hello i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture the streets of italy may soon be filled with protesters as the telling government announces a new wave of austerity measures that is bringing in literally bringing lawmakers to tears and meet the new dream team donald trump a new gingrich are teaming up to show you why gingrich is child labor plan is a great idea and the total war continues on capitol hill over extending the payroll tax cut that will expire at the end of the month. everyone in the one percent

supports the republicans agenda of protecting the interests of the super rich at the expense of the ninety nine percent. you know this it looks like civil unrest and economic destruction are about to be exported from greece to italy the new banks to run government formed in the wake of silvio berlusconi's resignation has approved a new austerity package that will raise the retirement age of all italians and let the inflation destroy their pensions the austerity measures also target government spending and dissolve several several other government programs the spending cuts are so painful at the minister of labor and welfare also for narrow broke down in tears while she was announcing them during

a press conference. next week to see when the he spat. mckinney's moon leaches minutes eleven and you wouldn't get. it least of. if this if it is that if you took a movie think of the. new prime minister and former bank's third mario monti said austerity was needed to save italy but as we've seen in greece us dirty has only pushed that nation closer to bankruptcy and brought millions of greeks into the streets to riot simply put austerity doesn't work for anybody but the banks toure's meanwhile prince french president nicolas sarkozy and german chancellor angela merkel are meeting in paris today to try to come up with

a compromise and what role their two nations will play in saving the eurozone from collapse as one e.u. official was quoted as saying everyone's waiting for france and germany but they're a very long way from settling their differences on economic governance so with time running out what could an end game look like for this impending financial disaster in europe and with secretary of state. treasury tim geitner boarding a plane to fly to europe what role does the united states play in this mess here to shed some light on this is kind of live in left excuse me kenneth welcome to the program yes glad to be here. doesn't this mean that the banks have taken over the world i mean is this the beginning of the newest european empire and perhaps you know a backdoor way of saying that germany is now in the process of winning world war two. yeah that's exactly what it is this is no different than the clone that africans faced or even the colonialism that americans faced here for seven hundred

seventy six i think it's an attempt it's an attempt to make money any way possible slash and burn and i heard italy that to the largest unions announces it's going to be a strike next week and so there's going to be blood in the streets as people have been saying but this is it's pretty startling the the i understand that the. merkel is talking about there being kind of an in side the euro zone and then you know hard hard currency in a soft currency or a hard part of soft part and that the germans basically were going to end up dominating the economy and the soft part is going to be the cheap labor countries or the cheaper labor countries and there's about you know germany and france in the center and the rest around that is that any kind of a reasonable characterization of what seems to be evolving right now. yes that's

precisely where it could be heading it's looking at basically two directions it looks like germany and france are committed to trying to hold the euro together as a single currency. it's something that if you notice the leaders of greece the new leader of greece and italy both are economists they're both people who've been in organizations the leader of greece was a vice president of the european central bank and the leader of italy the new leaders in the qana midst who was in a group trying to hold the european the eurozone together so you can expect this to me every attempt to hold together but every temp to hold together is going to cause all kinds of displacement and the big i would say the big pain that the southern european countries like spain excuse me like portugal spain italy and greece are facing are higher taxes and higher interest rates and interest is sort of the the interest on the debt that their governments have taken on the taxes that the workers are going to have to pay or the lower the loss of government public sector

jobs or the lower wages and incomes that the workers are going to face in those countries is the form of the pain that's going to go to work to save the value of the euro and to save the investments of greek excuse me of german banks and french banks and even the the the governments of germany and france some of called imperialist project from the beginning its biggest problem was that the different countries the different economies across europe were interconnected enough and had business cycles that were going to be correlated that aren't to be correlated enough so that policy could be united but they're stubborn and they're going to try and keep policy and so so we've seen greece going through an austerity program just as devastating greece now italy is embarking on that has any country in history ever successfully cut their way to prosperity. and they cut their way to prosperity

i mean this is this is what being this is what the greeks are doing this is what they're forcing on the italians it's what is what the germans are talking about is what u.k. is doing right now is what the republicans want us to do here in the u.s. has ever succeeded in the past right well you probably in the united states in the eight hundred seven eight hundred s. we had a big industrial revolution with a huge deflation and you know that's what the movie the wizard of oz is about right the the the who we were on the gold standard and we had farms that were going through disasters in the midwest and it usually and even in the time of the colonial period the united states but usually the this is the this growth is paid for on the the the broken backs of indentured servants and slaves and sweatshop workers and the people in europe are too sophisticated they know their history too well and they see the future they these lot of the stuff was debated it's a sophisticated society and i don't think it's going to work i think i think you will see a lot of political resistance so the cut your way to prosperity only works for the

