and there is got going to be any austerity and so far as spain italy or france are concerned so this talk about stare at it's just purely cosmetic and just for the headlines it's not real how can these organizations be so professionally and competent i mean if people go if you go to a doctor and you say no i've got a chest pain and he gives you a call and ask me you know henri amputate your foot and you would be rightfully upset and sue him and you wouldn't consider him to be a serious doctor but when you go to the financial doctors a christine legarde at the i.m.f. and they seem to be incompetent on this scale they seem completely oblivious to the reality of economics and finance what why either egg well why don't why don't people why don't they just revolt i mean this is work in the past why don't people just revolt i why are they putting up with this that's a good question that's the million dollar question i mean i think that basically these people are just dressed in nice suits but they're empty suits they're just fools for the most part or there are people who are so craven in their need for

political support and political opprobrium that they will do anything to keep happy the powers that be or the politicians at the ultimately have to respond to ok let's talk about spain's unemployment rate as recently jump to twenty three percent suicides are soaring in greece these are the sort of conditions that you know we've seen before in a lot america that leads to work dictatorships right is that in the cards now i think what we're going to see are populist politicians making hay from the current economic downturn where you're going to see is for instance people like marie le pen really going out there and saying oh we don't need this euro all our problems started when we joined the euro zone let's get out of the euro zone they're going to have those politicians in spain and italy and france they're all going to be saying that same two and they are going to get political traction they're going to get the vote and will be scapegoated this time who will be scapegoated i think is going to be bankers and i think it's going to be politicians who are numbered of the eurozone the one continent supercontinent idea and. those are the politicians

who are going to suffer and the bankers i think are going to suffer if there is a populist politician who is able to transform people's discontent into votes right now we recently interviewed warren pollock and he said he believes that bank holidays are eminent what are your thoughts on this i don't think there's ever going to be any kind of bank holiday in the near term future i think it's fun to imagine oh a bank holiday and like they're all hell breaking loose and all the rest of it but it's not going to happen for a very simple reason any kind of bank holiday in any country no matter how small greece portugal is going to be like a giant red flag and so the bottle and cheese are going to go after that particular country and everybody is going to panic a bank holiday would create more trouble and more panic then simply muddling along and having the e.c.b. continue with monetization that was the argument for lehman brothers collapsed and the composition of lehman brothers is not far behind and ireland or portugal you

know is roughly equivalent the same size it was a stomach lead to important i'm not going to collapse and yet because of some wrangling that was done in the boardrooms of these banks on wall street for a lot of personal reasons we find out later animosities between these guys they simply let lehman collapse and we had this huge collapse in two thousand and eight so that was a bit of a bank holiday for lehmann and bear stearns and then there was a credit seizure in these global markets it wasn't an official bank holiday but the global credit froze right now well but that's that's different right that's basically you have a credit crunch is it going to happen again i actually don't think so because i think that these particular dogs have learned their lesson ben bernanke druggy respectively the head of the federal reserve and the e.c.b. the european central bank what they're going to do is they're going to put out as much liquidity as possible to prevent any kind of two thousand and eight liquidity crunch because that was the last quite a crisis that they know for instance at this point in time they are not afraid of inflation because they think oh inflation is so. seventies were over that so we'd

have to worry about inflation we have to worry about the quiddity crisis and so the next time we have a liquidity crisis we're going to have so much cash sloshing in the system that there is not going to be a two thousand eight situation but think they they can create inflation they would love to see some inflation they can't seem to create inflation for every trillion in fresh credit they force into this this dead duck of an economy there's another five trillion suddenly in losses on banks' balance sheets that were not disclosed that more than cotton heated up about liquidity and it actually net net it's deflationary spiral continues unabated there is there's not there's no there's no way to stop this credit i'm not sure i'm not quite so sure look the situation and i agree with you that a lot of the losses sort of seem to sterilize a lot of the money printing going on but you do have to look at certain key commodities particular particularly copper. oil and gold now gold has

reached historic highs against the euro we have oil up there over one hundred we have copper comfortably over fifty so we're seeing that the possibility of inflation is not far away i would liken the situation to sort of like building a really big bonfire with a lot of dry tinder and throwing gasoline on it and you think well there's no fire but it only takes a single match once that match gets thrown in you know it's like an hour to the whole bonfire all right well there seems to be a bit of a split because the deflationary contraction that changing the global markets have repositioned gold from being a commodity to being a currency same thing for oil to a lot of agrees it's now currency and to some degree you could argue that maybe not so successfully with copper but so this is what's driving action in though. those

