oh i'm tom foreman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight big picture the eurozone is creeping closer and closer to spiraling into an economic a bit us and the biggest economy in europe has major aeration is about riding in on a white horse to save the day the senate is set to pass a controversial piece of legislation that will forever change the america as we know it it looks like the only thing right democrats or republicans on the hill can agree on are ways to subvert the constitution. and are the increasingly militant

tactics being used by police to deal with occupy wall street protesters just the tip of the iceberg. you need to know this all eyes are on germany now to save the global economy and the biggest economy in europe germany is under pressure to open up its treasury and save the euro zone from collapse whole polish foreign minister rattles slob sikorsky made an emergency appeal to germany's to the germans yesterday in general saying i demand of germany that for your own sake and for ours you help the eurozone survive and prosper you know full well that nobody else can do it i will probably be the first polish foreign minister in history to say so but here it is i fear german power less than i am beginning to fear german inactivity you become

europe's indispensable nation and of quote but germany is hesitant one they're not sure if they can bail out europe on their own and to spread all their wealth around to poorer nations there's no assurance it could even work to stem the crisis so for now europe creeps closer and closer to the edge and if it falls. so too does the united states so how do we get to this point and now that we're here how do we get out of this mess richard wolffe joins me now from new york he's a professor of economics the unit at the new school university in new york city at the university of massachusetts amherst in the author of numerous books including the brilliant capitalism hits the fan the global economic meltdown and what to do about it richard welcome back to the program thank you and thank you for the kind words there are absolutely true if germany doesn't budge on this thing and the euro collapses or the e.u. begins to unravel how does that impact us here in the united states. well if it

actually happens and if the europeans begin to dissolve the effect on the united states will be immediate and profound american banks are for example deeply intertwined with their counterparts in europe and they will suffer and american banks are already in very bad shape they have a little room for any kind of serious downturn so right away you'll see a seizing up of credit you'll have something that will look a lot like what the breakdown of the lehman brothers firm was a few years ago secondly the europeans buy a great deal from the united states and they won't be able to do that and finally the europeans are major producers of things we need here in the united states and the whole interconnected world economy will take a tremendous blow if something as important as the european community has a severe economic contraction which it may have but if questions apropos to

that first if were for example buying a lot of german manufactured goods and they're buying you know wrong material or whatever from us. how does that stop just because they're no longer in an alliance and in the with france for example you know would we just go back to bilateral trade like we used to have and then secondly the bloomberg article believe it was today it might have been in yesterday's online press that laid out the seven point seven trillion dollars as you moused over the various points on their on their graphic they identified the various banks they got that seven point seven trillion and how much money they made of it and the largest banks in germany were among the top ten as i recall that got money from our fed couldn't our fed simply run to the rescue. well i think you have to see it in kind of stages part of the german problem is the problem of the world we are now dependent on credit every

government is in deep debt that's part of this problem most corporations are in deep debt most consumers in the advanced part of the world carry huge amounts of debt it means that without a free flowing credit system nothing can work and the whole thing kind of grinds to a halt the big problem in europe is that banks the center of the credit system or own the debt of countries that cannot or will not pay if the euro falls apart that means the banks cannot lend money because they won't be able to get back what they invested in the government's debt and so the ability for credit to be extended stops and companies will not ship goods if they can't rely on the credit of the buyer and the the whole mechanism grinds to walt now in that situation the federal reserve the european central bank will try to rush in but they already have

problems they rushed in a few years ago the mass of the people in those countries having watched the big banks be bailed out being told now that they have to suffer an austerity to pay for it are not eager to see another bailout of the same banks so you have a political problem overlaying a credit problem and this could mean the thing freezes up and if that lasts for even a few weeks all bets are off and the economic engine grinds to a halt and that makes perfect sense we heard last night. after after world war two we had a private debt to g.d.p. ratio here in the u.s. our private debt represented a little more than fifty percent of g.d.p. and correct me if i'm if i'm remembering these numbers wrong or if this doesn't seem right to you and it has. during our this giant credit bubble that we had particular the last decade and a half it exploded up to a point of there was over three hundred percent of g.d.p.

