well that's certainly one mainstream take on them thank goodness there is an entire world of alternative financial media to tell you what's missing from that conversation you just heard. and the u.s. anti-piracy bills change all that we've seen the protests from silicon valley today will break down why the financial blogosphere is going to war over a never ending witch hunt in the words of one blogger and we all remember the u.s. debt ceiling debate where the nation came this close to default well we're not hearing it now even though u.s. president barack obama is moving to raise the debt ceiling by a more than a trillion bucks again that's because of the deal lawmakers reached the last time around but hey guess what that didn't stop congress from rejecting the debt ceiling increase again but what we'll discuss let's get to today's capital account.

all right so in the race for the white house texas governor rick perry has announced he'll drop out of it he's going to endorse newt gingrich so naturally a lot of the u.s. media is focused on what this means for the republican field on who can be elected u.s. president in two thousand and twelve but here is one area where it most likely won't matter at all who is president and where you if you're us voter literally have no say either but nonetheless it affects you it affects me it affects people all over the world i'm talking about the actions of the federal reserve and its control over monetary policy if you're watching this show i don't have to tell you twice now the central banks decisions do not have to be approved by the president or by congress

it is independent yet it is more than tripled the money supply largely through quantitative easing since the financial crisis pumping up the banking system creating zombie banks you can see how a base money the money supply has increased right there the feds also lower interest rates to zero so wall street can speculate with cheap cash for free and borrow on the cheap to cover losses on assets mark to make believe but savers like you and me can barely make a dime and may be looking to do more talking about the fed at its next meeting even though it's run out of bullets according to people like mohamed el area and the c.e.o. of pimco the largest bond fund in the world at least that's what he's what he told me when i talked to him and interviewed him on friday and as a side note i do want to say the reason i say most likely it won't matter who is u.s. president when it comes to the fed is because there is one hitch we know wrong paul wants to abolish the fed entirely so that's a wild card there but here to tell us what the cost of all this money printing has been investment advisor first pacific capital mike shared lock is here he is better

known as mish he also writes a very popular blog global economic trend analysis is going to break it all down for us miche nice to see it thanks for being on the show. you know it's a version of the army of war right back atcha so let's talk about this because the fed has tripled the size of its balance sheet in the last three years trying to stimulate the economy which you can see i want to show our viewers again has expanded the base money supply my question to you why hasn't this translated in to the massive price inflation even hyper inflation that we've heard a lot of people warning back we heard back in two thousand and nine a lot. a lot of people have this misguided theory of when the fed prints money that is going to be lent and then redeposited and land and land and land over again people have this idea that this money is going to be learned and times over i've said as as has economic professor steenie steve keen in australia that that's

really not the way the system works banks land when as long as they're not a tabloid purveyor impaired provided they've got credit worthy borrowers that want to borrow we're seeing a situation right now we're banks are impaired they don't admit that warn of course there are hiding there is still hiding a lot of losses primarily in real estate on the books we've got. and but what business is want to expand in this environment here i don't see any reason we've got unemployment the five it's much higher than stated actually you unemployment would be close to seventeen percent of you added up all the people that wanted a job and didn't have to have a job you've got a lot of distortion in the markets you've got china slowing you god a situation in europe that's quite literally blowing out europe is heading into a major major recession and regardless of what people think that is going to impact the united states so if you're us business why do you want to expand in this

environment so they're not doing it now bernanke is pushing on a string and yet a keynesian afternoon i don't i don't to see it that way but that is that's what the keynesians would say that he's pushing on a string so all this money is just not making it into the real economy they've they've expanded fence balance sheet by one point eight trillion since the start of the recession and one point six trillion of that is sitting on deposit at the federal reserve making point two five percent interest ok so you got into so much right there that i want to dive further entail the excess reserves here at all a desperate person just kind of break down because there's a. between inflation i were talking about price inflation things like food and computer chips or the government's key measure the c.p.i. which came out today and was basically unchanged month to month and inflation in the broader money supply can you just kind of distinguish that because some of our viewers may know that distinction but some may not and it's important our

conversation so could you explain why that matters. there's actually three distinctions we need to make your first we need to have before we can discuss inflation and how much it is we have to agree on what it is and there's not a lot of agreement out there most people think inflation in terms of prices i think of inflation in terms of expansion of money supply and credit and most people leave that credit out and more importantly those the few that do think about credit don't think about credit mark to market so that you know the banks have all these loans on the books are they going to be paid back you know and i know they're not and that's why they're not lending but unless the banks are lending then businesses are standing no one's hiring you have these real estate slumps you have asset bubbles slums and that's what we're in and that's what i mean by deflation if someone says ok well prices are going up gasoline is going up but so that's another measure but gasoline could be going up because of oil because of inflation in china and

