the. private prisons make money off course reach more people they lock up the longer you keep them the more money they might well somebody see it as a way to keep criminals off the streets but the private prison industry says that it's a recession proof investment profits of jail time what could possibly go wrong. and while private prison firms are raking in the dough pollard students are drowning in debt and sadly that trend is only going to get worse that's because interest rates on student loans are about to see could future hike. just. go to almost zero. it's really just a brain fart. well from

a random thoughts or railing point for protesters to the place for breaking news who knew that one hundred forty characters could revolutionize the way we talk on twitter it's explore its twitter sixth birthday and we'll show you how a little bird could make and break up person's reputation. that evening it's wednesday march twenty first four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy catherine and you're watching our team well here in the united states there may be talk of small signs of economic improvement but soaring dead a crippled housing market and across consumers it's still gloom and doom when it comes to the big fiscal picture and most folks are struggling to survive in these difficult times but if you're looking to make a quick buck and gambling isn't your thing there is a billion dollar business opportunity out there for you it's an enormous industry

that's virtually recession proof with sky high profits to groote states and average americans can with some cash to spare can all get in on the action and it's not snake oil folks it is the business of keeping people behind bars. as more. america's financial crisis has been something of an unsociable monster swallowing up millions of jobs homes and businesses throughout the nation yet amid this ongoing economic armageddon one industry has remained recession proof. private prisons. with more than two point three million people behind bars the united states trumps china russia and the rest of the world in both the number and percentage of people doing time where it falls short though is incapable of containing such a large population it's a political dilemma turned cash cow for dozens of corporations creaming profits off

punishment private prisons make money off of incarceration and more people in iraq and the longer the people in the more money they make so they have the same perverse incentive to expand our justice system and increase our number of people or our number of citizens who are behind bars because it increases their profit margin. the profitability of private jails depends on the prison population in ewing to go up the rate of incarceration in the us has quadrupled since the eighty's when america's war on drugs are short in the three strikes policy which ties judges to mandatory minimum sentencing even for non filing offenders since the late eighty's and into the ninety's and now today we see a turn away from that rehabilitated model so across the country prison programming is cut rehabilitation is being cut there's less opportunities for education to gain work skills and instead there's just this drive towards isolation towards

punishment private prison companies are paid between forty five and one hundred thirty dollars a day per detainee rates for juveniles women and immigrants could be higher for all public prisons are accountable to the public private ones answer only to shareholders and are not subject to external scrutiny that means many private contractors face you consequences for the poor or even inhumane treatment of detainees and we just see you know more and more isolation sensory deprivation and prisoners who literally never interact with human beings with guards would come. into the facility there would be a sign out front with their stock price to let them know how the company was doing corrections corporation of america and geo group are the two largest private prison companies with combined revenues of two point nine billion dollars last year but critics say they've been using that financial clout to line their own pockets even

further encouraging politicians to keep going with the heavy handed sentencing program by launching an influential lobby campaign in the corridors of power are being in the order to influence public officials only a small part of the private prison industry is. to cheap oleson check and others include campaign donations so the companies make hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to politicians nationwide both on the federal and state levels with most states and the federal government currently operating under record deficits and budget cuts private prison companies are pitching their facilities as lower cost alternatives and while most americans continue struggling during this economic downturn mass incarceration may grow even more profitable during upper nile artsy new york. try the private prisons are raking in huge profits despite the bad

economy but the largest private prison company in this country isn't going to sit back and let the market do its thing like any smart business the corrections corporation of america is actively courting investors keeping people locked up doesn't come cheap so at a time when states are struggling with their budget shortfalls the c.c.a. is urging them to privatized in january the wall street journal and sent a letter to forty eight states with a sales pitch that went something like this we're going to buy your prison now and if you keep it mostly full or make sure that we're going to take care of it so make sure that the prison population doesn't get below ninety percent and the c.c.a. will take care of all of your incarceration needs and now there's this a bizarre power point presentation explaining why the c.c.a. is a quote unique investment opportunity for all among the highlights private prisons are recession resistant there are a large and an under under penetrated market if you will just ten percent of prisons being private the growth opportunity there is huge and with

a virtual monopoly on the industry the c.c.a. doesn't have to worry about competitors getting in the way and should the economy turn around don't worry good times mean higher incarceration rates and that of course means more profits for everyone well joe got rising call at a business i insider brought this lovely presentation to light so let's bring him into that conversation joe i have to start off by asking you that this is such an amazing investment opportunity how many shares did you buy after reading that presentation. i don't know many of them. but let's go through this i mean it does sound like a wise business investment but it is a little bit bizarre considering what the product is here lock us through i guess some of your impressions as you were reading this investment pitch. well i guess the weird part to me is how it's presented by the company and other presented by the company as being totally normal i mean it's very strange this company that that

