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tv   [untitled]    February 15, 2012 12:48pm-1:18pm EST

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yet the administration has failed to ever name china a currency manipulator which is because a whole other set of issues presumably let's talk about now the chinese currency the renminbi as an eighteen year high also foreign capital inflows to china have slowed down so that would weaken expectations for a you want appreciation so as we stand now does the u.s. have a case on this issue. i never really even had a case it's been a baseless accusation from the very get go because the classic definition of a currency manipulator is a nation or group of actors that depreciate its currency china has been up reshaping its currency since two thousand and five it's appreciated over twenty five per cent. many estimates over forty percent if you include inflationary effects secondly the only way you could say that it's undervalued based on trade is if it was only trade that the term and currency values to date capital
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flows from currency speculators actually overwhelm trade flows by hundreds of times the turnover in foreign exchange markets from currency speculation. out numbers the total goods and services produced in the entire world for a whole year and this is turnover that only happens in two weeks' time so as you can imagine capital flows coming from big hedge funds big banks those flows determine currency prices more so than trade and so if you want to label someone a currency manipulator those should be the ones who should be named currency manipulators that's it and then thirdly. it's about. even if one argue that the currency was undervalued at one point which is debatable because china is still a very poor country and when they had pegged it to the dollar it was based on the
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overriding exchange rate of eight point two eight you want to the dollar but they have appreciated significantly since then the most important thing to trade is to have a stable pricing and so even if it were undervalued the inflationary effect over time to make business is make sure that. things are on comparable terms that would have already overcompensated for any undervaluation and by the way labor wages in china have been increasing about thirteen percent a year every year and so that would have the same exact effect as a currency appreciation on thirteen percent every year that's interesting and always it's an issue to me is how it is the u.s. is behavior perceived because the federal reserve has been very active and getting involved in u.s. currency i want to play you would jim rickards author of currency war thought about this and then get your reaction the u.s.
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is the biggest currency manipulator in the world the major countries manipulate their currencies of the speaker of the chinese view of the japanese through the europeans to the u.s. which is better than anybody else because we were printing press. so that his view i'm curious what is your view and you being someone who is taught in china you're much more familiar with what's actually being talked about in chinese circles what is the view of u.s. policy in china they're frankly very worried because they know that all the death they hold can be completely devalued china china holds over a trillion dollars of this but it could be completely worthless if the us decides to run the printing press as this author mentioned the only way that china could have had any effect on how much debt we run is if us was borrowing in chinese renminbi not in chinese and us dollars but because the debt is all
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denominated in us dollars the chinese have no ability to enforce. you know better behavior from the u.s. and in terms of trade and other things and so they're very worried because they feel that they have shipped out over truth you know trillions of dollars of goods and services to us and they might be getting absolutely nothing in exchange for nothing as an interesting point and then let's talk about that issue of trade because though the obama administration has shied away from officially labeling china a currency manipulator g.o.p. hopefuls like mitt romney are claiming that they will do that and we heard obama say in his state of the union he's put it in his budget that he wants to fund this new trade enforcement unit to investigate unfair trading practices in countries any single doubt china ok a couple questions here are any of these likely to happen are any of them warranted and would they be helpful or harmful to what the u.s.
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wants to achieve with china certainly it would be helpful. shooting very hostile rhetoric when you're largest trading partners is just going to ruffle feathers and make negotiations more difficult going into the future. regarding whether it's really going to happen or not it's hard to say obviously some of this rhetoric is motivated by the fact that it's a presidential election year and so these people are playing to their bases people who may not understand what is going on in foreign exchange markets or global trade and so instead of owning up to the economic problems and coming up with real solutions to fix them in the u.s. they'd rather scapegoat china and so part of it is is that to write it would they be well actually i guess you answered that but far the current rhetoric from the
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side of the united states as well as the posturing with that with the u.s. military focus moving more from the middle east to asia along with china's ambitions it seems like despite what any politician says this is could be moving more in the direction of some kind of military conflict even though that sounds you know like a good scenario do you agree with that or do you think that that threat is overblown . i personally am concerned with it even though military conflict. may be very small it's still not a zero possibility there is still obviously a potential for that especially when the rhetoric gets moved especially when we're backing our rhetoric with very hostile actions by pivoting all our military into the asia pacific and so this is really coming from the u.s. not from china because if we look at the military spending in china it's less than
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the tenth of what the u.s. spends on military china spends more on their don't mistake police force than all their military operations put together and you u.s. has hundreds of military bases around the world china doesn't even have one so there's no reason why china want to start a military conflict with the u.s. and more so why would they block their own ships from shipping their goods to the u.s. because they want to obviously in the grow economically so it would just make no sense the u.s. on the other hand because they're so powerful because there's so much military power and they don't want to take military cuts obviously in the pentagon they are trying to find excuses in order to maintain the current spending and i think that this is very unhelpful really interesting insight there i appreciate you being on the show you always give us