certainly money supply and credit is expanding at a rapid rate in china that is indeed impacting a lot of global commodities like copper and then you know there's there's the third view this says oh my god you know this is a hybrid question as you well you know how much money you know the fed is troubled as you say you know monetary base in a very short time and they're expecting this big calamity to happen but warren total credit market in the united states is fifty is close to fifty five trillion dollars so on a relative basis what is that one point eight trillion going to do especially when one point six trillion of it is sitting parked at the said this is not in a drawer some of the fed's policies they've wrecked havoc with the money supply they've created a property bubble. and we're in the aftermath of that and they're trying to do the

same thing they desecrate. the property bubble in the first voice i don't agree with that but there's no way you can go from here to hard pollution and i want to get more into the people making that hyperinflation argument but i want to apply some of what you're saying to europe because you mentioned the crisis it's something we talk about a lot and despite the efforts to get money out into the economy through things like the s. and p. and l. t.r.o. which we've talked about on this show i want to show our viewers what's happened to the money supply in italy and it shows if we could bring that up a drop it will be up in a second but i want you to tell us what this is telling us and what similarities there are to the u.s. . this is actually quite shocking you know to see this money is why ambrose evans perjurer to the telegraph came out and said you know this is an indication that the e.c.b. is pushing italy into deflation you know maybe that's debatable maybe not but certainly spain is in deflation right now scuse me a depression right now spain has entered depression greece is in

a depression portugal is in a depression and i think a strong case can be made that italy is actually heading there why did it post a few actually right before christmas talking about the plunging christmas sales are going to update from that person who actually lives in europe. who is from italy so there are the numbers just came out today had a shocking twenty percent decline in after christmas sales and usually now in contra's united states over in europe especially in italy these after sales of vents are as big as the christmas sales so you know imagine what would happen here if there was a twenty percent plunge in the united states and christmas sales that's what we're talking about here in italy and we have austerity measures out the ying yang being imposed on top of that and not only these austerity measures worst of all tax increases taxes increases in spain tax increases in italy tax increases in greece in tax increases in france and on top of that france and germany are are pushing

for a tax on on financial transactions that's going to dry up liquidity and financial transactions if they do that europe is heading into an absolute stunning disaster ok headed for a stunning disaster and you'd like a lot of reasons why but back to kind of time to send a monetary policy and into the fed for the u.s. and the inflation argument despite the fact that you're not saying that the fed's behavior is saying that what they're doing is not going to create zero to hyper inflation because of the amount of money at stake despite that we still hear a lot of these kind of arguments and the main. they get a lot of play and the alternative media too absolutely let me play some. and if we destroy our currency which is what the obama plan my you do if we have a hyperinflation it's not going to matter how much money we have because we're not going to buy anything with a strong market of the state is this their own reaching a inflationary hole because at because they don't know what else to do and they're

making mistakes. so mis why do you think these kind of arguments have gotten so much play compared to the debt deflation argument that you and people like steve king who you mentioned is a friend of the show also make. because there are sexy arguments people like to hear these doom and gloom things they like and spread them around the internet oh i gotta go look at all this stuff that's going to happen here though look at this look at that it also ties into the you know buy gold transaction and ties into some of the things that ron paul is saying ron paul is very popular certainly a big big big fan of ron paul i want to end the fed i want to stop all these distortions certainly i would agree with peter schiff that this stuff is very distortionary we don't want to do it this is one of the things fractional reserve lending coupled with greenspan pounding out money supply in the wake of the two thousand to two thousand and three recession is what created the property bubble

and they're back in the same old tricks you know so we need to put an end to what right but that doesn't necessarily cause i've heard fleishman and given what they're all missing is the total credit market that that's the argument that shifts miss he looks at this stuff in terms of money supply alone and says my gosh look what's happening and i say gosh look at the credit markets look at what's happening and we can see who is argument's been right today so you know whether or not that's always going to be the case but the reason why i like gold is central bankers throughout the world are doing this which is the other side of the place an argument that no one seems to mention the money supply in credit is soaring in china looking for inflation looking to china in the weird thing is these people screaming i burn a lot of them are big big china balls i think europe is going to crash is there on it way more unsustainable path than the united states all right measure i want to

stop you right there because we actually have to get a break quickly i want to keep it there because i want to get in a couple more questions on this issue of federal reserve policy i also want to talk so i'll hang on right there and we will have more with mike said lot after this break. as a lead it's back the u.s. house of representatives is putting some rain on the debt ceiling parade yes the same parade from last summer i'll give you our three cents but first your closing market numbers. sorry it's technology innovations all the latest developments around russia we've got the huge earth covered. oh oh

