state that has bee fallen a popular game show host take a look. game show host alex alex true back found himself in serious jeopardy when police say an intruder broke into his san francisco hotel room to state evening jeopardy game show host alex trebek back toward his achilles tendon chasing down some firmware. believe he. will have surgery to morrow and be the canvas for six weeks. ok we all love jeopardy i have to admit that i do the a lot of show staff to we are all huge fans we even play it live at times and we feel real real sorry for alex track that he has gone rob has hurt his ankle it's horrible but does this really mare reports on all the mainstream networks live hits with reporters for the very latest on his tendons seriously i look at the ticker at the bottom of one of those reports had

the suicide bombing in iraq while there devoting the spotlight to back anyway as the debt stalemate continues and doom and gloom continues to be debated we think that an important part of that story is being largely overlooked the u.s. is aaa credit rating what happens if the u.s. loses it everyone is worried about the three ratings agencies that are threatening to downgrade the u.s. debt and what that means the calamitous chain of events that that could lead to some analysts say that a downgrade is inevitable at this point even if the debt ceiling is raised eventually some like investor jim rogers who i've interviewed many times he thinks the markets already accepted that the u.s. is downgraded but what about the track record of these very ratings agencies that everyone is so concerned about let's talk about japan it's a great example standard and poor's downgraded their rating not one not two but the re times about a decade ago between two thousand and one and two thousand and two and what

happened to the markets freak out no the market did not freak out. government borrowing costs did not soar and back there was actually a steep decline in borrowing costs for the country now it's been a decades in japan lost that aaa credit rating and its ten year yield is close to a whopping one percent and its currency hasn't been taken down and it's actually at the strongest levels of the decade now just as a refresher on government debt it's basically the interest rate that the government pays on its bonds so if it's low which one percent sure is that suggested investors are willing to make very little money on that investment in order to hold that debt now ok japan that's one country what about others let's look at canada australia they've lost their aaa credit rating in the past they were only marginally impacted and they got their aaa credit rating back after a few years of some fiscal discipline now if fact it actually turns out that when you look at the history of all aaa downgrades by s. and p.

yields have traditionally gone down afterwards not to mention there are other examples ratings agencies are blamed for missing the housing crisis the financial crisis inquiry commission and fact reported back in january of two thousand and eleven that the three credit rating agencies were key enablers of the financial meltdown enablers the mortgage related securities at the heart of the crisis could not have been marketed and sold without their seal of approval that was a quote those were their findings the inquiry commission now in addition to all of those examples the u.s. dollar and u.s. debt have been considered safe havens in the past and as joe weisenthal who will speak to in a minute has pointed out on the business insider the truth is that there really isn't that much other aaa rated stuff for people to invest in so is everyone calls calamity on the loss of the u.s. as aaa credit rating not questioning the history of the ratings agencies who

threatened to take down that score that is what the mainstream media is missing. all right the debt stalemate continues in washington lawmakers are heading for another showdown tonight as if we haven't had enough republicans in the house are set to vote on the speaker's plan which of course the senate says that it won't pass now the public plan republican plan has gone down to deficit cuts whittled down to just nine hundred billion dollars over ten years nine hundred billion pretty wimpy compared to the fourteen trillion dollar debt nonetheless the eleventh hour deal making or the lack of it continues the u.s. further towards this scary default deadline so now everyone's wondering if come tuesday washington hasn't gotten this figured out who's going to get paid

conventional wisdom seems to think that it's investors first and on top of that predictions abound over whether a downgrade to the u.s. is aaa credit rating is coming on tuesday and how markets the world over will react to that well here to help us understand all of this is joe weisenthal he's deputy editor of the business insider and it's so nice to see you. thanks for having me so first of all as i just pointed out minute ago and as you pointed out and you're writing the track record of these ratings agencies isn't exactly stellar do you think that means that if the u.s. gets downgraded it won't be armageddon. well no i don't think it will be armageddon that's not to say there won't be issues there are the key thing is that there are investors who are compelled by regulations or rules that require them to hold aaa credit and that could become an issue in the u.s. lost that status and how they would never give that. becomes a problem as you said earlier one thing going in the u.s.

