of austerity the greek economy has crept closer and closer to collapse this year three years into the austerity experiment greece's economy is expected to shrink by by percent and in the last three years it's already shrank by almost sixteen percent and beyond the numbers you can see the effects of austerity in the streets in the last two years there's been ongoing riots in the streets of athens brutal clashes with police and massive strikes that have quite literally ground the nation to all so today in paper in the finding in the city's financial times the international monetary fund the guys responsible for pushing austerity in the first place and house and maybe that wasn't such a good idea for a senior i.m.f. official paul thompson the architect of the greek austerity program admitted this

week that a new direction needs to be considered he told a greek newspaper we will have to slow down a little loose far as fiscal adjustment is concerned social tolerance and political support have their limitations you see with an economy on pace to lose a fifth of its wealth in the last three years unemployment at one thousand percent hundreds of thousands of people in the streets fighting with police i'd say yet you have hit some limitations but greece isn't the only nation on fire so too is the united kingdom where conservative government primarily under prime minister david cameron committed that nation austerity cam of cameron famously proclaimed in two thousand and nine that we are now living in the age of austerity and just like greece the british economy is crashing since austerity was an acted two years ago. in two thousand and ten there's been a minimal economic growth in the u.k.

and in the last quarter two thousand and eleven the economy started shrinking again sparking fears of another recession also just like greece austerity has led to violence in the streets in the u.k. five days the riots in london in august left five people dead over three hundred million dollars of property damage over three thousand people arrested you see a pattern here wherever austerity goes so too goes economic destruction and violence and yet austerity is already being talked about in other financially in secure nations in europe from italy to spain to belgium to france but despite all this sweeping carnage across europe there are winners and those winners are the super rich and in particular the super rich bankers first of all they're so rich that they don't even notice the austerity since they don't rely on government spending or social safety nets. their own private jets chauffeurs and the

technocrats are bending over backwards to make sure that while working people are getting wiped out these super rich bankers don't have to take any haircuts at all on their european bets so a spirit is good for the banking business which brings us to the united states. austerity is a lot tougher to bring to the united states it's a lot tougher since we have divided government here but republicans are trying to do their best anyway especially at the state level twenty four states across the nation mostly controlled by republicans have pursued austerity slash their budgets and laid off government workers and just like in europe it's been bad for their economies on average in those twenty four states the unemployment rate ticked up one percent private employment shrank two point one percent and the economy shrank by two point nine percent on the other hand twenty five states mostly controlled by democrats didn't pursue austerity and actually increased spending and taxes and on average those twenty five states saw eight digits of

a percent decrease in unemployment a one point four percent increase in private employment and a half percent increase in economic growth once again austerity doesn't work so why are republicans pushing it so hard both at the state and federal level for us here in the united states is something going on here that has nothing to do with fixing economies austerity is just a vehicle it's not supposed to help a commie it's actually supposed to remake an economy ever since franklin roosevelt put in place the new deal there have been forces trying to destroy it he called them the economic royalists today we call them the banks of the one percent then vision a world without a government a world run by the so-called free market a world that will make a few people mind bogglingly rich but make the vast majority of us the working poor

this economic vision was named neo liberalism. it's a word that's pretty much everybody in europe knows most americans don't it's got nothing to do with being liberal means that it's the market is wide open it's liberal for the for the big corporations it's what ron paul of the libertarians preach it's what i and rand and vision when she came up with objectivism in atlas shrugged and it's the modern republican agenda it involves total destruction of the social safety net the question was how do you do it how do you dismantle the social safety net when most of the people love it it's wildly popular milton friedman new and it's one nine hundred sixty two book capitalism and freedom friedman wrote there is enormous inertia a tyranny of the status quo in private and especially government arrangements only a crisis actual or perceived produces real change these crises allowed friedman and his economic team to dismantle governments around the

world they were brought in as consultants in chile for example in many of the former soviet states the results were disasters chile became a dictatorship privatization social security there was a disaster there still trying to dig out from underneath many of the former soviet states are still struggling under this rapid shock therapy as naomi klein points out in her book the shock doctrine some of the most infamous human rights violations of this era which have tended to be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by undemocratic regimes were in fact either committed with the deliberate intent of terrorizing the public or actively are in a scene harnessed to prepare the ground for the introduction of radical free market reform that's what's happening in america today and exploitation of a very real financial crisis and a debt crisis that was started by ronald reagan when you know nearly tripling the national debt and then george herbert walker bush add into that and then george w.

