but it's got to be private credit expansion the central banks doing what they're supposed to do but they've done it for too long and we get out of slowly let rates go up and imagine even if we had half a point fed funds rate that's still historically very low it's probably negative in terms of inflation but at least it would give people a reason to do business again right banks make money lending money so unless rates are at a level that they can make some money lending money then you're not going to get any bank growth therefore no no well that's right you know the great editor of the economist bag host said it well he said don't keep rates at zero for too long. what that we're out of time criswell thanks so much for being on the kaiser report thank you backs look forward to it again all right and that's going to do it for this edition of the kaiser report with me max kaiser and stacey arbor and i thank my guests first well and you can follow him on twitter at r c whalen course you can follow me on twitter to max kaiser can send me an e-mail at kaiser report at r t t v dot are you until next time x. guys are saying.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything. i'm tom harkin is a big. three . three. three. three. four year media.

the. country's top stories iran says it's been considering canceling oil sales to six e.u. countries but it wouldn't do so at the moment because of the cold winter in europe this kind of as the israeli pm accuses the islamic state of being behind but the toxin needed to jabatan the. dr says external players are encouraging opposition groups to stay out of dialogue with the syrian government and therefore bear large responsibility for them growing violence meanwhile president assad has announced ever random only need calls the team. on the rallies marking one of the pro-democracy uprising in bahrain protesters face yet another harsh clamp down on the words police using toxics and weapons from the u.k. . up next the economic woes are being scrutinized and also his capital account was

born in this. good afternoon and welcome to capital account and i'm lauren lister here in washington d.c. here are your headlines for february fifteenth two thousand and twelve europe is shrinking at least the economy is italy's things into recession the eurozone contract for the first time since the second quarter of two thousand and nine. is reportedly going to help with the bailout athens appears to be bowing to ministers additional demands over their bailout but at what cost for the country for europe and for democracy are we going to see a revolution you'll hear from european m.e.p. nigel farage on that and iran cuts crudes a european nations preempting saying since we did they will they are they are conflicting reports as far confusion as oil prices have hit

a six month high earlier today of a hundred and twenty dollar a barrel oil up until now there has been talk but yeah there are real consequences to sanctions a price to pay for saying since we're cutting off oil we'll look at all of those and despite the tough economic times here in the u.s. there are entire counties in the u.s. where the median household incomes are six figures and guess where the top fifteen are all around the nation's capital how's that for social welfare let's get today's capital account. so reports of iran cutting oil exports to europe caused quite an uproar today this is what press t.v.

and iranian news network is saying now last time we checked in response to the latest sanctions imposed by the e.u. against iran's energy and banking sectors the islamic republic says it is cutting oil exports to six european countries now earlier reported the press t.v. issued a breaking news alert that iran had already cut oil exports to those six european countries now since then the iranian oil ministry denied it later reportedly said they could not confirm or deny it iran's official news agency said iran warned him of those european countries about this so a lot of confusion needless to say wall crude oil hit a six month high of nearly one hundred twenty dollars a barrel now there are fears of course that iran could preempt the embargo which is going to go through july first based on what the e.u. voted into place so yeah there are consequences and costs to say there are costs

to cutting off oil maybe it's a time to take a harder look at what those consequences are we certainly want to we have dr levy here he's an authority on energy especially while he's also c.i.a.o. of lead capital management an author of this book red alert how china's growing prosperity threatens the way of american life dr levy it's nice to see you thanks for being on the show today. thank you so much lorne yeah let's get straight yeah let's get straight to this ok obviously there are concerns over iran possibly halting oil exports to europe we saw that with the reports that came out today but this is something that you have approved to begin july first already my question to you why wouldn't iran want to do this this is seems like a pretty little logical way that they would want to retaliate. well i think that for personal i don't think it's really a grave threat i think of it fungible they go be able to europeans will be able to

find oil in other places i think the message here is that iran is telling the world they're going to play hardball they're not going to be backed into a corner and they are not going to give in to worldwide demands that they stop their nuclear development and what really worries me is i really don't see a middle game never mind the end game as far as the west goes in dealing with this situation and iran i don't know exactly what we can do i think or graham has made it abundantly clear that whatever sanctions were willing to impose they're going to power it those signals and they're going to come back strong i don't think that there's a media threat of a cutoff to europe i think even if there were we have plenty of oil in the strategic petroleum reserves both here and in europe to make up for any temporary shortfall but. and rand i don't think can afford to stop pumping oil because their economy is in total shambles from what i hear hyperinflation

