is that happening how is that happening though i mean this is what we were talking about with laurence kotlikoff the us is bankrupt they're obviously living far two hundred trillion beyond their means which is fifteen times the size of the economy here is that for a two hundred trillion dollars number is a big number i mean so the g.d.p. of the entire country is ten twelve trillion dollars right the entire g.d.p. of planet earth of the globe is something like fifty trillion dollars so they're saying that the united states alone has more dead than four times that of planet
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earth. yes so so than if they had populated and colonized a big planet like jupiter. and they put a neo liberal model milton friedman was going jupiter then today they have two hundred trillion dollars and we need a big planet like jupiter why do you have so much debt on a small planet like planet earth why are you talking like i'm talking like jackie mason was in the news back in the well we're talking about him soon enough now you know getting more headlines and now max i don't know ok well thanks for being on the show thank you max when we come back we'll be going to jerusalem to speak or share however no not benjamin yet no well there is an invitation out to speak with benjamin at any time standing invitation we will be going to drusilla stay right there don't go.
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welcome back to the kaiser report this time to go to jerusalem to talk with economist share i have or the alternative information center share welcome to the kaiser report thank you for having me i like your show very much ok thanks. for your part of the boycott divestment sanctions movement against israel the big. movement tell us more about it why is it necessary in your opinion well b.d.'s is
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called by palestinians first and foremost which has been joined by supporters from around the world and also from israel such as myself but it's first and foremost a palestinian call. calling on international solidarity for people to support the palestinian struggle for freedom against israeli repression and to do so by putting economic pressure on israel rather than by using force of arms and military means to try to force the israeli government to recognize its obligations under international law and respect the rights of palestinians is the boycott having any impact first of all you have to consider that it is very new a young movement the call by the palestinian civil society organizations is from two thousand and five there were very sporadic attempt to boycott before that so from two thousand and five the call is
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a grown very rapidly and unfortunately the main thing that causes the call to to grow when supreme the. for p.d.'s to grow in the world is every time that israel attacks the palestinians attacks gaza and kills innocent civilians then people are outraged and they express their outrage by supporting boycott there's been a lot of international companies that were already affected by the boycott in the sense that they faced a lot of pressure in other countries around the world to stop providing israel with the tools that israel needs to oppress the palestinians and continue to occupy the palestinian territories i can give you hundreds of examples but if i can give just one good example i would say that their leader which is a large french company that provides tramways and public transportation all around the world has signed a deal with israel to provide a tramway in east jerusalem occupied east jerusalem and since this area is illegally occupied by israel illegally annexed velvia is actually doing something
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illegal by providing israel with this service now because of all the pressure by the international community owned. to stop dealing with israel they've lost several contracts around the world and the most important of which is build the building of the tramway in stockholm and that was a project worth three billion euros so after velvia lost such a huge contract they've decided actually they want to sell their stocks in israel and they want to pull out of the project but right now nobody is willing to buy their stocks for the tramway in jerusalem putting them in a very difficult position i think the result of companies like valium getting into this difficult position where they committed the illegal act then they face international boycott is that other companies would think twice and maybe thrice before getting into an involvement with the israeli government now when i first heard about the boycott it reminded me of the boycott that was put on barclay's
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bank during the apartheid regime in south africa and of course the word apartheid has been years. former u.s. president jimmy carter to describe a very what's going on at israel and palestine are there are some similarities between the boycott in apartheid movement of south africa and the eventual resolution that came to bear there and what's what's happening it over there between israel palestine right now because if you use that as an example that that international boycott did tip the balance in favor of the freedom movement well of course there are many similarities there are also differences perhaps the most striking difference is that in apartheid south africa their white population actually had a role within the economy for the black population of south africa as their work force and they wanted to exploit the black workers in israel palestine and israel the israeli government is trying to avoid exploiting the palestinian workers but
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rather to get them to leave altogether to get them completely out of the region so that's a difference but in other respects apartheid is very similar first of all you have a population of eleven million people in israel palestine together now in that population jews are forty nine percent of the population so there are now a minority for the first time in many years jews are a minority in palestine and yet they have seventy eight percent of the votes for parliament which means that design is parties represented mostly the jewish population in palestine have been an automatic majority always control the government so in that sense you have a large disenfranchised group you also have rules that state that certain roads are for use by jews only in certain roads are not that palestinians are not allowed without a permit in certain areas where jews are allowed and that creates of course this is the most separation separation in a free cons the language of south africa of the white people in south africa means
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apartheid apartheid means separation so you could have some. africa is not just a boycott of the berkley's bank it was a very widespread boycott supported also by governments and it put a lot of pressure on the white population of south africa to to do away with apartheid but actually many stories today i was very skeptical about how much boycott was effective in the case of south africa because they're saying. africa is a country rich with natural resources they had many ways to find substitutes for what they couldn't import couldn't export and they found ways to stand out for a very long period of time we got started in the fifty's and apartheid only collapsed in ninety four but in israel palestine the situation is very different because here israel is one of the most globalized economies in the world compared to its size of course it's the tenth biggest per capita importer in the world and