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a unique perspective on these issues thanks that was author and professor and lee. ok it's valentine's day here in the u.s. so in the spirit we had to do something last week we talked about socio nomics with robert proctor he's founder of the elliott wave institute and the hemline indicator was part of our discussion ok this is where skirt length is a gauge of social mood and the health of markets and the economy you can say that see they went up in the sixty's here's what he said. short skirts in the late sixty's he certainly returned in the late ninety's he watched many of the videos of women you know they were barely dressed for most of those and when times or is more
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difficult and i don't just mean the economy when mood is depressed but you shined maxi skirts for example in the seventy's coming along maxi skirts for our male viewers are long skirts that go down to your ankles well joshua brown of reform broker writes this whole idea may be passe for a past generation he's admits a better indicator of financial wellbeing and national mood for our generation is what he does the boom indicator and he cites the rebound of plastic surgery along with some of the gains we've seen in the economy as usa today informs us americans got about one point six million cosmetic surgeries in two thousand and eleven the second year of a big increase after a big drop in two thousand and nine according to an annual report from the american society of plastic surgeons and if you're wondering how this breaks down breast implants of course dominate breast augmentations far and away the highest perform surgery so this could be
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a reality check for the hemline indicator you tell us what you think of the boob indicator and the recovery that's all we have time for have a great night come back tomorrow.
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iran says it's considering cutting oil sales to six e.u. countries but wouldn't do so at the moment because of the cold winter striking europe. syria's president announces a vote on a new constitution that would effectively and nearly fifty years of single party rule in the country i mean the rising turmoil. and rallies marking a year since the pro-democracy uprising in bahrain protesters face yet another harsh crackdown with police using tactics and weapons from the u.k. . next a look at the financial turmoil looming over europe and ask whether measures being
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taken are strong enough to establish a solution ilona show coming up. welcome to the lotus show where we get the real headlines with none of the mercy and we're going live to washington d.c. so i'm going to speak to glenn greenwald about whether it's the media is pushing the war with iran narrative even more than the government and china's v.p. is in the u.s. for a visit so what's on the agenda and what does it say for the relationship between the two countries and also a new pew study shows that one in a voter records are flawed but how do we get past the myth that this is a sign of massive voter fraud and instead focus on our outdated paper based system of registration we're not all that warfare not including a dozen happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss.
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well it's another day in the political horse race of the g.o.p. race and what do you know there are two new polls for the mainstream media to cover obsessive lee. rick santorum is now on top in two brand new major national polls out there this morning underfunded and outmanned two new polls show that rick santorum has no tie with mitt romney in the republican race for the white house back and forth race for the republican nomination is all tied up in the polls right now a dead heat between mitt romney and rick sanchez. and confidence this is the momentum that he built by these winds just we could go today
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in colorado minnesota and missouri. now it's definitely interesting to look at the resurgence if you can even call it that of rick santorum especially relative to the entire race to the white house right the consistent proof that republican voters really are not that stoked on mitt romney but at the end of the day are they still going to go with mitt is this just another flavor of the month episode like we saw with bachmann and cain and gingrich before now i think that those are valid questions and go ahead spend a few minutes talking about it but again do we need the nonstop around the clock santorum mania to take place at a certain point you just want to scream at the top your lungs tell these people for the love of god to give it a rest especially when there are so many other things going on in the world and if you're going to spend countless hours looking at polls and statistics why not branch out a little bit why not look at other stats that come out on a daily basis that will tell you about widespread systemic problems and abuses within our country i'm going to give you one good example today that i've really
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seen covered anywhere else and we've known for a while now the n.y.p.d. has a bit of a stop and frisk problem my problem i mean that there is an obscene amount of people who are being stopped and frisked in new york and there's a lot of evidence of points to clear racial bias and the majority the time what they end up getting people for is maybe having small amount of marijuana if anything not stopping violent crimes from happening so in the years since two thousand and four when this program began the n.y.c. l.-u. says that more than four million people have been stopped in two thousand and ten the n.y.p.d. broke their all time high record of stop and frisks with six hundred one thousand and fifty five stops but guess what new data is out for two thousand and eleven editors out that they've broken their own record yet again they regard them as described best as another champion season so here's the big number for you in two thousand and eleven the n.y.p.d. stuff. six hundred eighty four thousand three hundred and thirty people on the
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street now it turns out the only twelve percent of those were arrested or received a summons the rest were all released now if you want proof of the racial bias i want to give you the breakdown for the last two years and twenty ten about eighty four percent of those stopped by police are black or latino while only about nine percent of those people stopped are white last year we saw the same thing eighty seven percent were black or latino and nine percent were white and i say that's a pretty clear sign that there is discrimination at work here that innocent people are being harassed that there is a massive problem seems like a number of city officials in new york agree with me they've asked the federal government to launch a probe because they feel that thousands of young people are being criminalized and the mainstream media where they've been on this issue well as you say they've been steering clear of it ignoring it acting like it does not even exist now you might try to claim that this is too localized of a problem for the national media to be covering but come on you guys you know the on a daily basis on this show we point out how d.c.
