every four years america's top job is up for grabs. with each new election comes a new batch of candidates with compromising foreign policy credentials when asked me who is the president of you becky becky becky becky stands banned i'm going to say you know i don't know do you know i'm afraid that it's a very hard struggle particularly given the situation on the iraq pakistan border you can actually see why russia from land here in alaska africa was a country on the brink on the brink of complete meltdown and chaos geographically illiterate us candidates have supplied comedians with endless material but all jokes aside some presidential hopefuls vying to lead the world's most powerful armed forces know very little about america's military interventions so you agree with president obama libya or. libya.

forming a cohesive sentence on geopolitics can be a struggle i do not agree with the way he did it for reasons. no that's that's a different one differentiating between friends and enemies is also a challenge obviously got to stand with our north korean allies in the case of republican candidate mitt romney mixing up presidents and prime ministers can be common i think that a president who represents a real threat to the. stability and peace of the world the overarching ignorance on international affairs has caused american political commentator bill maher to conclude i think anybody could be president in this country ok sort of like at this point now where i think if you're going to be when you register to be a candidate you also have to go take a test about foreign affairs and if you fail the test we might get you one chance to take it again. and then i'm saying sorry go you know for city

council in your little town in alaska if a country with the world's highest national g.d.p. is being represented by politicians with a deficit on international affairs the biggest consequence is likely to be america's credibility around the world and even who we target and let me finish this i just get lost in a blizzard of words there this is where it gets really dangerous for the united states of america it's like wait a minute how could they possibly be right about terrorism how could they be right about north korea going to be right about iran so-called nuclear program when their candidate doesn't even know that there's a north and south korea i think the us is why and so then the world has this very paranoid view of the united states because of the candidates not understanding basic facts or understanding the basic principles of international law which unequivocal prohibit torture and if i were president i would be willing to use

waterboarding i think it was very effective with me and three the consistent streak of foreign policy blunders made by u.s. presidential hopefuls is quite humorous but it can also be considered a national tragedy if most candidates campaigning to be leader of the so-called free world simply don't know enough about the world outside of america's borders. r.t. new york. and for more on this i spoke to abby maher and she is a journalist and founder of media roots i asked her what these phone about the pool of candidates here is her take. like in america we play by a different rule than the rest of the world here we like to develop personalities behind candidates where people can relate to a candidate oh i want to have a beer with this person why i don't want to have a beer with the president and i think i'd like just him to know what he's talking about so it makes me feel really uncomfortable and embarrassed and i think a lot of other critical thinking people in this country feel the same way i think

they're just trying too hard to relate to middle america and to relate to people when really they should be focusing on their knowledge of the world and foreign affairs and if that's what they're trying to do portray themselves as a candidate that hey we're one of you come out with a beer for me come out come out and have a very with me i mean does that then affect their talking points and and what kinds of things they choose to discuss maybe if it's not the most and poor and or relevant thing or or most pressing issues in our country today that maybe they'll be more will especially to appeal to the conservative base is that something that is affecting the dialogue and the things that they're choosing to do to discuss yeah i think it really dumb down the state of political discourse you see we talked about in previous interview but focusing on issues like gay rights and abortion really divisive issues that have relevant issues like the military industrial complex and those wars these kind of things that dumbs down the debate and what's

strange to me though is how are these players even relevant how is sarah palin a relevant person how is michele bachmann a relevant person when she's running as a team party candidate who's supposedly backing the constitution when she can't even name certain bill of rights and things like this just make them it makes you wonder why are these people relevant in the political discourse why is this person even capable of becoming the president states and cindy sheehan once told me that sarah palin was actually insurance for obama's election and when you see things like this it really makes me wonder how are these people even in these positions of power certainly it does make you wonder especially as. are seeing some of their performance we just on that story there well you know how do these politicians affect u.s. credibility worldwide i mean people are watching and seeing this i mean a lot of people around the world think america's in-joke american politics are dog and pony show they sue people you know sarah palin thinks the africa is a country so when people around the world hear that they think what is really going

on. the education system is really dominus down i mean it is these politicians who are governors of states don't understand a continent in the world really is totally dumbed down the discourse and how can we put our faith how can americans put their faith and these candidates to make informed foreign policy decisions when they don't seem to have their facts straight well that's the problem they can't and that's why you see a lot of election cycles where people are not voting for their interests they're just voting against candidates so you see a lot of people who are more progressive critical thinkers who are just saying i can't in good conscience vote for someone who doesn't know these things therefore i'm just going to vote against them even though they might not agree with obama's policy and that's really where we're at right now. i also want to focus on a hot foreign policy debate that our topic today iran and fears that the country has a nuclear bomb or is building a nuclear bomb iran has come forward publicly and said that they don't have one