is favors that there isn't that much other aaa rated. credit out there of any volume so it's not like people can just switch to something else it's pretty scarce so popular a line of thinking is that if the u.s. were to lose its aaa rating that all those rules would be suspended or ignored but you know you don't really know how things are going to go in practice and you know until you get it you're not sure i guess what i would say is that this is a private overhyped. you know filed on the debt would be default on the debt would be a big crisis payment produce zation that forced the government because cut spending would hurt the economy even if we didn't default and then somewhere below that i would put the aaa rating is kind of it should be down there on people's concerns i think ok so what do you think wall street is concerned about most when you know their banks have come out warning obama and congress to reach a deal. very soon they say that this is

a very grave danger is if that agreement isn't reached and they point out a number of things they name all of the things that you just did what do you think that they're most concerned about and you know do they really think that this is going to be such a bad situation or are they looking out for their own interests and talking their own books. i think it's a bit of both i think if they're worried that it could get to a situation in which maybe there is an actual default on coupon payments and that would be a probably catastrophic it could easily start a banking crisis and unlike the last banking crisis that we saw in two thousand and eight there wouldn't be a federal government with the ability to bail it out so that is extremely scary but look we're just heading into financial uncharted territory here and that scares everyone i think if you know in the very few individuals will say i expect a true default but the fact is they just don't know what's going to happen on august second or august third or whatever and no one wants to see that and while

you might say that the wall street banks are just looking out for themselves. there's just no separating the banking system from the overall economy ok speaking of markets speaking of people being scared how do you read what's been going on in the markets i know that's and p. five hundred fell for a fourth straight day in a row but you've also seen some complacency you've also seen some predictions that stock markets are going to tank and then them not tank so what do you think investors are thinking. well regarding the stock market the first thing i would say is that despite the falling is still pretty close to its highs of the year it's actually remarkable given how much has been thrown at this market in the form of a weak economy and this crisis of the situation in europe of the japan earthquake how well stocks have done i think is there's generally no sign that stocks or anything else is really panicking yet they're starting to see it a little bit in the credit markets some nervousness but for the most part it's just wall street has this view that everyone keeps saying it will get it done in the end they always do maybe there will be a tarp type vote where there is like. they'll get it done i don't know i think

maybe the market's been pretty behind the curve i think a lot of market participants don't understand how washington works they don't get the dynamics they've been pretty flat footed on this pretty surprised that it's gotten this far so i would say part of the reason the market hasn't panicked maybe just because they don't realize how serious the danger is ok do you think that there is a serious danger that lawmakers won't get this done someone that has an understanding about. yeah i do i would still say the most likely scenario is that they get something done but it is there's a lot of moving parts here and there's not a obvious or easy path from now to you know passage in the next few days i could spell out you know people could spell out them a lot of this might happen and then they'll vote on this in the senate and the house but this is incredibly dynamic there's definitely no historical precedent for this do you think that i know you said that you think that maybe investors don't quite understand how washington works do you think that washington understands how

the market works do you think that lawmakers plan to vote on the plans tonight. after the market closed on purpose. there is awareness of the markets are watching last weekend for example you heard john boehner say they wanted to have a plan by the time the asian markets opened they didn't get a plan in but there's no question that as the leadership is looking at the markets and you know i'm certain the white house and the treasury are looking at the markets so there's awareness of it whether they really get what the markets are looking for i don't really know and i would say that outside the leadership the rank and file especially of the tea party republicans there's probably a pretty big difference of how the markets work i think timothy geithner usually has a pretty good eye on what wall street and what the market i think is always pretty concerned about what they're thinking but what about what economists are you thinking that say that the bigger threat to the u.s. is not you know the debt ceiling is not this debate right now that the bigger

threat is the u.s. this debt problem that fourteen trillion dollars that that's so high and that reining it in is really what global investors want in order to assure the faith and credit of the u.s. lawmakers have anything on the table that sends that message to the world i mean boners plan now would cut nine hundred billion bucks over a decade. i don't know to be honest i think what economists are pretty split on that yeah there are a lot of people warning about this as the u.s. dead but there are also a lot of economists warning about what spending cuts will do to the u.s. economy in the midst of a very weak recovery that's already faltering if you look at china and you look at europe their project is concerned about that what does that mean if the u.s. engine of demand really slows down over the next year to their economies. it is a mix i mean real quickly just i want to get in here because you mentioned that people that advocate for stimulus and spending some are coming out saying all of this debt talk shows that keynesian thinking is dead and that this debt debate has

