markets. why no one should really happening to the global economy with my stronger run over the global financial headlines cons report. good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm lauren lister here in washington d.c. and the dow and s. and p. logged the worst thanksgiving week since one thousand nine hundred thirty two historically stocks have done well this time of year so is the u.s. stock market a turkey and for shoppers today it is black friday for those boycotting and protesting it it is occupy black friday now from pepper spray to staying in tents the two movements have brought about sums to writing links similar images as for black friday itself does it fuel corporate power and exploitation or does it fuel

its better an economy driven by consumer spending we'll take a look at it and looking beyond black friday big picture can anything save the u.s. and western economies from leadership failures as european leaders race to save the eurozone and u.s. presidential candidates campaign for a chance to steer the u.s. economy is everyone headed in the wrong direction we'll see let's get to today's capital account. ok unless you're living under a rock you know that today is black friday a tradition in american culture that almost rivals thanksgiving itself it is known is the biggest shopping day of the year this year stores opening even earlier

opening last night to customers to get deals but it's known to critics of american consumerism as buy nothing day and this year in addition to occupy wall street we now have occupy black friday or occupy x. missed christmas if as you see there this is the adbusters campaign now when some shoppers hit the malls today they were met some of them by the sound of this. it was a stop shopping choir in new york there now there were also occupy black friday protests or actions reportedly outside of new york and macy's some planned in seattle boise and chicago now according to our busters this is an all out offensive to unseat the corporate kings on the holiday throne and hit the empire where it

really hurts clearly though they're up against a very large challenge. like i said they have their work cut out for him and i'm not just talking about corporations watch this. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you thank you thank you were. unfortunately those were not scenes from violent riots they were people clamoring for black friday deals early this morning or last night and the last one you can

tell exactly from the video but that was in a wal-mart in california where a customer used pepper spray against shoppers and what authorities have to literally refer to as competitive shopping so does this all mean that american consumerism is fueling corporate power and propping up exploitive corporate practices the kind that occupy wall street protests the kind like guests are gastric economic hit man jump perkins have spoken about we really do have to accept our responsibility here for too long we've told these corporations here you know i want cheap t. shirts and if there is a being made by slaves and sweatshops in indonesia i'll just look the other way and i want to control it from my court that means destroying the amazon rain forest so those are the least i'll just look the other way well testing out that looking the other way i went to our closest best buy target complex here in washington d.c. and i talked to some black friday shoppers who were out to score

a good deal i don't think they thought they were going to get this conversation take a look. this stuff is really cheap where do you think it's manufactured or where you think workers make it most of it if. you want to think about it. how much you think workers make in china and thailand to make those cheap products which require. crazy. just. so if you knew that like the stuff that you were buying it was made in a sweatshop by someone making your gas was like five cents an hour would you still buy that stuff. would you. say no but. the batteries can go through so you want.

you know video games you want your cheap goods but you also want more jobs in the us so how we're going to disguise. you know. you have any idea i don't but just so you know those guys did say that their biggest concern about the economy was the lock jobs and i also met some australians on their very first black friday i was a treat they were very thrilled because they said the things they were buying would be what a more expensive in australia even without the black friday deals. there's a lot more tariffs and it's ready for all of the imports so anything that is made a hero in china is a lot more expensive and it's rather than it would be here interesting how the economy in australia will have more jobs to those tariffs help people keep their jobs i'm not sure whether the tariffs would help me hate their jobs but we haven't had a recession with the g.s.a. so if the economy's really good prices of everything of us are different then than they are there's a lot more things like health care than there is on cheap manufactured goods sorry

it's a trade off in multiple different ways so expand upon that a little bit so you guys pay less for health care more for health care much less for health care is free in australia drugs are extremely cheap minister so here we pay a lot for health care but we get video games. which it is but that's that's just what happens when she think it's a better trade off i go for the health care it's a necessity i've actually had to watch saving surgeries and i haven't paid a cent. so clearly there are trade offs for everything and if we're talking about black friday here in the u.s. there is of course of flip side to the evil corporate criticism consumer spending accounts for seventy percent of the u.s. economy and this holiday season american retailers will hire more than four hundred eighty thousand temporary workers now even though these are not permanent jobs i'm not saying these are great jobs they are jobs at a time when people desperately need them so clearly there are tradeoffs no matter