. welcome back so we saw blackouts yesterday online sites like google and wikipedia ls you didn't go online there's just no way you get to miss those and they're protesting sopa and people stop online piracy act to protect ip act anti-piracy bills that are working their way through congress critics say these are efforts to censor the internet now we know you know the tech sector those protests were heard millions signed google's petition calling congress some lawmakers change their positions but the financial blogosphere has been targeted while at least here is one depiction of what could happen and artist made

a headline sopa blacks out zero hedge thousands forced to experience c n b c now mitt has been speaking out against sopa on his financial blog and he also used to work on tech so he's going to tell us what the impact could be so mike said like i want to bring back into the conversation again he's adviser at sic pacific capital and mitch before we get to so because this is really interesting stuff i want to just circle back around to the fed to ask one question about these access reserves i want to bring dimitri is going to jump in here to make sure to finish our producer a minute or so i want to i want to say one more thing about we're talking about before regarding base money printing the fed printed a lot of money and they use that money to buy up a lot of assets which is why its portfolio expanded by over three times and we saw base money expand by march but that money didn't actually get into the economy i want to see if we can bring up actually a graph we have of loan growth relative to the money it's up there so our viewers can see the. collapse relative to the basement of the federal reserve is creating

because banks aren't loaning the money you know as we saw in europe the old hero the s. and p. program banks be getting money but that money is going right back to the deposit facility in the u.c.b. in the fed is going right back to the fed and they're getting interest on excess reserves a small amount of interest is still better than what they're they're willing to go up by taking risks my question is what can the fed do at this point hypothetically if you really want to inflate would have to go out and really buy indices i mean what could it do theoretically if it wanted to inflate this economy. i don't think the fed can i think it's in fact even admitted that it was surprising actually but you know bernanke he had a realization moment i think it was last october when he when he came flat out and he said something this fact you know we're at the end of what the fed can do and he was and what you're seeing now is the fed getting into congressional territory even though the fed got very very upset when congress started trusting what the fed was

going to do so i guess the rules of the game are one way here in favor of the fed of course but. you're saying burn actually saying things like well you know we need to get spending under control but right now no one ever wants to do anything right now so i guess we are at the limits of fed policy certainly they could try some very very risky thanks but i don't think they will you know because risky things can blow up you know people have talked about. the fed having a negative interest rate to force banks to lend but i don't think that would work i think that might push them into a situation if they did start running for the losses would be enormous i don't think the fed will do that i think it would be very very destabilizing so i i think all the people that. the fed is really in control here well if the fed was in control here we wouldn't have had this credit collapse in two thousand and eight

two thousand and nine and you think that that really control here banks would be lending so they're not and i don't think they very much they will be going on the string analogy comes back it sounds like you think the fed that abolished mesh let's switch gears to so bad though because you're a financial blogger you also used to work in tax but as it pertains to your blog what do you think the impact of this bill could be. well they always start these things out small an innocuous laurie you know then then they go on from here i mean you know who the patriot act for example is supposed to be temporary you know every president wants it now because it gives them more control over things in europe we've seen governments actually take over the internet impose fines i can't read what country there was very i mean this for anyone visiting a prohibited site you've got rules and regulations in these piracy acts this is the government or someone can come down and enforce it provider to take

a website down you know imagine the allegations against zero hedge or mayor calculated risk or max kaiser or someone you know when someone says oh you know use two senses of copyright material should have been done you should have done that so we're going to take you down we're going to target in these instances we're going to target all the people that are saying anti-government things they're going to be talking about targeting all the people like me that are standing out in favor of free speech they're going to target the people the letter that support ron paul you know that's the danger in these things you start down the slippery slopes of taking away freedoms well you know you can't ensure freedom by taking it away that's really the bottom line yeah really great point we'll have to see what happens with this whole campaign but we cannot imagine a world without blogs like yours that. you know we'll keep talking about that's we appreciate you being on the show and your insight as mike said locke is investment advisor for a second pacific capital. all

right before we go we have gone over debt deflation and inflation and guess what other issue is back ok first i want to introduce or bring in you guys now and dimitri cafe ness our producer to talk about this and also shannon donahoe are the producer hold down the fort in the control room maybe january but guess what issue is back raising the debt ceiling by another one point two trillion bucks so why haven't we heard this again. i want to speak about their own born and increasingly urgent efforts to avoid default and reduce our debt. he was saying you know basically they were reaching default there was the huge debt debate

