not seen covered and i'm glad that you're here to tell us about that but talking a little bit about when it is reported on in the united states mainstream media any of these issues of u.s. cuban relations because the news coming out of the richardson visit is that he was rebuffed and not able to see grows yet he was quoted over the weekend saying he'll stay until he gets to i think he was quoted saying my sense is there are some elements in their government meaning the cuban government they don't want to improve relations in the united states is something like the issue of the cuban five a roadblock that needs to be addressed in terms of improving communications between cuba and the united states and the real bonus for improve relations between both countries is on the united states government it's the u.s. that holds the blockade it's the us that holds the cuban prison it's the united states that sent men like alan gross into cuba to bring surveillance equipment espionage equipment against the country continues to finance openly financed by the millions of dollars organizations in so puberty this country it's

a one way trip on behalf of the united states and the u.s. navy often says well if cuba doesn't make this move then the relations will continue bad bill richardson visit to cuba was unannounced he i think has portrayed it in a way that's not quite reflecting reality so you don't think because he says they have and have and invited him you don't that's not the case i don't know that that's true but i do know that alan gross was receiving good treatment in cuba he was allowed to see his wife for five days. on the beach they released him from prison to see his wife for five days and yet two wives of the cuban have been denied visas to visit their husbands on a regular basis they've been denied the warmth and comfort of their husbands so you're saying that it's a double standard when it comes to treatment and you certainly don't hear that talk about it or seems like they're you're saying that there's a disingenuous way of reporting on this issue in the united states that's very one

sided against the coverage that we actually brought out i just need a yes or no answer there yes disingenuous well we appreciate you clearing it up and bringing us your perspective i think that was former presidential candidate gloria . now in the markets in the united states today and all over investors and economists are afraid they're worried that greece could be closer to defaulting on its debt there are also worries that the ratings agencies may cut the ratings of french banks holding greek bonds it shows you the impact of contagion now analysts are saying they don't believe the u.s. can be insulated insulated excuse me from this stress on european banks economists are already worried the u.s. is headed into recession something the u.s. is in one and worry if the u.s. is headed to a darker place that europe what's going on there could be the tipping point but in a crazy world president obama took to the calm of the rose garden to try to sell his jobs bill this morning. the world economy. that is full of uncertainty right

now in europe in the middle east. some of them may be beyond our control. this is something we can control. now obama says the something that we can control is whether or not lawmakers passed this bill but president obama really doesn't have the control to pass this measure with a divided washington it would seem so maybe that's why he felt he needed the extra support of that entourage this morning he said they were teachers cops and construction workers who would be helped by his bill but just as he was making that bold statement this morning trying to instill optimism news came out that kind of just took away from that optimism bank of america released a statement saying it was laying off thirty thousand employees to try to save five billion dollars a year now this is part of the ongoing saga with b.

of a that has included a five billion dollars investment from warren buffett last month to try to convince markets the bank isn't going bust so what does all of this mean for europe for america for americans earlier i spoke with dimitri coziness he's an economics blogger and an archie contributor and i asked him to level with me and explain exactly what a greek default would mean for the average american and if this could be a tipping point for the u.s. economy. i mean there are a lot of economists like unreal rubin who are now upping their mean he originally thought we were going to be a double dip but more economists are saying that we are going to be intervening i thought it was going to be twenty thirteen now he's revised that if somebody is moving it upwards so the greek default could proceed but that a financial crisis and because the system is so highly leveraged and he sort of question the financial sector you can affect the economy so it could be the tipping point but it seems pretty clear that we're heading in that direction anyway in the u.s. may already be in a recession head which is something that people say so then why all of this concern

over greece it's a small economy not one of the largest in europe can you kind of explain why it's bigger than just greece well in i mean not because not to draw a direct comparison between greece and lehman but lehman was not the entire economy it was just one firm and yet the collapse of lehman brothers sparked a freeze in the credit markets so a default of greece could perceive the tape theoretically a panic in the capital markets because people would get worried about who was exposed so their french banks that are that are potentially on the hook with a lot of greek that now who was exposed to those french banks then who's exposed to the banks very close to french banks so you could cause a psychological panic which would cause investors and banks to go into the credit markets and. demand more money at the same time not be willing to lend money out which is what we saw in two thousand and eight that the concern was also political concern because if greece were to default it would really. cause the unthinkable

