influence in washington we've seen the issue take center stage in the occupy wall street movement in the spotlight really since the citizens united decision was handed down you may be surprised though how little has changed in one hundred years we'll tell you though and the consumer electronics show kicks off in vegas today is it dying is it passe lots what many are asking as microsoft for one makes this year its last so where exactly is innovation in the u.s. going will discuss let's get today's capital account. all right new hampshire voters are voting today in the first primary of the season this election comes of course at a time when the u.s.

faces tough economic times if you're watching this show you know what they are but of course they include high unemployment sluggish growth to name a few it's also a time when the influence of money in politics is being questioned by perhaps most noticeably the occupy wall street movement and monetary policy has emerged as part of the debate small part but it leaves part of the debate with the popularity of ron paul which is really we've seen it grow this cycle paul rallies against the easy money policies of the federal reserve here's an example. you can print paper was a money in secrecy by the federal reserve in the creation of well we have gotten the attention the american people dealing with our monetary system and the federal reserve and it's time we not only audit the federal reserve but also in due time get rid of the federal reserve. ron paul sees a world getting rid of the federal reserve and with sound money as the solution or

at least the country probably not the world maybe the world to look at how the country got here though today we step back and take a look at history let's first take this issue of money and eight hundred ninety six the u.s. different time it was on the gold standard and the populist candidate for president william jennings bryan was actually running on a platform of easier money cheaper money he wanted by metal isn't this is money backed by silver in addition to gold which would expand the money supply has been talking. we were. down before the probably for. our own. famous speech the campaign then for easier money was an effort to help the poor the worker to free him to allow him to borrow with lower interest rates boy how times

have changed bank america hard cash rewards credit card one percent cash back on everything i buy here no limit to the money because practically no hoops to jump through to. see for sure has. simple a little more than a century later we've seen how simple it has become with currency and easy money opening the door to the expansion of credit that now actually shackles many of the poor the workers the middle class in debt credit card debt mortgage debt student loan debt brian looking back he ran for president three times he lost but looking back at the issues then very eerie similarities to modern times that help us understand where we are today michael kazin knows that better than anyone he's professor of history at georgetown university and he wrote the book literally on william jennings bryan he wrote his biography he also is author more recently of american dreamers how the left changed the nation thank you for being on the show today welcome to capital account great to be here let's talk capital let's go back

because i want to talk first about this issue of hard money versus easy money so let's go back to william jennings bryan and eight hundred ninety six he's advocating for by metal ism he grabs on to this free silver movement which was already a popular movement why did this resonate with him and with people who he's from nebraska which was then sort of way out of the mainstream still is in many ways it was a state primarily farmers wanted low interest rates for all the things they had to buy to be the crop in. also they saw the big bankers in the east who wanted to gold standard who follow the lead of great britain which was the most powerful economy the world the time which is on the gold standard they saw that these people were bankers and wall street so the big investors as well wanting to keep the poor poor wanted to keep. prices low but also interest rates high and they felt that you play the money supply they'd be able to make credit cheaper

they make it easier for people to buy the way out of debt farmers small business people as well so it was with a class issue money was a class issue in many ways it was. the the haves have too much is if you will against the have nots with the have to littles and relisted to in the south and the west the united states people in favor of easy money as it was as was thought in the northeast especially in the middle and upper classes they were in favor of keeping things the way they were has versus the have nots still a very relevant today but to stick on to this issue of credit so so this was really a move to try to get credit to people that couldn't get it to lower interest rates to expand the money supply this was the ticket to freedom to more upward mobility to building wealth now we see a day very different time easy money has really been the way things have gone low interest rates have opened the door to massive credit expansion to people who

didn't record amounts of credit card debt student loan debt we've seen what's happened with mortgage debt the foreclosure crisis his credit gone from something that was the ticket to freedom and upward mobility to become something to evolve to something that has become something that actually shackles and oppresses the same group of people the workers the middle class the poor question who first of all most who didn't have too much credit didn't even having a mortgage the ninety's was seen as a mark of shame you couldn't buy something was now already but he buys a house but i think the problem with credit is more that there's a gap between what people want and what they can afford and that gap has something to do with the decline of union power for middle class working class people in america has something to do with the wage gap or heard a lot about talk by wall street talked a lot about so i don't think credit itself is the problem is created in the context of the structure of the economy which has got more unequal over the last thirty forty years i mean that the fifty's when i was a little child. people exist or you get credit cards as