proven that do you think that's true yes or no. no i think. thank you it's not very popular right now in washington but i don't think it's been debunked or anything like that all right well we will have to see what their ears are debunked and which proved true as we had closer to this d.-day of the fall on tuesday see what happens i want to thank you so much for coming on the show it's so nice to see oh thank you as always and still ahead right here stick around the twin terror attack in norway has ignited a debate here in the west look at prison conditions and both countries in just a minute to compare and while everyone is focused on the debt ceiling debate we turn our attention to u.s. wars they are still raging overseas lou in a senate foreign policy analyst at the cato institute joins us to talk about u.s. war policy in just a few minutes. later

is that so much i would like to listen to your they really believe we still need to do some are selling christian rock jesus jeans in even jesus pools is this the right way to promote appreciate. it used to be you know ideal place for a holiday. to change. the d.m.z. you are still visible. to the public is not only relieved but also sure the future. all right anyone who's seen the pictures knows there's been an outcry from some groups over the way the norway bomber and shooter anders breivik may be imprisoned you see the alleged right wing extremist who killed seventy six people could end up

at a seemingly pretty cush prison called howden prison although we should know that he's held note that he's currently held. in solitary confinement at a different facility he's not there but as of now breivik is charged with terrorism related charges which carry a prison term of up to twenty one years behind bars if convicted but if you charge with crimes against humanity he could get thirty years may seem low but most people are concerned about the place where he may end up headlines have been everything from the luck super super luck super max to world's poshest prison to if i ever get sent to jail i hope it's norway's held in prison and fox news of course spent time discussing the luxuries of this prison in detail. a typical bedroom at the holden prison complete with a flat screen t.v. presenters have access to a state of the are june where they can shoot hoops or do a little rock climbing and there's artwork sprinkled throughout the facility including this mural and we're not even showing you the prisons recording studio

where inmates are rehearsing the prisons first musical production. that's a bit of anxiety in that report i personally like the prisoner artwork mural but aside from that the daily the new york daily news also expressed disgust over breivik possibly entering this facility in an article they wrote such as life in the hold in prison were doing hard time means doing without a shadow and where inmates don't fear their showers because every prisoner has a private bathroom ok back up wow so the new york daily is angry because breivik won't fear for his safety when he showers because the threat of rape isn't always just around the corner when he bends down for so ok it's obvious that the united states and norway have very different opinions on how prisoners should be treated in norway all these elements like recording studios personal bathrooms personal trainers are considered crucial for the rehabilitation process which is what norwegian officials consider the incarceration process and it's clear of course

that the united states has taken a different approach overcrowding is rampant medical care is poor and the prevalence of gang violence is on the rise within prisons but let's take a look at some of the hard facts here some statistics from time magazine ok when norwegian prisoners are released from jail only twenty percent of inmates return within the course of two years however the u.s. has a much higher rate of return with the number of hovering around fifty to sixty percent not to mention the difference in each country's prison roll norway has about sixty nine thousand inmates per one hundred thousand people the u.s. it has seven hundred fifty three per one hundred thousand people. now that is a big difference so is this proof that norway's rehabilitation approach for prisoners is actually working a let you decide for yourself but i want to get back to the media coverage i want to be clear i do not think that any man who has massacred innocent people should go

unpunished i think that breivik should face the most serious repercussions for what he has done if convicted but for the new york daily to be disappointed that the norway bomber will not be raped in prison that should maybe raise eyebrows i understand that people are in pain and morning after the horrific tragedy and oslo but does it defeat a little of the purpose of showing your humanity to mourn something like this when at the same time you're beginning to lose your own sense of it by suggesting a prisoner should be raped perhaps it's time for an ethics check here but i think it's safe to say that the daily crossed the line this time. now as the debt debate eclipses all other battles do not forget that yes we are still out war the united states is still at war and those wars and us defense spending are incidentally costing a lot of money and they can't really be separated from the fiscal crisis the u.s. accounts for close to half of global spending on defense the wars have cost one