how you look at it no matter what you sacrifice now here to talk about maybe which is the better scenario is joe weisenthal he's deputy editor of business insider he is in studio which is a rare treat thanks for having me nice to see you thank you thank you for some of those videos they came from business insider some of the black friday you know your video i was really excited as the first thing i did this morning when i got started searching youtube instantly for crazy black friday flight videos and this is you know this is a day in your life you don't go out for black friday you are scouring the web or the crazy videos to put on business insider yeah i knew there would be great ones and a few years ago someone else did and i was like right next year i'm going to be the one to fund them and if you are trying to score the best you tube deals on black friday. ok well switching to black friday itself so what do you think judge is that fuel corporate power fuel corporate exploitation or is it boost buttering economy that is completely driven by consumer spending i mean it's pretty hard to look at those videos of people fighting over a video games or i don't know if you saw the awful make or one you don't want to

see is that yes the two dollars. anyway it's pretty hard to look at to feel very good about what's happening in the economy and people's priorities on the other hand you know you as people spend. create some jobs the worst thing most people don't do and so it's not like everyone is doing this is just kind of a small percentage of people who like to do it so it's disturbing to watch but you know the world come on you know commit to something are you with black body shop. no i would argue i like writing. i guess i'm more occupied by what i read it is really i i could never imagine getting into is a fight or a scrum of any sort by anything and t.v. or. you really it's hard to imagine being part of it crowed ok but it just as far as to the bigger picture issues we hear the u.s. administration constantly talking about the china currency issue talking about china under valuing their currency but when you talk to shoppers they want cheap

goods cheap goods are made in places like china chinese officials say this is a subsidy for the american poor and you know from the people i've talked to they seem to like it from the shoppers in those videos they seem to be quite enthralled by it so i mean which is it is the currency issue you know does it hurt u.s. exports or does it have a subsidy to americans it is kind of both i mean the sort of immediate gratification sure any good that you buy is cheaper there's a chinese made version but in the long term it does seem as though there is this sort of low and concise worker who would have had a job at a factory perhaps building something not the best but a job nonetheless who is kind of lost out. in general it seems the sort of global unfettered free trade has helped the certainly more whether it's business owners people who just sort of enjoy the fruits of the world and really like the free flow of labor or cheap labor whatever it is and the people who formerly build stuff in

this country have lost out on a day like black friday they love the fact that you can get a forty two inch t.v. for one hundred ninety nine dollars but overall it doesn't seem like they've got a great deal right and you heard the girl from australia talking about terrifying you know those engines unions they're they're fighting against the free trade agreement that the u.s. is pushing for that australia is looking at because they're worried about losing jobs they're worried about anything that would hurt manufacturing of course we'll see where that all leads but this is getting to the issue of current. the currency wars we saw a twitter war break out over this subject between economist nouriel roubini and james records author of currency war it's actually been on this show recently i want to remind our viewers of some of the exchanges to give you a taste of it if you're not familiar i can bring up a tweet to show what they were fighting about so here's one where he called james record so arrogant he thinks bernanke gave three men etc are all wrong and then he also went on to do

a comparison to the wizard of oz talking about even the wizard of oz a metaphor of the us debate on gold and silver is a better intro to the gold standard than records currency wars so who won joe you covered this i covered this what do you think i mean in my opinion actually be the gold standard pre-war dreaming and i think they don't really make a great case for why this sort of hard money gold idea is what we need in fact. depression. generally when you know the back of the thirty's it was actually this durance to super hard money that caused a lot of problems it's causing problems in europe with the germans and their refusal to let the e.c.b. do any kind of intervention to bail out the country if this is you know it's it's kind of like a tough guy thing i think people feel like we should really strict and there should be a finite amount of money but in the modern era i don't think a really big smoke sense of although i think the whole thing going to go on the