bush added another couple billion dollars to the debt all to destroy the new deal. of course the most radical example forced us to it is what's going on in michigan and michigan governor rick snyder's new financial managers his little emperors his crony buddies who are now in control they're now in control the cities of flint pontiac. and benton harbor now some of the republicans pretty much uniformly across the party this is promoting their are they all like this some of these republicans are probably promoting this because they listen to the shills for the rich and they actually believe that nonsense but most of them like mitch mcconnell know that austerity over the past year you know from a half a million fewer government employees we have right now than we had when president obama came into office mostly fired in red states and the next year they want to lay off more government employees mitch mcconnell knows the consequence that is going to shoot up unemployment and what's that what's going to happen if on

employment goes up between now and november president obama will probably lose the election this is why the republicans are willing to crash the economy again just to win an election and by the way that's just fine with their billionaire donors who make money when the economy goes down just like they make money when it goes up back when it goes down they have a crisis that they can use to push through and sound familiar deregulation more tax cuts things like oil pipelines meanwhile according to research done by talking points memo almost eighty three percent of the donations to romney's super pac came from that very elite group of one hundred thousand dollars plus donors both individual and corporate and by the way the keeping them a secret is possible now why would they keep them secret isn't it obvious you know here's some definitions the definition of fascism the old merriam webster

dictionary definition of fascism is the merger of state and corporate interests. the definition of oligarchy is when very rich people basically take over the reins of government now in the republican primary we just saw sholay adelson was giving millions of dollars to newt gingrich he's now by the way she is were hanging out with the cokes and romney was getting his money from the wall street billionaires what you're watching here is a power play by the very rich to strip the working class of the last of their rights and their money courtesy of an oligarchy supreme court you can call it fascism you can call oligarchy whatever you call it's not democracy austerity is the means to the end of the takeover of our country by the very rich romney wants to do it to us what bain did to company after company ring them out and put all the cash in his and his rich buddies pockets and it's no coincidence that the day after he said he didn't worry about the very poor he was kissing billionaire donald trump's but it's time for america and europe to wake up.

after the break everyone saw the devastating earthquake in japan wreaked nuclear havoc and fukushima what if the same thing happened somewhere in america are nuclear energy plants in danger. if we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and just you know lived through. i'm a contestant i'm a total get of friends that i love traveling hip hop music and. he was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the world without you see it's a place. you

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

welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour the focus to a nuclear disaster happened thousands of miles away but could the very same thing or worse happen in our own backyards also americans sure do love to get their sugar highs but new research suggests sugar is not all sweet and facebook's initial public offering may create upwards of a thousand new millionaires who want more millionaires runaround.

in the best of the rest of the news earlier this week california's san onofre nuclear power plant had to be unexpectedly shut down after radioactive water was discovered leaking out of the plant's unit three reactor officials claim the leak is fully contained within the concrete dome of the plant this comes at the same time the the nuclear regulatory commission is warning that eighteen nuclear plants in the eastern and central portion the united states might not be able to withstand earthquakes or its after effects were aware of how earthquake and subsequent subsequent tsunami ravaged the fukushima nuclear power plant in japan the radiation leakage and poisons the n.r.c. is giving operators at vulnerable nuclear plants for years here in the united states to conduct seismic tests to determine if their plants can withstand earthquake however nuclear energy critics argue that the n.r.c.

is moving too slowly to address the threat to the nation's nuclear plants and that as a result there is the possibility of a fukushima level disaster happening in the united states joining me now to discuss the nation's aging nuclear infrastructure and the n.r.c. is new warning and what's going on in california is kevin camp's radioactive waste watchdog would be a nuclear or kevin welcome thank you good to have you with us with regard to the sin is that enough for a santa know for a synonym for a plant why should we worry about them venting radioactive steam well any exposure to radioactivity carries a health risk the higher the dose the greater the risk but these risks accumulate over a lifetime so when the nuclear regulatory commission or southern california edison says oh it was very low levels barely detectable well the thing is people live downwind they live downstream and we're being exposed to tritium from san onofre yesterday from byron illinois a couple days ago from perry island minnesota a few days ago they announced they let be known that last november they had

