markets trying to. get in the. wind on what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to report on our key. elements of our going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture one year ago our nation's gulf coast was tarnished by millions of barrels of oil and deadly toxins fast forward to today as b.p. lived up to their promise to repairing the damage to the gulf the natural habitats and even the families affected plus their inconsiderate annoyed downright rude talk about those pesky debt collectors i'll tell you what extreme measures they're taking to get owed money and how some are even breaking the law and just as america

is trying to crawl out of its debt sinkhole bad news services from the standard and poor's the s. and p. could be on the brink of yet another financial meltdown. you need to know this it's going to happen again and it's going to be much worse. this is the warning issued by the s. and p. credit rating agency about the chances of our financial markets melting down again in a report released on monday as m.p. analysts said quote we believe the risks from the u.s. financial sector that would be like the banks you know are higher than we consider them to be before two thousand and eight that would be like before the last crash you know in other words things are worse off today than they were before the collapse in two thousand and eight s. and p.

also predicted that should the markets go by the wayside again the bank bailout have cost taxpayers far more this time as much as five trillion dollars i truly did you imagine where a bank bailout that largely due to our nation's already debt problem additionally s. and p. suggested there's a one in three chance that our nation's credit rating could be downgraded from aaa status and that could send shock waves around the global financial system triggering a wide scale economic catastrophe basic only if another meltdown occurred then our debt would skyrocket and we'd be telling other nations that we can't pay off our debts so why are we letting this happen again aslant three years out of the banks and the up the economy the first time for an answer on this i'm joined by mark reiss broad economist and co-director of the center for economic and policy research and columnist of the guardian in the u.k. mark welcome back thanks fareed to be here great to have you with us there's really two issues in the system p. report or at least the five hundred dollars version been the news release deals

more with the government stuff with the the larger version gets into the banks as well. first of all the banks. are is our banking system as fragile as they're suggesting that it is where it was a two thousand and eight it seems to me if anything it's more fragile because there's been so much consolidation well i took with this statement a little differently i think what they said was that the risk is greater than what we perceived in two thousand and eight and if you go back through those. they don't perceive very much a so. i don't think it's that bad i do think the fundamental problem which you know you've talked about a lot of it they haven't changed they haven't really regulated the financial system so we will have problems again but i don't see if you look at what really caused this recession it was the you know the biggest asset bubble in our history of this housing and real estate bubble falling on top of that somewhere between six and

nine hundred trillion dollars worth of bets on bets on bets on those tend to cancel each other out it really was the housing no if you took all that other stuff away in all you had was the overvaluation of house prices that we had we'd be looking at a very similar situation would be maybe quite as bad but it would be very very the worst recession we've had was very much like the housing project twenty seven if you will it's bigger it's the biggest housing bill we've ever had but i mean in terms of use we saw a massive increase in asset prices when a five twenty seven really twenty eight that popped and then everybody moved into the stock market the market exploded and then that popped right here and went early other way we had the stock market bubble first then the housing bubble so that's the main thing you know i don't see any kind of imminent collapse here and of course the the federal that is just a distraction i mean that's not anything that we should be worried about at this

time we really should be worried about unemployment that's the big thing and it will that that's something that i want to get back to the federal debt just a moment but that's something that just mystifies me is why the and i realize you're not a political analyst or economist but why would the democratic president running around the country talking about the republican member of dad when people are really worried about is their jobs well two things one is there's the influence of wall street wall street cares a lot of bout it. because you know for them even if interest rates go up a little bit in the long term good which they have to at some point in their very low and historically very low levels let me know that for sure you know the zero rate would think would lose a little bit of money and they could also they also don't like any kind of inflation so they would rather see a recession then a little bit of inflation that's their trade off it's very different from what you or i would go in with

a recession all they've got to do is stop buying long served by short that's right they make and they make this big rig it's just as much money in fact arguably you know a whole lot more. a s. and p. . told us that iran was wonderful as i recall they told us that the economy was wonderful i mean these guys don't have it exactly the best record in terms of talking about what the future celebrate or their bond ratings if you remember that two thousand and eight where congressional hearing where they were instant messages from two of their employees saying that they would radio a bond issue even if it were structured by carlos. so some will probably work it seemed like they were they were wrong about that so i think you know they shouldn't be taken as a credible source and the idea that the united states is going to default on its debt it's it's just really not credible idea for not only the foreseeable future but any kind of future use seriously as as both economist and you know i mean you