there exists a business where you can make a lot of money incarcerating people keeping people in cages and i'm not like squeamish i understand that we have prisons in society back you know they have to be there and some people ought to be in prison and so i you know i'm not some idealist that would like to see prisons abolished or anything but it still seems strange to me so then when you see these presentations of these investment pitches they're basically talk about the business like any other business i mean it's like you know coca-cola would advertise that even in a downturn or pace company might advertise that in the downturn people still have to buy to pay so it's a good very special purpose industry then you have this company saying even in a downturn the private prison business never stops blooming as if it's just this totally normal business and it obviously isn't and then i think of beyond that part of that disturbs me is the incentives for the prison industry to lobby for more incarceration you know. the idea that it becomes in their best interest to see

longer sentences prison sentences handed out for more crimes and so if you know it's all pretty strange and unlike pretty much anything else you'll see in a publicly traded company right and then that's the whole sort of crocks on it because they're trying profits to the outcome of incarceration rates and you know i mean i'm not one to pass judgment on what individuals do with their money but it seems to me that the bigger problem you get into here is when you apply this to states right because states are not only going to be financially vested in and keeping these private firms profitable in order to keep their rates low that states also control policy to some degree and i mean could there be a conflict of interests where for example more folks will end up going to prison essentially in order to stay true these deals. it seems absolutely there's a potential for a conflict of interest or just basically the interests of the company not being

interest or in the same interests of society that may not want such a high degree of incarceration or maybe prefer a society in which we aim to rehabilitate prisoners faster and so on so there's all kinds of things and then you know there are questions about in this case. prison are companies offering to buy existing prisons and you have to wonder whether the state is actually saving money in the long term or whether it's just they can do to project budget constraints they can't resist a one time lump sum payment when they sell the prison so there are all kinds of strangers issues involved in this business right and of course in the state issue in order to you know they'll have a mandate to keep the prison ninety percent fall so it's not like you know a shoe company where you have to make enough shoes to keep the factory operating at ninety percent we're talking about criminals here so if the rates drop or better alone you know you know i don't really know what how do you want to go. one thing i would also point out is it's not just prisons that end up having an incentive the

prison guard union in california is famously powerful for having as you know for having supported a lot of the same things that the private prisons have in terms of increased costs ration and increase you know penalties for criminals so basically any group that benefits from more people in prison will do you know will try and use. organized power and expand you know the prison society so it's not just private prisons but obviously. they're the most glaring example of this and one of the things i have to ask about is their sales pitch said that you know basically if the economy gets better the prison population increases why why is that what's the fiscal logic there this is interesting then i hadn't realized before but it makes sense so when the economy is weak. states spare back how much they spend on

prisons so they'll parole people sooner that makes sense to save money you know to do everything they can just be funded but then it rather than that being the new bar then it apparently they really make up for lost time so what they what the corrections corp of america was saying is that after these recession periods you even have growth slows a little bit maybe prison population doesn't grow that much that we've seen in past recessions of in the years afterwards the states play catch up and make up for the last time so that in the end the recessions don't really hurt they just kind of pause it but then they make it back on the other side it's kind of fascinating but they're really bizarre trend but you know in these tough times i guess we should be thankful when any business is going well or moral issues i guess i'm i going to side with you know especially real estate business are especially the real estate doesn't think that way but you know by that that's the logic i mean why not think bigger than just the united states of america right i mean it cost what i think eight hundred thousand dollars to house a detainee at guantanamo bay the war on terrorism going away any time soon what's

your investment advice should the c.c.a. get into the whole of indefinite detention business. well you know that they do they actually talked about guantanamo specifically but they talk about new opportunities so they talk about immigrant detainees as being a new untapped market but they're not in it all but you know i mean it does seem like there's a big trend between sort of the private army is for the blackwater type companies just in general sort of the military and defense state and the military and security state being privatized seems to be probably a trend that's only going to grow while you know i guess i guess that the markets are always right the consequences aside i think you're right thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us on this job my son paul the deputy editor for the business insider. well the private prison industry may be in a recession proof mode but the cost of a college education sadly is not and they to congress it just got a heck of

a lot more expensive to earn that degree now on july first interest rates on federally subsidized loans are going to double from three point four percent to six point eight percent congress doesn't step in as many as eight million college students are going to be well screwed and say you borrow twenty three thousand dollars right that's the maximum amount of money that you can get in student loans if you take a decade to pay that money back your debt is going to go up by five grand in a twenty year repayment plan you're going to own an extra eleven hundred dollars now that's almost as expensive as two rishon in some places now sadly it was problem is part of a larger trend college tuition prices ice are skyrocketing and so is unemployment for recent graduates outstanding student debt hit a trillion dollars last year and america's americans now owe more money for their school loans than they do on their credit cards or car loans so how do these mountains of debt affect graduates and is the government investing nearly enough in