because so far people have not been willing to discuss that only lately is it being talked about more and more you know what can we do because there is no real exit mechanism from the euro if you're part of the v. and you you're part of it supposedly for life ok and so we saw how chaotic it was in argentina default on its debt and exited the dollar peg in the case of greece it's not even a peg they've given up their currency they're no longer just pegged after master. so it's a very dangerous and scary situation and agree governments are going to prepare for it and they've gotten used to governments in europe and gotten used to especially congress countries like greece and portugal for example gotten used to operating under this european patronage system where they don't have to make as many decisions of the sovereign countries they use in the past they defer to europe and that's what you see in the case of greece a lot of those leaders a greek default is the euro done no i don't think so the sara lee i mean there are different ways that the europeans at a bank in the e.u.

could go about dealing with a default of greece or an exit of greece portugal or some of the peripheral countries they could break the euro into two different types of euro two one speed europe and a two speed europe but the fact that no one is willing to talk about that option openly in kind of admit that that's where we are with an unsustainable debt like greece has and and now the fact the credit but countries the size of italy which is no longer really able to access the markets the way they're accessing the for the markets but the c.b. is in their buying italian spanish debt they've doubled the size of their purchases in sovereign debt in the last month alone so the fact that you have these countries unable to issue dep a for on their own is frightening for the european union for the euro zone and for united states it would seem that would be economic blogger an r.t. contributor you need to be tough enough and have to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to archie dot com last usa you can also check out our you tube page you tube dot com slash arts america please call them me on twitter at

lawrence lester and come back at seven we'll have more on nine eleven has profited from it and the nine eleven responders who have been rocked astray. culture is that so much of it is coming to me when i see him a real train is my field of currency in crisis and in an unknown future is there a silver lining on the. morning news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada after. china operations are all today.

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lavelle the euro currency and prices. in an unknown future is there a silver lining. ok let's put the term in if there is a silver lining to the euro crisis and i'm joined by jeffrey summers he's an associate professor at the university of wisconsin milwaukee also we have michael hudson he is president of the institute for the study of long term economic trends and matthew and he's a financial journalist ok gentlemen this is crossed out i mean you can jump in anytime you want i would be very contrarian we hears all through the media. the euro is already been written we're waiting for the funeral ok let's turn it all upside down let's take a look at some virtue out of tragedy number one this crisis could actually create a real european central bank it has limited tools now now give it a lot of tools what do you think about that guys matthew first just in power it

absolutely i mean the next thing is germany has the right beginning of the year is in deep deep trouble and i have to do something to try and save it and i think they will i mean they're a man of political capital which our entire generation of european leaders have put into this project means that whatever they can do they will do so i mean the next i'm going to do is they're going to be common in europe trying to have a single fiscal authority and yeah ok. a lot more. of the market whether that's a good thing is much more debatable whether they're going to work i don't think it will. it will be a step i mean it's a needs political will to do it but if you're going to keep the euro go all the way because what we've seen over the last two years with last few months is just half measures lack of political leadership no one really wants to make a political move but that's what is necessary political leadership. there's a false way of looking at the problem so far of course europe should have a central bank that can create credit commercial banks create credit all the time

on a computer keyboard the central pay. we're founded to create credit to fund government deficits that's why the bank of england was founded that's why the federal reserve was founded but the banking interests in europe crippled the central bank they didn't notice until back to create credit they say we want governments to come to us and pay us interest and we want to rip off the economy don't have a central bank don't have a public option let us raise your cost of doing business give us the business so of course there should be a central bank unfortunately the way in which you just mentioned the central bank to be perform a function is what it looks like it'll be the central bank is not to create employment not to run the government deficit not to help the people but to give more money to the banks the bail them out that is rotten that is central bank lobbyists and that shouldn't happen and if that's so they create a central bank then good for the europeans for saying to hell with angela merkel.