live in this town you can't out the political observer don't think that the that the tea party republicans are going to play chicken with the debt well now you're tired of that wasn't wes and p. was talking with a word while they were they were implicitly talking yeah but if you look at what they made it was talking about why they moved the outlook for us there from stable to negative that was based on the long term picture not because they have a very long term picture being fixed oh as a consequence of democrats or republicans getting together and they said that right there or right but my point is there is the article that they were talking about the problem with the debt ceiling limit they were talking about a long term problem there is not a long term problem we owe our debt in dollars and we will always be able to pay that and our debt is you know as a function as a percentage less than half which pans as for example and it's not it's really

nowhere near being a big problem really is a distraction we talk about the future what kind of economy we're going to leave to our children a lot more depends on what kind of unemployment long term unemployment we have put those the people. who and what goes to the economy as well the you know the lack of investment in the things that we need very well said mark thanks so much for dropping by thank you great speaking with you this is all happening again because right wing ideologues want to roll back f.d.r.'s new deal turn social security and medicare into money for wall street and doing away with the minimum wage unemployment insurance and other social safety net programs and the big corporate polluters and the wall street billionaires who daily briber republican paul and some democrats politicians want them to defund unnecessary regulations both wall street and polluting industries is griese those who pass are so intent on getting their way when they're willing to destroy a country to do it and they may well banks are in trouble but that's not what's

being reported you know s. and p. just came out of this with you know with this report and he said ok the banks are at a risk level that we didn't see in two thousand and eight as mark pointed out we didn't see much risk but i think the risk was starting to come around and the government is not is in trouble now what we all heard in the media was the government's in trouble and therefore we had to slash and burn our our budget deficit through our spending. why is the media not talking about what's going on with the banks or could it have something to do with the fact that they do this because here we are. c.b.s. time warner which owns c.n.n. h.b.o. t.b.s. t.n.t. the walt disney company which owns a.b.c. e.s.p.n. general electric which owns n.b.c. amazon b.c. court t.v. brad bravo anian history channel also part owned by comcast viacom which owns m.t.v. v h one show time nickelodeon comedy central and news corp which owns fox news now

facts on the bottom and on the top bank of new york mellon corp citigroup j.p. morgan chase morgan stanley goldman sachs wells fargo bank of america a.i.g. the big banks of america now these people in between are the interlocking boards of directors stephen hall and martin feldstein an f. who is who is on a john chen those goes on and on and on without we don't really need the names but what you see is that there is there are direct links between the boards of each one of these banks and each one of these media companies so you wonder why was it so easy when george w. bush went to the media and said you know the big banks need some help. there's these connections it's all about connections and maybe we should be thinking about legislation that says you can only serve on the board of one company.

time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question s. and p. is warning about a new five trillion dollar big bank meltdown will the u.s. taxpayers with this bill your choices are a yes we'll do it on the back of the new deal by social security unemployment minimum wage or no we will all see the right and start regulating the bankers and we'll throw the banks their bones in jail who broke the law so far over sixty percent of you voted yes log on it's our own dot com and let us know what you think the poll will be open until tomorrow morning. coming up a year ago it always seed dark and swept across the gulf coast leaving behind devastation death and hopelessness so lawmakers done anything to help our neighbors to the south there's b.p. oil spill another crisis in america swept under the rug.

five. feet. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't i'm sorry because if we.

lose screwed our environment today is the one year anniversary of the explosion of the b.p. oil rig that murdered eleven men and triggered the worst environmental disaster in the history of the united states well as they're washing ashore in coastal restoration plans still have not begun and in the years since the explosion count was millions of barrels of crude washed ashore our nation's wealth goes hundreds of small businesses closed thousands of species of marines like died and hundreds of people fell ill from oil contaminants but not a single piece of legislation not one new law has passed out of congress to address the oil spill after sixty here is to discuss the causes the spill over one hundred fifty bills to introduce the safety of oil drilling nothing serious has been done by our legislature to make sure what happened a year ago does not happen again so why is that how can our lawmakers so quickly

forget this environmental catastrophe that we're still feeling the effects of today for more on this i'm joined by doris your mail independent investigative journalist welcome. good to be with you great to have you with us besides the eleven guys who died on the oil rig have any other humans died as a consequence of what's out in the gulf of mexico. absolutely i actually have talked to a man named steve and i when i get to it during one of the articles i wrote recently who went swimming with a friend of his name in america lane in july over off the coast of florida they go in the water they came up with sort of an orange e. . or at least smelling substance all over them he now knows in retrospect it was dispersed oil he's been extremely sick ever since had his blood tested full of the chemicals one month later to the pig sadly after that's when his friend merrick dropped a. truck bed as