point two trillion dollars since two thousand and one that is almost the size of the country's deficit and some put that figure much higher a brown university research project puts the final bill at least three point seven trillion to four point four trillion yet u.s. troops are committed to afghanistan and till two thousand and fourteen some u.s. officials say many more years into the future may be what's needed people are still dying just today more than twenty people including a b.b.c. reporter were killed in a suicide attack the taliban claimed responsibility for that one and in iraq this weekend the country's leaders are supposed to decide whether or not they'll ask u.s. troops to stay be on the december withdrawal deadline the u.s. of course is offering them and then there's u.s. involvement in libya. along with covert operations that some equate to war in places like pakistan yemen and somalia so here to talk about all of this going on and what we really need to be focusing on is below and she is foreign policy analyst at the cato institute thank you for being here so i think you now i know

that this is something that you focus on when you travel to pakistan and you travel to afghanistan as well i'm curious how you read the violence that we've seen recently against u.s. officials statements because today we have an attack by the taliban the u.n. put out numbers saying that violence and afghan casualties have increased in the first six months of this year to two very high levels to i think record highs there increased sharply and then this kind of seems to contradict what u.s. officials have said you have betrayed us before he went out saying that you know violence is on the decline and you had obama saying the taliban is broken is the situation getting better or worse there i think the problem in interestingly enough general petraeus actually called these gains that we've seen in the past year or so alleged gains fragile and reversible and as we've seen over the past several months there's been a slow chipping away of the fragile and reversible security of the u.s. and coalition forces have tried to bring about especially in the southern and eastern provinces i think a lot of the sort of targeted assassinations that we've seen over the past couple

months where the sum of all the cars were the head of the kandahar police chief while we also saw the attack on the intercontinental hotel just recently i think all of these sort of bouts of violence shows how fragile the coalition government that we've supported for the past ten years really is and how something endless streams of foreign aid dollars to a fragile corrupt incompetent an illegitimate regime ultimately will begin to unravel whether we remain in the country indefinitely or whether we pull out tomorrow i think unfortunately we've seen the history of the country the ethnic and political fractures of the country it's beyond our wisdom it's beyond our patience and it's beyond our ability to sort of carry out this this humanitarian mission building a humanitarian peerless mission i think you know i want to ask you because i think i interviewed you last about this. more than a year ago and at that time you said this is a classic case of mission creep i think absolutely and since then you've seen more rhetoric about how there's no military solution this needs to be a civilian and a diplomatic solution here and that's what we've seen many officials push for is

the us have they had it further and further in the wrong direction i think so i don't think we'll actually be leaving in twenty fourteen i hope so but unfortunately you know we've seen president obama say that we would be out of iraq within sixteen months of when he took office now he has his own pentagon officials trying to big the iraqis to stay there he said you'd be out of iraq now we're in libya so i mean even the promises of getting by twenty fourteen i think are highly unlikely especially when we look at the expansive role that the united states has taken in terms of building permanent regular basis throughout the country with dozens of bases all across any wrong that's a question i have for you because you have one last time you visited last may last may because there have been a lot of rumors of permanent bases or plan as you've seen some senators talk about that do you know that there are plans for permanent bases have you seen permanent bases what they're calling it it's a little rhetorical trick they call it joint bases because the afghan security forces aren't competent enough to operate them independently earlies operate them independently of coalition forces so beyond twenty fourteen it's likely that we're going to have u.s.

and coalition forces in the training position or support mode for these joint bases but in all intents and purposes it will actually allow the united states to have a power projection presence in central asia in china and russia's backyard allowing of course the indians and pakistanis to sort of take root there all of course to the detriment of u.s. interests and the continuing devaluation of our power of our resources and of our military strength why when wars are so expensive defense is so expensive and our country is and its debt crisis that lawmakers have been talking about nonstop for twenty four seven last few weeks and months don't you hear more people in washington saying this clearly you're not the only person that has this information you know i think some of my colleagues at the cato institute i think they're just cynical as. i think they would argue that there's a pervasive hold within the congress and within the executive branch of the military industrial complex unfortunately there are many people within the within the beltway who profit off of war and this is on the surly security folks but also development folks we see whether it's come on it's whether it's louis berger we see

these huge development construction companies that have left the country afghanistan riddled with failed foreign aid projects there's tens of billions of dollars that are being spent but even though those dollars have been wasted you know no policymakers of the say that we're going to stop and pull our forces out or sort of stop our humanitarian mission because again this sort of global into these choice to games and at the same time underneath those altruistic games we see a lot of money being spent a lot of people being killed and at the same time you hear reports come out earlier this week you had reports of counterterrorism officials and leaders saying that al qaeda is on the brink of collapse that after osama bin laden's death after year. even though they say that it is collapsing what do you do you believe that and if so why are more people questioning why then we're in afghanistan and al qaeda has been weakened well before some blog assassination. that killed him even before i believe oh wait oh nine is where we really saw his capabilities severely severely