they don't plan on building one we also have top military leaders also confirming this yet we still hear this very harsh and tough rhetoric out of the g.o.p. debates mitt romney all of them said rick santorum of almost competing on who can be tougher against iran and when we see this this kind of rhetoric coming from them how does that play and do you drumming up war with the country we've seen we've seen a lot of saber rattling with iran you know the thing is we're already at war with iran. didn't covert war with them right now the cia's on the ground retrain israeli defense the troops are training drills. like you said leon panetta has already said that they're not building a nuclear weapon so you have this contradictory rhetoric we obviously are already in the country so it's really a point i mean we're already engaging in covert warfare with iran so it's just a matter of how much people are aware that we're already there on the ground and

from foreign policy there is some ignorance is seeds as to what is going on even in our own country we have this embarrassing interview circulating with mitt romney where he says that he's not too worried about the poor strange at a time where we have this growing income inequality gap growing in the u.s. and and record poverty rates i mean does this just show how out of touch that he is with the reality that many americans face right here in the u.s. you know yeah i mean these politicians are leaders you know they're from an elite a drone of society they're completely out of touch with the poor with the regular citizens need of this country we saw with the occupy wall street movement become please try to minimize. the entire movement i don't think they understand what's going on that was journalist and founder of media roots abby martin. well it is a groundhog day here in the u.s. each year numerous furry groundhogs appear and try to predict if spring is near the

most famous groundhog is punk the ta phil punxsutawney phil this morning in pennsylvania he predicted another six weeks of winter but as already correspondent christine for the alex plains you could say every day in washington d.c. is groundhog day. it's groundhog day once again but in washington that day comes much more than just once a year when are we going to feed a couple of years ago no matter when you turned on the t.v. the reason you may have seen this is what's in the best interest of our country or this i spent my whole life chasing the

american dream or this that these kids have a shot at the american grand like. the weeper of the house then there are those perpetually unresolved issues in congress the white house will ask congress to increase the limit on the federal government's borrowing and the president is asking congress morning chris to the debt ceiling of one point two trillion dollars a little incentive for those job creators not only is extending the payroll tax cut important for the economy as a whole congress is expected to vote today on a compromise to extend a payroll tax cut for millions of workers or throwing a lifeboat to those who have lost their jobs or yesterday are sent congress the american jobs act passed this pair to watch footage of back in the classroom pass this bill pass this bill it's groundhog day again by reliving the same day. fellow. writers. will come over. and then there's

that other thing i know that i have deeply hurt and disappointed my wife darlene. my children both in and outside the walls of washington in the past few days i've begun to atone for my private failings with my wife so to my children and my entire family i heard her. i hurt you or hurt my wife a broken record i want to again offer my deep sincere apologies playing the same song i'm truly sorry over and all i can say is that i apologize and over the remorse i feel it with me this is a place where the same battles are fought time and time again the same issues rehashed but rarely results working here as a journalist means often waking up to do the same story as the day the week or the month before in washington christine for christine in washington christine for our

team. well that does it for now for more on the stories we covered you can head over to our to dot com slash usa check or youtube page as well it's youtube dot com slash artsy america also follow me on twitter wall for now have a great i. i'm max kaiser this is the kaiser report there's economics and then there's economics

stacey max yes that's what we have all over the world today but economics here's the trickle down hits book mel gibson temple tries to shake him down a southern california temple took out a jumbo loan on its synagogue a loan that now can't afford to pay back so what have they done max congregation beth shalom located in corona california sent mel gibson a letter requesting that he give them big money to prevent foreclosure they wrote quote our proposal to you mr gibson is since you have been cited as an anti-semitic and have denied those allegations what better way to prove to all your fans and the naysayers than to endorse and help raise funds for our cause s.o.s. save our synagogue to shakedown. well t.m.c. calls the move a similar to a dude costing you for money at

a gas station or something i want develop the fish. well it is kind of what you see how printing around the globe you see banks everywhere in every single nation in the western world in which the citizens are hugely in debt the banks are hugely in debt as well and they're saying we're so in debt bail us out. no yeah exactly right it's a microcosm if you will of the entire global market where you've got folks that are shaking down governments and shaking down the citizens for bella money for mistakes that they may you know the wall street made a bunch of mistakes and they shut down the taxpayer to bail him out in the u.k. the banks made huge mistakes and they got the government to bail them down in ireland they got the government to transfer all the banks debts to the governments balance sheet one hundred percent no questions asked they're still paying off anglo-irish debt they're still paying them out so you know there's a lot of developed offense that they'll be paying them off for decades to come max