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and new york oriented the national mainstream media is they live in a bubble they prioritize everything that happens within this little bubble of new york and d.c. over what's going on in the rest of the country technically the stop and frisk issue fits into the bubble but who are we kidding right the bubble only includes government officials media leaves not the rest of us not the thousands of people living in muslim communities that have been targeted by the n.y.p.d. for their religious beliefs and then monitored with the help of the cia mind you and certainly not the hundreds of thousands of minorities that are being harassed and stopped by the police and treated like criminals just for walking down the street and i'm not saying that this policy doesn't play a role that we don't have a need for a vigilant police force but let's not let our judgment in our understanding of the importance of the value of civil liberties to be clouded by some kind of fear that is of police weren't breaking new records every year and how many people they stop and frisk the world. the a much more dangerous place because the truth is the numbers aren't there to back it up but back to the point here this is exactly the kind of story the kind of
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statistics and members of the mainstream media chooses to miss. all right so we've been covering the incessant cheerleading for war against iran pretty extensively on the show drawing comparisons with the buildup to war with iraq the threats of weapons of mass destruction al qaeda and how can we forget the u.s. intelligence community saying that iran now poses the number one terror threat against the united states and it seems that public opinion might be swaying thanks to that fear mongering recent poll from the hill shows that amongst their respondents nearly half of all likely voters believe that the u.s. should be willing to use military force to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon forty nine percent said military force should be used while thirty one percent said no and twenty percent weren't sure but well we've come to expect a certain kind of drum beating from various pundits and so-called experts here in
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washington very small that influential group mind you how big of a role is the media playing in this pre-war scenario do they seem even more eager for military action than the u.s. government itself joining me to discuss this is glenn greenwald salon columnist and author of his new book with liberty and justice for some how the laws used to destroy equality and protect the powerful thanks so much for joining us tonight now in a minute here i'm going to play a specific clip from n.b.c. that you chose to point out when you were writing this latest piece but first you know just on a broad base tell me why it is that you think that the media might be pushing this even more than the government does right because at the same time we have sanctions from the government we have leon panetta going on the record interview saying that israel might strike sometime soon we have the president saying that no our the all options are you know is on the table. well i think you know the media is always a really close to the american government but they're also close to other sources as well including officials in the israeli government and they need to have been in
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the past government instead have positions a great influence on top of that you know the american media i think is does naturally inclined to. be enemy is as being this kind of unmitigated evil and the killing and its relationship with the united states in this very uncritical wave of suggests that anybody would be aggressors is the united states isn't it's a mistake or effects of script for you when you mix media up and they immediately start beating the drums for when i think there's an element of excitement for them israel on top of a sort of web based as a good way things which is what happens when you can fetch a movie star people with some of the political opinions and you can buy an ad campaign is to get it you get is a media limit then you want to impede the match to it will remain critical to scrutinize it but instead few have engendered on the bandwagon and you see the time and time again and we're seeing it whenever the right says take a look at this example from jamaica chefs and i met her and they say he's their
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pentagon correspondent and auburn is going to play a short clip of it and then les tell us exactly what's wrong with it if it's not obvious enough yet. if israel launches this strikes against ill runs nuclear program iranian leaders have threatened i'm all out war. u.s. navy's fifth fleet would be the world's first line of defense and its commander vice admiral mark fox said today they're prepared to take on just about anything a runner throws at. pilots here at. that is because of the extreme weather so many deceitful men have packed into such a shroud club for one thing that. there is really. it's a space and grabs a bank on its nuclear program that is really bad is bad israel has already started and better and better. if
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a country did that we would certainly consider it to be a really get they depict the land as being the one who may forever. it even then there was in the years they say the united states fifth fleet will be the first line of defense. as their good will it is being said that daddy persian aggressors and that the united states is there to defend it from this aggression but in fact it's the united states and easily the bad metrics that the aggressors in every single lebanese united states and israel have a threatening of a daily basis the will of state only by the united states and israel invading army in their schools and dropping bombs on their country those two nations have been engaged in ashrams of covert refill to against iran from assassinating their scientists on their own said. sending cyber sophisticated biases and cyber warfare into their facilities to funding and arming into this group back to back that use an iranian dissident group a little bit earlier for a while and the iranian government and then you add on top of that the fact the