our intellectual infrastructure well with me to get some answers for these questions of suzanne claudio she is an organizer for occupy student debt suzanne welcome to the program i want to start with this rate hike from three point four percent to six point eight percent before our viewers' eyes sort of glaze over with all the numbers if you can put that in context for me i mean what does that mean for a student who's already struggling to put themselves through school but first thanks very much for having me today on the show and just a quick correction and actually the occupy student debt campaign we can be found in our people can be undone to learn. and will she just there's a lot of people out there who are in school and. so what this means for students is . when you're already debt burdens the debt burden is now going to be stretched out so far into the future that what already seemed like forever is even further

and so what students hopefully are going to see my guess is who the legislators really serve if you're well willing to put students who are already in debt it into . out in student potentially their entire lives you really have to ask yourself if legislators are looking out for your best interest or of those of the big banks and you said that bondage for the entire life if you just explain what you mean by that because as i understand it student loans can't just go bankrupt and sort of get rid of the amount of that that you have as a corrupt oh absolutely student loans will be with you beyond the grave where there are protections like bankruptcy which is really an awful disposition to wish for at least with commercial debts you're able to manage your your your debts and in a in bankruptcy and for student loans issues absolutely not

a possibility and that includes private student loans which are generally more predatory nature higher interest and much more aggressive in collections the other thing that really sort of stands out to me is politicians say what you will about them they're calculating people right this is a campaign year in election year why wrap this rate hike double and potentially hurt their campaigns at such a sensitive time i mean don't they have a vested interest in at least saying in office. well i think that's a fantastic question and i would ask the same of legislators the only thing i can say is the timing is right when it comes to occupy you know we're looking at an election season and if legislators would like to show their cards right now and say they stand with big banks well there it is and i guess we'll see them in the streets well you know and actually one of the things i want to bring out from my personal experience covering occupy whether an open door or

a york is how many people i met that were really drawn to the cause because of the student debt issue because they really don't feel like lawmakers college is on their side but you know to put this more broadly what does it say to you about this country's priorities in terms of investments i mean we seem to always be able to find money for whatever military campaign we want to come. soon seem to be screwed and i think that's an incredible point and if you just take a look at the numbers well if we could make higher education in this country completely free for what we budget three months of pentagon spending three months and everybody in this country could go to school for free and that would allow students to think about who they want to be in the world and not take a degree based on what the me think return income would be you'll have people who have freedom to imagine politically. and just creatively who they are in the world and what is going to contribute to the

community beyond a teacher and they're going to turn it over to the banks as soon as they graduate. of course and you know education is something that helps the country as a whole this isn't just some. handout request per se but i'm cursed now how you got involved in this movement and what makes this an important issue to you personally . sure well i'm a graduate student at new york university and i'm involved in occupy wall street just as an individual interested in making change in the world and basically i got involved with the occupy wall street's working group which is a parent education which our group is a subgroup of so the occupy student deck employment is part of our proposed wall street's activities and we're actually planning to make it a very big spread overall in occupy and in the occupy student her camp here with marking the one trillion day mark april twenty fifth we're going to be throwing a party in the spirit of the bankers who are going to be getting rich on this one

trillion dollars of student debt so we hope to see you out there real you can find us one t.j. . and we're going to throw and he should come dressed as your favorite banker and let's have a big party for us well if if if if if we can afford to vest our favorite banker and do you personally have that how much do you owe your student loans i do actually have that now it's interesting because i work also at the graduate school at new york university and so part of my benefit is i'm able to get to additional mission but because even though the university isn't charging me to mission i come at a low complicated because the federal government considers my value of my education and then well you is an expensive school as income and so i need to take loans because the government will take taxes out of my salary as if he had the value of tuition at new york university and so by the time i graduate i will have are over

approximately forty thousand dollars just to be able to make up the difference of what the government has taken back from a benefit and in the meanwhile this is going to school for free at n.y.u. is forty thousand dollars and that the trick of course is when interest rates accruing you don't know forty thousand dollars and it's very. which is why her math on student debt is so confusing for people to understand. it's very hard to know what you think and what you owe and how you manage it but of course so once you graduate your incredible earning power with that degree will make the payments of breeds are a it's. well i don't know if that's the case these days with the economy making it very difficult you know i work with students every day and people learn not so certain that they're going to be able to make those payments and this which is why you have so many people in default well it's a really tragic story suzanne and thank you so much for shedding some light on this and sort of helping folks see how this actually affects real people and not just