but let's look at the chutzpah happening in europe ok now greece as we know is the center of all these problems because of all these debts they can't pay but who is the one that hit their debts who is the one that forced basically greece to become part of the euro so that the euro could happen in the dreams of france and germany so and yet germany now is the one turning around and saying greeks reject german plan for e.u. budget commissioner greek officials have reacted angrily to a leaked german proposal for an e.u. budget commissioner with a veto powers over greek taxes so obviously it was met with a lot of anger in greece and to putu a former commissioner and now an education minister in the greek government slammed the idea as a product of a sick imagination well they should use another gibson attack to the greek people

they should say look you know we need them when you bella give us a bill zero zero it reckons that this demand that a budget minister from germany be installed in greece was bound to be rejected germany knew this so that they say the next step is an epic l t r o long term refinancing operation in precisely one month. whose sole purpose will be to prefund european banks ahead of the greek default with enough cash to withstand europe's bear stearns' right and it keeps them in the defensive mode in terms of deflation because greece is imploding this is going to be perceived as deflationary and therefore they need to keep interest rates near that zero percent meanwhile the fact that they are essentially siphoning off the income from greece and these other countries through the backdoor through the off balance sheet to pay continually to pay the huge banker bonuses that's not really talked about because they go with

that headline crisis greek collapse is deflationary oh by the way we ended up with all the assets that interest rates have to remain at zero percent if in fact the market was allowed to function without the center ferentz you'd find interest rates starting to rise and you'd see some losers in the banking sector and you'd start to see capitalism return to the fore but right now you don't have capitalism you have what's called some some call corporatism and i think we're going to talk about the second half or you could call it quits but i'd like to see much more trade on the exchange you know wasn't goldman sachs taiko its book public as a initial public offering you know you could be like the symbol could be kosher and i'd like to buy so much but other hands in a bull market why can't i buy it but why is the chutzpah market being monopoly line of monopoly manipulated monopoly monopoly played it you can have a new worm and i'll be late and exactly take that public well ok now the point is that part of how this puts but economics works in terms of the eurozone is

that over and over the nations like germany and france that engineered this hoots but economic zone they argue that to dismantle it for any nation like greece to leave the euro zone it would cost so much more it would be economic armageddon well reporting there. that will blow up the euro zone yes the pv the far right party in the netherlands commissioned lumbard street research to examine the cost of staying in the euro versus returning to the guilder now essentially what lumbered street research found was that the costs of break up are wildly exaggerated and that the cost to the netherlands and germany in particular for staying in the euro are huge due to what they call unrequited transfers. and last purchased power charles dumas from lumber street research says the dutch

people have lost thousands of euros in purchasing power per year since the currency was introduced so a lower euro has indeed they say helped german manufacturing exports for example but the actual german citizen their purchasing power has been declining the dutch purchasing power has been declining excited you know when you know the netherlands they tracked us a bit in the paper i love that they say purchasing power and they track it up and down the never seen any other country track than the public press just fantastic but the deal about breaking out of the weather is greece bust out of the euro or some other country the fact is own interest rates are zero percent as they are now the costs are virtually nothing you have to equate it to let's say a facebook you know facebook is going to go public for somewhere in the hundred billion dollar range they have facebook credits which is a virtual currency that that costs them nothing to issue and they were able to create this multi hundred billion dollar franchise around that similarly with other gaming sites to globe has become essentially a game using

a virtual currency that pays no interest that's the key to a virtual currency that pays no interest the dollar the euro is soon will pay no interest all these virtual currencies and global currencies pay no interest it's a gaming currency there's not it's not a banking system where you put a deposit in a bank in these that is the basis for a loan as steve kean has talked about that's nonsense there are no deposits than any that banks worth anything the collateral is nothing it's negative reserve banking it's all a gaming currency food stamps it's a gaming currency the balance it's a game in currency zero percent interest rates you give away billions and billions you hope that people spend this money on line and viewing advertising which gives some bonus money on the back end to the bankers issuing the game in currency but the entire idea of global gross domestic product needs to be replaced with the gross gaming product g g p and it's just a matter of. which country's economic activity is providing more of a gaming output and virtual currency output than anything else goods and services

are passe and we're now in the post g.d.p. world or in a post sovereign currency world. well you know going back to this article here branding the monetary union a suicide pact dumas noted that the club med nations needed about five percent of gross domestic product in annual debt refinancing more or less indefinitely this means that there would be unrequited transfers lumbered street research said of about sixty billion euros annually from germany fifty billion euros annually from france and but these numbers were based on the condition that greece and portugal left the eurozone so this unrequited transfer would be basically to italy and spain well that's exactly my point they're saying that you need a certain growth five percent to make up for the. transfer payment i'm saying that