just private debt in the united states and that it's now de leverage you mentioned leverage and it's it has unwound by about fifty percent so we're down to about two hundred fifty percent of g.d.p. but that means we've got still had a massive amount of private deep debt that needs to be d. leveraged over all either a long period of time it's like a ten or twenty year depression or very rapidly which is a very deep depression does that make does that all make sense to you. absolutely we are in a phase that is called the leveraging people cannot carry the level of debt they have wages are not going up so people have no underlying the economic income to carry debt they have to reduce their debt they took on more than they could hard times are here more our times are coming so people are cutting back which damages the economy you know we have an out of control economic system we've had for a long time we let too much debt accumulate we didn't give people the kinds of jobs

and wages that would have made it unnecessary to borrow to provide the so-called american dream and now we're reaping the reward of an out of whack system i mean the occupy wall street people are right one percent is doing great but if ninety nine percent aren't in the end the difficulties of the ninety nine percent will undo even the wealth of the one person right so the deal leveraging reducing the debt is this a matter of of just you know working it out through time over time or is there a a rip the scab off solution that's painful but short or is there you know i've heard people talk about jubilees you know blood's just have massive debt forgiveness at the level of the consumer rather than at the level the bankers as we did in two thousand and eight is that you know magical thinking or realistic. well i think it's a measure of how serious the problem is most economists hope that the deal

leveraging will be slow and gradual precisely is so it doesn't explode the system the great fear is that you'll have a big deal leveraging you know in a way when governments befall the way we discussed greece may do it that's a big act of quick the leveraging you're reducing your debts by simply announcing to your creditors you're not going to pay do you believe it's just the same thing carried one step further and jubilee was invented thousands of years ago by the people then who realized that if you didn't intervene in this credit bubble it would eventually destroy you so they took the extreme act of canceling debts every few years just to prevent the kind of systematic extremes of wealth and poverty that markets and credit markets generate and again that's what's going on in the united states too before we shake our fingers at the europeans their

problems are very similar to our own their president is likely our future is are their problems like ours. they followed the same flawed economic models that we did or vice versa i mean did this start with that or in reagan or does this preceded that what what what began this and why the similarity well i think it went. i think the basic similarity can be captured by an american phrase and the phrase is called trickle down economics the idea is that when the capitalist system goes through its unstable ups and downs what the government is supposed to do in the conventional notion is to come in and bail out the top banks corporations the stock market in the hope that the benefits will trickle down to the average working person to the average little business and so

we'll get out of the mess most of the time trickle down doesn't work the top takes the benefits takes the help takes the bailout and keeps it to weather the economic storm leaving the rest of the society wondering when the trickle is supposed to happen the europeans did that the americans did that it doesn't work because the bottom is too big and the failure for the benefits to trickle down means the mass of people can't buy materials cannot borrow money cannot lend any money and the failure of the bottom which is now so large is dragging down the top as well but the people at the top don't want to face that they can't be the one percent anymore if they don't equalize the way this economy works they're going to take everyone down with them judge jed rake off block to settlement between the f.c.c. and citi group this week ruling that the public needs to an actual trial a criminal or civil trial or find out exactly what happened what might we learn

from such a trial we have about a minute i have. i think the basic issue is number one that the financial industry is a place where an awful lot of shady business goes on number two that having spent twenty years claiming that private enterprise is going to solve all our problems and the government should get out of the economy is a little bit like taking the only policeman in the situation who can control something and making him go away and the result is people do what you know they will do if there's no one looking over their shoulder and the third lesson of judge rakoff is if you pick a government that has insufficient people doing the work insufficient budgets because everybody's cutting the government budget you're going to leave a government supervisor with much less money and resources than the people they're supposed to supervise which is what the governor judge rakoff so angry because he

was being required to make decisions that were patently unfair that favored the very businesses that were supposed to be supervised this is a system that's very seriously out of whack and he at least was a judge with the ability to say so just very quickly just a few seconds might this mean that bet those banks could end up going to jail and might this might there be contagion my other banks be dragged into this well it certainly opens the can of worms in that direction whether they don't have enough power to make sure all this goes away only time will tell but he was at least courageous enough to say this is a serious problem and he won't be part of the usual cozy cover up of what the financial sector often does brilliant ritual thank you so much for being with us tonight dr thank you for the opportunity. coming up with the big picture police around the country are resorting to increasingly violent tactics as they face off

with occupy wall street patriots but the man who invented one of those tactics says that the way that they're being used as way out of line. and what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is you know view with a global missionary zeal where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

in the background of every police crackdown against occupy wall street you hear a common chant which is this is what a police state looks like. a later time. if there's any doubt left about whether or not our nation might be moving in the direction of a police state that the senate united states plans to squash in the next few days this week the senate plans to give the president more powers to detain people without any charges for trials

