welcome back to the big picture i'm sorry coming up in this half hour greece is hanging on by a thread after goldman sachs the shooter their death numbers so they qualify for membership in the e.u. so now they have what they want to buy really such a basket case economically what does this mean for americans we've seen a greek scenario play out right here and in today's daily take this year's republican primary as badly hurt iran why didn't the democratic primary for barack obama in two thousand.

didn't screw the news european austerity continues to take its toll on tuesday greece issued a warning to all the banks toure's we've invested in about two hundred sixty billion dollars with the greek debt telling them that they'd better take a new deal except in about half the value of their investments or risk getting nothing at all greece is hoping that about ninety percent of its investors will agree to take that haircut giving greece a chance to restructure its debt in a way that's more manageable and bester is have until thursday to decide if they're going to take the deal they choose not to and once again a greek default becomes a very real possibility or is asking investors to take a haircut is nothing compared to what the greek people have had to sacrifice under years of austerity massive layoffs huge cuts to social services and wage cuts all of which would lead to an rest of the streets hostility with neighboring nations like germany and even the ousting of democratically elected leaders reese right now is the epicenter of the crisis of corporate. capitalism that is engulfing the world

today and the question isn't how things will work out in greece but instead how long until what we're seeing in greece comes to the united states which a world joins me now he is an economist and visiting professor at the graduate program in international affairs at new school university in new york city and dr wolfe great to have you with us thank you very much and also the author of the book the other book capitalism hits the fan i don't want to forget. but believe that on screen most americans look at greece and think oh that's far away that's going to do with us you know why should i care i should care we should care because greece is a little corner of europe it's a few million people it couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be held accountable for the global economic crisis and yet that crisis is being played out in a way that crushes that entire nation and let me just give you a few of the basics of it in the deal that was just struck so that they could get

a little more help from europe they have to cut the minimum wage by twenty two percent and the poorest people in a poor country and says this is the global economic system in which you are a tiny corner that didn't cause any problem but we're really going to whack you and you're the poorest people number two part of the deal is to cut one hundred fifty thousand more workers off the payroll of the government in greece there are eight hundred thousand people that work for the government now it's a little country and that's a big part of their job see you're going to cut one hundred fifty thousand people from a payroll of eight hundred thousand in a country whose current unemployment rate is nineteen point nine percent this is lunacy this is a way of crushing a society and making a kind of demonstration case for all europeans and for americans. this is an economic crisis and we're going to solve the crisis on the backs of the poorest

most distressed part of the population that's how we work in a capitalist system that's what we victimize and i think americans ought to be very very concerned certainly the rest of europe is because this is a model that says we need to leave the united states are going to be thinking about putting minimum wage cutting back social security cutting back as almost every state and city are doing in our country on public education on public safety and so on so the greeks are the advance case being tested how far you can push a population so that other countries that are moving in that direction will have a clear idea of what best to do what not to do it's a little bit like an experiment and it should give all of us real pause well in the united states we've seen we have twenty five states that are run by basically democrats that have actually increased taxes increased spending as a result of that unemployment gone down g.d.p.

has gone up there's twenty four states that are run by republicans there's one that had nothing to happen twenty four states run by republicans where they've laid off government workers they've cut their government spending they've cut taxes they and the result is that their g.d.p. has gone down and their unemployment has gone up so you'd think we could see it here and u.k. is doing their austerity thing there are already going to say but austerity is not happening in germany it's not happening in france it's not happening in sweden denmark finland norway those countries are all spending like there's no tomorrow and there their g.d.p. agreement spending is well over fifty percent g.d.p. and doing just fine so how can the world look at this and think that i mean why doesn't everybody get this i like the given example it's a little bit a kind of amnesia. for americans because the last time this country was in a serious economic crunch of this sort and one thousand thirty s. the great depression we had a president who came in and started out being

a centrist balanced budget all of that that's what roosevelt campaigned on in thirty two out there and so but within a year or two of taking office as the horrific nature of what was happening to the mass of people became clearly and more important but mayors of people found an organized way to express themselves he completely reversed himself and suddenly all those things we hear today there isn't enough money we have to cut back. well it was a wish depression they had a bigger problem with not having money but the reality was roosevelt created social security with a hundred and one he created the unemployment insurance program he gave all people a lot of money for the rest of their lives and he gave unemployed people lot of money and then the capstone he hired twelve million people in the next four five years government killed sort of last resort suddenly the government was going to do what we might call trickle up economics give them at the bottom let them have the money to spend the keep their warms and take care of their families and that will