one percent shall we say and the rest gets screwed. congress thank you so much for being with us tonight. glad to be here we could be on the verge of seen a fundamental transformation of the global economy in the after more math of the euro crisis the only question is will the forces of neo liberalism or banks to rule aka neo liberalism prevail out of this crisis or will the backlash that we're seeing around the world in the form of for example the occupy wall street movements and mass general strikes as we saw in the u.k. over the last couple of weeks succeed stay tuned. herman cain may have dropped out of the republican race this weekend but the circus continues donald trump is now signed on to moderate a republican debate in iowa at the end of the month by the right wing blog news max already candidates jon huntsman and ron paul have declined invitations to show up claiming they don't want to be part of a presidential

a process and that the debate is frankly beneath the office of the president united states but new republican front runner newt gingrich disagrees not only to gingrich become the first candidate to officially accept trump's debate invite but he met with the donald this morning new york city where the to hash out a harebrained scheme to capitalize on two very bad ideas trump's reality show the apprentice and gingrich's idea of having poor kids clean school bathrooms take a look. it was a great honor to have newt appear to mazing how well he was doing and how it's really resonated with so many people he did mean to me if i could do something for some of the kids very very poor schools throughout the city i thought it was a great idea we call it a british ship and we all know about the apprentice and so we're going to be doing to be. wonderful children and we're going to make them a print down i would have

a little fun with it and i think it's going to be something that's going to really prove results but it was newt's idea and i thought it was a great idea it's unclear when the casting call for the app around begins or whatever that means begins for the latest on this odd meeting and where this republican race is headed now with cain out romney slipping and newt and the donald teaming up to bring in alex sets wald assistant editor at the at think progress alex welcome back thanks for mitt great to have you siteswap yes so i apologies first off what you what's your take on this whole a print a you know first of all latin. apprentice yeah it's ridiculous i mean. isn't even though the plural of his own shows that it's apprentice is for the record is the barrel of apprentice but i mean this whole scheme is ridiculous i have to imagine that the writers of s n l were there you know scheming out the parody version of the game. you know coming together and they had this idea and they had to scrap it because this is what actually became in real life i mean it's like

a parody of what they're doing this scheme to select ten people or ten poor students from new york city's one in a quarter million students as if that's going to somehow solve income inequality and help poor kids it's just ridiculous and if anything it it's. it's sort of like the myth that maybe i'll be the basketball star and so kids don't pay attention to chemistry and that kind of thing it's the sort of the it's the lottery minto frankly it's promoting a lottery mentality maybe i hit the jackpot so why do these things why is trump so magnetic in the right in the republican field is is is this is really worth anything well that's the incredible thing i mean he really does seem to have some kind of power but it's really a mystery why fox news of all outlets did a poll recently and they found that gingrich's trump's endorser would actually hurt a candidate six percent of voters said that they would be more likely to vote for somebody who trump indorse but thirty one percent said they would be less likely to

vote for somebody who was there back when he was kind of going down in flames and backing out because this is the other stuff you know this was recently but it's worth it's worth bringing up the burgers i mean he was drunk he was the front runner even though he hadn't declared for all intensive purposes he was the leading candidate in the republican party back in the spring and then he was drummed out of the republican party and out of the race because of his crazy birth obsession and just this morning in this crazy exchange with chuck todd on m s n b c he made it clear that he's not backing down on that said on the birth you're still on the verge there stuff chuck todd asked if it would come up in this debate that he's moderating and he said he won't bring it up but then he took thirty minutes seconds to. minutes to explain that he still has doubts about president obama's birthplace newt gingrich has functionally no ground game across the country he doesn't have offices in new hampshire and in iowa and in all these other places where mitt romney does and therefore i've been saying for a long time he's not running for president he's running for book sales i mean the

same was true of herman cain neither one of more serious my mind candidates for president and yet you know there's some serious political commentators saying this guy might end up being the nominee in the new york times today they're talking about how he's scrambling to start developing a ground game what's going on with this is has he suddenly become a real candidate is awesome yes i think that's absolutely right and i think part of the reason he doesn't have an apparatus is because his whole campaign team quit you'll remember this wife after after he was caught vacationing in the greek isles when he should have been campaigning but yeah i mean part of it is that he probably didn't take himself too seriously and he said he said as much that he's surprised at how well he's doing but the field is just so weak and so embarrassing that somebody like newt gingrich who is you know pushed out of the speakership back in the ninety's by his fellow republicans he's now able to do this ethical because of his ethical lapses because of his jim mcdermott played to him yet in the law all kinds and just he made