or with michael on this i mean i think essentially what we see is continued rent seeking ever since the lisbon agreement and treaty what we've seen is really going back to maastricht is an attempt to liberalize into privatized part of creation so we have this rent seeking from the real economy to the financial sector and i don't see things changing and i think all of this to a certain extent is just full mana water the real problem the underlying structural problem that has not been fixed is how do you really recycle capital through the system from rich countries to poor countries and how do you do that in a way. that wasn't the purpose of the euro zone of course it was it should be now we need to go back to keynes and we need to understand that in order to have any kind of meaningful either international trade all real european long beach trade you need national development or you guys are jumping ahead of me michael you want to go where you want if you're going to have us that is the word we need to have through school through school unity we have to have one fiscal policy for the into

. or years old that's the only way that's going to happen should that happen jeff use the word rent seeking and your audience may not be familiar with that because it's a technical term rent seeking means get a free lunch or a privilege right now central bank commercial banks can create credit on a keyboard and they say let us know what are responsible but if a government does it they said look at nineteen twenty one one hundred twenty one of the hyperinflation happened because of german reparations and debts it was international. the europeans who have let the commercial bank lobbyists shape the discussion into a kind of think mission don't look here let us make the whole killing off the government ok we think that's a good judgment going on there but with this i take it or not it's a thing there's a lot in there but i think you're giving it too much for an american perspective you're talking about you're talking about a lot of the problem that i think the world economy in general has

a problem of its financial sector and its banking sector and that's true pretty much wherever you look at through the years there mr in the u.k. there's very united states but there's particular problems in the in the year as i which is the currency has been put together in a dysfunctional way because it doesn't it doesn't work and it's not particularly a problem about commercial banks which are you know off the rest of the pledge and that may be carrying on as it goes on in the rest of the world i mean it's a problem by the fact that the currency itself is dysfunctional that the these economies are not from version you have too much debt in the political countries have too great you know the right balance is in industrial development is on the whim of different countries and the money as a journalist will physically he will be. run by the banking sector you will have the most right wing government you will turn europe into a banana republic if you have fiscal unity run like ecuador and like a a but i really don't want to empower the central bank should it be isn't it better to have fiscal unity here's the problem the central bankers are brainwashed with tunnel vision to do what's good for the commercial bankers and if you have

a central bank who wants to stay. the economy the hope the commercial banks then you don't want them to have power you want to take them out in the backyard very politely say there's nothing personal but we've got to show you it will be very personal jeffrey with just getting back to matthew's point he actually inadvertently return to my point which is that we have this divergent development you're absolutely right between the south and the north for the most part and the only way that you're going to address that is to figure out how you're going to meaningfully develop as you just you just hit the point that i want to. call the badger is that on the mediterranean it's ok if they thought they could solve this problem by just ignoring it by looking the other way and have germany and france in the scandinavian countries dump their surpluses into the south maintain reasonable levels of employment and that somehow they would eventually be able to repay the debts that were taken to pretty well how do you get their message to you ok matt fatuus i'm on the mediterranean i think we all would agree with that here but i don't know what the time frame would be a decade two decades but you would have said he would have this no i mean we would

have it's going to slow you have to have a slippery slope right there so you would have ok over the next twenty years you're going to help us clean up our debt our infrastructure issues can you change their cultural attitudes i mean i agree with that it gives the time because the time frame for the mediterranean countries to get their act together but should someone be paying for that you need i mean it is kind of a fast operating as i say you need the greek economy structural reform of course any structural form anyone can see that that's been true for a long time it was the right response if you can you can do it at a time when you have an economy contraction of six or seven percent a year it's possible i mean i you know i grew up i grew up in the u.k. we had real fatuus of you know your visual version and it was a great wasn't that much from a to the economy a lot of good for the economy was a good track you had a couple of years that economy was contracting a bit but on the whole the economy was expanding quite fast i think you really had thatcherism under tony blair we are you know we can't be carried out of if we still have it we. probably got a white point is you can have factories and you can have that kind of structural