assistance on a screen that was suzanne claudio talking about student debt thank you so much they pleasure right well meanwhile a little bird told me that i'm somebody is perfect today that's right the social networking site that made everything from wiener gate to the arab spring possible is turning sixty years old today and to say the least it has revolutionized the way we communicate it can be expressed in one hundred forty characters then it's probably not worth our time so goes to trends of course it can start out that way in our key correspondent on a study of turkana shows us where this whole micro blogging phenomenon known as twitter came from and how it changed political discourse. six years ago. the little blue bird chirped its first tweet a new era of social networking took off point if you squeezed into one hundred forty characters a tweet really should just be a random utterance and you know like it should be held to almost zero standard whatsoever it's really just a brain fart but with half

a billion users today from anonymous bloggers to world leaders twitter has become a much more powerful force than that. and micro-blogging site helped the spread of protests during the arab spring but it's also become a tool for manipulating public opinion a book has a higher standard of checking than a column does the fact a column is a higher standard than a blog tweet is the lowest circle of fact during iran's green revolution tweeted eyewitness accounts of government brutality helped boost western support for protestors turned out many of the bloggers were thousands of miles from the action . who thought he's also appreciate the power between the occupy wall street somebody who we don't know who posts you know a message that say a cop should be killed ok my guess is the cops post you know because then they were the ones that reacted to it made it a story whether for this information or propaganda you have

a very misleading tweet from some of the members of the security council in the sense of that they're kind of using it for propaganda today we said you know and it's it's it's very selective they don't want reporter to try to find out what happened in a closed door meeting but they're tweeting things that are often forced from inside them from closed doors to private affairs our did reckless twitter posts have seen its authors humiliated and by really hated even fired so whether it's somebody like charlie sheen who can come out and say terrible things about his goss's on twitter and lose his job or someone like as their client who's now back on as a b. c. but in two thousand and seven he was on with ten russert and treated. russert with an acid so i need to. and you know lost his contract with imus and the c.e.o. for arguably the most notorious downfall now former congressman anthony weiner's tweeting a photo of his most private of parts we are certainly is one model of what not to

do and i think that if i were ever going to cheat on my wife i don't think i would start by broadcasting it over twitter. but this new broadcasting tool available to all is seductive i don't know if it makes them stupid or if they come from twitter already stupid and they simply use it stupidly i think probably the latter was closer to the truth the microblog is a minefield for those not cautious make a twitter account and post you know anything you wouldn't want your mom to see or wouldn't want be reported in the newspaper you probably shouldn't on twitter so what are we putting on twitter and early study found so called pointless babble made up forty percent of tweets news only four percent is a waste of time for me but you know i guess if you really care what sandra bullock over you're following has to say it's not always thank you social networks are definitely more time is wasted on junk in trivia and information.

everyone's made with cakes think everybody else is nonsense the world burns at the end of the day you can use it to dumb down you can use it to smarten up that's how you use anything that really matters the sixth anniversary of the first tweet marks billions of tweets already posted and revolutions guided lady gaga is the number one blogger with over twenty one million followers the micro blogs top trending topics of today include bieber our boyfriend and things i hate about sex some tweeters may well regret that one. r.t. . for a long time fascinated that twitter is still not a profitable company but speaking of profits i want to check in with lauren lister of the account to see what she has on her agenda today if not twitter what are you to be talking about lucy if you're talking about profits how would you feel if your profits your hard earned money that you put in an account that you thought was safe

was just taken by your brokerage when they were going belly up and they're going bankrupt on the way down they took your protected safe money with them that's what we know happened with m.f. global at least that's what we suspect now regulators seem to be looking for we're trying to propose eight cores on rule to tighten restrictions on the way brokerages can use these kind of customer funds but lucy there are so many unanswered questions about what exactly went down with this case that affect not just one firm but the entire financial system in terms of the precedent it sets and the message it sends so we're going to take these questions to a form your former regulator bill black william black who oversaw the prosecutions of bankers when they were doing the wrong thing back in the s. and l. crisis we want to know what's up now well it sounds like a fascinating lineup and you know given regulators trends and not being able to relive certain industries i certainly hope that you have some of those tough questions on that show we will we'll be looking forward to it thank you so much.

that does it for me for now for more on the stories we've covered you can go to our website our team dot com slash r t america or you tube child now we're follow me on twitter that after this is lucy and of word. issues that she must be a huge musician and. more as the syrian civil war claims on calls for an outside military intervention grows louder and louder while at the same time there is. for.

the first. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then he lives something else and you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. the admission is free the critics say should free country or judges free the arrangement the free.