a tremendous amount of enemies on the hill and beyond with his erratic style but also i think this day and age he can get away with it because you have groups like americans for prosperity and freedom works who will do that kind of on the ground work well he can go on fox news and take to twitter and get his message about way if newt and and herman cain were able to get so forward because they had money from basically the koch brothers i mean you know all these front groups that were funneling that are channeling billionaire money. why you know mitt romney's been willing to take anybody anybody's position for a long time are we going to end up with a situation where when they all fall by the wayside mitt romney will simply say to the koch brothers. i'll take your money i'll take your crazy positions and he'll be their guy i mean i think he would like to be certainly i don't know if they'll take him is the question why are they not i mean he seems like only to change his mind on the drop ahead he did today i think they still don't that's how he got on the payroll tax he switched i think they still like most of the

a lot of republican voters they still just don't trust him they don't know who he is there's a poll out today from pew asking republican voters who would be most acceptable to them and gingrich this you know crazy polarizing figure was more acceptable than romney to republican voters so i actually think gingrich has a really good shot of the nomination right now absolutely alex thanks so much for being with us thanks for me great to have you with us i say let trump moderate his own debate but i don't think it should be in iowa i know perfectly ok sure first of all just consider it these guys are making a mockery of our political system with the help of the media that takes seriously people who don't even have campaign offices and don't report on the fact that they don't have campaign offices all the o.e.c.d. reporters are today that the gap between the rich and poor is greater in history is greater than is ever been in history and worse in the u.s. than pretty much anywhere else on the planet except mexico did you hear that fact in today's news if the republicans want to turn our political system into a reality show which apparently is what they're up to then i say put them all on

a remote island throw in grover norquist their lord and protector and let's just leave them there let them work it out some kind of a libertarian society no rules no government no welfare no not been no no infrastructure like lord of the flies right well let newton grow over a fight over who gets to play piggy nobody wants to pay into the into the into the system nobody wants to make it all work. i think it is a perfect opportunity for the republicans to to demonstrate i mean you know one of the big questions one of the comments that's always been made is that there has never been in the history of the world a successful libertarian country there has never been in the history of the world a country that cut its way to prosperity so these guys think they can pull it off stick them on a desert island let a lot of do it and we'll let newton grover fight over who gets to play the role of

pig here on the island. time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think massachusetts attorney general coakley just announced lawsuits against five of the nation's biggest banks here's today's question will the bankers get their day in court your choices are yes these banks fraudulently foreclosed on american homes and didn't provide assistance for loan modification or no we won't hold bankers accountable log on to dot com to let us know what you think the pole will be open until tomorrow morning. coming up at the big picture the clock is ticking down on capitol hill of the g.o.p. seems completely unconcerned their latest game of chicken may well cost you over a thousand dollars. drives the

world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it through to be made who can you trust no one who is you in view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

republicans are still hell bent on screwing over middle class americans by letting the payroll tax cut expire at the end of the month today president obama spoke to reporters where he called out republicans for their double standard on tax cuts for the middle class versus tax cuts for the rich. now i know many republicans have sworn an oath never to raise taxes as long as they were. going to be that the only time there's a catch is one it comes to raising taxes on middle class families how can you fight tooth and nail to protect high end tax breaks for the wealthiest americans and yet barely lift a finger to prevent taxes going up for one hundred sixty million americans who really need the help senate democrats meanwhile unveiled a new payroll tax cut one that's trimmed down and is paid for by a much smaller surtax on millionaires and the plan that was defeated by

a unanimous republican filibuster last week still republicans don't appear willing to negotiate so why exactly is it that in order to found about three hundred forty thousand millionaires and billionaires from a very tiny tax increase republicans are willing to let taxes go up by as much as a thousand bucks a year and over one hundred sixty million americans for an answer that question. let's ask a billionaire joining me now is nick hanauer seattle based on twitter and venture capitalist and co-author of the book the gardens of democracy nick welcome thank you so much thanks for joining us republicans argue that if we raise taxes on millionaires like yourself even by after percent the economy will tank is that true . no this is one of the most insidious lies that americans have ever been told and bought this is part of this amazing mythology

that rich people and in particular business people are job creators and i wrote an editorial that appeared bloomberg the other day. you know debunked that ridiculous idea you know rich people taking credit for creating jobs like screwballs taking credit for creating evolution in fact it's the other way around it look an economy properly understood isn't it isn't just like an ecosystem it actually is an ecosystem and it is essentially a system of interwoven feedback loops in jobs are literally the consequence of of demand of when customers buy things from businesses jobs are created and so in that sense middle class consumers are are much more of a job creator middle class consumers much more of a job creator than i am. do you mind if i ask

a personal question yeah i'm curious what general category your income is right now and what your tax rate is. so i'm i'm a wealthy guy sold a lot of big businesses i sold a. company called the quantum to microsoft in two thousand and seven for six and a half billion dollars i didn't get to keep all that but a big chunk and so i have a i have an eight figure income that's in the tens of millions of dollars a year and my tax rate last year was i think a levon percent now. and so the tragedy of the tax code is and so few people understand this is that it's completely back so we've created this unbelievably ridiculous system where a hardworking small business person that makes a few hundred thousand dollars a year is taxed at the thirty five percent rate but a good zillionaire. a person who works for a new york based hedge fund and takes advantage of the curia carried interest

