good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. timothy geitner continues lobbying in europe for the eurozone crisis solution that washington wants in athens we see more austerity amidst protests on the street but doesn't matter what protesters want is democracy on hiatus as technocrats try to solve the eurozone crisis corporate raiders come in like vultures to profit from the distress we'll examine it and us president brock obama in his speech yesterday accuse republican leadership for years of weak regulation and oversight ahead of

the financial crisis that he said led to this financial sector where irresponsibility and one of the basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy . meanwhile. the leader of the government which virtually. obama and democrats are coming under fire from republicans for all of the political contributions they've accepted from john corazon and m.f. global employees you can see them right there on that chart does this all go to show the crony capitalism and the power of wall street cuts both ways and as we heard obama speak to the nation about restoring the middle class we know corporations have been looking to middle classes and emerging markets to make up for lost business but not for this company not in india.

for some not just the former for trying to school. india tells the world's biggest retailer to take a hike we'll tell you all about it let's get to today's capital account. well what can i say it feels like groundhog day for their euro zone crisis you know the bill murray movies same thing over and over again let's kind of take stock you have a debt stricken country the votes for austerity in this case greece people protest on the streets again greece a u.s. official says how important a solution is to the eurozone crisis this week is timothy geitner appearing each

day next to a european leader to emphasize this euro zone leaders scramble for a solution germany seems to always make the most headlines fiscal unity is of course the big push now as n.b.a. issues downgrade warnings for europe today its banks and the e.u. itself actually here's one interesting new thing we saw in germany a suspected parcel bomb addressed to deutsche bank c.e.o. was intercepted in frankfurt now that's obviously not the funny part of bomb is never funny but the return address actually was it was from the be that's what it said so we want to look at what's beyond the headlines though how about actual financial warfare debt. and the degradation of democracy we want to talk about those who do it with us is dr michael hudson he's economist and professor of economics at university of missouri kansas city also author of this book among many it's imperialism the origin and fundamentals of u.s.

world dominance and dr hudson as always it is such a pleasure to have you on our show today so let's start with some of the recent things you've been writing because you wrote two recent articles on the economic crisis in europe that we were looking at where you made a connection between what's going on the nationally and countries like greece and italy and the type of political turmoil we have seen there with unity governments in the prime minister's stepping down and you saw a civically sided aristotle and aristotle's observation that societies move in a cyclical pattern through various forms of government from democracies invariably to all of darkies and tyrannies. back to democracy so in your view is what we're seeing in europe an attempt by elites to turn democratic nation state into something more resembling oligarchy enroll by thea what is interesting that you showed president obama's address at your beginning of the show because in his show he said this is make or break time for the middle class and what he meant is make or break time for democracy the fact is we're in

a transition now away from economic democracy towards the emergence of the financial oligarchy and all through mr obama's speech he used the word that the economy is polarizing he described what the situation was but he didn't say that well he's talking about how bad the situation is for democracy tim geithner as you've just pointed out is over and great saying look you can't have democracy you absolutely must impose austerity on the greek people you have to weather the taxes on them to make the best make the governments pay the bondholders because the american banks have all taken norma steps on this financial horse race we've made slow death swaps and guarantees that the. sovereign depths of greece and the portugal and spain are going to repay and if the greek people are not taxed so much that maybe ten percent of them a year have to emigrate if you don't lower their living standards by thirty percent

our big banks are going to lose money and i want to get to they say you agree that in just one second but i actually want to ask you first in your view because unity governments are set up in a time and national emergency most often i'm curious if you think this is a new precedent as opposed to the wars in invasions we've seen in the path that after all you have talked about this in terms of financial warfare it looks like a new president when they say a unity government and you use the word technocrat technocrat is a lobbyist for the financial sector a technocrat manged democracies over we're taking over. and we're really an occupation government the reason that the greek people who've been demonstrating on the street is to saying look we want the whole world to know that we're not behind these steps in order for a debt to actually be binding other people have to be in agreement to pay it we're not agreement to pay it and then we come in if you ever let us vote again if you

ever let it democracy and the first thing we're going to do is not all these steps because they are what economists call odious steps there is no legal foundation for these steps and the money that the that the european central bank is giving to greece doesn't stay in greece it goes right out to the german banks the french banks the building the banks and the others and it's being paid so that the american banks that have made a gamble don't have to lose any money and none of this has anything to do with the greek text system at all of the greeks they're saying look this is something done in our name well i would argue that again that it's sort of like the mergers forged signatures on american the mortgages allow the robo signing i think is what you're furring to i want to get in here because i know you said in this financial warfare you said that greece is a great example where the financial sector has used the debt as a weapon i actually don't want to touch on taxes first i want to bring our producer