a new wonderful thing but because their wages were going up even farther than the rate of inflation will waive the going up it wasn't as much of a problem as it is now you really had on the head of really great point which that is that. declining wages the stagnation of wages people have made up for that with credit and that's led to do not have credit expansion which has really become this huge problem you hit on this issue of labor and labor versus capital that was really the debate during the bryants time cracked yes was also farmers against industrialists i mean it wasn't as simple as we did it against their bosses ok not as simple for our intents and purposes you're not simplify it i know you probably had to do that as a historian but let's say it's capital stories like labor and i think it's going to classes to let them go by over everybody has it changed today you said labor has been defeated it's over the thirty years has really declined organizing has declined unions have declined has the battle now become not between capital and labor between but between capital and credit and i'm going to use capital different

here capital being anybody with money and they want to save money and credit being speculators that want to gamble and speculate the big guys on wall street the big banks with easy cheap money and credit and i think it's a real problem i think to a problem again. the financial crisis took place for a lot of reasons but core problem there is you know was there something people want to houses credit was much cheaper but people were taking out loans which they really couldn't afford to pay back they didn't really understand so it was both. a credit problem and a problem think of information which you know with all the bundling of all those assets many of which turn out to be based on very little if anything that itself i think. is a problem was you know in the eighteen million these people thought you understood the economy they thought if you for free silver you understood this is going to help a whole group of people if you were for keeping the gold standard that was going to

help another group of people know how many americans how many people in europe wherever people watch the show really understand why the financial crisis happened really have a very clear analysis which they can explain to the neighbors which they can explain to their children you know about. why it happened. you know i think they were of course they were but you know i think the ordinary american citizen i know the most if you ask them to the other american the ordinary georgetown student who's very smart and got good grades in high school and has taken economics one probably couldn't understand it they probably couldn't understand it but i bet you when they get out of college to have student loan debt but that's a that's aside from the point because you brought up the issue of money which i think is really interesting because back in the eight hundred ninety s. that was central to the election in one thousand nine hundred six at william jennings bryan that's what people were focused on they had the same anger against thinking that big banks and big money and big institutions controlled society but they focused on the issue of money to solve it i think it's interesting that today you see that same anger but people aren't focused on monetary policy or money to

solve it you have ron paul as one candidate talking about it but he's kind of trying to make an obscure issue popular if you had completely the opposite back then in eighty nine he's what's changed when he was a symbol as i said that time it was a symbol of first of all it was concrete in the sense that it isn't today you can take a dollar bill go to the federal treasury and get adults with a gold. based on so so seem like there was real wealth there and also it was a panacea i mean people thought those were important some ways things too that if you just change one big thing about the economy you'll be able to make everything better well you know most is no that's not really true but the eighty ninety s. people fixated on this on this issue debtors thought free silver would get them out of debt when able to be more prosperous and this will businesses and people who are creditors thought no we can't have that that will cause a more serious depression and there was a depression on the united to we have a recession now this recovering from one but then. it was unusual people to

be in those long the depression as they'd been it was unusual for a lot of people to be working for other people that was fairly new in american life at the time so you know i will say only because appeared to them at the time but. but at least. we have i think a more complex sense of how the economy works than they did then then both sides both the people and the people said no we've got to stick to gold they both had almost religious zeal behind their position professor casey do you think that money should be more part of the popular debate because you mentioned that you don't believe that that's a panacea but at the same time you talked about how most people don't know exactly how the financial crisis worked what was the problem should people understand how money works would that help you would help i think would help more people understood you know how the financial industry itself works and if people understood exactly you know how decisions were made to say build the banks enough to build the banks what would happen if we'd done that so i think we should focus

more institutions more structures less on one particular thread in this very complex but very important fabric that runs our lives they have to know about the fed know about why banks are bailed out or how they're which turned out i want to continue this conversation because money in politics something we briefly touched upon something that played a role back with william jennings bryan the deaf and very much so dead today also from brian's cross of gold to lloyd blankfein quoted and newspaper saying he's doing god's work what is with the use of religion here we're going to talk with history professor and author michael kazin about it after the break that first your closing market numbers.

just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and just you know the truth. i confess i am a total get of i love driving hip hop is excellent and pretty. but it was kind of the jester day. i'm very proud of the all the belgians year has played. the odd. guitar 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 that everything is ok if you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture of.