make money for corporations and when everybody wanted we're going to get the money the answer was clear he taxed corporations any tax the rich at higher rates than they've ever paid since and he found the money and that changed the dynamic didn't solve the great depression but it made the burden of it much less for the mass of people and help change the whole direction that got us out but it isn't even just measuring today it's our own history ought to teach us sure that this is not austerity and greece is not the way to go and those people who say well government spending because of the great depression world war two did my response as well wasn't that a huge government spending program was the extension of what had been done before around. and then followed with that with the g.i. bill. when you describe the situation in greece you were talking about the we are they there was a there was a pronoun in there of the group that is testing you know how far can we push greece

let's take this this weak and feeble old poor small country and slam up against the ones who are see how far we can push them who's that group that's doing that is that i mean you know greece is now being run by a guy who used to be a banker and he was never elected he was put in office when the guy who was elected said hey let's have a national referendum on whether or not we should pay back the banks they got him out of office that week you know the the. who is the real simple it's the president of france who's probably not going to be president very much longer because the sarkozy it is the chancellor in germany mrs merkel is the bankers of greece who have a lot of at stake because they have the biggest lenders to the greek government they want a settlement that takes care of them they're willing to go for gold some of the debt but they want to get in exchange for the bonds they're giving up another set of bonds which is what this deal is which will it burden the country of greece for

years to come with servicing that plainly interest paying that backers are not going to be allowed to do this again so it's people who want to solve the problem of this great economic crisis on the backs of those people because that sounds a lot like the dynamic tensions that exist in the nineteen teens in europe when our ferdinand was assassinated in serie a for in is this the kind of thing that could literally trip off in the interim european or absolutely and you can see already from the footage of two shown your your viewers that the tensions in greece no one has ever seen this before this is going back to the end of world war two when greece was right between you know the eastern part of europe and the western part of the world those struggles the greeks are beside themselves and the i have students of mine who are professors in greek unit universities they've had their wages cut as a teacher because all but universities are public they're forty nine hundred forty two thirty three percent since may of two thousand and ten they can't function as

human beings they can't take care of their families they can't maintain their homes good driving people who really had nothing to do with this crisis weren't part of the banking system didn't negotiate the loans didn't demand any of this you're now saying you're going to have to pay in and in the two minutes or so we have left who did precipitate this crisis who created this crisis. and what's your suggestion of how greece should get out of it and we should avoid any up in greece a situation many people participated in producing this crisis i'm not going to say it's this one or that one it's a system that doesn't work and i don't want to blame the bankers either they're caught up in this they're caught up in a system that makes it reasonable to do things for example to give loans to greece year after year even when the conditions are very questionable when the hustle that goldman sachs and others did is very well known in the banking community they've

made along the job of the bankers to have be a prudent lender they weren't real prudent to say the least and they hustled with their fellow bankers and made our country put a country in hock to deal with the results of what they did wrong and we're now seeing that path is being taken to the extent of really breaking down a whole country and i think there's going to be of blowback and a pushback from that that is going to take stary shape in europe and beyond because so many other good morning are coming to america i think we have to face the fact that austerity is morally ethically and economically unacceptable and that we have to change the direction of the united states so we didn't have to states one way or the other but there's a radical remembrance of what we did in the great depression and we bring it back as a key part of what has to be done here and and what would you say then then you would say to the republicans who are saying cut source. stop it stop which issuing

realize that the way to go is to take the money from where it is corporations who pay lower taxes now than at any time in the last half century wealthy people who pay lower taxes income taxes then at any time in the last half century they're doing better than they have and they're deader than ever before they helped bring this crisis you know in the one nine hundred fifty s. and sixty's when we had ninety one percent top bracket on our income tax the rationale we tax corporations was we're coming out of the world war we have to. get out and the people who have the most should give the most that's the logic we should use today then the money would be there to stimulate the economy and no debt that would have to borrow because we tax that from the people we're now borrowing it from and that's a mistake we have it ourselves we can do it richard wolffe thanks so much for being with its look it's great to see and still. coming up in size daily take is the primary season drags on republican candidates continue to emerge bruised battled

and beaten why do republican primaries for their candidates democratic primaries help don't predicate. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old when she told the truth. i'm a contestant and i am going to get a friend that i love rap and hip hop music and. she was kind of the jester but. i'm very proud of the rule that out you see it's playing.