overflowing tritium and the prairie island indian community lives hundreds of yards away from this facility that's incredible so. so we've got a tritium atom here what is tricky why should we care tritium is radioactive hydrogen it goes anywhere the hydrogen goes which is everywhere in your body in your body in the environment it can go down to the d.n.a. level inside your body and it packs a pretty powerful punch at the d.n.a. level or in your cells it would be the electrons and particles and whatnot it's a beta emitter but if you were to listen to the nuclear regulatory commission or the nuclear industry they treat tritium like it's not even radioactive or they say well you know it's mildly radioactive and it dilutes into the environment a beta matter it's thrown off approach and it's a beta matter and at those intimate levels it does significant health damage it's a clinically proven cause of cancer birth defects and genetic damage right i mean that would knock if it had d.n.a. it could knock one of the i mean u.s. it's right out of the chain and put

a hole and the reason that you know these are leaks these are steam generator leaks of radioactive tritium steam into the environment as they try to get these things back under control but they allow these tritium releases on a regular basis by permit because they can't filter it out at such a small atom hydrogen or it can pass through certain grades of steel it's actually the second smallest thing there is yeah. and so yeah they're having these leaks but they let this be discharged into the rivers into the oceans into the air on a regular basis and it's doing itself damage downwind now and stream that's incredible and so there's no way to filter it there's no way to stop it there's no way to block it and so they just say don't worry be happy do they even bother to detect it well that was one of the misleading statements made by the n.r.c. in illinois at byron with this radioactive tritium steam being emitted that was because of a fire and in that case they said hey we know that the tritium levels aren't high

because the radiation monitors aren't picking it up while a group that we work with called nuclear energy information service did an immediate foil to the state and this. they developed i said we don't have monitors on site that can detect tritium we have to send that out to a lab so we don't know what the levels are yet so the deception is just all too common so they don't even monitor for the stuff because there's no way to filter it out so there was a do some monitoring they do sampling but it takes time to get the results back so when they said it's all safe you can't say that radioactivity release is safe that's no source that's a misnomer there's no safe level of exposure to radioactivity right they've they've done a cost benefit and they've decided it's acceptably risky but is there a period of x. reported scanners they know that you know one hundred americans are probably going to get cancer from them well you know that's worth you know not having a terrorist incident. new lid steam generators what's what's the deal with this it's this is a standard offering well the amazing thing about this steam generator to be up here at santa know free is that this is a new steam generator these are just over

a year old and they've had they have defects and they're failing these were supposed to last like twenty five years it's just over a year old so we're seeing the same thing at three mile island we're seeing the same thing at arkansas nuclear one brand new steam generators these are major organ transplants the old ones were too degraded to keep using so they put new ones in and these are failing so these decades old riyadh where these things made all the one at santa know free. i don't know for sure but the one at three mile island in arkansas nuclear one that's a french product that's a real france that's why those steam generators and they're not working here. these you mentioned lids brand new lids from a company called babcock and wilcox canada have been installed on six reactors but we know from the palisades reactor in michigan that they're brand new live from the same factory is defective so they didn't put it on they have an old corroded lid that they're sticking by which is frightening because they're too worried about this new it being so defective but six reactors including beaver valley and

pennsylvania put lids from this factory on their reactors and we don't know if those were defective or not they could be and we won't know until what we're seeing to brew up at san onofre if you have a domino effect a cascade of two browsers and there's thousands of these tubes in these steam generators you could have a loss of coolant accident in the core which could lead to a meltdown which could lead to china syndrome burn through containment and a catastrophic radioactivity release so it would become it could become fukushima but worse than or you could have actually we don't know yet how bad it was going to get if you have a bad enough. steam generator failure and we had a close call indian point near new york city it was february of two thousand and they blew a steam tube and arcee had let them operate to the brink of failure and then it failed and if they had had a cascade i mean this is twenty five thirty miles from new york city they had another radioactive steam released at that time into the hudson river valley so

these nukes are getting old and dangerous we're in the breakdown phase of the nuclear power in this country and. well and now the n.r.c. is saying ok you all have four years to check out these plants to make sure that they're ok with an earthquake we had an earthquake here in washington d.c. a few few months ago yeah august twenty third the north anna plant had damage on the site they only inspected one of the reactors and let both of them restart assuming that the other one was the same as the other one they had damage to their radioactive waste so mary climb all over the washington monument find every single crack or not check in the nuclear plant it was a very quick turnaround. restart and we're seeing that at davis bessie in ohio they have a cracked concrete steel building and they let them restart anyway even though they don't know the root cause they don't know the extent of the cracking and they don't know how to fix the problem so the n.r.c. is really out doing itself i mean it's this is a captive this is very literary capture this is very much regulatory agency that's taking huge risks on these hasty restarts i mean kevin thanks so much for being