markets versus some inflationary expectation but i want to switch gears for a second former war reporter chris hedges is suing the u.s. government over the n d a the national defense authorization act he believes the n b a the course of corporations and banks preparing for economic meltdown to which they are will need to deploy military on to the streets he's making this connection years thoughts. that they will ever deploy military on to the streets. they already have i mean if you start looking in every american city you have. homeland security agents who are stopping people when they get out of trains you know to check to see if they have explosives which is sort of ridiculous i think that you know the possibility of the united states becoming a police state. it's we're already there so i don't exactly see what exactly the point is i think that chris hedges i respect him and i wish him the best of luck i think that he's just going to be spinning his wheels but i think we saw here also is that it's principessa preparatory act assuming that there is

a revolution in america and the corporations who are going to be on the the gallows that it's big they're taking the same d.n.a. as a way to authorize or make it easier for them so as they hire mercenaries are blackwater arrest people for no cause this type of thing but i think it's a lack of education and the fact that we have such a credit education system in the united states sort of like is paying off for a lot of people who want to you know cover over what's going on because in in more educated populace the kinds of things the things that are going on in the united states would not be allowed but they are happening in the united states the n.d.a. you know this this issue with chicago that they're going to privatized their police force or something yeah it's a dreadful despicable but people are just saying oh it's no big deal and i think what's happening is that people are thinking it's not going to affect me so why should i care now that is the end of a democracy when pete. you start thinking that and i think that's the point that

has been reached in the united states that people say since it doesn't affect me why should i care oh my neighbor gets dragged away by blackwater's you know people maybe he must have done something so i'm just going nor it now when you travel around europe gonzalo over the past few weeks what are some of the economic differences you notice and what you see kind of in the u.s. i would you contrast it things are seem to me being here they seem to be better than the united states there isn't the level of desperation that you're seeing in the united states and the level of panic that you're seeing in the u.s. which is really surprising the other thing that i'm noticing is that the people in europe recognize the crisis that they have but they seem to feel that oh they'll muddle along which i think is what most people think whenever they're in the middle of an economic crisis they don't think that this is in the world the figure that they'll muddle along and you know it'll get better just around the corner now whether that's true or not i hope it is but i don't think so i do think though that at this point in time it's looks like europe for all its problems over deadness and

the problems of the eurozone seems to be in a lot better shape than the united states are so betting man would if you were to pick a country or two that you'd want to hang out during this global economic apocalypse what's at the head of the list. france i really low friends i mean i know that we're going to be at a for the food is great but i mean you know i could get your head you know into the game we're going to. talk to me more you know specifically about you know i mean this is i think the smartest countries to go to at this point in time would be countries that you feel would be protected from a variety of threats that are currently in the air number one the environmental problems that we're having in the united states and so far as fracking is concerned the possibility of nuclear accidents in europe and japan and the united states again the problem the possibility or rather if not probability that in the united states are going to have severe capital controls and you already have capital controls in europe so i think that all of these would lead you to think that.

probably the southern hemisphere is where you have to go now this other him as a mystery being south africa australia new zealand chile argentina you know what those seem to be the countries that would be the safest to go but the same time you have certain environmental problems that are going on in chile insofar as pollution and so on jago you also have a fairly strict control system they don't want money just fly in fly out of chile and so you have the possibility of that then in australia new zealand you have the possibility that the australian and or new zealand government will wind up cooperating with the american government in terms of extraditions in terms of you know renditions stuff like that so each of them has pros and cons and you have to weigh them for yourself but it looks objectively like the southern hemisphere is where you want to go alright gonzalo lira thanks so much for being on the kaiser report thank you for having me all right not going to do it for this edition of the kaiser report with me max kaiser stays in our our time i guess because all the lira

s p g dot com want to send me an e-mail pleased to report at r t t v dot ru you can follow me on twitter of course max kaiser and i like tons of nice guys are saying buy all. three. videos for your media project.

i'm sam sacks in for tom hartman in washington d.c. here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture president obama makes a huge turn into size to accept super pac money after all is this a necessary evil or is the president making a huge mistake and what will the fallout be from this decision and how little fact the two thousand and twelve election also america's bridges and roads are collapsing all around us so isn't this an opportunity to put americans back to work

and if so why are republicans letting it happen and what might twitter's new policy have to do with a certain saudi prince that story coming up later. you need to know this president obama came to the real realization today that he can't win a gun fight carrying a knife a new in very very early national poll out this week shows president obama with a comfortable lead over mitt romney assuming he wins the nomination fifty one to forty five percent on top of that the president is creaming romney when it comes to campaign fund raising obama the d.n.c. have raised more than a hundred thirty nine million dollars so far romney just fifty seven million but as we've learned in the republican primary so far polls mean nothing they change week to week and also as we've learned not just in the republican primary but also in