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 see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you don't. charge is a big. fight . for.

crazy or not bad for a night's work alex hope a foreign currency exchange broker in england read up a bit of a bar tab at a club in liverpool over the weekend and the damage was done the build total ran to a whopping three hundred twenty three thousand dollars as two hundred three thousand nine hundred british pounds started off the night with a one hundred ninety seven thousand dollars bottle of champagne followed that with an additional eighty seven thousand dollars worth of bubbly he then tapered his spending a bit pain joe six thousand dollars for some vodka of course hope made sure to be a gentleman one witness to the night of debauchery said there must have been about sixty women at any time vying for his attention and he then ordered shots for every single woman in the club hope closed out the night by getting his waitress

a tip of only twenty nine thousand dollars after hearing about all that i'll call john boehner called mr hope to congratulate him on his remarkable achievement and said he would join him on his next night. just. the. it's the good the bad of the very very point below thermal was slowly ugly. but the citizens of vermont as i mentioned yesterday communities across vermont were voting on whether or not to tell congress to amend the u.s. constitution to keep money out of politics well that effort passed fifty three communities across the state yesterday sending a resounding message to washington these communities join the likes of portland oregon new york city and los angeles viciously introducing measures to push back against the citizens united sime washington listens to the people of vermont and

all over our nation stops corporate cash from both driving and county elections. the bad georgia state some georgia state senate voted yesterday to ban un documented and immigrants from attending any of georgia's public colleges passing of the vote comes despite the fact that state college officials repeated lee told government officials that the bill was completely unnecessary federal law does not prevent undocumented immigrants from attending public universities and colleges leaves it to the states to decide whether or not to admit undocumented immigrants and guard was the undocumented immigrants the chance to further their education is not a value on which america was for it and the very very ugly representative cory gardner despite only being in his first term as a u.s. congressman gardner is doing all he can to line his pockets with money from big oil and then some to cozy up with oil executives and gardner introduce legislation that would link the revenue from sales of our strategic oil reserves to increases that

oil and gas leases on federal land basically if we sell five percent of our reserves president obama must increase the amount of federal lands at least for oil and gas to the big companies by five percent or so gardner was to destroy american land just as well a boy is destroying our environment i mean our economy and gardner support of the industry it's actually it's very very. we're learning one thing this republican primary it's the democrats should never ever run to the center or become blue dogs to get votes here's why. primary elections forced candidates to talk specifics to tell the truth that's because the party base is made up of the well informed voters and the political junkies and

they're not going to let candidates speak in generalities for long before getting better they want to know specific causes now only that all the candidates in a primary generally have broadly the same political beliefs so to differentiate themselves from each other they have to get down into the weeds politically speaking the wonky we talk about the micro details of the ways that they do things that differentiate them from their opponents i mean specific cuts specific investments specific tax rates specific foreign policy goals and in a republican primary that's tough to do since over the last one hundred years the republicans have essentially had a plutocratic platform and on the favors the tiny wealthy elite over the middle class it's a platform that doesn't play well with the majority of voters but if i have a platform they have to embrace to win over their far right wing base but most of the american people hear the actual specifics coming from the republican candidates

they're horrified they hear about letting people without health insurance die they hear candidates calling social security a ponzi scheme they hear candidates pledging to end medicare as we know it and they hear candidates beat the drum for more wars in the middle east just listen to some of the things that have been said during this year's republican primary. my view on other social issues such as the gay marriage i've always opposed gay marriage under your proposed tax plan he would pay zero taxes explained it would depend on whether and whether the particular kind of payments he made were counted under that plan as capital gains or whether john was referring to the republican candidates are talking about ways to transition this program it is a monstrous lie. it is a ponzi scheme this whole idea that you have to think here.