a trash currency twenty percent interest rate let's get to some of these things that you're talking about more in depth when you talk about sanctions and we don't know what iran is planning as far as cutting off oil what they're going to do but does the fact that they're hinting at cutting off oil to europe at this point to show that they're not concerned about finding a customer for their oil in the past you've said that china could pick up the slack . yeah china. china someone else will pick up the slack what really worries me right now is that there are raining and rainy in the elections this year also us elections this year the economy is in total shambles it almost seems and i hope this ends well i mean there's a tremendous amount of complacency out there lauren that this is just another one of those stand offs and nothing bad will happen but you know iran is right near saudi arabia and there's a lot of shiites in saudi arabia that are protesting now and they're very instrumental in saudi oil production and iran you know has these. these nuclear

plants under the ground very very deep under the ground and it's not so easy to take them out i mean you know for whatever it's worth israel cannot take them out despite the threats it would take massive amount of bombing and you know you know heaven forbid it might even take a nuclear device to get to those to those nuclear facilities and if that happened goodness knows i mean you're really opening up pandora's box i mean even if the west started bombing iran very aggressively. in saudi arabia are going to get very very upset extremely upset and i don't i think will be letting out of the box something that we really may not be able to control i mean the arab spring sort of prove that i mean what's going on in syria right now what happened in egypt what happened in libya what happened in tunisia iran you know has to do something to

maintain civil control but i mean they already had a battle against protesters and with an election coming up dr levy i know they'd be glad to go ahead and. i'm sorry. it seems to me they may almost be daring us to try something and that really really worries me well and you're talking about a worst case scenario of war which it seems like there is evidence that there could be some kind of military conflict i want to back up i want to talk about the impact of these sanctions you're saying that iran will find a customer for their oil you're saying that europe will find another place to buy their oil but we've seen oil prices rise as a result of the concerns surrounding this so what will this itchy aside from possibly higher oil prices for people in the u.s. and europe who are sanctioning iran. you know it will achieve i guess peace of mind that iran may not be able to develop a nuclear weapon but you know frankly our options may be very very limited as far

as that goes i mean higher or oil prices ironically are good for rahm right and they're terrible for the u.s. economy i mean these kinds of headwinds have been one of the reasons you alluded at the top of the show to high median incomes in this in parts of this country but overall median real incomes are back to where they were in the one nine hundred ninety s. absolutely a big reason a big reason for that have been these sky high oil prices i mean or used to trade at twenty dollars a barrel i mean yes it's down from one forty one fifty but it's still over one hundred dollars a barrel and we may be looking at four five dollars price gasoline this summer so you know high oil prices are exactly what this country doesn't need at this point and ironically will help the middle east including iran so then dr williams i'm going to be here for a second so then what is the point of these sanctions clearly for the average american or the average greek where they're in a depression poverty is a greater threat to them then whether or not iran may or may not be developing

a nuclear weapon. it is you know you're absolutely right and if we are engaged in sanctions we better have a middle and an end game that justifies what we're doing and part of the end game should be oral prices returning or at least not continuing to climb and i'm absolutely not convinced that we have that middle or end game the only thing i'm convinced about is that it's going to be extremely difficult to military means to really take out the a rainy and nuclear facilities very very difficult so i'm not sure that we do know what we're doing and that really is what worries me the most to be very honest with you if i was convinced we had a plan that took us you know to the point where ram would be producing oil. at full capacity again and the middle east would be relatively calm i would sleep well that night but these are not conditions like that i mean i can give you so many dire scenarios you'll have trouble going to sleep at night i mean there are

a lot of plausible dire scenarios out there including our attacking iran and what that would do to the rest of the middle east including the shia population that i mentioned before in saudi arabia i mean this is no this is a huge very very big deal and when i read the press reports and i see analysts saying well you know they'll shut down the straits of hormuz for you know maybe five or ten days we'll be able to make that up with the strategic petroleum reserves i get nervous i mean no one is taking this stuff very seriously i mean we all know from reading history if your economy is in shambles one thing that gets you out of it or may get people united behind you would be a war i mean iran may be daring us to attack them or attack their nuclear facilities. it could be that i'm not saying it is but i don't see any semblance laura none whatsoever that we've really thought this out thoroughly and that is

very alarming ok sitting here in washington i don't. i want a war i don't want higher prices i think that americans support that to a majority of americans in a c.n.n. poll that just came out they don't want any kind of force against iran they want diplomatic or economic action that sixty percent twenty two percent say no action should be taken so why should average americans or europeans be forced to pay for this. they should not i mean they absolutely should not get any more involved than they already are and they should try and do this in a you know once you put a military option on the table and i think the secretary of defense did the other day or at least he said we wouldn't take it off the table once you go down that slope and once you actually an active military option i mean all bets are off i mean we should have learned that in iraq i mean should be laid by i wish we did i wish i had assurance that we did but politicians talk about why this is all

