so what's the reason behind the new spike in food prices. so what happens when you have all the money in the world to buy any item you want well if you're the koch brothers then you move on to buying ideas back in two thousand and eight charles koch wrote a big fat check to florida state university to help hire new professors in that school's economics department nice thing to do well not exactly coke made sure there were strings attached to his donation one of those strings is that charles koch now has the authority to hire whatever economics professor he likes and he could overrule the florida state fact aliya hiring decisions which he's already done shooting down sixty percent of the teachers proposed by the faculty in two thousand. considering the koch brothers obsession with deregulated so-called free

markets and iran's psychopathic or sociopathic rally you can bet that any new hires are going to have to subscribe to that same ideology maybe like paul ryan's staff they all had to read atlas shrugged so how is letting billionaires determine what students learn in public universities ethical and what are the consequences of the sort of philanthropic activism we fought as a reporter and blogger extraordinary for think progress he joins me now lee welcome . for having me thanks for joining us from your in faraway california today as a. for profit i said you know i can understand. a founder or a donor at a private college or say jerry falwell's liberty college or whatever it's called saying you know i want certain kinds of teachers or for that matter a private college particularly a religious want or one that has

a particular agenda saying you know we all want but but this is a state owned university. this this dog that's being wegg by the tail of the koch brothers nation isn't there some right fundamentally wrong about that. well you have to understand that the koch brothers fundamentally don't believe in public anything they don't believe that there is a public good for our air quality you don't think we have a public good as in our water quality and they don't believe there's a public good education and this phenomenal story about their reaching in and taking control of the actual academic institutions at florida state is a remarkable story but it's sadly nothing new. either starting in the late seventy's started seeding money and attaching strings to universities all over the country particularly at schools like george mason where they literally own tired of

parties not just the economics department but they also have their hands in law in another's arms of public policy i would i would think that economics law and history would be the three areas where they would really want to have the greatest influence for just just as a wild guess what. i think you know i can understand the you know a billionaire saying ok we're going to invest money in a politician and get a return in other words we'll buy a bunch of republicans and they'll make sure that the regulations on our polluting refineries are cut back so we can make more profit or they'll make it illegal or impossible for somebody so us for dumping benzene as is happening in texas right now. but what's the financial return to investing in a university for something like this. well choose for one thing coke what makes the coke political machine unique is that they don't just invest in politicians that's what any corporation does what coke does is invest in. different outlets and

different organizations that mold society be fun organizations that market their concerns ideas to the elderly to students they have a young professional program in d.c. that's huge that employs literally half of people i know in the conservative movement have at one point worked for them or been employed by a coke fellowship and universities are a prime place where can start were coke can advance their extreme ideology this is an issue i wrote about last year at west virginia university they find an entire economics department similar to only do it at florida state and some of these professors one professor named russell so will he wrote an entire book arguing against regulation in particular he said that my regulations as a coal mine regulations actually hurt workers by increasing accident rates so we should actually deregulate the mines so it's going to that over the last thirty

years of my recollection is it led to more miners being dead i mean it was it was a de facto regulation by bus to the unions but the effect was the same. force and you know into the biggest arena here is climate change they can find dozens of professors and i follow a piece on this fantastic reporting showing the extent to which this is going on across the country coming out tomorrow it's not just employers say it's not just western it's not just virginia it's really across the country and private colleges even more places like ground university. but this is a trend where koch industries can fund professors that basically cast doubt on the science of climate change and then when they want to make the argument to the public and say you know all these scientists and professors oppose action on climate change or don't believe the war the are. it is warming and look at all these professors who signed this letter that agree with us they don't because they don't disclose that those professors are underwritten by polluter interests like.

i'm waiting for them to come over the idea that gravity isn't a law or if it's amazing leaders i mean don't send a bear yeah now don't bury your nose or nose leave thanks for the great work you're doing over the center for american progress and the writing you're doing think progress forward thank you thank you so so having me my pleasure the koch brothers are behind the tea party they're behind climate change deniers they're behind scott walker's union busting efforts you name the right wing cause the koch brothers are more than likely to have thrown a few million bucks at so indoctrinating students in college seems like the next logical step for these guys now there's there's a piece to this that's really worth thinking about look around the room that you're sitting in right now not not just of the t.v. set you might be watching or the computer or whatever but you know look at the furniture look at the windows look at the other the other items the pieces of you