dimitri cut the innocent because he wants you to ask he want to ask you a question about that because dr hudson so you're talking about taxes and greece and one of the things that we've seen a lot is that the greek people have been demonized as being tax evaders but from my experience the way that the greek political system is set up it's a patronage system and the only way the greeks have been able to survive in the economy is by evading taxes as well as evading all sorts of laws because the laws are set up so that you have to grease the establishment in order to get anything done is that really the bigger problem the the the combination of government with the more elite factor. of society so as to create a system that oppresses the population at large whether they be rich or poor so that they have to coordinate with the state or to get anything done well the swiss banks are reported to have forty five billion euros of greek tax evasion money just in switzerland alone so this is money that's obviously of a good there's no question that the wealthy greeks don't pay their taxes and

essential to the european central bank is telling greece look you're rich people have evaded forty five billion dollars worth of a euros worth of taxes so you have to sell off fifty billion euros of your property your sewer systems your water systems maybe the parthenon to pay for the fact that you're not taxing the greek wealthy so certainly tax abating at the very top of the pyramid is is i have to name very much but the issue is much more than just plain tax evasion the question is what kind of taxes are you going to have the the kernels when they came in and then the liberals in europe untaxed real estate untaxed property and they've pushed the whole tax burden on the labor and industry and that's in tracy that's what's forcing greek prices up that greece is saying look we want you to tax the rich we want you to tax real estate we want you to have your helicopters flying over athens taking pictures of where they're swimming pools

in the biggest states and we want you to get them. placing the taxes where every country basically should have its tax men and real property because you can't evade property taxes their property is there i mean as it says it's got four walls or or whatever in that structure but dr hyde's i want to continue this conversation i just want to quickly explain to our audience in greater depth what exactly a unity government is and then i want to get right back with you to talk about europe and also you brought up obama's speech on the middle class i want to talk about this debate between the ninety nine percent and the one that is dr hudson author and economist. all right it's time now for word of the day where we break down a financial term or concept for our very smart viewer but just maybe not the financial expert and in this case maybe not the political expert because we want to

break down unity government and here is just one reason why greece's parliament approved the two thousand and twelve austerity budget and greece right now is operating under a unity government so here it is in the news the unity government led by lucas papademos a former european central bank vice president has a mandate to implement the bailout deal and lead greece to elections on february nineteenth now as you heard with dr hudson we talk a lot on this show about the technocrats who are in charge of the unity government in greece and rome as well and we want to break down exactly how they have been put there so what is a unity government let's look at the definition it is a broad coalition government consisting of all parties excuse me it's a broad coalition government consisting of all parties or all major parties in the legislature it's usually formed during a time of war or other national emergency now this isn't a parliamentary system of government and to remind you had a unity government in greece we have lucas papademos as prime minister in greece

and in rome we have mario monti he's the former e.u. commissioner of that now they're in charge because a unity government was formed and the former prime minister has stepped down and as for the national emergency in this case presumably it's the debt crisis and meeting the terms of creditors now this isn't the first time in italy in greece where we've seen unity governments form italy and one thousand nine hundred three to go back a little bit for example this guy carlos champion we could bring him up he was a former central banker he had it. a unity government during oddly enough a crisis in the euro where the lira had come under speculative attack and there were questions about whether italy would be able to conform to the master street and eventually adopt the euro now this you could compare to what's going on in greece today where papademos also a former central banker has been charged with leading the unity government to prevent the country or from falling out of the euro in this case now and the

current italian government i just want to point out not a single member of the cabinet has been elected they are all technocrats including a former chairman of nato a former ambassador to the us now they have been voted into place by democratically elected parliamentarian's but not directly by the people and in both cases they have been charged with a rescue in their countries from financial ruin under the premise that their own elected officials were incapable of doing it now you can decide for yourself if that's democracy but now you know basically what a unity government is and still ahead right here on capitol count don't go away there is so much more occupy wall street has been a battle between the ninety nine percent and the one percent but is there really a fair characterization of the problems in the united states and first your closing numbers.