we saw a while back the country was this close to defaulting but back then there was a bipartisan deal struck in august it was stacked on purpose in president obama's favor so that he could get through another passage of raising the debt ceiling even so in a symbolic vote wednesday the house chose to reject the one point two trillion dollars raise to the federal debt ceiling even though this doesn't matter what does this mean for you dimitri would you care about this oh sure republicans are a bunch of bozos and hogs so they raised the national debt under reagan they exploded under bush and now you know a bomb is a disaster as well for different reasons but. they're the ones supposed be fiscally conservative so they just want to masquerade around and pretend like it's only because obama's in office now that all we care about that i didn't give a crap about it before when reagan or bush ran off it absolutely i mean the debt ceiling was raised ten times in ten years under all. different administrations

republican and democrat i just think that it's so absurd that this charade still goes on even when it doesn't matter just so people can go back to their districts and say oh we're tough on the deficit when really no one's doing anything actually about the deficit because people don't want to work right so politicians especially the washroom was really nice and cozy pitcher from government a good pitcher from the obvious so they don't want to work they don't want to actually do anything or make sense to me i'm not surprised this was all about party b.s. and p.r. . or give me a job afterwards when i go work out of the country or a firm when i'm out of office shannon. it's all about the record for one thing frantically running for president one day. certainly i certainly have not as many members of the houses voted for this are thinking of running for president because there are a lot continuing around d.c. let's stick to this because you will never guess who is bailing out the washington

monument let's take a look. but the billionaire and philanthropist david rubenstein has graciously donated seven and a half million dollars to help repair the washington landmark i mean is that just pathetic so the washington monument got a little during that earthquake we had in washington which was so not a big deal coming from california why are people ducking covering this is absurd nonetheless it's getting a bailout from a billionaire he's the co-founder of the d.c. based carlyle group and a global asset management firm reportedly worth two point seven billion come on isn't there a better use of his money can you put that toward something that impacts people's lives why does he. like this guy think it's pathetic that the government can't find the money the few million dollars to fix the washington monument but think about one hundred eighty billion dollars to give the passed over to your bank and goldman . j.p. morgan and whatever credit suisse and other banks i'm sure that you know the

government could spend the money if they actually cared but they don't actually care that's what's really pathetic they would rather literally the symbols of washington and this country incredible rather than have any bank crumble because i think i think for them they're like you know we need to find more than just find a real life metaphor to describe just how much they're screwing up the country through the nation's capital you know what not only is washington crumbling metaphorically speaking it's actually literally crumbling so why are we literally crumbling i think that they just want to just want to kind of stamp a message home with them as a time don't expect much guys where nations monuments are crumbling shannon while the government actually is spending money to fix the washington monument he is just writing the rest how much of the government spending the time and the exact numbers it's needed private sector participation of fix the washington monument public private partnership to me to say definitively that our in europe with the banks and

the i mean this is absurd this bench are willing to participate in a haircut a private haircut but are private guys willing to fix the government is how backwards and screwed up this country is and in general the government and private sector service you bring my thank you show and you stamp the point home for me then to make that connection just really quickly to we had a story where someone died and donated their money to the government to help pay down the debt which is a better private donation batter this guy just because they want there's a sucker because he died he could not manage with the money where he basically said i'm going to write a check to the ferry to the tooth fairy and they're going to magically don't explain this guy can see where his money goes hopefully by order that's all we have time for we'll leave it there that's all we have time for on our show thanks so much for watching feel free to follow me on twitter at lauren lyster give us feedback at youtube dot com slash capital account and get ready next week i am heading to davos. i'm going to be your eyes and ears at the world economic forum

with all of the richest most powerful people in the world. our producer will be filling in here we have really amazing interviews lined up so get excited until next time i'm laurin leicester have a great day. her

strike back not a miss cripples major u.s. government and corporate sites in a response to a crackdown of bile sharing website and pending anti-piracy laws. syria's opposition holds more mass rallies to demand more prisoners be released despite a general amnesty earlier this week critics say only regime change will satisfy the protest leaders now. at a multi-billion pound battle between a russian tycoon romanov a row vision fugitive mobile boris berezovsky in a london court finally approaches its conclusion. and us for more on these stories and plenty more at the top of the next hour up next from our washington studios the alona show with more on the growing fuss around attempts to protect us copyright.

welcome to the loan or shall we look at the real headlines with none of them or see we're going live to washington d.c. now that we're going to take a look at a supreme court ruling from yesterday that allows congress to take the works were certain works out of the public domain and then grant them copyright protection again so we can ask if this is a step backwards that has more trouble in the euro zone.