rent seeking they're just vacuuming at cash which leads me to my next question the concentration of wealth in america and britain has grown rapidly unequal in the past forty years as these banks and corporations simply vacuum up all the equity and take no risk what does this matter yes i mean clearly these sort of economic systems any time you've seen them when we've discussed previously the examples of egypt and tunisia what they and you know the they come under the pretext of being good for the economy being good for the national greatness of the nation or they always find nice sounding pretext for why these just these interventions into the market economy are justified however the real consequences of it is always that it ends up either benefiting the status quo benefiting the people who are in charge now no this isn't this is the real problem with this is not just that it's not fair the real problem with it is that it's very destructive economically because what it means is that you keep the unproductive companies and

the unproductive firms and industries you keep them alive and they continue to survive sucking up valuable resources that would be used otherwise in society and channeling these resources capital land labor office space the computing power all of that stuff they channel it into unproductive uses of capital and the result of that the product that they produce is something that is obviously not desired by society as evidenced by the fact that they fail on the free market so you buy by giving corporations the incentive to both be able to make profits and to make losses you give them again the idea of risk reward there is always a risk associated with when you try to make reward so if you take out the punishment if you take out the risk if you take out the possibility of losing from this you're going to end up with corporations that are unproductive and i think this is this is this is really the reason that the economies of the u.s. and britain i would say are stuck in a recession because so much of the. productive capital of the country so much of

the smart people so much of the office space so much of the computers in the country are being used in unproductive enterprises in unproductive industries and if these industries were allowed to fail the people in them would move on to other productive avenues of economic activity and that would be much better for everyone in society so you end up in britain and in the us with financial dictators and meanwhile the middle east the dictator corporatist like adopt the ben ali and move barack. they've been overthrown more alas or in the process of being overthrown are there is this arab spring has been going on so what does this mean for the west of course the dictators in the west who rely on the resources that they were getting from the dictators in the middle east well i think the interesting thing is to see how if you look at a place like egypt right now we're seeing the revolution is continuing in the sort of struggle between the old order the of the remnants of the mubarak regime who are

still in power versus the current. the versus the new forces that are being unleashed by the revolution i mean one of the key issues that is being fought over is the issue of the loan from the eye enough to egypt there's a lot of back and forth between the i.m.f. and different members of the egyptian government about whether those laws are going to take place or not and whether they're going to be provided low interest rates or not and what sort of conditionality is attached to them. a lot of talk about it but sir for yet the egyptian government has not officially taken on those loans what's happening is that the rating of the egyptian government is being downgraded by the rating agencies and the bottling costs of the egyptian government are getting very high so people now are expecting a fiscal or possibly a monetary crisis in egypt which is you know obviously going to be a very bad thing the unfortunate thing is that this is being used as a justification for rushing through the i.m.f. loan and for. getting into even more debt now and people looking at it logically

and saying this road of spending and borrowing has brought us to the brink of disaster and we should just quit this idea of continuing to think that we could borrow from outside in order to build our country it has not worked for thirty years almost in which mubarak has been in power it has only served to enrich mubarak and his cronies and it has not brought development of the country all that it has done is increase the indebtedness of the country and make people liable for paying more and more and more of their income towards taxes to go towards paying off interest on that and i think egypt needs to make a clean break with the past with these policies of the mubarak era from the respect of particularly by making a statement on the debt. letting the for indentured be basically repudiated and mubarak should be made liable for it and the domestic that they need to reach a sort of agreement with the domestic creditors that you know it saves the save the banking system advance it from a collapse by recapitalizing the banks in case they have

a problem with liquidity because of the treasuries and then after that they must have a balanced budget that is no alternative to fiscal responsibility as you look at europe and what is happening in europe or in the u.s. or in arab countries there is really is no alternative for as an individual or as a country there's no alternative to being fiscally responsible so the path through it is to eliminate interest payments as a massive part of the budget and reformulate the budget in a way that doesn't hurt the poor and in a way that stops giving favors to the connected people from the regime and as a result leaves the budget being able to be balanced without having to resort to foreign borrowing because this is really the main problem if you get involved in foreign ronnell and it leads to puppet regimes that don't have that it's a messy for their people as mubarak and the not his regime are and it also leads to a massive giant drag on the economy as people continue to generate more and more and more money that goes. simply towards paying off taxes to go towards paying off