the two thousand and ten election campaign fund raising isn't nearly as important as it used to be now that we live in the age of super pacs and age when mitt romney can park is restore a future corporate super pac tank in iowa or florida and bombard newt gingrich with millions and millions of dollars worth of negative ads none of which romney had to actually sign his name to polls change pretty quickly after that and when it comes to super pacs the president is in the same league as romney and the republicans right wing super pacs like karl rove's american crossroads and crossroads g.p.s. raised fifty one million bucks last year and romney's super pac raised thirty million bucks on the other hand priorities usa the super pac supporting president obama peltry nineteen million dollars. of course that might have something to do with president obama's unwillingness to embrace the whole super pac thing as he talked about it is that super bowl interview earlier this week. one of the glories

we have obviously in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super pacs these independent expenditures that are going to be out there there's going to be just a lot of money floating around and i'm a show i guarantee a lot of bunch of that's going to be negative but it's not going to be enough just to say the other guy's a bomb you've got to explain to the american people what your plan is to make sure that there are good jobs at good wages and that this economy is growing over the long term and whoever wins that argument i think is going to be the next president but sometime between sunday and last night someone whispered in the president's ear you have to play dirty to win this year and in a reversal the obama reelection team announced that it would embrace super pacs in the two thousand and twelve election and is now encouraging donors to give to the pro bamma super pac priorities usa one of the founders of priorities usa former obama staffer bill burton broke down the reality of the situation saying quote as

has become evident in the past month the only enthusiasm the republican party has among oil company billionaires an investment bankers on wall street looking to defeat president obama were committed to providing a balance to karl rove and the koch brothers who have pledged more than a half billion dollars to their effort and quote and the president's campaign manager jim messina echoed the sentiments saying quote with so much at stake we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and democrats unilaterally disarm. regardless there's a lot of people unhappy with this decision one being former senator russ feingold has been one of the most vocal critics of too much money in politics he said quote it is a demo pro choice the president president is wrong to embrace the corporate corrupt politics of citizens united and that's what you're doing when you start using

consorting with super pacs so what might be the fallout from all this what does it mean for the two thousand and twelve elections and what does this do to the effort the big effort to get money out of politics here to answer that question is lethal investigative reporter with republic report dot org lee welcome ace and thanks for having me nice nice to see you again so certainly this decision is going to anger a lot of people who want to get money out of politics you know you and me. but really what option does the president to have at this point now that this is the game it's the super pac game that we have to blame. well president obama kind of created the situation for himself in two thousand and ten he could have campaigned and made the disclose act the legislative fix for citizens united a priority to stump for it he could have issued an executive order last year in fact he could issue or issue it today that would mandate campaign disclosure from

federal contractors he could have his f.c.c. be mandating that publicly traded companies disclose their spending or at least inform their investors he could be doing a whole range of things even appointing a d.o.j. division to look into corrupt electioneering or beating up the f.e.c. and the sad reality is and what the most of the mainstream media isn't reporting is that president obama hasn't taken many of the steps that are actually on the table and available to him he's taken the easy way out and extend accepting and embracing unlimited corporate money so yeah as you just mentioned i mean he can do i guess in a number of things when it comes to disclosure and making sure that we're least know who is behind these super pacs and everything like that why do you think he's not doing that is he afraid of the retaliation i mean how much damage can people i mean you know this topic really really well how much damage can people like the koch brothers or the adelson you know giving tons of money to newt gingrich or you know someone like karl rove and the people he's got on his side how much damage can

these people do in an election now if they want to. well citizens united has completely changed the game i'm not only will the right from the big business alliance of the chamber of commerce to the koch brothers the folks you mentioned can they raise billions of dollars to defeat president obama they can spend that and adds they can use it and employ coercive situations with captive meetings at big workplaces there's a whole range of things. these interests can do but president obama by and bracing this citizens united for politics it's really dangerous because he's number one he can never really compete in terms of money with these guys and number two he's inviting a corruption scandal you know i can predict here on air today that these super pacs will lead to massive scandals later this year and into the coming years now that president obama isn't bracing this type of secret money these multimillion dollar

checks maybe even hundreds of million dollars checks we have no idea he's blurring the line between himself and mitt romney so when these scandals and negatively calm it will hurt both president obama and a possible possible president romney so in just a minute we have left is this going to take a constitutional mean you mentioned the stuff you can do as a present executive orders and when it comes to disclosure but that's kind of around the edges so is this ultimately going to take a constitutional amendment to get rid of this. well i believe sunlight is the best disinfectant you know obviously and adelson doesn't mind if their name their name is in the news that they're going to donate a big check to newt gingrich but at target or walmart or even a goldman sachs they don't want to have their finger print fingerprints on their money so i think disclosure actually kills a lot of the problem but president obama is not doing that and i think you're right a constitutional amendment is the only long term solution well said lee thanks a lot for coming on and to cover public report dot org. thanks and i appreciate