you won't have any growth everyone knows there is no growth and that the growth as we understand in goods and services that period over they simply give the gaming currency away whether it's a euro a dollar a drop mark and people use it online and they view ads and they boost a consumer economy which is all fueled by more gaming currency and as the wages around the world go to parity so that the global constellation of wages at these four thousand dollars per year mark and we have a globe of gamers that's the only economy left and casino operators now finally in the market for chutzpah we had last week the devil is formed and i want to turn to this headline here looking back at the davus forum the quest for economic and social nirvana now this came from a website called psychopathic economics dot com the subtitle of the site is davus world economic forum for bloggers so they noted

a three hundred percent increase in the traffic to their site from google searches and it became quickly apparent that people are desperate to learn about davros and what the elite are doing to quote unquote fix the. honoree some of the search terms people were using attendees fix economy at davos davus want one hundred fifty trillion dollars davros is a joke city at davus davus. davus generate a lot of internal enter the traffic which generate a lot of advertising revenue for people to participate in the zero interest bearing gaming economy but there's no economic activity roubini was at davos he uttered some platitude nonsensical claptrap related nonsense about how this was going to happen and that was going to happen but all of his utterances are based on an economic model that is now obsolete but what did happen was that you had internet traffic which got ad revenues generated from people who are basically training in

a gaming currency called the euro or the facebook credit or the hollywood dollar which is the one i created back in the mid ninety's except for well talk about chutzpah the co-chair of the world economic forum last week was a victim panned it the head of citi group who saw the company become a ward of the state essentially larry summers who destroyed the financial system was almost single handedly responsible for it he was there saying ok apple is in need to be formed why don't i take over it now this psychopathic economics dot com says the clowns don't even know or are psychopathic enough not to admit that we don't have capitalism if we had capitalism we wouldn't be borrowing more than a trillion dollars from communist china bailing out the banks to the tune of ten point four trillion there wouldn't be bread lines at wal-mart that are forty six

million long unemployment wouldn't be at twenty three percent and kids wouldn't be living in cars in short we wouldn't be in the second great depression if you look at appended for a second citibank look at citibank stock that's become a gaming currency it was trading down below a dollar down below fifty cents ten cents a nickel then they didn't do the reverse splits to get it back up and they'll do another reverse split bank of america stock crashing you know down to five dollars we think it's going to go to fifty cents a blow so the stop. going these banks are going to the gaming currency level of pennies per share meanwhile the people who are responsible for issuing gaming currencies like a facebook or google or social networking their stock is going up because they're in the game in goal like a senile industry business that is now dominating the globe and as the incarceration rate goes up food stamp goes up gaming currencies go up there is no g.d.p. there's only g.d.p. you're here first of the guys the report they say are thank so much for being on

the kaiser report thank you max the go way much more coming why stay right there. download the official placation. touch from the q saps to. life on the. video on demand. minefield comes an r.s.s. feed now in the palm of your. pushing on the dot com. could you take three. three. three. three. three.

three books video for your media project for free video don carty dot com. paul begala. let. me. i max kaiser welcome back to the kaiser report time now to go to beirut and speak with the safe and being

a professor of economics at lebanese american university and foreign member of columbia university center for capitalism and society is most recently published article co-written with nobel laureate edmund phelps is titled blaming capitalism for corporatism sifting before last week's davos world economic forum founder klaus schwab said capitalism in its current form is no longer fits the world around us larry summers also at davos claiming we need to reform capitalism your thoughts what are they going to agree with them that we have right now does not really fit the world around us where i would disagree with them is that they seem to think that what we have is a capitalist system although it is very different when he looks at what's going on that it's really not a couple system it's much more of a corporate and system and by a corporate a system i mean it's a system where the government controls the workings of the market economy in a sense of deciding who gets to produce what in a sense of putting priorities on economic production beyond the overstep on the

individual freedom of citizens in the country so in the corporate the system you find the government interfering in order to save companies that feel under the pretext that they're being too important or too vital for the working of the market economy that is a feature of a corporatist economic system in a capitalist system companies that don't do well get weeded out so the only companies that continue to perform a good t. to survive under a couple systems are companies that have demonstrated some success in serving their customers willingly right in a capitalist system you have both the risk and reward and over the past thirty years or so any united states anyway whenever a bank or a corporation experiences any kind of risk or any kind of loss they lobby the government to change the financial laws to make it impossible for them to sustain any losses therefore they're not taking any risks they're just.