interest on the debts right mubarak is gone but now it's time to overthrow the real dictator that being of course the i.m.f. now we've had the arab spring and then we found the occupy wall street movement now a new movement is taking shape around the world these are up protestors who are protesting again so people either stop on line piracy act and related intellectual property laws that are attacking the internet from the corporate side the corporatist want total control of the internet and is that a fair statement are is this a case of the corporatist who are attacking the innovators the entrepreneurs and the free marketeers do you see this playing out as as an extension really of this global insurrection absolutely i think it's what we're seeing with the internet is very interesting because as markets in the real world continue to be strangled and controlled more and more by the managerial state by governments all over the world the internet is really the place where the market where the free market has gone

because in the internet you can click anywhere you want and you can design to use any website you want and people have the freedom of choice and because they have the freedom of choice in their choices aren't and forced upon them upon which were so they should read which website is used for their e-mail they end up making choices on the providers of these services that are but i would argue better than what would happen if you had a central planner trying to dictate this to them under the pretext of some of the usual corporatist excuses so because the internet is a wonderful place where you can exchange all this information very freely it leads to good information marketplace as well as a good example of a proper marketplace what was seen with soap and people is just a very strong attempt to try and bring in the power of the state from the real world onto the internet and so now the failure and success of websites will not depend about whether on whether people want to click on them if people want to use them but the failure will depend on what some particular bureaucrat decides in some position of authority in the government so. this of course it would be very

dangerous you know from the from the perspective of the freedom of information because what it does is it leaves the knowledge and the information that is available for members of society to be decided by particular people who get to know everything and then decide what you should be able to know the optimistic thing about it is that the internet is just it's a very resilient thing and it's really hard to clamp down on international connectivity and you know it was very encouraging what happened with this. with people. in terms of actually. alerting a lot of people to the reality of the problems of the intellectual property paradigm it's the problem is much deeper than just these two acts which are probably going to die in congress now the problem really is in state and fortunes of intellectual property which serves the very pernicious way it harms most the artists who produce the art or the authors who publish the books as well as the then the fans or the readers who want to consume this material neither of them

really benefits from intellectual property laws they go towards the middleman basically and the technology is allowing us more and more ways to cut out the middleman more and more ways for fans to communicate directly with musicians they like to listen to or readers with authors and this cuts out the profit that middlemen can make and so this is why the this industry is trying to bring in the government in order to keep their old antiquated model so that they could continue to keep their job as the middleman and they want the state to enforce that that's exactly the definition of corporatism and so you see people like chris dodd going on about you know hollywood creates jobs hollywood is an important part of the u.s. economy was the you know it's a tiny part of the u.s. economy it's a stunning part of the world economy and you know most importantly it's very easy for them to find other business models business models that actually serve the artist rather than serve the old. production industry that really is out of date and out of place today ok. that's all the time we have on the kaiser report thanks

so much for being on thanks much and that's going to do it for this edition of the kaiser report was made nice guys or as stacy ever i would like my guest say for a date on los if you want to send me an e-mail please do so at kaiser reported r t t v dot are you it's a lifestyle nice guys are saying. he

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but. it. was. bottom of the big picture i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. here's what's coming up tonight indiana governor mitch daniels signed right to work legislation into law yesterday so what can workers in indiana expect now also greece's three years into its austerity experiment is its economy stronger or worse than ever and america's nuclear power plant infrastructure is aging as a system for posing a clear and present danger to our nation. but first. but

first you need to know the state a look at this this was the scene yesterday as thousands of union workers and supporters marched outside the state house in indianapolis inside lawmakers passed legislation to make indiana a right to work for less state it was later signed into law by republican governor mitch daniels indiana is now the twenty third state in the nation to go right to work for less but the first in the last ten years to do so and the first in the manufacturing belt of the united states the place for unions were essentially born in this country so what exactly does right to work for less mean it basically means that workers in union shops are required to pay union dues to get the benefits of the union like better pay better benefits and better working conditions they just don't have to contribute to the union and what the what is the effect of this while the unions lose critical funding and eventually shrivel up and die and so to do all