that thanks a lot lee after mitt romney won florida by airing thirteen thousand mostly negative television ads funded mostly by super pacs it became pretty clear just how out of control our elections have become post citizens united and that's when tom gave his take on what democracy looks like when actual people aren't even running for office anymore. we no longer have candidates running for office we have interest groups promoting the candidates that they own running for office interest groups like wall street or big oil like the for profit health insurers that all have the power to buy our elections now thanks to the supreme court their citizens united decision it's a given that who really won in florida tonight let's look at the numbers i mean pretty straightforward stuff in the last republican presidential primary about forty eight

well exactly forty eight point seven million dollars was spent and at this point and six hundred sixty six thousand five hundred fifty seven ads have been run this year this year the candidates have only run thirty nine thousand four hundred twenty nine ads and a forty percent decrease in advertising and they've only spent thirteen point seven million dollars seventy two percent drop. so what's going on here seventy two percent drop in candidates by in ads i thought this was the year of massive negative advertising that the voters across the nation will be inundated with t.v. ads well they are but the candidates themselves aren't the ones running the ads instead it's special interest groups in two thousand and eight for example special interest groups ran just seventeen hundred ads seven hundred sixty three specifically at this point the election for about one point one million dollars chump change nothing but this year thanks to citizens united those special interest groups have aired thirty thousand four hundred forty two ads that's

a sixteen percent increase sixteen hundred twenty six percent to be exact and they've spent fifteen point two million dollars doing it that's almost a twelve hundred eighty one percent increase so really what's going on here is the candidates are running anymore special interest groups the super pacs they're the ones actually running for president american crossroads or americans for prosperity just these two con. super pacs have spent eight point eight million dollars on ads around the country and where they're getting their money from american crossroads top fund funders seven million bucks from texas homebuilder bob perry big real estate two million bucks in the c.e.o. of chief oil and gas trevor reese jones big oil a million dollars in the dixie rice agriculture big agribusiness and americans for prosperity according to media matters they received over five million dollars from the koch brothers the richest of the rich people and the biggest of the big industries are the ones actually running this election in florida over thirteen

thousand television ads have been run on behalf of mitt romney gingrich's only aired two hundred and most of those romney ads were not paid for by romney or his campaign they came from a super pac called restore our future and guess who is the one of the top contributors to restore our future. surprise wall street billionaire hedge fund manager john paulson now romney is running for president wall street and the hedge fund managers who want to protect their capital gains tax loopholes are the ones really running for president so tonight mitt romney is going to give a big victory speech but the real winner the big one or wall street. after the break america's infrastructure is collapsing literally it's collapsing but congress continues to bulk out to filibuster or hold hostage the crucial infrastructure legislation by demanding stuff like oil pipelines it could be built

instead so is it about time to put politics aside for a moment and ensure the americans are secure when they're driving over roads and bridges this in time we boost our economic recovery to. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and she told the truth. 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 it's a place. you

know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly 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 welcomes a big picture. in

the middle of evening rush hour on august first two thousand and seven in a way and i thirty five mississippi river bridge in minnesota suddenly collapsed plunging one hundred cars into the river below thirteen people were killed more than one hundred forty injured. we learned afterward the valid bridge the i thirty five mississippi river bridge was given a quote structurally deficient rating by the federal government back in one thousand nine hundred seventeen years before the collapse but nothing was done and in two thousand and five two years before the collapse the bridge was again given

a structurally deficient rating for clear signs of cracking and fatigue prompting minnesota governor at the time tim plenty to call for the bridge to be replaced not right away but in two thousand and twenty thirteen years after the bridge eventually fell into the river in two thousand and seven at the time of this bridge collapse there were seventy five thousand other bridges in america with the same structurally deficient rating as the i thirty five mississippi river bridge so this should have been a wake up call the right time to rebuild our nation's aging and increasingly more dangerous infrastructure not to mention shortly after that bridge collapse in minnesota our economy went into full meltdown and there's been no better proven stimulus to fight back a recession than massive infrastructure investments so all signs pointed to one conclusion time to rebuild our roads and bridges only that's not what happened

instead after the bridge collapse in two thousand and seven news that tens of thousands of other bridges in america could meet the same fate total public construction spending actually went down and even includes the brief uptick in two thousand and nine in two thousand and ten from president obama's stimulus act and three different times last month senate republicans filibustered the rebuild america act which would have diverted fifty billion dollars to rebuilding infrastructure despite that our economy is making some gains with you know more than two hundred forty thousand jobs created in january. those jobs are mostly service sector jobs not construction jobs which raises the question can our economy really see a significant recovery without quickly significant investment in our infrastructure and the on the economy for a moment isn't it just common sense to rebuild bridges of roads that are in danger of collapse especially in america the richest country on earth michael mandel joins .