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 will is your own view with a global missionary zeal where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sessions when nobody dares to ask why we do our t. question more. all right welcome back to before the break we were talking about money people know more about it they certainly did back in the eight hundred ninety s. one thing we do hear a lot about today money in politics the role that it has the influence that it

gives big business corporations and while in washington it's something that was going on back in the eight hundred ninety s. you may be surprised how similar it sounds i want to bring back professor michael kazin into the conversation to tell us what has or has not changed he's also author of american dreamers so to kick this off i want to play a sound bite from one of brian's speeches where he's talking about making a more transparent money and who is donating to politicians let's put that. this is the first this is i think the fever thinks everything. is the thing. that's the least that is the size i think this i think the ambiguity of the face for me i think it is possible for me thanks is i think the beef so this is actually from one of his later campaigns eerie similarities. was big business more influential than you are now in politics to say it's been influential throughout as

long as there has been big business has been influential one of the differences is that it was completely transparent then there were no laws at all to stop. this from giving money directly to candidates there was no setting up super pacs like we have now. the supreme court didn't have to rule for this united or against the united. six. who was running against him for president he was a republican at the time his campaign manager got a mark hanna who was themselves a leading industrialist went around wall street knocking on doors of some of the richest men in america saying i need some money to defeat this crazy populous democrat brian he would join the rockefeller green or magnates office and said john d. i need a quarter million dollars john d. wrote him a quarter million dollar check on standard oil. because it was just direct it was

and i think seven that to wreck or become a tribute to the campaigns were banned but of course as you know the cliche the mother's milk money is the mother's milk of politics you know it has a way of getting to the masses of of the candidates and you know i think as we know that nobody can run for president without getting a lot of money from wealthy people they have to get money from people as well like you and me but they also have to get money from wealthy people and and then. tremendous influence sets limits i think to what to be talked about and sets limits to the kind of legislation that can be passed ok you mentioned how how transparent it was you could literally johnny rockefeller pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check for two hundred fifty grand or about your book he just talked about which is big money yeah i'll save money that we're not adjusted for inflation ok that is a lot of money got ten million now and yet different p.r. friday had various tactics that we have a picture of him giving a dime to a child looking very much like like

a parent about the little kids while he's writing two hundred fifty thousand dollars checks so brian's running against this guy as the populist democrat he's running against big business industrialist ran three times last three times you said that not a lot has changed with the influence of big business and politics does this show that not a lot of changed it's very difficult to run and win an election against these interests i think it is i mean in politics in a democratic country like ours what matters is the pressure you can put on a politician obviously people out of money can put that kind of pressure on them because they need that money to to run for office you know system but to have been times in american history were other interests you if you will in the. social movements for example the labor movement making thirty's when it was really growing labor with a three million members and they threw three to fifteen million members in one hundred forty five well that means that politicians have to listen to that so frankly roosevelt became the great liberal that he was would you like his policies

not partly because he had this pressure on him from the left in a similar way the civil rights movement the sixty's through demonstrations through some people getting killed made a moral claim on a lot of politicians and also had support not just from african-americans but from a lot of latinos a lot of whites too and so that began to put pressure on corporations and also on politicians but representing populist interests me anymore disparate interests is that not a campaign that can be won. based on history you have to have support from some people with money as well i think i mean frankly roosevelt was outspent by the republicans but not by that much and he could get money from labor so. labor was giving him money not is large percentages not as many dollars as business giving to the republicans of the time but enough so that he gave campaign offices enough that he could run on the radio and this kind of thing religion i've got to get to this because it's very interesting brian of course his famous speech was this cross of

gold speech there is that religious symbolism in it also he has christianity was important was politics from from what i've heard and seen from you we see john d. rockefeller famously saying that he was doing god's work or something to that effect to both to build churches he was a very big and he thought that it was a gift from god for him to make money and we've seen lloyd blankfein modern day c.e.o. of goldman sachs quoted in the london sunday times saying he's doing god's work is there something constant throughout history where people appeal to a higher authority to legitimize action whether you're william jennings bryan or a robber baron well yes people refer to the higher power to do them as ever they want to do you know god maybe do it they will maybe do it whatever sure and of course in a country like united states which is always at least publicly people have always said the people of faith were a country which was founded by very religious people even though the founding