necessary and even though many people don't support it is this because these people are in an elite stratosphere where they it's necessary maybe for them for political reasons they're facing reelection or to please their constituents or or whatever but these decisions won't affect them they're not the people that are going to be crippled by higher oil prices or have their kids sent off to war for that matter. well i mean it depends how high oil prices go i mean you could make a scenario and i'm not saying it's likely or probable but it's not impossible where you know or oil prices go to any number you could pick to fifty three hundred if we do something in iran and that cripples or shuts down a rainy an oil i mean a rainy an oriel is just shut down for whatever reasons and it affects saudi arabia see that's the elephant in the room i mean everybody's looking at israel and existential threat to israel and that's serious i agree i think we should support israel with everyone in every way we can but the elephant in the room is not israel

the elephant in the room right now is saudi arabia and if we have a rant just a very local look focused on those nuclear facilities it's going to have to be with major bombs i hope not nuclear but you could not rule that out and you have to reason that scoring because of massive stirrings in saudi arabia i mean saudi arabia is you know it's not amusing from you know what is affected so many other arab countries in the past year or two you know the arab spring saudi arabia bought off a lot of people but that's a good point major attack on a rant. on iran lots of really good points we're totally out of time but it's really been a pleasure to talk to you a lot of really horrible scenarios it sounds like what i am glad that people are hearing hopefully that will help avoid some of them i appreciate being on the show that was dr steven levy he is author and. capital management.

and still ahead what will be the consequences of the kind of european leadership we've been seeing in greece managing the debt crisis we spoke to nigel farage about the risk of political assassinations revolution and the rise of extreme nationalist political parties but first here closing market numbers. any man wants. to buy.

every. turtle is going to think ok what. do we all want to see the sun for ever. welcome back today was supposed to be a meeting of finance ministers to push through that bailout of greece as government this is of course after the greek parliament passed through extremely tough austerity measures while athens literally burned all around them outside and riots were going on in the streets now the greek prime minister said about that that that kind of violence had no place in a democratic country but european member of parliament nigel farage question that

entire premise and european parliament today. that democratic country he's not even a democratically elected prime minister he's been appointed by you guys agree season runs through democracy now. three forward officials fly into about the example until the greeks. and the troika has reportedly told greek leaders that needs more assurances and it's getting them antinous some modest an influence a very influential greek member of parliament roy wrote a letter to troika creditors committing himself to austerity this is after he alarmed eurozone leaders when he said he may seek to renegotiate the terms of the bailout after elections also adding insult to injury german finance minister wolfgang schauble said in a radio interview that nothing short of a techno craddick government like that of monti's in italy may be required to stem the crisis in greece great politicians are going along with creditors demands even

though mobs are literally gathering at their doors look at this outside former prime minister close to submit his house on sunday. ok. this guy. they were calling him a traitor other names too meanwhile look at this greek national poll conducted this month it shows the influence of various political parties in greece we want to focus on that three percent it may not look like a lot but that is a far right political party extreme nationalist party they don't have members in parliament yet but three percent is the threshold reportedly at which parties can begin to place their own members in parliament so are people moving to more radical parties because the others aren't listening to them this is how we saw the rise of

fascism prior to world war two in europe i asked m.e.p. nigel farage about this earlier take a look ok mr farris let's get straight to it so you've been critical rightfully so of pop a day most in greece as an unelected official i technocrat put in place by the e.u. but in greece there is a deeper problem you have all of these elected officials democratically elected politicians in parliament who are voting for these deeply unpopular measures as athens literally has been burning outside of parliament why do you think that it is . well sunday was very interesting effectively what happened was that the you you have held a gun to their heads in greece i believe said that little cross unless you vote for this bailout package or less you vote for continued subjugation we will not give you the next tranche of money you will go bankrupt. and your reputation internationally will be destroyed and in the face of that the greek political class

just don't have the courage to stand up and tell you where to go and you know i can see why i mean for a country to go bankrupt to face a devaluation going back to the ground were about sixty or seventy percent it is a difficult thing to do but i tell you this if they don't do it they're going to die a different kind of economic death because the greek economy is contracting now at an accelerating rate that has now reached seven percent per year yes absolutely it's in a depression or inside here is that they've had they've seen a contraction of growth and you have no greek m.p.'s for example like some of us who is seen by some as possibly the next prime minister who backpedals away from the electorate every time there's pressure from the e.u. or from the troika put on what you kind of spoken to but what's interesting is you have politicians acting against their electoral interests jeopardizing their reelections which is unusual for a politician what's in it for them. it is