a vote is expected this week on the defense authorization bill that includes a provision allowing the military the u.s. military to capture civilians anywhere in the world including u.s. citizens right here at home and detain them indefinitely if there is suspected of being a terrorist on the say someone in the ministration something the ministration decides you're affiliated with al qaeda for whatever reason something you said maybe and they can arrest you and keep you in prison for the rest of your life without you ever seen a lawyer or a judge or a jury until the day you die and the bill and that provision are expected to pass despite the fact that the president has said that he will veto it the authors of the new radical detention policies democrat carl levin a republican john mccain defended it by saying it gives the government quote the clear authority tools and flexibility of action it needs to defend us against the

threat posed by al qaeda and of quote it's a sad day when the only time democrats or republicans can come together this is subvert the constitution and lay the groundwork for endless war exactly what james madison warned us against and was for today one senator mark udall from colorado attempted to strip out this global battlefield indefinite detention eternal war provision but as a member was defeated so here we are now on the road to torching our constitution. today senator utils provision was defeated thirty six democrats and two republicans in favor of it but that wasn't enough to win and here's the core argument that was made in favor of defeating you dolls' provision that would that would say in the military appropriations bill sorry the entire world is the battlefield the united states is not part of the battlefield and the military can't simply arrest anybody

anytime they decide and put them in jail without due process of law the rip the rationale that was used was best said by lindsey graham the republican senator he said we are fighting a war not a crime if that's the case and that war includes the united states and every other place on earth for ever which is the assertion of this bill and the assertion of lindsey graham today that i would suggest to you that graham levin a mccain of added a victory to osama bin laden even though he's dead bin laden came out years ago and said that it was his goal to fundamentally change the nature and character of the united states here are some quotes from him he said quote i tell you freedom and human rights in america are doomed the u.s. government will lead the american government in and the west in general into an unbearable hell and a choking life this was in two thousand and one interview with al jazeera bin laden

said that americans would give up their freedoms in exchange for security member ben franklin a warning us about that he said free people do not relinquish their security this is contrary to bush's claim that we ate freedom let him tell us why we did not strike sweden for example. it was from a video broadcast on al-jazeera two thousand and four bin laden said that america was becoming more authoritarian of the bush administration and was being run by outlaws rather than the rule of law he said we have not found it difficult to deal with the bush administration in light of the resemblance of the bears to the regimes in our countries half of which are ruled by the military the other half ruled by the sons of gangs bin laden said he was going to use bush and cheney's fearful response to his crimes to bleed us dries and all we have to do is send to mosher the dean to raise a small piece of cloth which is written al-qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause americans american to suffer human economic and political losses

nine eleven was a horrific crime it was not a state act of war it was a crime and bush had reacted to it the way that clinton reacted to oklahoma city which was also a crime and right now america would be four trillion dollars richer the world would be more stable five thousand americans would be dead over two hundred thousand iraqis and afghans would not be a dad they would be alive and america would still be america. the obama administration has threatened to veto this bill in fact president obama explicitly said he was going to veto this bill because of this provision it's not too late to begin to deconstruct this national security state the bush and cheney wanted to put into place we really really seriously should not let bin laden win this one we need to say we are the united states of america with the land of the brave and the land of the free and the home of the brave not the land of the terrified and the home of the heavily fortified you know looking into everybody's all that we

really can't let in law when. now from the militarization of our civil liberties to the militarization of our police iraq war war veteran an american patriot scott olsen who suffered a cracked skull and brain damaged during the police assault on occupy oakland last month is out of the hospital and gave this interview recapping what happened to him and his advice for the police in the movement. next. there are people me. too old to be. carrying me away. pass me. several times. and. answer and. i don't know if i can call the answer. to.

someone. it's time to. take care of me as you. choose. to be peaceful and happy because that's what the sun is about working. unfortunately felice have not remain peaceful after also was nearly killed by a tear gas canister police rolled out a slew of other weapons to fight peaceful patriots from nightsticks to sound cannons to the now infamous pepper spray it was used on students at u.c. davis rocket clad police are equipped more like heavily armed militias than defenders of the peace so is this a complete misuse of police force and more importantly is it even legal joining me now is cameron walkmen the man who helped the f.b.i. develop pepper straight spray or at least this this military grade of felt pepper spray as weapons during the one nine hundred eighty s. and currently serves as an adjunct professor for leadership at the u.s. naval academy and

a business consultant for companies worldwide kammen welcome thank you thank you for joining us you helped develop weapon grade pepper spray and and in fact developed guidelines for the use of it why was this developed in the first place as a weapon for the f.b.i. and for police to use prior to the invention of pepper spray you police officers basically have a very limited option in regards to dealing with people. threat to them physically threat to bystanders or property damage for example if they wanted to arrest someone was under the influence of narcotics or alcohol let's say you have a patrol individual police officer they really had to resort only either to baton or physical force or deadly force gun so the invention of pepper spray allowed them to basically excited take the person out of the car spray him with pepper spray take him to yes if they are combatants in physically or combatant and wash their face and give them proper to contamination i was the end of the story it was never