exemption can make three hundred million dollars a year and only pay fifteen percent and so over the last thirty years is this insidious idea has taken hold that the rich are job creators and if we tax the more we'll have less jobs is that the tax so so two things have happened that the share of income that rich people get as gone up astronomically so for somebody in my category it's gone up four hundred or five hundred percent over the last thirty years while the tax rate has come down by about sixty or seventy percent so you have this incredible double whammy effect of of all the money moving to the tippy top and the tax rate crashing at the same time so guess what the at the simultaneously the middle class is getting crushed and we have these ballooning federal deficit it is mathematically impossible the sustaining a robust consumer economy you know by by pushing all the income to the tipping top

and and refusing to tax it what do you say to those republicans who are. suggested that if we were to roll back even the bush tax cuts go back to the clinton tax rates which was thirty nine percent top rate is that a thirty six percent rate or you know my suggestion roll back the reagan tax cuts and let's go back to seventy four percent top tax rate which did very well for us in the one nine hundred forty s. fifty's sixty's and seventy's that if we were to do that we would have basically armageddon you know. i mean it of course rolling back the bush tax cuts actually doesn't get to the problem so what again what you have is you go you go from thirty five to a thirty nine percent tax rate on ordinary income which hits small business people and sort of normally affluent people but it doesn't touch dividends it doesn't touch capital gains which is where all the income for the people in the upper part

of the top one percent are right this is i mean that is the you can call the capital gains tax the capitalist gains tax it's it's for people who are capitalist they make their money with money. of course it isn't diffidence right although all this stuff and it is just insane to believe that people who don't work for a living like me who should be taxed at a significantly lower rated at half or a third the rate of people who have to grind every day it's just it is completely and crazily upside down and you know i feel so strongly about this in and i'm not some liberal do gooder. the facts are that my business depends on people being able to afford to buy what i make and if we crush the middle class under you know that this is this decades of stagnating wages

and spiraling costs they simply cannot function as dynamic consumers in our marketplace and more it's just it's just stupid nick nick hanauer you are not only one of the best businessmen around but probably one of the best economists around thanks so much for being with us tonight. any time great see great to see you too the absurdity and downright crooked nature of the republican position on taxes has now been picked up all the way across the atlantic insurer many there's an op ed that was published and in the new edition of bearish beagle which is germany's equivalent of time or newsweek national news magazine it's untitled the republicans farcical candidates a club of liars demagogues and ignoramuses and you can guess it's a great read let me lay some quotes on you from this article they're quite they start out by quoting from some of the republican candidates africa is a country in libya the taliban reigns muslims are terrorists most immigrants are

criminal all occupy protesters are dirty and women who feel sexually harassed well they should make such a big deal about it welcome to the wonderful world of us republicans then they go on to talk in this in this magazine and keep in mind the dirt beagle's editors looked at this op ed and said you know this is solid enough that we'll publish this in a world class literally world class news magazine they went on to say it's horrifying because these eight so-called would be candidates are eagerly ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party the party of lincoln lore worse they're ruining the reputation of the united states and that's so true and it's so tragic we have become the laughing stock of the world here we have a republican primary is going to be moderated by donald trump by celebrity apprentice guy. spiegel's op ed goes on to say of the republican candidates they

lie they cheat they exaggerate they filibuster they say one eighty otic ignorant outrageous thing after another they've shown such stark lack of knowledge political economic geographic and historical that they think george w. bush look like einstein and even cause their fellow republicans to cringe to get this i mean the. beagle is publishing this thing because the eat the rest of the world is looking at a school want and then they get to some serious commentary on the tough times demand tough and smart minds but all these dopes have to offer a ramblings that insult the intelligence of all americans no matter if they're democrats republicans or neither they're bob yet just like any freak show this one would be unthinkable without a stage in this case the media strangling itself with all its misunderstood political correctness and objectivity and an audience the party base which this year seems to have suffered a political bottom simply put we here in the united states because the republican

party are becoming a laughingstock to the rest of the world and that's the best case scenario the worst case scenario is that these candidates could be a sign that the united states is really in genuinely on the verge of collapse back in one nine hundred twenty nine in a book called decline of the west audible spangler wrote about how when america's political parties become cartoon characters pastiches of themselves the countries do well we're there now. crazy alert a car crash for the one percent a major pile up in tokyo cause three point eight million dollars worth of damage to nearly a dozen luxury cars involved in the accident were eight for is a lamborghini and two mercedes a gathering of luxury sports car owners want to ride when one driver tried to change lanes hit a median and collided with all the other.