are you saying is this id should just let him die. we must not allow iran to have a nuclear weapon if they do the world changes america will be at risk and someday nuclear weaponry will be used by the tea party might applaud but no one else in america will so this answers a question that a lot of pundits have been asking why is it that republican primaries produce such damage candidates like mitt romney weakening that one yet the two thousand and eight democratic primary made hillary clinton and barack obama stronger and more respected when just look at the numbers forty one percent of americans say this primary season has given them a less favorable view of the republican party and by a margin of forty six to forty one percent americans want democrats in control of congress next year and if romney is the nominee and his approval rating stays like it is he'll have the lowest approval rating of any party's nominee in modern history just twenty eight percent by comparison around this time in two thousand

and eight president obama's approval rating was thirty four points higher at sixty two percent so again why do republican primaries hurt their candidates the democratic primaries help their candidates. it's actually very simple although you'll probably never hear the simple truth on the corporate media the reason why the approval numbers of republicans are falling during a primary is because during a primary your candidates are forced to tell the truth about their plutocratic agenda and that truth is ugly and the reason why the democrats got a boost in their primaries is because they're forced to tell the truth about their populist agenda if they're actually on the side of the people instead of the plutocrats and the archives during the two thousand a primary you didn't hear candidates running around talking about ending medicare and social security in a democratic primary didn't hear him talking about giving more tax breaks to the

rich or starting more wars you heard stuff like this instead our job should be to try to create the conditions that enable people to live up to their god given potential and that means health care for everyone no exceptions nobody left out what i have proposed is that we. raise the can't on the payroll tax because right now millionaires and billionaires don't have to pay beyond ninety seven thousand dollars a year that's words camps i was the first to come out with a strategic energy fund where we need to be investing in clean renewable energy and i think we could put five million americans to work that i've been talking about is not just told but not just inspiration it's a four thousand dollars tuition credit for every student every year there is to. hold because before that i think we have to invest in our infrastructure that also will get the economy moving again and i believe we could put about three million people to work and good union jobs where people get a good wage with

a good set of benefits that can support a middle class family with a rising standard of living. the core democratic message that you just heard is popular with the american electorate so i'm from it move to the center it's the republicans on the other hand who have to hide their real agenda and move to the center this is why as soon as the primaries are over inevitably year after year republicans start acting like democrats then move to the sun or at least talking like them if they don't actually move to the center and they start talking in general terms like reagan's shining city on the hill and romney's believe in america to hide the fact that they're really only looking out for millionaires billionaires and the corporations that got them that way for example they start talking about preserving medicare and social security and helping the middle class even though these are euphemisms for programs that will privatized social security . medicare as we've seen over the past thirty years of reaganomics savage the

middle class moving our wealth up to the top one tenth of one percenters and with the so-called independent voters a phrase that basically means people who don't know much at all about politics only pay attention to t.v. ads during the first the last few weeks before the election they can often get away with that with those people president franklin roosevelt was on to this republican gimmick way back in one nine hundred thirty six game ban you you. let me make economic pain. that. we believe thank you we. don't know any we didn't even know it. we've only baby. them thank you.

thank. god we night raids. thank you doing man. ah. we. we. and everything. but do we not will. any already and it. rather well we can't trust you're going to see this play out over and over again over the next eight months as the republican candidate most likely mitt romney begins drifting toward the center in his rhetoric once he feels he has the nomination wrapped up it's a republican survival technique it's the only way he's going to have a chance at winning in november because the plutocratic message he's sending out during the primary election won't give him

a chance in the general election as proven by his twenty eight percent approval rating today of president obama and democrats in congress who are up for election this year hey guys do not do what the republicans will be doing as we get closer to november and democrats should not slide to the center the democratic populist message resonates well with the american people so democrats should loudly embrace it as they had for november be proud of health care reform and defend it fight against too much corporate power and stand up to overturn citizens united fight against taxpayer subsidies to oil companies and push for alternative energy fight against never ending war and speak up for peace this is what the american people want to hear especially now during this time of crisis in america americans don't want so-called corporatist centrists who just preserve the status quo who are too afraid to take on wall street big oil they run old progressives who speak populist truths so be proud of who you are democrats and electoral victories will follow.

that's it for the big picture tonight please know that our daily radio show is going to be moving from noon to three a three to six starting monday and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there and get active tag your it similar.

to. yours.