fathers country were going back things were not very religious people most of them nevertheless we've always had a free market of religion here which is help religion to thrive in many ways and never to believe people who do will think well if they believe in god god is who want them to do well so there's always a connection was that brian brian used in other people on the left in american politics who have been religious people have done this to try and use religion to criticize wealthy people to criticize the establishment choose he was a social gospel or that. does he believe that the gospel of christ should be helping the poor helping workers. with king jr did though they're very different kinds of kinds of people we only have a minute but if you were teaching a comparative history class and you wanted to impart what the lesson would be to be learned today from william jennings bryan in the issues that we're talking about now what would it be what would be the key takeaway. i think that we continue to have about between. the majority of people who are struggling to do

better to have better lives economically and a fairly small elite which sometimes helps them do that sometimes is not and so the struggle between what america's like to talk about a social classes but really that's the best way to put it has always been with us and will continue you know the economics i mean they play very heavily into this year's election and as you pointed out the more things change the more they see day the same thank you so much for being on the show that was history professor and author michael kagan.

all right we talked about a lot of the pressing historical context behind the elections in light of the new hampshire primary going on right now let's talk about something else going on today and i want to bring in our producer dimitri cofan us and shannon donahoe in the control room to help me with this remaining loose change we have one of us so today is also the start of the international consumer electronics show in vegas but there are fewer big names products devices insiders say are already outdated or boring so where is this innovation going is it disappearing it looks like it's certainly not going to europe not if you listen to ryanair is c.e.o. saying this about what bureaucracy is doing to innovation there here's why he was surprised to even be invited to the news innovation convention most of you know the european union spends most of its time either suing me torturing me criticizing me or condemning me for lowering the cost of air travel all over europe. he told

everybody to the of the end innovators that were there to get the heck out of brussels as soon as they can because bureaucracy stifles innovation so is this why we're not seeing as much innovation at the consumer electronics show or is it just that the show is passe wasn't it is not another industry this supposed to be at the same. show there that is my next question the porn industry usually holds its annual convention the same weekend this year is the first that they are not they have decoupled from the consumer electronics convention is that why there is less interest in this convention this year or less innovation they've definitely benefit a lot from the sick knowledge or right. i don't know it's a really good question as pointed out to me i was i was kind of shocked that they had loped and i heard this business lecture that microsoft's going to be it is who it is yeah microsoft is it that innovative. really really. make sense and right there isn't it and i like that that speech i was actually

a conference. and he pointed out that they wouldn't actually reimburse him because he was applying one of the because it was do you know yeah shannon what do you think. just to watch i mean i wish the porn industry was still there because just to watch the interaction between the tech nerds and the porn stars i think would be quality television and they should probably do a show on it where does stereotype stand and not everybody in tech is a nerd they're probably very wealthy and successful considering it's the one booming business and in the us that was the whole thing with revenge of the nerds remember it was all about like nobody was all about like some unearthly like the big booming like i think there's a difference between porn stars and tech and like pretty girls in college and nerds but maybe you don't agree one thing we can agree on is well at least if you're from the point of view of ryanair c.e.o. is that bureaucracy isn't always the best thing for innovation and speaking of things that bureaucrats and leaders do or have time to do let's talk about angry

birds i'm sure you've seen these around let's take a look at that anger because if you don't know what it is. thanks. ok british prime minister david cameron says despite his very busy schedule he is prime minister you're facing a lot of trouble of course he has finished the popular bird launching game and has moved on to a new game shannon you can attest to is this a very difficult thing to do to finish angry birds. i mean i haven't finished angry birds and i've been playing it for a very long time it's not that i'm not good at video games i just i have not been able to finish it should there be a better use of his time we don't have a lot of time so give me your thoughts because we're making this up to appeal to the population just like the candidates that i started with they appeal to you know the football american publisher maybe the brits were a lot of the brits playing angry birds is like a big thing but i sentiment we started our show with populism will end on that note

because that's all we have time for thanks so much for tuning in please feel free to follow me on twitter at lauren lyster and give us feedback on the show at youtube dot com slash capital account i have more leisure for everyone here i capital count have a great night we'll see you tomorrow. wealthy british style. time to. go. to. market why not. why not what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to gaza report on

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talk about sweet and sour relations president obama plays hardball with china as timothy geithner tries to play nice so with all this back and forth are we on the brink of aid another cold war. why are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon. but that doesn't stop the u.s. from spreading iran a phobia so even though america has no reports verification or proof of what exactly around is doing is that drawing the battle lives.