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united states has a romance in the in several of the military bases surrounding that country are almost every may bring a neighbor where you simmers class aggression the united states and israel in their views and we'll see new saying the united states may have to defend the rebels are already in aggression it's rude the purest and those are sort of propaganda and you know the attitudes that we see in terms of this are really interesting to for example right we had u.s. officials coming out last week saying that israel was in fact funding the enrique. a in order to carry out or at least play some kind of a role in the assassinations the murders of nuclear scientists in iran you have some people arguing that well it's ok if israel's doing it because it's for a good cause and i thought was kind of interesting that kevin drum decided to step in here and take a look at both sides and he basically made the following point saying that it's still terrorism when israel does it so says still is it terrorism yes do both sides
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use it yes is this in many cases the future of warfare probably yes is there a better alternative that's a good question so you know what's your take on that is everyone just start assuming that well that's that's the future of warfare that's the way that it's going to be. mean is that as heavy as what kevin graham said which is basically inducing terrorist attacks aimed at civilians and this is being honest about the fact that even his sad. and i'm sad fan i've been to tears among the cause is right and so disturbing about it is that jackson's a mazzer and including american muslims who have been passive cupid for having family attenuated ranks to designated terrorist organisations that help ensure that america now reads from their caddies. fabby any k. which is also betting it is a motel seven is asian and is therefore the illegal to provide material support to . the public into meeting democrats and the gay receiving huge payments from the
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d.m.v. kagan out in advocating on his behalf meeting with leaders of that organization and the idea that they would ever be passive today's is unmentionable it's unthinkable a decent company and yet it's every bit as a reader to believe that organisation with material support or on top of that if it's true is n.b.c. news or polluted the fluid is funding and arming and training is telescoped then by definition you have the rounds on the list of state sponsors of terrorism that's the definition of a state sponsor of terrorism somewhere a state that funds and trains and arms a terrorist group and it's the united states of us company i make a i have a list of terrorist terrorist organisations and it is our primary claim state of israel and the associating with its ascended this group to do terrorist attacks on the iranian seven eleven things out ensuring scientists who are civilians and some of the biggest emitters america that everywhere in suits that are in the world is
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justified based on the need to stop terrorism and here is the united states' closest ally and good and pure to them and many of the leading mavens of rational ten from that card will soon money from the earth and advocating on its behalf through quite remarkable it shows just how rude and manipulative those kinds of of terrorism are the. now i want to talk about public opinion public perception here too you know it's interesting because our intelligence agencies are telling us the iran is the number one terror threat to the united states but just on small scale attacks however this entire concept as to whether or not we should use military force against iran has to do with iran's nuclear program which our officials are telling us that we have no proof as to whether or not they've really decided whether they want to have this nuclear program or not but why in that case you know if the drumbeating specifically coming from the media a lot of the time is running around the nuclear program do people still buy it haven't we learned from iraq you know don't we have enough examples there that
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where you start to get a little bit skeptical. but the things it's being done in terms of the propaganda campaign is there's a slight of hand because everybody knows including the on the do have a good program in the sense that they're trying to develop nuclear energy which everybody agrees is that absolute right to do and say the times that we need. to do is there tap about nuclear program and in part of that that's a nuclear weapons program in part it's beyond dispute that the actual developing nuclear weapons even though. there's an official as an intelligence official agency has said that we have no evidence whatsoever that it is as actually decided even to develop a nuclear weapon what it is that they want and so this is pure fear mongering it's exactly the same thing that happened somebody in the convinced of the libyan saddam by telling americans that he was developing a nuclear weapon it's the same thing and that is
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a question i mean what i what i look at today with public opinion is the public opinion about reunited states and they're going to support of the romany and came to view it as a mistake there's a quote of the of the enemy and came to view bad as a mistake so you would think of some plan they would say we keep getting tricked into supporting these winners that actually inadvisable and that we end up being against the most skeptical but that's kind of the of the attitude seems to be. as i do is i'm convinced as a supplier and then back in the state that this time. the listener is really necessary and has our support and it just shares the potency the fear mongering fears a. little bit when factor in human beings it's necessary as a cowardly and these media reports and this constant drumbeat is designed to play on out there to tell the truth that if you don't cross the line ians there will crash sure there's another arrest or done or planned out bad and here produced a part of the first.

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