know electronics computers everything you see right down to the walls of the building everything you see are pretty much everything you see started as an idea in someone's mind that's the power of ideas. ideas have been have have had tariff reform the planet changed the way that we interact with things change the way that we live in a very real way every culture and nation in history started as an idea everything started as an idea ideas are at the core of absolutely everything so if you're a billionaire and you want to change the future and destiny and shape the nature of a nation get control of the ideas. this goes back to the lewis polls in one nine hundred seventy four members of the chamber of commerce saying to the president chamber of commerce which was later adopted you know about

a year later when he was put on the supreme court by richard nixon it was he said we need to be basically infiltrating the schools control ideas worldview if you can control them old ideas and beliefs and world views you have the the most ultimate power there is so for example you've got these guys out here peddling the idea that the rich should control the economy for themselves they call it the so called free market or deregulation mode taxes you know keep the rich rich poor poor old scams they're they're peddling the idea of the poor the poor because they're cursed or lazy i mean this is incredible if you consider where this started i mean look back you know this this debate in american politics look back to the it to the seventeen eighty s. and the seven hundred ninety s. sir edmund burke was the leading conservative in the united kingdom and the leading conservative being quoted in the united states so adam burke who famously said

words to the effect of i'm doing this from memory but it's pretty close it does me no harm of a man is a lot of doing gauge a profession to serve as that of tallow maker or hairdresser candle maker hairdresser but it does society considerable violence of such a person is allowed to participate in governance in other words to vote or to get elected to office that was the conservative worldview society needs to be run by controlled by the wealthy few thomas paine actually knew sir edmund burke went over spent two weeks in this home on his way to france to visit the french revolution which didn't turn out so well for pain that's a whole nother story and he when he was there he got these huge battles with with with. edmund burke and the result of it was that he wrote two books the rights of man and an agrarian justice and in these books thomas paine. one of the one of the founders of this country proposed incentives seventeen ninety's proposals for

security propose the estate tax proposed progressive taxation and a cap on wealth in fact here's a quote from thomas paine he said at the end therefore it is to the good of the whole as well as to the interest of the individual that everyone who can sets himself down to his business and contributes his quota of taxes as one of the first duties he owes to his family to himself and to his country i guarantee it any of the colleges that the koch brothers are funding are not teaching much thomas paine . so republicans are blaming president obama for high gas prices the american people are pointing their fingers elsewhere at wall street according to a new c.n.n. poll ninety percent of americans say wall street speculators are driving up prices at the pump course gas prices aren't the only commodities spiking today so are food

prices secretary of state hillary clinton addressed this issue last week saying rising food prices could have grave consequences for the entire planet back in two thousand and eight rising food prices led to violent riots and millions of people around the world nearly starved to death many did and like to date back then those rising food prices were accompanied by rising oil prices yeah the thing is that back in two thousand and eight as oil and food prices were skyrocketing there were no actual shortages of oil or food in fact oil and food supplies were both at all time highs as a saudi oil minister ali now i naively said in two thousand and eight quote recent crude prices do not reflect the fundamentals of supply and demand in the oil market as much as they are caused by financial speculation and quote and we sell as the midwest were literally overflowing with supply so why were the prices going up and

want to seem like food and gas prices are always going up together well it's because ninety percent of americans are right it does have to do with wall street. this is the goldman sachs commodity index a market where people can place bets on what they think the price of certain commodities will be look what's in this index together the oil and food back in the day it serves a useful purpose to let farmers and airlines lock in the prices of the food in oil so they can get the book straight reduce risk budget for the next year hedge against a future drought or a future oil shortage but today thanks to the thirty years of deregulation of wall street and particularly due to the commodities futures modernization act back in one thousand nine hundred ninety thousand kilograms practically anybody can jump in this market and place bets that the price of food or oil will rise and if enough people bet on it just like you know any other stock and sure enough these prices to

rise and a bunch of gangsters make a whole ton of money that's what happened in two thousand and eight so that what we're seeing unfold again today is the time to force regulations on wall street to stop them from starving the world wrecking our economy i guess prices joining me now to offer is take is ron bailey's science correspondent with the reason magazine ron welcome booo to be with you thank you for joining us ron goldman sachs analysts released a report last month saying quote the unfolding events in north africa in the middle east have pushed up the price of brant crude oil is high price levels invite comparison in the spring of two thousand and eight when crude oil prices first breached these levels and maybe for peaking by early july we believe there are fundamental differences between now in the spring of two thousand and eight the image tori's and spare capacity are much higher now and that speculative positions are four times as high as they were in june of two thousand and eight did these just guys just confirm that these jacking up the prices we're seeing is because