diminished whether that was in pakistan or in afghanistan or in yemen in somalia and i think now we sort of seen the shift in focus to the horn of africa now that's sort of the new i guess sort of the new mission that will allow the united states to sort of begin poor in its resources pour in the nation building. in the humanitarian peerless aspect and it's unfortunately i think a lot of people they want to stop short and not really voice their opinions because they don't want to seem to be unpatriotic but it's incredibly pietra to be critical of expansive government power that is leading to the deaths of again innocent civilians and of course our men and women in uniform but if those are where the threats are shifting and coming from does the united states need to shift its resources and protect the country from those threats we've made a kind of be much. a much menace much more menacing presence than it really is it's not this existential threat against the united states can be dealt with through narrow terrorism operations it does not need to require at least one hundred thousand foreign troops in these foreign countries and i think honestly i think

that drones of course are a lesser of two evils compared to having hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground but at the same time i think drone operations enhanced the proclivity to want to use an insert u.s. military power so there's also a cost to rely too much on counterterrorism as well but i think that that's again the lesser of two evils and just quickly with this weekend being the deadline where an iraq you know they're going to say whether they want troops to stay or not there's a december deadline do you think that it even matters i mean are u.s. troops just going to stay there anyway well there's a mercenary army going to protect the state department. well i'm happy you brought that up in fact i think a lot of people who have been critical about the war it just in the last several months have been bringing up the economic argument but we're going to be scaling down somewhat in the next several months at least until next year but we'll still be having twice the number of troops compared to when obama took office by the end of by next year around the campaign season which is convenient of course for for president obama but realistically we're not going to be decreasing the amount of money that we're being imported i mean just in fact before

a pentagon official just recently was quoted as saying that we spent twenty billion dollars a year on air conditioning alone in afghanistan in iraq for the troops i mean so these are these are costs that are either ignored or they're papered over because of again these games that people continue to invoke when you look beneath the surface surface needed reading about what's really happening on the ground no one really support what we're doing there wow well i want to thank you for giving us your insight because you spent time there and your research and you have a great perspective thanks for being on the show now to come here tonight our thursday edition of show and tell class while everyone is focused on the debt ceiling talks there is actually debate in d.c. right now over another law that strips away more of your civil liberties we'll talk about the fights and then in just a few minutes. these

top stories division both belgium is in danger of breaking into this and it seeks to join strong sponsor why do it in europe good to ethnic groups and destroy the union. germany's finance minister draws the line on you as a down to future will be surveyed and limited and that chancellor angela merkel took a simple hard line when she said and then will not unconditionally by the owners of strong euro zone members. all right it's time for show and tell last time we want to get your take on what is

going on with the debt ceiling here in washington so we ask you who you think is to blame for the current stalemate on capitol hill well let's see what you said let's go to producer patrice and assented to see what you have to say. ladies and gentlemen citizens of all ages what we have here is a circus a media circus with an elephant and a donkey on a death defying high wire well all of us in the audience scramble from side to side hoping whatever falls it doesn't hit us on the head it's a dangerous act we're only the audience can be badly hurt. so why are we all here and. whose fault is it anyway well i'll bet half of your response is put the blame on just one political party like saeed who believes the blame falls clearly on the republican party robert agreed saying most definitely the republican party roughly the other house of you guys who responded agreed with

scott who said the blame belongs to all politicians every last one of them then there is one comment from light viper who are we to blame for electing these people to represent us so for where moment we are all under the same time politicians and citizens of all shapes and sizes and beliefs now someone needs to tell the elephant dung to back off that high wire before the whole show comes tumbling down. all right thanks for giving us your input and here is our next question for you now we've talked about the differences between the way norway and the u.s. look at crime and punishment so we want to know which prison system do you think is more effective norway or the united states you can listen to my monologue over again if you want to see those stats and let us know what you think which prison systems you think is more effective united states or norway you can respond on facebook twitter and on you tube and who knows your response just might make it.