so. all of them are all. of them. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear see some other part of it and realize that everything you saw if you don't i'm sorry is a big. fight . for. five.

welcome back to the big picture i'm sean arbonne coming up in this if another look at some of the big picture stories we've covered in recent months on this show that had you the viewer but as you know on our you tube pages in our blogs and over get to log on in samarra dot com to find out about all the different ways you can send us your questions comments and rants about these stories and anything else that goes on here at the big picture or on my radio show.

it looks like another republican has read the story of robin hood backwards it is stealing from the poor to give to the rich michigan residents are getting screwed over by their governor rick snyder yesterday republican snyder signed into law legislation that would cut six why. weeks from unemployment benefits every state in the country currently pays out twenty six weeks of benefits now michigan will lead the way and ate out only twenty weeks and that's a state that's had higher than ten percent unemployment rate for longer than any other state in the country in other words the state with the worst unemployment numbers also treats the unemployed the worst. as u.s. congressman sander levin said about the move it turns the clock back fifty years at a time when unemployment is at historic highs since the great depression i call it the republican great depression not only does governor snyder's bill amount to

nothing less than a war against poor people also feels to realize that pain out unemployment benefits helps to boost economic activity and get people back to work this isn't just heartless it's bad economic policy. but i get it governor snyder has to take money out of someplace like poor people's pockets in order to pay for his two hundred million dollars cad corporations and their fed can't c.e.o.'s so let's see the effect of these republican economic policies in our little city here in the studio democracy this is back to democracy bill we've we've been here before and there's basically two competing theories of economics that are being played out the democrats are playing demand side which is how economics of work for six thousand years the republicans are playing surprise side which is how economics of work for the last thirty years which is one of the reasons we're in such deep trouble now.

to start out with demand side this is this is how it actually works here is here's a little town that has been basically devastated by the bush great depression that we're experiencing right now we have just a couple of homes here we've got a farm with a little you know a field out here of sorrow and. a little grocery store the supermarket and so much happy people are out of work right they they're just scraping by so we come in as the government and we say ok we're going to give you some unemployment money we're going to do the opposite of what works nader is doing because you're an employer and here's some cash we're going to give that to the homeowners so the homeowners then take some of that cash and they then they go to the supermarket they buy things and the owner of the sewer and they know they're buying things from those who are in the owner of the supermarket than course has to give some money to the farmer the farm now is making money and they say you know gee maybe we ought to buy something from like you know

a store i mean let's let's actually you know get the a.t.'s lawn service out here and fix up our you know the help clean up the farm and make it look better and you know let's. buy some shoes and things in a sack and it's not. the farmer by the way because you know these people have some money too and in fact and so then you know it's a let's open a shoe store let's open a clothing store you know put some then you know we'll put some money because there's demand now because there's money circulating in the environment let's let's open this restaurant here just southeast let's let's open juice at his restaurant and they're going to get some now what happens when all these small businesses open they all need employees so they're going to give money from them to the people in the houses they're going to say come back to work and so you get more houses and more people move in and they've got jobs because they're working for these people here and what has happened is they have a little bit of money that was put in just to jumpstart the thing in terms of

either you know food stamps welfare payments were unemployment payments that little bit about money going to going to the store and the farmer and to these other stores then circulates and creates what's called a virtuous cycle in economics and as of this is economics one hundred one this is your thought and the story basically in the epic of gilgamesh written six thousand years ago about the city state or now here's the conservative supply side theory their theory is that that's all nonsense and that instead what you should do is take all the money and you should give it to the rich people you just give it to the rich people there you go guys have a pile of money and the supply and then the rich people will do something with that money well it turns out most that with the rich people do and of course you do a bunch of money to big corporations you say please create some jobs but the rich people the corporations are going ok thanks for the money we're going to take that money and we're going to get the bank. and it's just going to sit there in the bank

and i mean you know maybe they'll buy a few things one of these stores might be good she's you know basically there's not a why economic activity being created by this and so what happens is because there's no economic activity going on you know all. these are starting to and particularly if a lot of money is going to big corporations so we end up with monopolies they're putting out of business the smaller companies are just knocking them over because you know everybody is just buying from the big chains the big corporations that got the giant tax breaks that the little companies they didn't get giant tax pricks and so what happened even the giant supermarkets you know in the end you know knocking them out of out of business and so happens is you know the people are now in a crisis because they're getting laid off because of the consolidation of the big corporations and because these giant corporations by the way are shipping the jobs overseas and so people you know are losing their homes and you people are committing suicide suicide rates actually go up the b.b.c.