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the eighth biggest per capita exporter in the world and that means there is a very sensitive to any kind of international boycott we cannot. hope in the short run at least to have a very widespread boycott like there was in south africa but even a fraction of that boycott would be enough to put a stop to the israeli economy in the sense that the israeli government would simply have no choice but to start complying with international law and also israel is not very rich in natural resources like south africa is and israel is very much dependent on aid from other countries on a good relations with europe as its biggest trading partner with the united states is the biggest provider of aid to israel let me ask you right there can you talk a little bit about the u.s. role in sustaining this apartheid model without taking any of the responsibility of these really government to the war crimes to the atrocities committed unfortunately on a regular basis in palestine there is also
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a very large role to be played here by the american government the u.s. government first of all the united states rewarded israel for the. of nine hundred sixty seven by starting to increase aid to israel especially military aid and israel gives the us gives israel three billion dollars every year in military aid now the us also tries to present itself as the kind of arbiter between israel and the palestinians in the in the peace negotiations but in fact what kind of arbiter gives weapons to be aggressor in a dispute obviously they are not objective they are supporting israel and they are promoting conflict in the middle east there is support there giving israel a political umbrella which protect israel from from criticism when israel invades lebanon for example or more more recently when israel invaded gaza let me ask you now you mention this three billion or so dollars of u.s. aid per year and according to international law from what i understand of course it's illegal to give a to any country with
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a nuclear program so since israel does have a big nucular program with some estimates suggesting up to two hundred nuclear warheads that right there makes it a legal act for the us to give them any money at all in so-called aid and as a us taxpayer myself i've tried to lobby the israeli government to give me back the many billions of dollars that we've given them filtered through my own experience with the economy in the us i figured that benjamin netanyahu probably owes me about three thousand dollars personally i'm not holding my breath that he'll pay me my money back any time soon although i think morally and ethically it shouldn't but let's move on how is this boycott being received inside israel well a lot of people are saying that it can actually turn these really society even more inwards and make israel israelis more forty five and become even more belligerent. but in reality the way the boycott is already affecting israeli society is that it
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promotes discussion and it forces israelis to realize that there are some people around the world who are looking at what they're doing and. and they care about what's happening in israel palestine and part of the reason that they care is just like what you just mentioned they have a stake in that in that conflict as well it's not just a regional conflict it's also a global conflict and because of that israelis are starting to realize that they need to change their strategy somehow and there is no strategy that will save israel from boycott except ending the repression and i think if we go back to the example of south africa the boycott against south africa wasn't successful in convincing white people in south africa to abandon apartheid because even one day before the collapse of apartheid ninety percent of the population in south africa still the white population still supported apartheid i now you're right the economy of occupation bullets and tell us how the occupation has altered the economies of bald palestine and israel talk
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a little bit about this well it's easy to talk about the palestinians because they are dependent on israel in every aspect occupation is a mistake in every aspect of their lives day and night and it's a population that now only able to sustain itself by international aid and most of it comes from europe and this aid keeps the palestinian population in the stand in a state of of sustenance where they cannot develop they cannot invest but at least the are not starving which is something that also serves the interest of israel but these radio call me has become also very much affected by the occupation and by the massive military investments and also by the palestinian resistance to the occupation which made israel into a kind of fortress state with security and security guards israel invests a higher portion of its g.d.p. on defense than any country in the world twelve point three percent of the g.d.p. in israel is government expenditure on defense security and so on there's also
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public expenditure on defense which isn't measured so we don't know what portion of it is out of g.d.p. it minute just saying. basically i mean i grew up in new york city in a more alas and harlem was a ghetto and the cigarette companies in the back of companies in the gambling companies and the supermarkets that overcharged they make a big profit out of a ghetto i mean palestine is israel's profitable ghetto yes or no especially gaza. even more than a ghetto it's a prison camp because. palestinians in gaza are not able to export anything but they can still import and they import using the aid money that they get from the international community and most of what they buy with this money is products from israel so that actually means that if for example one israeli company has full monopoly over selling petrol and petrol products to gaza so that's a very extreme example of that kind of ghetto economy but it also exists in the west bank that is divided into small bantustans surrounded by the wall of
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separation where again people who are dependent on international aid and the most of their stuff from israeli companies if you go to a supermarket in the west bank you see that most of the products are actually from israel when you want to get out you act like a ghetto runner i mean you can't have a ghetto at a prison and pretend like there is some kind of moral or ethical example that doesn't work i mean you've got to play the role i think the knesset should adopt more of the look so people understand what's really going on there are a shareholder thanks so much for being on the kaiser report thank you very much already and i was going to do it for this edition of the kaiser report our thanks and of course my guests share ever if you want to send me an email please do so at kaiser report r t t v are you until next time this is my guys are saying by all.
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