a consequence of the chemicals i mean what what his doctor had to say about this right absolutely that steven i'm going to talk to his doctor about it obviously extremely alarmed his doctor who told him you have so many of these chemicals from oil and dispersants in your blood i don't understand how you walked in here in how you're talking to me and he's one of many people that i've spoken with working on the stories of a massive health problems along the gulf coast the former b.p. cleanup workers as well as its residents in so many of them are getting their blood tested by doctors another doctor over in florida doing testing a doctor in dallas texas doing testing and all of them are turning up the same chemicals is there anything that someone in the area who has been exposed to these chemicals can do to get them out of their bloodstream. well. you understand what's going on because there hasn't been a lot of sound as there should be by local state and federal governments letting people know that there is

a health emergency going on but those going to some of these doctors who are aware of it and treating people as though they have been had an acute exposures to these toxic chemicals basically a lot of them are having to move out of the area. taking a more holistic health approach of doing the chart says and things of this nature to get the chemicals out of their body major major flush of some kind to get out i guess is that dark is the is the gulf of mexico still dying one year out. it is actually in one of my recent pieces a interview demanding tucker and kate he is a oceanographer and they the marine biologist and he said for example there's areas of louisiana specifically where they've had one hundred percent loss of populations in he asked them about the long term prognosis for the gulf as a whole especially in light of the recent massive numbers of dead neonatal dolphin deaths and sea turtle endangered sea turtles that have been washing ashore in

alabama mississippi and now the easy any said. he told me he said i'm i'm i'm seventy years old i will not live to see the gulf will turn itself to pre april twenty eighth two thousand and ten state of being he said i expects to be minimum ten to twenty years before we see real recovery start to happen which is actually right in line with the start one disaster in the gulf of mexico from eight hundred seventy nine where we still see huge areas are off the coast of mexico may grows certain fish populations oysters there still have not recovered amazing now my understanding is that b.p. has gotten a ten million dollars or ten billion dollars tax credit from the u.s. government for their expenses associated with cleaning up the gulf that we're basically paying for it and their businesses just fine for them in fact they got half the oil concessions them and the chinese company from the largest oil fields in iraq has grown into and fine is that absolutely it's business as usual and

that's one of the shocking things also b.p. oil has just made the cut to be awarded a safety award over by a group over in london for their exemplary save the year it paved path that we're talking about right now of course this on the heels of trans ocean the operator of the deepwater horizon rig whose c.e.o. was awarded several hundred thousand dollars for a safety award for their exemplary safety award for the. last year it's business as usual they continue to be awarded u.s. government car tracks and continue to be a giant supplier and they got there i don't know if you saw my eye graph of the interlocking boards between the banks and the media companies we didn't know that on today and you can find these all over they rule dot net you can find the same interlocking boards between the banks and or excuse me between the oil companies and the media as you can between the banks and the media could that have something to do with why there's basically no public outrage nationwide and we're just not

much seen this in the media any longer well you mailed the tire mats has everything to do with why the thrones of the stories we see in the mainstream media right now are on this verse three of the biggest marine oil disaster in u.s. history the biggest embarrassment incest or for that matter in u.s. history that's why the ruins of the stories are the glossy it's ok because it's actually recovery and it's not as bad as a lot of the environmental environmentalist expected it to be i mean that's exactly the explanation clean and simple these of these are the stories that are pretty put out how long well you've already told us how long you think in your opinion you know we've just issued ten new drilling permit permits for deepwater drilling do you think that this is going to happen again have the blowout preventers for example been examined and fixed. it's guaranteed to happen to give the effect not only are they still doing deep water drilling initially more permits they're going even deeper this was a five thousand foot well the baby had no plan to fix it that's why it took them

eighty seven days to finally get a cat because they literally did not have a contingency plan as you said so clearly and so important at the beginning of this segment that there is no legislation whatsoever to prevent this to enforce more regulations to come up with a better response plan if something like this happens literally nothing has happened while they continue to push for more and more drilling they're actually spinning it as well as pushing it into deeper waters so we are literally gearing t. that this will happen again it's not it will unfortunately tragically and around the world as well daryn thanks so much for being with us tonight thank you once again know it's like the oil industry and it's billionaires will continue to own the media and pay off our politicians you know it's time we asked serious questions like is our government completely broken if they can't deal with something like this oil crisis in the gulf and how can we make illegal bribery of our politicians

since this is this is a pretty straightforward process but when you look at how much money is pouring into this town of washington d.c. thirty seven thousand lobbyists starting pay of a couple hundred thousand dollars a year just the banking industry just one industry spending spending spending a billion dollars to to influence legislation that's really not an expenditure that's really an investment and what you see is that our politicians actually while many of them are the recipients of this never asked for it in fact if anything they thought it in one hundred seven teddy roosevelt got past the tillman act which made it a crime a go to prison crime found always experience in a down in fact that's where they still have this is a law to give money to politicians. then it got watered down over the years not part of the legislature but by the supreme court by a series of supreme court decisions that find primary their primary genesis in one