did a spectacular one hundred year analysis of suicide rates in the u.k. and australia and they found that that whenever conservative governments came in suicide rates went up whenever liberal governments came in suicide rates so you have more suicides now on the other hand you may have more households because you know when you have poverty as poverty increases in the united states as inequality increases teenage pregnancies go up so maybe you were going to add a house back here because we've got you know these extra babies coming online but they're very very poor babies i mean you can forget about the money the money has been sucked up. by all the rich guys over here who are putting it in the bank and by the way the bank might not even be in the united states the buy bank might be in switzerland writes for the sake of that money and putting it in in u.b.s. you know we're we're phil graham the guy who you know graeme least while in the commodity futures modernization act is on the board of directors or at least was so this is the difference between these two systems between demand side economics and

supply side economics and how supply side economics whites entire economies which is why in the last thirty years eighty percent of all the growth in our economy of all of the money all the benefits eighty percent in the last thirty years has gone to the top one percent of americans and the average american today. the average at war america worker or today is making twenty seven hundred dollars less per year than he was making when ronald reagan came into office they've been stealing us blind it's an insane theory it's time to put it to bed it's time to put it to you and you know give it a nice funeral let's go back to classical economics. we have another new segment for you and i regular listeners of my radio show are familiar with the geeky science segment i've been doing for eight years my chance to share what i think is

a really interesting science story every week science news is reporting this week this stone age this is the story by the way the stone age human ancestors living in south africa's pinnacle point may have learned to keep track of the tides the ocean tides in order to harvest shellfish and that their access to this food source which is brain food extraordinary may have played an important role in human evolution archaeologist from arizona state university if on artifacts in a cave in south africa and to test a complex thinking and behavior including lunar literacy in other words you know we know about actually keeping records keeping track of the moon and cycles of the moon and ritual activities these findings challenge the longstanding view that stone age people did not really think abstractly or perform complex rituals until about fifty thousand years ago so here's the deal you know one of the big questions is always that why are humans the only primates who have who are basically paralysed below their heads other than the areas where the water lines would be

like you know if you were moving through the water why you know why would that be why why is it that humans are the only mammal the only the only primate anyway that can give birth under water and the babies that we give birth to under water are they have. a lot of fat into their skin unusual for mammals and for primates but it would insulate them in cold water and the baby can actually breathe underwater and not not breathe the baby can live under water without breathing as long as the umbilical cord still attached babies can swim at birth human babies can swim in perth other primates can't and and you know why stephen jay gould famous of scientists he's now deceased suggested that there was this thing called this change to the it to darwin's theory of evolution called punctuated equilibrium that what would happen was that every now and then you know evolution might move along slowly but every now and then there would be some kind of a horrible disaster that would happen and ninety nine percent of all the members of

a species it could be bacteria or it could be people who get wiped out and that one percent that survived were the one certain one percent who carried with them an adaptation a gene and. that allowed them uniquely to survive the aquatic ape hypothesis suggests this that basically there was some kind of awful thing that happened a hundred sixty five thousand years ago like a gigantic volcanic event huge wildfire in we had produced climate change huge wildfires swept across africa or possibly the it was surrounded by darkness and things didn't grow whatever it was the wild animals came to the sea coast looking for food the humans went into the water and literally we stood between the sea shore up to our necks for a generation or two and the only humans who survived were those who were relatively hairless so they were well adapted to the water and who could give birth in the water it's an interesting theory nobody really knows it's very controversial you can google the aquatic ape and find out more about.

crazy alert yet with chavez in an attempt to squash talk that he may not be fit to run for reelection after undergoing cancer treatments venezuelan president hugo chavez has released a workout video just. just how healthy really is flanked by his cabinet members chavez offers up some exercise tips complete with a techno soundtrack and countdowns he also says that a healthy mind and body lead to a healthy government so how exactly p.t. x. but it's not a bad workout schedule unclear where chavez got the work idea from but expect other embattled world leaders to follow next steps what into the bunga bunga beats with silvio berlusconi or maybe he'd be more comfortable demonstrating his natural.

drives the world of fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions it's completely predictable that sort of people have made can you trust no one rule is you view it with the global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism in school. when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. for.