we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old on the job with through. my chest and i am a total get of i love driving hip hop music and. she was kind of a guest today. i'm very proud of the she has played. the law. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something

else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything. i'm charged welcome to the big picture. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through. who can you trust no one will is you with a global missionary zeal where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

welcome back so in europe as in the u.s. there is this issue elise verses everyone else you see it with the technocrats versus the protests on the streets in athens in the u.s. these days it's been framed as the ninety nine percent versus the one percent largely with the occupy movement which i should say is global too now u.s. president barack obama played on this theme yesterday in an hour long speech he hammered republicans but he has his own part in supporting the one percent and getting support take a look at that so that is m.f. global federal level employee giving and you can see it is largely to democrats which they're under fire for because of this money that they have received from corps and other employees that m.f. global and we've seen obama campaign for you look at that you can see him with all the big wigs clinton took the podium with corazon and we already showed you earlier this week how biden was talking about calling corazon up for advice so it cuts both

ways democrats and republicans we ask if this debate is better framed as this super connected versus those who aren't i want to talk about this with michael hudson as i know he will have some strong opinions again he's author and professor of economics at university of missouri kansas city dr hudson let's bring you back in i want to stay on this issue of the ninety nine versus the one percent because it's really how this inequality debate is being framed in the united states and more broadly to and i want to talk about the one percent because we don't talk about them as much because they are not all the junk or signs of the world they're not all the connected guys on wall street calling up their buddies on the treasury and the treasury and hosting fundraisers for their buddy obama these are also doctors lawyers small business owners people who have worked very hard for their money and aren't super connected so is the idea of the ninety nine versus the one percent really a fair characterization of the problem now you could say the ninety nine point nine

percent. or is there a point one percent because most of the upper one percent is actually the zero point one percent and so they are connected to wall street that's why occupy wall street is occupy wall street not occupying detroit or the carmakers are not occupying a pittsburgh with the steel makers are chicago they're occupying wall street because this really is that top of the one percent that is basically inheriting its money and it uses its money financially so it's not really the old fashioned type of inequality or you'd have industrial employers against their workers. a century ago it's the financial sector not only against labor not only against the middle class but against industry as well the wealthiest one percent has doubled its share of the returns to wealth in the last twenty five years and it's doubled it but loading down the economy with dept by raiding companies by taking over their stock

with bonds and paying out their revenue to shareholders it's reading the pension funds and essentially reading on them to pay the corporate raiders so we're seeing a financial ization of the economy and that's really what the protesters about with financialization not the industrialisation this financialization has been did industrializing the economy right then i want to ask you though then along those lines is the real issue that not a battle between rich and poor but a battle between those super connected and powerful that you're talking about who want to control society to their benefit and distribution of wealth to their benefit to and those who just want freedom and want a free market and want to be able to work hard and not have the burdens of a government that people you can't technocrats before technocrats sound scientific but they really are junk economics and they've turned the concept of free market upside down to a century ago a free market meant an economy through. of around here three of hundred didn't come

free of landlords and three of bankers but know what they are when either the republicans or the democrats talk about a free market they mean a market shri for crooks like mr carson just radio one point two billion dollars sri for the predators tran i hear your point i totally hear your point so then is is in reality a thing to get because you have a really really good point. but then the question becomes you know the john chorus and these guys that are that are super connected that are that are not fair only playing by the rules with that existence with us nationals that there is a true free market just not possible that in your view and in our current stage it is not possible when you don't apply the rules look at what mr obama said yesterday he said she the world is getting more unequal we've got to have new laws now imagine the normative saying this twenty years ago when you had the savings and loan crisis two thousand s n l rafa cers percent to jail nobody sent to jail we

don't need no what's all we need is to enforce the law and when mr obama appoints geithner he does he's not going to enforce the law is a technocrat meaning a financial lobbyist he appoints eric the justice department eric holder is head of the justice department that means we are not going to prosecute any financial fraud these are our campaign contributors as you were just writing exactly to then dr hudson is there are those one percent that you're talking about them aside does the rest of the one percent that are just normal people earning their living that are connected like that did they have more in common in the ninety nine with the ninety nine percent than the media and politicians for that matter would let us believe i don't think so i think the other one percent you know is that's got to gerald's that the rich are different and they're different because they use tax shelters the the richest one percent don't earn income at all they they make capital gains. they don't pay taxes only the little people

a tax and spend our time big people tend to pay a lot of their money in taxes but exit the waiters we're dealing with people that don't go to jail when they cheat you have normal people if they still go to jail the richest one percent don't go to jail they have the lawyers working for them and the government promises we're not going to send you guys to jail if your drugs we want your campaign and contribute changed your our constituency some of the one percent is the constituency of whoever is going to be president whether it's republican or democrat they're technocrats meaning essentially lobbyists or the gang that's taken over another ok it's basically a wall street all right well we will continue to talk about this wall street gang i am sure a lot on this show we certainly always appreciate your insights on this that was dr hudson he is economist and author as well.