they're gaming the system. well of course people who are speculating are also people who are investing people's money in things like pension funds and hedge funds american underfunding so yes they can ration is probably part of this there's also a risk premium of what else is going on in the middle east right now the arab spring which we all who were into people becoming a lot freer than they have been or less twenty years have also coast into the newer markets so those things are growing up they're definitely going to happen i should remind you that goldman sachs are the same people who in the spring of two thousand and so did all it was going to go up in two thousand and eight and two hundred zero zero were infected photo thirty four dollars a barrel so you can't take it for granted so what they're saying they're doing their best but you know it's just more information produced no doubt well you know enron i get it that people are investing in oil and food and things and hoping that the price goes up and you can you can buy those futures on even traded markets

exchange markets but you know if i buy stock in exxon mobil and or if i buy stock in microsoft and that stock drops twenty thirty percent it doesn't make any difference i mean as an investor i lose some money but it doesn't make any difference fundamentally in the world or if the price that stock goes up thirty percent it doesn't make any difference to the to the world when the price of food and oil goes up people die shouldn't these commodities be separated from stocks as they were for the previous from one hundred thirty five until one thousand nine hundred nine during that period of time where if you bought a commodity feature you actually had to take the liberty of it so the only people speculating in commodities were the people who were actually going to use them. i don't think that's necessary overall it would make the market less able to to correctly stop which as you saw a less meek and courteous order of the major way with prices so it would have a volatile in the first place. possibly not but one of the things of the ending to

the volatility of course is something you don't mention is pursued and oil markets have been linked now because of their idiotic ethanol hollis's we're subsidizing the production of ethanol to the tune of about ten billion dollars a year and we're turning a third of our corn crop into ethanol or coal look at way look you're making you're making the opposite of your own point because that doesn't isn't it diminishes the demand for oil and it's creating you know we're subsidizing food i agree with the i hate the subsidies but the point is that the price of oil and and is going up at the very time when it should be going down but you know the idea is that we're turning food into fuel we are removing a third record crowd into hugh and this is making a terrible problem right now in the world in fact we're going to turn so much or in into the venom in accordance four point six billion barrels this coming year would supply calories for us up to six hundred million people for an entire year you know this part of why food prices are going up is that we're turning food and if you

were a sickly it takes thought there were hundreds of others who say it has to be and that amount of ethanol it was a pride of cows to feed a person for iran i'm willing is that we shouldn't be subsidizing corn i you know if we're going to subsidize something let's let subsidize and produce diesel fuel you know it's much it's a good it's a new orders of magnitude beneficent and corn but as anything the question is why should we allow banks and banks toure's or banks toure's who are representing pension funds you know there's been one things as you started out why should we allow them to speculate in food in oil when speculation in these core commodities is essential commodities can lead to wars and to famines. well the other thing that you don't mention in two thousand and eight wasn't the speculation so much but also the fact of what happened is prices started running go a lot of countries decided to put export controls on their food they basically

shrink the size of the market they said we're not going to have anything in response to the speculation but we know that this increase the speculation it's because the amount of food that's actually on the market has been removed and this was a terrible problem the government policy go away again and there's one of the things that to her credit of the recall is the end of it was goldman sachs and you know that it from two thousand three to two thousand and eight they went from thirteen billion to three hundred seventeen billion dollars and in investments in commodity markets a twenty five percent one hundred percent increase but bet right bad run. through is think cycle through the fact is that we're going to you know gold has been go ahead a lot of things have been going i think that there's that all agree with you there's a bunch of bubbles here that are about to burst and people that are right for hills ron thank you very. for the first time in history banks on wall street aren't just making profits and putting their competition out of business they're also ruining the american economy and the stabilizing the food security and our world as it

happens when we let an author leash to play on wall street these guys clearly claimed can't police themselves that's why we need to step in and put an end to this kind of harmful speculation. coming up now and spreading the wealth is becoming far more than just an embarrassment for the u.s. of a after right after the break a galley take on how america holds the number one spot for the world's biggest problems.

the it's time for the good of the very very unforgiving. first good lady gaga the biggest pop star in the world right now threw herself into the immigration debate over the weekend by performing in mexico she unveiled a new song entitled emetic honor as a protest piece against arizona's unconstitutional immigration legislation.