your take my take is your chance to send your questions comments ranson observations about anything we talk about here in the big picture or during my radio show and it's my chance to give you my take on it one more time our first comments and is a message from the viewer ratline one viewer makes an interesting observation that perhaps the republican position during the negotiations on the debt ceiling speaks to the fundamentals of the party's ideology about the role government should play in running this country. the american people who have learned that we're not the party who says that they don't believe in government. that absolute building could . prove

a point they run government because they don't believe in government but here are the republicans who have learned from the shutdown they pulled the ninety's in the clinton. i'm afraid some of the old some of those one to learn from history are doomed to repeat it doesn't apply in this country anymore well doug actually it does apply and i think that you just made that point. kind of backwards but i think you're right and i think that our failure to learn from the lessons of history are playing right into the republican strategy to take this country's far away from traditional democratic values both small d. and argentine as possible the the president has been talking as i mentioned in my rant a little bit ago about transitional presidents and compromise and how wonderful and porton all that is i think frankly it's time to return to the core values that this country was founded on and that built this country and the built the great middle

class during the middle part of the twentieth century we've wandered away from those values when we went in to greed is good in the first few years of the reagan administration and elevated billionaires to to very high status people you know starting with reagan's inaugural ball and you know it's i kind of like jimmy carter working for any our next comment is also from the brand this viewer called to share her outrage about the lack of shared sacrifice from wealthy corporations and the millionaires and billionaires who become the patrons speaking of today's republican party but look at them illegal no we don't tax the corporations that are well take the fifth i don't believe a lot of this picture is getting away with the republican sham it they put upon the cadre of the people we didn't do this to a get the majority of analysts agreed today that the debt deal struck between the white house and the republican leadership is overall a win for the g.o.p. because the republicans achieved drooled rules they avoided tax increases and they got a dollar for dollar cut in spending to match the amount by which the debt limit is

going to be raised so you know this is a this is a real problem and if president obama was going into this full tilt boogie gun. oh as jane had jane hamsher is suggesting and i think all of us need to take a serious look at what's going on here and ask ourselves what what it is what it what what differentiates the parties anymore what does the democratic party stand for it if it doesn't stand for social security and medicare for example what does it stand for and our last comments tonight is from the message board over at thom hartmann dot com of all often said that a person and a political party's ideology stems from their perspective on the world depends on whether you view the world through a me window as in what's in it for me or how i benefit from the situation or whether you view the world through a wee window as in how will the situation impact the greater good and this viewer

asks what's what is the slip makes us one way or the other apart from conditioning it seems is the distinction between selfishness and sharing between caring for all of people as opposed to caring for only a few between empathy and cold indifference for the needy among us it's like the story of the good samaritan what is it that makes one behave in such a way contrary to the group to be it's what they finds what has been historically democratic and today progressive and i think the poster actually meant the democratic to be a capital d. but in any case america was founded as a we society were nation of barn builders i know daniel boone is the great icon you know the guy who just puts on the screen skin capitated his rifle and goes out to the wilderness but even daniel boone. haddock had a community even daniel boone was educated even you know even the great rugged individualists have been part of our society humans are social animals and the idea that we're aware of me society and that's the way it should be and that we're not

a we society and we've never been is just wrong as as as humans as mammals as you know fellow citizens of planet earth we have always been we societies every human civilization that has ever succeeded and always back to tribal times has always been based on a core concept of we're all in this together and now that we're all in it together adam at the global level with things like global climate change we really need to be considering that we're all in it together that we society and dump this crazy libertarian whack a doodle notion of oh it's just me my and that's it it's just doesn't work that'll do it for your take my take tonight if you'd like your comments and questions here in this segment of the big picture listen up we want to know your to send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page via twitter at tom underscore

her or in the chat room on the message boards or the blog at tom hartman. you can also leave a message on our rant line at two two five three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on the air. you know nature hates raccoons and so does government republicans appear to have won the debt limit debate successfully getting trillions of dollars in spending cuts and bringing us all closer to their vision of a miniature sized pocket. the one thing everyone seems to forget is that as government power shrinks something else has to fill that power vacuum. and that something is always historically been the or has always been historically the power of either great wealth or corporations since the birth of our nation corporations have slobbered of the idea of replacing government they were hungry for the