reform. in the colony there's three hundred sixty six percent seven percent a year i just i just know you suppose what it's too but it's too much of a population you can have it a popular even having an economy that's growing trees. is still a big ask it's tough for people people do their jobs people have to change the kind of work the better way industries have to change it's very it's very difficult it's easy to sit around it's t.v. studio and say you have structural form because you're hot on the ground but to have it in that kind of intense contraction just because it's not going to make these point is a good one though again about version development but the problem is that unlike england you can't have all of eastern southern europe turn into an offshore financial zone which essentially london was in london or of your case economy so it's a fallacy to suggest that you can spread a smile or you can it is a beggar thy neighbor policy in the u.k. has been very good at it london has been exceptional at it but not everyone can do it the other problem you have a sort of europe is that actually in terms of the percentage of g.d.p. the rate of taxes collected are exceedingly low unlike northern europe so this this

is where we actually need to before i mean greece in some respects is far more democratic and united states the united states only rich people will avoid taxes in greece as everyone. did so this is what we have to stop and insane as well. all these problems greece spain portugal these all used to be dictatorships and the dictatorships are left a legacy of not taxing the rich now you made the very good point look at we're in a recession now you'd think that for any civilized country not europe or america or latin america or africa for a civilized area they would say with a recession you would want to have the something bank rate credit to run a deficit to build infrastructure and have employment but in europe they say no you have a recession give more money to the banks we caused the recession now. you give us the money and by the way we know you don't have it so off the peg of the parthenon sell off the water systems privatized everything and let us rip you off all over again now it's time for the big rip off and that's what their idea of

a central bank is and this is wrong. it's evil that european voters see this in america eighty five percent of the voters opposed the bailout for the banks in two thousand and eight and similarly in europe that they really do the average american is the average american have a lobbyist in congress no but the republicans in congress know that the polls or so negative that they couldn't get elected if they ended up with roles for the bank in europe the population the slow death and by your rotten bankers in europe and your rotten media here that they actually did the banks think they can do whatever they want and the voters are smart enough to say well we can have a referendum like they had in iceland over whether to bail out the banks the only way we can do is throw angela merkel out and if they had a real election over this and say let's have if you're going to talk a little bit more i mean you're going to get after the break after the break we'll continue our discussion on what to do with the year stay with our team.

keep. thinking. well when one deals with war for us to realize that there's tremendous amounts of damage that are done not just human damage but damage to the physical environment in which the battlefield takes place tremendous amounts of damage go viral bomb squad napalm boy chemical city whether it's on a sonic boom say factory. or it's the burning oil fields in iraq or it's destroyed. sister for women purposes to list just goes on and on the geneva conventions of entries in forty nine states that they are shall be taken in the war to protect. against widespread long term and severe. the

united states although it is accepted almost all of the provisions of protocol has taken exception to that. the official tea allocation. i pod touch from the top still. life on the go. video on demand exceeds mine old cars and says feeds now in the palm of your. question on the. ticket to.

welcome back across the uk i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're talking about the fate of the euro all right gentlemen we've talked a lot about finance and banking let's talk about the political angle of this how is this crisis affecting political discourse do the extremes and those look at the left first i mean it is the leftist party a lot of the steam been taken out of their wins because of what austerity is supposed to mean or does it in energize them do you think that. you know to keep political problem is that is that what happened more needs to happen economically is that a much more powerful european central bank around a common fiscal policy but there's no there's no political support for it so leaders are absolutely stuck that you know you can sit there with your economic advisor ok so you do think it's necessary but it's politically impossible it's going to be the journey here all the way so it's not but if you put it to you could it politically that desirable because there's no political control there's no common you know european political culture you know as the united states you have you know a common country of a common language a common media i mean people by all measures are so i'm sure i was sort of erica.