thousand nine hundred six in the santa clara county versus other pacific railroad decision but from there they went to things like in the one nine hundred seventy s. and one nine hundred eighty s. the buckley versus well a whole act and the first national bank was a law he acted finally culminated in citizens united so we've had attempts to regulate mccain feingold for example in two thousand and we've had cities that have said and communities states maine arizona portland oregon that have said you know we're going to get the money out of politics we're to do public financing of elections in arizona it's being contested by law in portland it got voted out when the billionaires came in and so the poor of iowa money into it and so the bottom line is we have to amend our constitution because even though our presidents don't want this even though our legislatures don't want this frankly they'd much rather be legislating than dialing for dollars the supreme court keeps giving it to us so let's amend the constitution move to amend it already has the information my book

on equal protection has the information we need to change the core and say no sorry corporations are not people and money is not speech and that's it. as our economy comes on blue more and more people are going into debt just to make ends meet but afraid social safety net for some families that credit card is the only thing keeping gas in the car and putting food on the table. it is debt rises in america the industry of debt collection also rises and today debt collectors are resorting to extreme measures to collect their bounties including threatening

violence encouraging suicide and posing as law enforcement the federal trade commission reported last month that in two thousand and ten there were one hundred forty four thousand complaints filed against threatening that collectors only identity theft had more complaints than debt collectors to top it all off but these debt collectors are doing is completely illegal according to the fair debt practices collection practices act of one thousand nine hundred eighty seven it is illegal for debt collectors to use deceitful or threatening tactics to collect payments yet that's exactly what they're doing in every city in america all across this country every single day every single evening so why is this allowed to happen here to offer some answers as joseph morrow e.s.q. as the as in attorney and consumer rights attorney in new york state joseph welcome to the program. or i should say esquire as if. this is

against the law well in fact even before i get to how are they getting away with this stuff. you you have represented a couple of these clients who have been the victims of some of the most egregious of these debt collection practices can you give us some examples. oh yeah sure i mean the tactics that you hear about on a normal day in and day out basis are things like contacting neighbors illegally contacting relatives threats of a rast. things like threats of violence. it's more rare but unfortunately it's not a it's not an anomaly these days than sure i've had i've represented clients who have been the victim of horrendous racial and ethnic slurs threats of violence as you said threats of immediate arrest for threats of rape threats threats of.

threats to people's children the most outrageous stuff you've heard about and obviously not only is that a violation of the federal law that you have referenced but it's also a crime so when it reaches that level i usually advise consumers to to call the police department this is a this is really quite remarkable in this story that i'm looking at an alternate aleksandr some road references your work as well. talks about how this fellow bryant he debt collector called sort of screaming obscenities to him about his wife and then began you know calling him a child your little stream case. you know or for offering to do to satisfy the. for sexual favors again that is safe pretty much as you know a pretty extreme case but you know things like that are unfortunately happening

more and more because of the just the sheer volume of people that unfortunately find themselves in the debt collection world these days i guess it is more likely that you're going to start hearing stories like that more often how are these guys getting away with this let alone having this industry actually be it i understood my understanding is the debt question history now is not only thriving it's growing its profits are increasing how is this possible. well i mean i think it's a think it's a numbers game you know we do catch them so to speak and you know the f.t.c. regulates them from the public perspective and then there are the private attorneys like myself who sort of regulate them as what but congress referred to as private attorney generals and we regulate them to some degree as well however there's only so much that we can do there are millions of corals that are made today in and day out from debt collectors to consume is and there are only

a certain amount of consumers who make their way to an attorney or make their way to the f.t.c. and then there is only a certain amount of cases that attorneys and the f.t.c. attorneys are able to handle so you know even when you do catch these. collectors doing that sort of stuff it's not generally going to put the companies out of business and it is just you know it's just cost effective for them to continue those sort of practices and take the occasional hit when they get caught i mean we have just a little less than a minute left what advice in this short moment here would you give people who are being harassed by debt collectors what should i think the most important thing is to find a local consume a attorney to help you with the circumstances you know it is very easy to use days to find a consumer attorney because of the internet you should find somebody who specializes

in that collection harassment who is in your area to try to help you through your situation again if it reaches the point that that it is threats of physical violence or anything like the stuff that i've already described to you then they should also call the police remarkable remarkable thank you so much joseph the great work you're doing thank you to only the lowest of the low prey on people who've hit rock bottom and. these debt collectors are nothing more than criminals and maybe it's time we throw some of these guys into a modern debtors prison. coming up experts recommend that you never use the same password for all your personal accounts barely breath after activity so what are officials at the white house pushing a single log and password polls.