the better pay and benefits and working conditions which is great for the c.e.o.'s who want to make five hundred times more money than their average worker or don't feel like giving their workers health benefits or safe working conditions on the factory floor. you know it's not right to work like mitch daniels calls it it's truly right to work for less on average workers and right to work for less states make five thousand three hundred thirty three dollars a year less than in free bargaining states not only that twenty one percent fewer workers on average receive employees sponsored health care and right to work for less states and there are fifty one percent more workplace injuries and deaths in right to work for less states that's what workers in indiana can look forward to now that their lawmakers and their governor struck the shift in their rights to democratize the workplace but this isn't the first time this is happened in india there was back in one nine hundred fifty seven just like today thousands of workers were marching outside the state house in indianapolis why because republicans

inside passed legislation make indiana a right to work for less then indiana was the eighteenth state to do so the governor harold hadley didn't even sign the bill he was actually run out of the building by a crowd that pushed that past the state police but absent a veto it became law anyway so how did it all work out well there was voter backlash the republicans got hammered in the election of one hundred fifty eight the next year by nine hundred sixty the democrats have taken control of both chambers of state government and by nine hundred sixty five in indiana the right to work law was repealed it had lasted only eight years. today republicans in indiana are doing pretty much the exact same thing as they tried back in one hundred fifty seven similarly republicans in ohio are trying to get right to work right now right to work for less on the ballot this november and in minnesota republicans have just

announced that they're going to try and push it through the state legislature but they're not alone this is been preceded by a thirty year war on unions started when ronald reagan fired the workers of patco after he had actually made an agreement with them before the election and they supported him in the election in arizona governor brewer the republicans are fast tracking anti-union laws these are laws that would prevent public workers from collective bargaining and pain union dues having them automatically deducted from their paychecks ways to break down the unions and in fact in arizona they're including the police and firefighters we've seen similar attacks now in wisconsin ohio jersey but by one hundred fifty seven there's now a backlash and it's happening across the country in ohio senate bill five was repealed this was the law that john case it pushed through that that basically took away union rights in wisconsin a million signatures actually i believe it was one point eight million signatures that were presented to recall governor walker's going to be in elections for the

labor movement has woken up the labor of the workers individual workers in the workplace have woken up people are getting enough already with this stuff if the union busters like mitch daniels what scott walker john cases jan brewer if they want to fight they're going to have a fight. for more on what's going on around the nation when it comes to the roads or working people and how working people can fight back i'm honored to be joined by congresswoman tammy baldwin representing wisconsin's second district in the running for the united states senate congresswoman baldwin great to have you with us it's wonderful to join you thank you so much what's the what's the state of working people right now in america well and it was a concert for the working people and middle class families are taking it on the chin right now and it's not only because of this deep recession that we've been in but it's really as

a consequence of i think many years of bad economic policies and when i travel around the state of wisconsin. i hear people really open up about their struggles right now and tell their individual stories i mean whether it's moms and dads who can't scrape any savings for their kids' college fund seniors who don't think they'll ever be able to stop working and ever retire because they literally have to dip into their life savings just to pay bills on a routine basis i remember a single dad who's working two jobs today making less than when he only had one full time job and he is a single parent so it means he it doesn't happen as much time with his children so these are the stories working families middle class families across america and certainly across wisconsin right now they are taking a beating right now you know the red i just did was just in that there is a backlash against the war on labor on the other hand there's a massive amounts of money being put into that warm labor alec supported

legislation and all these other things. how do you think this is shaking know what your sense of how the you know we're seeing this up front and center in the state of wisconsin you talked about how many signatures were just filed you know there's a pride in our state at the history of our state we were the first state to pass workers' compensation was the first state to enact unemployment insurance benefits and in one thousand. fifty nine the first state to grant collective bargaining rights to public employees so it's a state with a rich history of. respecting. workers rights of understanding how important it is that you be safe at work things that labor has argued for over the years you've watched what's happened in the state of wisconsin over the last year since the last election voters in wisconsin are standing up and

speaking out about these actions to repeal decades worth of progress in just a matter of weeks and they're really particularly upset because they feel like they were deceived in the course of the election we didn't know any of this was coming and so people are as i said speaking out taking action i've seen it all over the state what do you think about the the it we just saw this primary done from the republican primary. newt gingrich to the one in south carolina that wasn't enough and so in florida he ran. the campaign outspending five to one but we looked like the super pacs might about spending one hundred or more to one year in thirteen thousand ads versus gingrich's two hundred ads i mean this is big outside money coming into the state what's the consequence of this kind of money in politics largely as a result of the citizens united decision i want to tie the answer right back into

the struggle of the working families of the middle class are having right now their voices are being drowned out certainly on television by these unlimited amounts of money it seems and you know the sources of which we'll never know because it's really secret. this is drowning out the voice of the average voter the average working family and that's trouble troubling alone but also i want to say in the state of wisconsin. we've had additional assaults on voter rights in the form of a very cynical voter identification has to be government issued they can be issued for free but nobody tells you that we're going to literally see the disenfranchisement of working people and middle class folks across wisconsin because of a combination of unlimited spending brought on by the citizens united decision and and these restrictions that we're seeing across the country at the state level