advice i. think that you think rubini one that's what you're saying i think it was correct i don't think anyone really wanted because no one really looked very good i think he was technically correct in the arguments but when you know the the real it's very impressive joe are you speaking from experience because you've been involved in your fair share of twitter was i just want to quickly bring up a tweet to show the twitter attack really that you got into. accidentally sent this saying off the record this is about you joe yeah i thought you were a loser and like all parasite losers hopes for attention. traffic what is up with this. tax this thing i think it's a bad move but my view is like i enjoy getting into twitter fights actually but i think the key is like so close higher and i go you know i'm basically a nobody compared to reno so i love. to get into a fight with him so does this kind of thing raise your stock when it's you want to someone who's like you know who won't like the world's most famous economists like country down and gets into a fight with you that's fantastic i was really excited when he said there you go on

the bright side there is the you know silver lining to some advice you're going to get through twitter fight punch hard punch higher there you there you have it you heard from joe biden and all his best twitter war and by senos from the trenches of the twitter wars which he follows engages in every day that was joe biden all in the studio here he's got to be editor for business insider. and still ahead here on capitol hill don't go away black friday shoppers may have done their part but will consumer spending really fuel a u.s. economy that is running on empty and what other western economies the first the clothes in stock number. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i want to tell the truth.

i'm a contestant and i am a total get of i love crab because he is a pretty. but he was kind of yesterday. i'm very proud of the with his plate. oh. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here's you some other part of it and realized everything is ok you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to

break through i think it may who can you trust no one who is you know if you will with a global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. ok let's move on beyond black friday because we want to look at the big picture and what is the biggest impediment to western economies is in debt is it growth is it political leadership we see the leaders of germany france and italy pushing for a fifth full crackdown pushing for fiscal union so is more europe the problem or the solution to the eurozone crisis and in the u.s. we see g.o.p.

hopefuls taking the stage in debate after debate it seems like weekly to buy for the top spot in this country against current president barack obama so could any of these people steer the u.s. economy in the right direction or would they all be headed further in the wrong one here's out me answer all of those questions is paul craig roberts he is just the guy to answer them as he is former u.s. assistant of the treasury during the reagan administration he's also author of this book how the economy was lost the war of the worlds so let's get straight to it it's nice to see you thank you for joining us on this day after thanksgiving dr roberts to date we have just seen reports that germany france and italy are pushing for a more fiscal union as the solution to this euro zone crisis is more europe a problem dr roberts or is it the solution. well more europe. lose their individual sergey and. trade. commission.

i don't think pollution. you see what's happened is the bankers are taking over and they don't want to lose their money. and so how do you get out of this mess where you have to impose the calls on me ordinary citizens of your. political say objects will how do you or will come their section where you simply take away their financial independence then you have their budgets and their taxation their spending is set by the european union set up so that the individual countries simply disappear that's what this is all about and that's what the e.u. means talks about. more unity so it sounds like you think more unity it would be

a bad thing i'm curious what your take is with bankers you think they're in charge here investors i'm assuming too we found a really bad bond auction for germany earlier this week it was a failed on docks and thirty five percent of them didn't have buyers their central bank had to step in and they've had some failed bond auctions in the past but this was the worst one they've had recently what do you think of behind this well i think it was orchestrated to pay germany back we see. the german government is trying to maintain the conditions in which they agreed to abolish their own currency and they're also include by nick and enter the euro and those conditions are that we you can simply buy does not preclude money to underwrite the debt all their mistakes. so germany is in the way the one of the solutions which is all the european central bank to create money

and to save the private banks from losses from holding sovereign debt of greece italy spain and portugal so germany says no we didn't enter on what basis we. and on the basis that's now the treaty and we want to stay that way so being in the way your game central bank i think the united states was part of this is squarely european commission they and the private bankers of course they engineer to fail all is absolutely no reason for government option to fail but it's. it's the country that's expected to bail out also you know others so if it can sell as winds that could it be expected to bail out all the others because i didn't sound like you think this is an actual orchestrated the financial war fare yes it was it was orchestrated against germany to punish them integrating them

around to the solution a third by the private banks and then we can sit and wait and have a very private how to thank you. so very profound that kind of thing dr roberts well how could you prove that unless you're going to be. and if you were in the meeting and then said it everyone else will deny it but there is this proved what happened today the finance minister in germany announced there will germany made back off its demands that the private banks have to accept some of the cost writing down some of their holdings of sovereign debt so it did seem to indicate that germany got the message and it's backing off one of the requirements it is maintaining or some creditor banks don't like it look who's in charge of the new head of the that you present the european central bank your