all right we've talked about the problems of europe and the u.s. now we want to give you some opportunities depending on how you see it i want to bring in our producer dimitri coziness as well as shannon donahoe in the control room to talk about this with me because if you have just been waiting to get your hands on a dot x. x. x. domain now is your chance. you guys have your dot triple x. domain right right why is a mom and pop hotdog stand need to an adult domain i don't get it right is unpredictable. i think those are porn stars in the in that commercial was an ad for triple x. domain names they are open to the public as of yesterday so you can go get yours

available on a first come first serve basis for the virtual red light district so what does this say about where we are add that there is this much of a demand for triple x. names is that it's this big of an industry that it that it mandates that it was not just a huge industry it could i think officially it's bigger than hollywood on officially no one really knows are going to how big the industry is because a lot of black market money but the porn on the industry has always been huge overseas v.h.s. came out and it has the other quality which is a vice industry it's recession proof but that's actually may be true however i know that internet has actually eaten away from the porn industry because there's so much free porn right that's true but there are also now it's really going to increase with all these triple x. domain names that's true but they're also a lot of internet startup companies that came into being servicing the porn industry and allowing them to do things in the internet space they weren't able to before like you have a lot of new technologies to go back that are being applied to the internet so yeah

there's been piracy and things like that that i'm going out for e dimitri rather going for a report. shannon are you going to sign up for your triple x. domain name just so no one does shannon donahoe dot x.x.x. . i was going to say. if they don't want their names showing google. x x x. there you go that's the advice of santa donna let's move on because this is advice for people that like to party the f.d.a. has approved a pill that promises to take the edge off of situations like this to a great. great movie and now there just might be a cure it combines a thousand milligrams of aspirin ok that doesn't sound like rocket science one

hundred twenty milligrams of caffeine neither does that and a stomach soothing agent into effervescent tablets taken the morning after a night of heavy drinking claims to knock out multiple hangover symptoms in just fifteen to thirty minutes how is this any better then a cup of coffee alka seltzer and some aspirin gives you a better this is a. test of the. aspirin and they're calling this blowfish that's the name of the hangover was called blowfish so it's a it's a branding marketing thing. you know you don't really take this with. some water and you know it's the same thing it's just one more drug for the drug industry to market b.s. yeah i mean this is. so shannon what would you offer except new hangover pill that you know claims to be a cure for greasy food greasy food or a shop for your hangover really helps and that way that you're not supporting this kind of behavior in the era where we have you know doggy depression pills do we

really need a hangover cure that's no better than what you can get over the counter quickly we've got to move on because speaking of what you get over the counter there is a big box where many people go to to get everything that they need over the counter and on the aisles but india has put its foot down for this one. this is going to suffer more for back to school. so india has suspended its decision to allow overseas retailers including wal-mart to open supermarkets quickly all i have to say is take that wal-mart you not get into india you like the circus you don't like wal-mart i can tell you don't like big change doors i just don't think that they should put indians out of business i don't think that i don't know that i'm a hero for india and they had months to come and they have these big companies coming as they see wal-mart these big retailers like when i go well wal-mart come here and rape us screw our mart yeah and if you come out on the flipside one thing i did see calling this right about is should countries emerging markets that have worked so hard sometimes to make these goods benefit from the spoils of their cheap

labor that's all we have time for we're going to leave it with my bryan remark i'm just getting that there are so thanks for tuning in please follow me on twitter at loren lester give us feedback at youtube dot com slash capital account and have a great night. he believes and hope for many years in the soviet system which faded away in less than twenty four hours it's been of this kind of push up the boomers but will we accept in a true russian style we didn't know exactly what the future would bring me to think about three leaders come together and so on and agreements dissolving the u.s.s.r. . to get rid of the so called big brother that was always controlling them was the

dream of many republics. but in the early days of the people they put it like this i will liberate you from the kremlin oppression no one wants to take the blame but not be able to persuade gorbachev and besides he's. could not be relied upon. he could tell you anything and do something completely different i can't forgive myself for maybe too liberal and in the sand boris yeltsin or i should have that was my mistake. this is the decisive in strict boris yeltsin that sucks in the kremlin instead of good stuff about time. then i don't think we'd have left elevator forest soaries. decades have passed but the discussion still rages was this a plot or a fait accompli.