most of criticisms as i would have the u.k. political system but it's you know it's roughly speaking a function of democracy where you have just just just isn't there is no mechanism by which for example the european central bank or european treasury ministry and you have to find it basically said income and face go and tax policies can have any kind of any kind of democratic leaders who said i'm going to and it's going to feel that there needs to be more consensus here but as this crisis continues there's less consensus because the germans will say hey we've done enough more than our fair share but what is really necessary is for some kind of political consensus i'm going to stay away from the union right now we can get there later but there has to be a political consensus differ is that possible right now because it seems that the inclination is to go in reverse with the problems even worse yet i mean unfortunately the social democrats whether it's in germany or in any other european union country operate under thatcher's maxim that there is no alternative they're not acting as social democrats and they're not imagining any different policy moreover when the

public actually does begin to engage in these issues they're charged with acting in populist ways i mean they're just absolutely dismiss the level of arrogance about policy makers this particular issue is extreme and it's not even permitting any kind of meaningful debate to take the discourse of very well when you think about it this is exactly the problem how imagine one hundred years ago nobody could imagine that the social democratic and the labor party are now to the right of the conservatives the the left wing is now the right wing it's the left wing parties that have led the fight for privatization and to turn over power to the banks and if the they've somehow been taken over by the banking sectors and they're socialists the name only we have to call them fascist in america if i can just interject with one more follow up point what it's resulted in both in the united states and in much of europe is to confuse the electorate massively so for instance the united states president barack obama who i actually voted for and gave money to has acted very center right even right wing fashion when it comes to. finance

what's happened with the electorate is because he's often charged with being a leftist by murdoch media they assume that he's very leftist and now they need to go very far right and that's why i think you see this oscillation back and forth but in european union countries between social democratic governments and conservative governments the electorate is just terribly confused and they just don't see and you know you know i remember watching a report about a woman in iceland with a wonderful small business of her own she made designer clothes specifically tailored clothing and then she would during the crisis in iceland she suddenly woke up and found out she was bankrupt and she didn't do anything wrong at all she did everything that she was told to do well what i'm getting at here is that there is understanding this crisis and how it is how we've got to do it because i think what michael's getting right here is that it's more like baking fascism here but it's

been taken completely out of the economy we don't this is not an economic crisis it is a banking crisis it's a financial crisis and how would the european currency the euro fits into. a slide disagree with his perspective here but i think what confuses people is you had you know the financial crash of two thousand and eight you had the credit crunch you know where all that stuff which was a global problem and then you have the euro which came along soon off with about two thousand and nine because they had to happen at the same time people sort of they got the same problem but they're not really i think i think the goddess of whether you have a financial or credit crunch with a pressure to present i mean the euro because it's a dysfunctional currency because it was badly designed would it would have would have created all of these problems i just i don't really agree that it's a problem the only way they were really labor is because you got a massive increase in budget deficits to deal with a financial crash which kind of exaggerated for those of us i really think i think that different problems i think afghan allies and i like them separately just on your political point i think one of the big worries about a year of crisis is that it opens up to really complex and far right parties

because they really made because here i was here because there's a. dysfunctional because it's a bit like the gold standard in the one hundred thirty s. it was creating massive deflationary forces of austerity which opened up which i found out a lot of a lot of parties for the right to some degree the same thing is happening you see here in finland with the three famous i mean i know they're not a fascist party but they are nationalist party i mean the paid influence is the mainstream voice i was at mainstream while a street main hope of. you could be a baby she's on twenty two twenty three percent of the year is twenty three percent of the vote who would if i were to tell you would be no she's not mainstream in the center a set of views but but the crisis peace making very right wing parties you know larry that means into the mainstream and that's quite worrying and it's one of the aspects in which it's bad but if you want to go for your point about iceland is absolutely correct look at the situation with the social democratic government of iceland the prime minister wanted to repay all the bank that making i think i'm bankrupt for fifty years turning iceland into what ireland became a president who only.