america. right now he was the vice chairman and managing director of goldman sachs international a member of their third management committee he was the italian executive director of world bank bikeability and he's a member of the governing council you can send to buy a ticket on the board of directors the director international settlements that goes all in all on look at ten mariel we will hear the same thing with the technocrats that have been put in place both ron and happens with it sounds like you think are how these banks our paths are doing the bidding of the bankers what are the united states i cite very thing that's right yes the united states. is concerned about its banks typically goldman sachs which it believes as sold massive. guaranteed swaps of european central bank. european

sovereign debt so if those bonds fail in any way well they're not bailed out then. it was actually the american barracks were along to make good and that of course they don't have the money to do that with us so that would renew the financial crisis here so everything is directed. toward printing money. and to force the european citizens in the various countries to bear the cost just real quickly dr roberts do you see anybody in a republican field or anything on the one in the future with president obama that could get things going in the right direction instead of in the direction that you believe that things are moving with just doing the bidding of bankers don't you know there's. no hope at all that's all we have time for but i would love to later find out why there is no hope i'm sure we will be able to do that in the future

thank you so much for being on the show today though that was former assistant secretary of the treasury during the reagan administration also an economist and author that was paul craig roberts. all right before we go i have been wanting to get to some viewer feedback and finally get to today i appreciate all of your comments and feedback i read pretty much all of them even if i don't get back to you but one of our you tube viewers shane chiswick he asked does anyone this was in response to james rickards interview general kurds he said does anyone know jim rickards thoughts on silver he only mentions gold and king world news never asked him about silver for some reason i would love to know if he is as bullish on silver as i am now i obviously didn't

ask jim rickards about that either when i interviewed him last but i just want to let you know shane i think it shane yeah that you may have your question answered quite soon just keep watching complex next week not going to promise you anything but i'm going to say that there is a large possibility that you will get your question answered by jim rickards himself now moving on florian one of our viewers actually e-mailed me and he said you're making a very good series and do a lot to inform people about what's going on in the world economy however in the episode uploaded on november eighteenth you're talking with your producer about herman van rompuy close to the end of the episode there are so many ways to argue against what then ron paul is doing in his job that there is no need to ridicule the way he looks but you too did just that even though he deserves criticism making fun of the way he looks as far below your dignity level glory and what he is referring to we did kind of lighthearted segment looking at technocrats vs

politicians and we put herman van rompuy is face in an image as a character and lord of the. now being a public figure i personally think that this kind of creative use is fair game this guy is a public figure ok he's a leader he's a politician but i completely agree with laurie and i think that personal attacks are very tacky i definitely think that ridiculing someone's appearance is very tacky and i just want to tell you florian and to our viewers that wasn't the aim of what we're trying to do we're just trying to creatively depict that you know these are technocrats they are more you know in the back of things they're not the front men like politicians are we thought it was a creative way to display that thank you for your feedback now i have a little bit of time to respond to stewart lenders he said that's how he pronounces his name he responded to our economic hitman interview saying they hit man pointed out that private companies are responsible for the meltdown or the failing of the system he says he thinks this is

a false assumption he does agree that c.e.o.'s and other managers get away with too much currently they can get away with bank accounts while leaving behind a drain shell that was once a successful company but you'll find greed everywhere not just in companies the main culprit is the government it's a government and the fed who are responsible for the money supply and interest rates this means we don't have a true free market there is constant price distortion multinationals are not rigging the system log being it is not a crime and it is not even illegal now i think he brings up a really good debate which is what role finance corporations have versus the government and i think that's a really interesting point about the lobbying can none of this really be solved until we take a look at campaign contributions and lobbying as the vehicle through which corporations get power that's all we have time for thanks for your feedback and thanks for watching our show feel free to follow me on twitter lauren lyster and to give us more feedback which we will hopefully read on air at you tube dot com slash capital account i'm lauren lyster i have a great weekend we will be back next week with lots more guests and very exciting

segments which you got want to miss some of which i hinted at in our viewer feedback today until next time from everyone here at how full account. out of a. guitar sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then when something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know what i'm charging welcome to the big fish. commission free good indication free transfer charge is free. range and free. three stooges free.

download free blogs just plug in video for your media projects and a free meal john to our chief dr tom. bodett. the.