was passed. through the songs and told the audience i can't stand by many of these wild money these unjust immigration laws are passed in my country millions of fans let's hope that translates into millions of people standing up to racist immigration laws in america. the bad radio show host marc bernier the usual side of nonsense morning talk fox and friends the florida radio show host had this probing question about torture. what are your listeners saying post bin ladin killing about the techniques well they're saying let it go i mean what's all this whining about the use of waterboarding i mean you get the same people who. put

a bullet into been laughton's head now say all this is too severe yet. what's all this whining about war crimes suddenly somehow right wingers have taken waterboarding a tactic that during world war two we executed japanese soldiers for using against american soldiers and turned it into a fine and dandy thing calling people who oppose torture whiners this is insanity. and the very very ugly fox news talking head vinson's. last night sean hannity gave this racist lunatic a platform to talk about why it's ok to torture people. leon panetta and three cia directors have said former cia directors we have more intelligence from enhanced interrogations that all our intelligence agencies and most of it was bad you know what it's they have bad karma you do bad things bad things happen none of these people none of these camel jockeys ever should this started with us this is what they get when they play with that camel jockeys really. suffer so

much for us trying to win over hearts and minds in the middle east it's a terrorist want a recruiting tool. you have to do is watch fox news and that's very very good. does your member of congress supported age pregnancies drug abuse and violence. last week canadian members of parliament brought up an important issue in the house of commons wealth inequality a motion was agreed upon across party lines that read this house notes the findings that societies with smaller income differences between rich and poor have fewer

health and social problems such as teenage births violence mental illness and drug abuse further knows that such societies have higher levels of trust between citizens and more social mobility and therefore encourages the government to promote policies that reduce income inequality in other words they're going to do something about the rich getting richer in the we're getting poorer in canada so is it about time we do the same in two thousand and seven richard workers in cape it published a book titled the spirit level by equal societies almost always do better the book was based on decades of data where they looked at nearly two dozen developed nations on the planet and compared every u.s. state against the others and studied wealth inequality ups what they found is that the more an equal a nation or even a state is the bigger the gap between the rich and the poor than the worse it's

social ills like teenage pregnancy or drug abuse or violence in nearly every single instance the higher the wealth inequality the bigger the problems and where does the u.s. rank well wilkerson pickett looked at japan sweden finland norway germany spain france the netherlands italy australia denmark belgium switzerland austria greece and into ireland israel the u.k. new zealand and portugal comparing all of those countries what they found is that the u.s. is by far and away the most unequal we have the biggest gap between the rich and the poor of all these other nations. and because of that we lead the way in problems take infant mortality we are the very very worst when it comes to how many failed births there are every year far more than any nation in the world down here you have jet does load japan sweden norway spain

germany france as income inequality goes up portugal usa here we are here infant this is infant deaths per live births all the way up here at seven down here three for japan and sweden low income inequality take imprisonment rates again where the very very worst with a far higher percentage of people serving in prison than any of these other nations take teenage birth rates again we blow other nations out of the water. this is this is still prisoners with how many kids get pregnant in our communities there's births per thousand women the usa is way up here over sixty. norway in japan down at the bottom near term take homicides guess what we win that too with far more murders than any other nation work there and take drug abuse boom there we are at the top again with the most drug ads all of this all of these

problems because we've let the rich in the in this in this nation go wild massive tax cuts and deregulation at the same time let the poor sing deeper and deeper into desperation busting up unions and cutting away the social safety nets put in place by f.d.r. and l.b.j. but perhaps this is the most important outside of all social mobility wilkerson and pickett looked at other nations to see how often poor people moved up to higher wealth classes in other words how easy it is to become to come from a poor family and become middle class or even wealthy on your own this is essentially the basis of the american dream the idea that anyone can make it here we go to where you came from and when it comes to social mobility when it comes to the american dream america finished dead last the lowest social mobility of all the other nations studied the lowest the american dream no longer exists because of extreme wealth inequality in america we can't continue on like

this our government your member of congress must acknowledge soon that its wealth inequality is the biggest threat to america today it's not our debt it's not illegal immigration it's not our taxes it's wealth inequality canada gets it the rest of the developed world gets it but we don't so right now call your member of congress call your senators and tell them one thing it's the wealth inequality stupid. i think for the big picture united for more information stories we covered this in our website tom hartman dot com and artie dot com also check out our youtube pages of youtube dot com slash does the picture r.t. and slash tom martin and this entire show is available is a free podcast and i tunes and don't forget democracy begins when you show up your it get out there and get active will see them out.

to you for sure. pulled from the.