designed for any other purpose what do you think. or actually i wonder what your thoughts were when you saw your invention being used against these kids at u.c. davis where the officers walk up and down the aisle in my my very first reaction was very emotional because i didn't think about myself or the students or the college and something about my kids that if they were there you know they're all being spread their opinion whether opinion is right or wrong and this is another way to treat the futures of america you know so i was very very much of fended by that and then it suddenly clicked on me that there is a better spirit. and you write about heroic leadership principles on your blog it was a fascinating article and you yourself are a practitioner and teacher of martial arts you have some understanding of appropriate use of force and and in the limits of that are you seeing here are leadership and appropriate use of force in the response to these occupy wall street

movements around you know i see i don't even see any leadership not only that i see a total lack of wisdom i mean to me i used to teach in college i mean when kids are down their wisdom and would have been an approach to our kids i mean you would have chosen a professor was some sort of kindness and affinity towards students that would come to them and say listen kids we got your point we know what you said one of you go to an athlete you. let's join with each other and let's just do everything we can let's bring our journalism department let's bring everybody in the college to support your guys in the world with what you've said you made your point rather than let them sit there for as long as they could so the choices becomes erratic and police officers will treat them like criminals. g.o.p. t.v. fox news characterized your invention as a food product very familiar with meghan kelly saying that could i use weapons grade pepper spray to spice up a burrito and and what is the effect on the body particularly when you get enough

sprayed it actually that you inhale it well chemically partially it is true that is being derives from chili pepper or capsicum pepper as they call it but then again a lot of pharmaceuticals are being derived from herbal supplements i mean until many years ago aspirin was coming from trees i mean you know you had the birth control pills coming from wired yeah but the end product was no longer food products so pepper spray is so fortified and it's formulated to a point of gases and propellant and the chemical it's of us going to such a mutation let's call it an evolved that you really can't eat it is impossible to eat that is not food anymore. so this is stronger than you see these you know deadly force hot pepper you know the people who are really into hard things this is much stronger than anything in the bio absolutely thousands of times stronger than any kind of ever put in your mouth well and i've had i love how it is

designed to immediately produce inflammation of mucus membranes that means your eyes shut you have difficulty in breathing and it was designed and even to feel testing for years and years to make sure that if you're combatant or even if you're under the influence of narcotic and i'll call it would have an effect on you so this is this is not. like a prod with poking somebody with a baton or pulling somebody this this is actually this show. down the body absolutely it was again i repeat it was designed when there is a physical threat to a police officers or to bystanders it was not something that you do in order to shut people up or to gain control over them i would guess. given that prior to pepper spray party or developing this when basically the options the police had were were physical violence or deadly force that actually this product has saved lives it has saved lives and saved hundreds of thousands of lives. of

canisters that have been sold over the years by many different manufacturers and many millions so it has hundreds of thousands of lives even people who want to commit suicide they have sprayed them in order to subdue them and take him away but then again this situation that we are seeing right now around the country and u.c. davis is absolutely hundred ten percent above anything that i have ever seen and any use of force training manual by any police the point of it is municipalities state federal whatever it is is there a long term consequence to being exposed as i mean might some of these kids who for example get this in the eyes you mentioned earlier the police officer would spray somebody and then they would take them to the police station appropriately decontaminate if somebody isn't appropriately decontaminated are they looking at you know ten twenty years down the road having to have a corneal transplant or something like that i mean i mean is it possible that there's a long term limit challenge there that was used first of all was a large high volume chances are that you never use a such a close a close proximity and the amount of c.

do you see that and the liquids and amount of liquid that came up was tremendous so you are entering into an unknown environment we really don't know you know with that kind of chemical that close with the kids back there what happens first of all kids don't argue to contaminate themselves they go home rather going to wash their face with all that's enough well three days later they're still you know to get all the water on their hair and it comes back to their eyes. they're breeding system that's cause secondary contamination effect so they really don't know how to do contaminate so what are the long term effect of these individuals i mean you know each one of us respond to chemicals and diseases are different we don't know what's going to happen to these eyes of these respiratory system and we just entered the unknown world as well i was shocked remarkable surtaxes so much for coming welcome thank you would envision and inform you know so well to me much appreciate. coming up here with my guest in los angeles describes as the most suspenseful and dramatic moments he's ever witnessed.