a funny one isn't it i mean we you simply can't think of greece as a normal democratic country it is not a democratic country you know it's prime minister is a puppet he was put there to dance to the tune of the european union we have a troika where we have a three people that come in unelected bureaucrats one from washington from the i.m.f. one from the european commission another from the european central bank they're the people effectively that are now running greece and the political class in athens most of them are like rabbits staring in the headlights of this car that is coming straight down towards them and the people i just think put yourself in their position if you take away from people their ability through the ballot box to determine their own future then violence is all they're left with and i'm afraid that what we saw on sunday may be just the start of something really very very bad indeed. well and it's interesting we've seen the backlash against politicians in

greece you've seen molotov cocktails thrown at the president's house you've seen a former prime minister have a mob gather around his house literally harassing him i don't want to say this lightly but history europe does have this history are you concerned about political assassinations happening again. i am concerned that if we continue with all sterile package on a country whose economy is already in a downward deflationary death spiral without any compensation which is what going back to the drachma would give then i think we're heading for a revolution of some kind in greece and i don't want to predict exactly what form that will take that would be irresponsible but i think it is i think the prospect is very very bad indeed and you said before that you're worried about a rise of nationalism as a result of what's going on in europe in greece according to gallup polls a very far right party could get a seat in parliament if there were elections today is this rise in nationalism it's

dangerous in your view already in europe. what in the thirty's what we saw huge financial disaster countries crashing out of the gold standard mass unemployment what we saw was fascism and it's what most of europe and do not think that that sort of thing cannot happen again i am very worried about it and that is why i've always been looking for democratic solutions i've always believed that if you are going to form a new united states of europe you can only do so through free and fair referendums only do so through consent and that consent has not been given and in the case of greece and portugal and spain the prospects are very bleak indeed i do not want a rise of extreme fascist nationalism in europe but i'm terrified that the e.u. itself is now so powerful and so determined to keep up with its own failing policies that we may well be driving people into this position. it's quite a warning coming from nigel farage the leader of the united kingdom independent

party. right intention oh so far let's lighten it up a little bit let's bring in dimitri kofi anna right here in studio and shannon donahoe in the control room our producer is to talk about this which is actually kind of an alarming finding of a main street dot com just came out with a list of the u.s. is the richest counties and just guess who dominates the standing the d.c. area take a look at the top three ok look at the median household incomes they are six figures in the top three counties all around washington d.c. listen this man puts it pretty clearly as far as what this is like.

you know the part of the country where people can speak consider locally rich someone here making a hundred thousand was just median for just median you're just right in there for making six figures all the top fifteen richest counties are in the d.c. area the top fifteen if you what more evidence do you need about the people sucking on the teat of government then that well yes courageous because the money gets redistributed to d.c. i think it's absurd i can't stand to see and i live here so that's when i was the thing i got this i don't i mean the fact that they make that much money. this this city is really slow place to be compared to new york so i'm shocked at that make them whole i think one thing that you find is all of the contractors and a lot of the people that benefit from business the government are all around here and they've all done quite. forgot about that one and you hear so much about welfare reform but there is a whole different kind of welfare that is going on that i think is pretty alarming shannon do you have anything to add. full disclosure i do live in one of those

counties but i definitely do not make so much money and we've got people who control room over here a high five being that they will reduce the counties but i'm pretty sure they don't make that much money so basically you're all bringing down the median is what you're saying and you know without just average people imagine how high those salary also goes on i think food the way through is there's work news it's about half of median income so from what i understand that the people eligible for food stamps in d.c. would have to make what could make more money than anyone else in the country all right some one fact check him and let's move on to there are sick of something in london is causing rents to skyrocket can you guess what it is. to get. i. it's the

olympics and landlords are cashing in ok the rent for a large house can be as much as four hundred thirty three thousand pounds per month and other landlords are increasing rent by as much as six times the normal rate is this why david cameron was so excited about the olympics when i heard him speak about it at davos because you got a house you want to run out on maybe he wants you know that money to be you know coming into london in the news much music because it's completely bankrupt the u.k. is the most bankrupt country in the in the world which we saw their financial sector that the financial sector that there are all the all the debt if you take their fire actually good public everything it's over one thousand percent of g.d.p. so they can they can they need all the money they can get their role over there that they should pray to god that money keeps going to the u.k. c.n.n. i would feel really bad if i lived in one of those areas and throw one out that way if you live there and you're right goes up for that reason that would be a real bummer good time to leave your house then rent it out to somebody.