. requiring voter i.d.'s it's deeply troubling to me as i mount a statewide campaign for u.s. senate. because we are going to have to figure out how to get our message out in the context of this incredibly large spending. that is going to be a challenge for every candidate the country who doesn't have a billionaire behind them the internet is still a democratizing influence so tammy baldwin dot com is how people can hear more about my campaign for senate right and we will have it on the screen what are the issues that you care most about and that you're seeing belle you're in the house of representatives right now you're running for the senate if you get into this one of the issues that you think are most front and center right now to the actual real right so we're talking about the struggle for working families and middle class families right now and there's a lot that can be done at the federal level i mean the most immediate is we've got to extend this payroll tax cut that will ease conditions for working families

across the country hundred sixty million families affected by this we've got to move it forward in wisconsin in a year the average impact of that tax cut would be sixteen hundred dollars per family that is a lot of money that is. several mortgage payments that's food for the family we've got to get going on that in that same measure as we know it also extends unemployed . insurance benefits for the long term unemployed but those are only some immediate . immediate actions that need to be taken i'm really concerned about the fact that we're in a global marketplace and wisconsin's a big manufacturing state and we're burdened by the fact that other countries are cheating there's not a level playing field right now so china's cheating with currency manipulation that bill has passed the senate is high time the house of representatives take action to level the playing field because wisconsin workers and us workers will win if we

have a level level playing field very very interesting and it's not the house is not picking this up or any you know what else is the house it's been so frustrating well so far the house has not advanced a measure to see this payroll tax cut last through the entire calendar year we've got to do that as we're talking about china currency manipulation is a very troubling if you walk to the house to pass a law to turn medicare into a vulture program yes and we were afraid that we're going to revisit that in the budget battle this year this program that has kept so many seniors healthy and out of having to spend their life savings on their health needs is something that we need to fight with. it's extraordinary the we live in momentous times we do tammy baldwin thanks so much to me about thank you thank you. for that was coming up greece and vision and austerity policy as the savior of its economy three years

later as austerity but. you just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and you told the truth. i confess and i am a total. get a friend that i love grabbing hip hop music and pretty. but it was kind of a big yesterday. i'm very proud of the role without you she has a place. you know sometimes you see

a story and it seems so for lengthly is think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

europe is screwed and we are next to the hundred thousand dollar donors to mitt romney's super pac ad their way that's how it's going to play out. in the european economy in the world economy for that matter when the full meltdown in two thousand and eight new experiment in economics was tried out there was something called austerity and austerity isn't all that new using it as a tool to beat back a recession never been tried before totally new concept brought to us by financial elites technocrats and governments who wanted to make the markets and the investors appy at the expense of the working people that meant cutting back on spending

cutting on social welfare programs cutting government jobs raising taxes on working people all while increasing tax loopholes for the very rich deregulating their corporations and increasing corporate welfare programs it's a massive transfer of wealth from working people to the rich white the now millions of jobs in the process in that spirit they ripped up the middle class to make sure that the banks got a full return on their bets in places like ireland and greece with the result being massive unemployment what was overlooked in this equation is that economies are not driven by markets and investors these people are behaving like they are but they're not economies are driven by working people in two ways working people who have money in their pockets to buy stuff and stimulate demand and working people

who actually produce the goods and services to make the economy happen no working people producing goods and services like having a football game with no football players and working people having no money in their pockets to buy things to create demand in the in the marketplace that's like having a party with no friends and no booze it just doesn't work after all why would any entrepreneur start a business when there's no demand for products because nobody has any money in their pocket to buy things. how can a market flourish without demand which is in demand is kind of the opposite of austerity but this spite this glaring hole in their all in their logic austerity was tried out anyway in fact it became merriam webster's word of the year in two thousand and ten so far the country hit hardest by it has been greece since the onset of the greek debt crisis in two thousand and nine and the enactment of last.