billions they could skim off the top of privatized social security or the money they can make from of medicare or the massive profits they can make if they don't have to follow pollution limits anymore and in one nine hundred eighty these power letters to corporations backed ronald reagan and set out to smear the good name of governors they figured if they could just get the american people to buy into the idea that government was broken and ineffective and they could we will or we had a power and faced and today many americans have also bought into this idea and surprise the corporations are moving in. today far too many of us see this theater of ineptitude on capitol hill and think that government has never worked or never will and therefore we should starve the government and scrap it altogether. and it's not just what's going on in congress it's what's going on everywhere failing public schools the debt ridden united states postal service your bankrupt

amtrak bailed regulators and wall street incompetent oversight of oil rigs mismanaged disaster relief black hole pentagon spending soaring medicare prices we see government programs failing all around us and nobody trumpets these failures but the republican party whose members could barely spit out five words without pointing out a government program that they've broken so badly that it's no longer working. that's why people hang teabags their tricorder hats and scream about cover. why droves of young people flock behind ron paul lap up every word about dismantling federal departments and that's why the frame of debate in america has shifted from what should we be spending money on to what should we be spending less money. that's why this debt limit deal is all spending cuts because cuts are good for the economy but because we've all bought into the same idea. this strange notion that

government not only doesn't work but can't ever work and it's the wrong idea it's not even the idea that this country was founded on. the truth is it's not government that doesn't work it's when republicans run government that it doesn't work. i had historian thomas frank on my show recently to talk about republican run government here's what he had to say. cynicism pays massive give a dns to conservatives and what's creepy about this is that it's sort of self-fulfilling so conservatives tend to deal in very bad government the they govern very poorly there's one line from the wrecking crew that i always like to repeat because it can never get out there enough and it's from a it's from a guy who is the president of the u.s. chamber of commerce back in one thousand twenty s and he said in an interview that i found it a very popular mag. seen from the late one hundred twenty s. the best public servant is the worst one nobody's ever said it quite that bluntly since and you can find echoes and i do in the book i find echoes of this remark

right up to the present day i mean conservatives say this sort of thing all the time you don't want competent people in government you don't want because if you can government works if you have smart people in government people that know what they're doing in government works for the public will trust government then you won't have the cynicism you won't you know things things will work and then you know if the democrats will be elected you know that it's there if people find out the government programs work the democrats will get elected so for the last thirty years since reagan republicans have been busy running government. a good name right into the ground hiring inept bureaucrats corporate cronies to give vince people that the government can't do its job and give the republican party exactly what it needs to keep getting reelected a platform that government doesn't work so they can defund government and replace function functions like social security with their buddies on wall street. but it wasn't always like this republican president dwight eisenhower presided over

a time in america when government programs worked and as he told his brother in a letter in one nine hundred fifty four should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear that party again in our political history there's a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things a few texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas but their number is negligible and they are stupid. eisenhower new government worked and that enrich the lives of everyone in america and anyone who wanted to get rid of it was just plain stupid but after thirty years of bad government courtesy of the modern republican party we've all gone stupid even president obama was just barely twenty years old when ronald reagan won the white house can't remember the days when government worked and the american people would revolt against those who were trying to dismantle it. that's probably why he's going along

with the tea party nearly every step of the way to their demands rather than just calling them stupid like eisenhower did. but the tea party and ron paul fanatics fail to understand. is that is the government is the only thing that stands in the way of corporate power. what do you want between you and your doctor to paraphrase the eternal question for the health care debate the government you can petition an elector on elect or a for profit health insurance corporation who c.e.o. will have you arrested if you try to visit his office to talk with you. while you are keeping an eye on our environment the government scientists working for you are exxon mobil's lobbyists working for them the reason why republicans won this debt limit debate is the same reason they've won nearly every single economic debate in the last thirty years in america and that reason is we've all forgotten the america of the middle twentieth century a time when government actually worked and if we don't remember it soon if the tea

party zombies and ron paul worshippers don't wake up from this collective amnesia then the corporations will take full control of america and i can promise you whatever problems you're being have with uncle sam today will pale in comparison to the institutionalized crimes of the united states of for example and rather. exxon mobil or goldman sachs. and that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our websites of. free speech to organ archie dot com also check out our two youtube channel is there a link to tom hartman dot com this entire show is also bills of free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free thom hartmann i phone and i pad app in the app store you can send us feedback at twitter at tanager score arbonne on facebook at tom underscore hartmann on our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at thom hartmann dot com and

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