with us thanks for having me it's great to see a nuclear power is the most dangerous and most expensive form of electric power generation in the world and would not exist in the united states without massive taxpayer subsidies and guarantees in the price anderson act and other legislation it's time for all of us to say no nukes. and sugar and spice and everything nice said corey into a commentary in study published in the journal nature added sugar and related sweeteners are so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated and treated as strictly as alcohol and tobacco the researchers who conducted the study argued that because of the dangers of sugar to the health of individuals and should be taxed high sugar substances should be banned from schools an age limit should be

placed on buying high sugar foods the researchers in particular cited studies that indicated high fructose corn syrup a form of sugar is harmful to society and to our health as are alcohol and tobacco while it's common knowledge that added sugar in excess can be bad for health the fact that it can be toxic as toxic as alcohol this is a new revelation. the problem is that for us the main substance and high fructose corn syrup and most added sugars is metabolized by the liver much like alcohol is and similar to the effects alcohol has on the liver fructose can also tax the liver causing fatty liver disease leading to insulin resistance which is one of the underlying causes of both diabetes and obesity it's no secret that diabetes diabetes and obesity are both major problems facing americans today in the united states more than two thirds of the population is overweight and half of them can be considered obese about eighty percent of those who are obese will have diabetes or

other metabolic disorders at some point their lives and in turn will have shortened lives according to the researchers of the commentary similarly about seventy five percent of the money spent on health care in the united states is spent on diet related diseases combined in the fact that the average american consumes more than forty teaspoons of sugar per day with the fact that there is already a massive obesity and diabetes problem in america makes these researchers call for banning and taxing sugary foods seem like a pretty good idea although it will put a few dentists out of business. crazy alert love takes many forms especially in sweden to sweden's most notorious murderers the scar a cannibal and the vampire woman are madly in love and hope to get married according to a swedish newspaper the gruesome twosome met at their high security psychiatric

ward in a prison in eastern sweden and spent many many hours chatting in internet in internet chat rooms the couple got together on nov thirteenth became engaged on december nineteenth said michelle. aka the vampire woman in case you're wondering she got her name by posting pictures on her blog of herself dressed as a vampire with bloody lips after having stabbed to death a father of four in stockholm not to be outdone scare a cannibal the soon to be groom got his notorious nickname by killing his previous girlfriend cutting her apart into pieces and then eating many of those pieces the couple hope to be released in years to come and ultimately lead a normal domestic life talk about a match made in l. . coming up after the break reports suggest that facebook's i.p.o. will create up to a thousand new millionaires but is that what america really needs.

if we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old on to tell the truth. i'm a contestant i'm a total get of friends that i love traveling hip hop music and pretty. much it was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the world without you see it's a place. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse

something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you saw you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

here take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments rants and observations about anything we talk about here on the big picture or during my radio show our first viewer comments and i comes from facebook in response to our story this week about grover norquist calling for the impeachment of president obama dave argues impeachment is not a coup d'etat that's a gross misinterpretation of the or misrepresentation the constitution lays out what the various branches of government can do if those rules are violated impeachment is a viable solution every single president since including wilson should to face this but that's another discussion altogether. well yeah that is another discussion altogether especially considering that every president since jimmy carter. literally every since every president since jimmy carter has started their own new

war without the approval of congress carter was the last one not to but this isn't about impeachment this is about the very very wealthy in america doing whatever they can to make sure their taxes don't go up short of marching army into washington d.c. like the oligarchy conspired to do in one nine hundred thirty four i personally believe we live in a revolutionary times right now in america and the counter-revolutionaries those same bankers and bought off politicians who crashed our economy a few years back are hell bent on not losing power if you want to stop them we you and i we need to get involved in the political process show up and occupy something . that's it for my take your take tonight if you like your comments and questions heard on the segment the big picture listen up we want to know your to send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page but twitter at tom underscore her but more in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog at thom hartmann dot com you can also leave a message on our ramp line at two o two five three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off its all welcome

or remember that your comments may be used on the air. i got. today is ground hog day which means it's time for punxsutawney phil to predict whether or not we're headed for six more weeks of winter in fact i think we have some footage of phil today there's his head just peeking above the ground he's just waking up from hibernation and now he's almost out of the ground it is agon that's not part of the army phillips trump what the heck is going on here that's right trump hijacked groundhog day to tease the mainstream media with a presidential endorsement this morning as people fooled the new york times into believing he was going to endorse newt gingrich after all they have a lot in common like multiple devoiced divorce lawyers but later word got around that instead the da would endorse front runner mitt romney and sure enough this afternoon from las vegas the donald on the mitt appeared to.