the. old. fashioned street. called. good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm more in the spirit here in washington d.c. these are your headlines sixteen two thousand and twelve china makes a move to increase the trading flexibility of the you want reportedly one of its strongest moves yet to show that you want is ready to become a global currency now it also gives banks a new pitch reportedly for bonds and other dwan denominated investment so we'll talk about what developments like this mean for business the u.s. and china trade and currencies song and dance we hear so much about and the global economy and speaking of the world economy remains on life support from central banks now we've talked about this a lot but this conclusion is what the latest brookings institution financial times

tracking index of sicily reportedly shows so as central banks like the federal reserve continue to prop up the big banks what is the cost to true entrepreneurial capitalism in the u.s. and remember when u.s. treasury secretary timothy geithner got into trouble at his confirmation hearing a few years back for failing to pay some of its taxes and this came out. but i used . to prepare my returns. if you laughter but it was the turbo tax defense and governor got as fine from the i.r.s. waves so with three quarters of individual u.s. tax returns expected to be filed electronically this year should average americans have protection from some kind of turbo tax defense still we'll talk about it let's get to today's capital account.

all right that's monday and over the weekend what do we hear one day nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz gave us a warning about global trade surpluses and deficits and math take a listen. it is simply impossible for all countries to have a short. so you know that's a recent or so he argues the whole powerhouse export or and massive trade deficit dynamic isn't going to go on working forever and as countries with the major trade deficits realize that's unsustainable and seek to become trade surplus countries if that's not going to happen you just heard him because the math does not work out so competitive currency devaluation the currency wars we often talk about on this show and aggressive trade missions now when it comes to when it comes to currency wars

the u.s. and china may be what comes to mind but where are we with that you know we've certainly heard the political rhetoric here's an example republican front runner for president mitt romney for example says he would label china a currency manipulator if he was elected take a listen. to say artificially hold down the value of their currency and therefore make their products artificially cheap and drive you out of business that isn't fair trade that's unfair trade and so if i'm president of the united states i will finally take tried it to the corporate and say look you guys are going to label you a currency manipulator and apply tariffs unless you stop those practices. but meanwhile let's just look at the news today china just made a move to widen the you want intraday trading range that's their currency it increases the trading flexibility of their currency it's seen as addressing foreign complaints to china's currency policy and you know in fact the renminbi has been

slowly appreciating in value for over half a decade and that moves accelerated over the past eighteen months not to mention the us is easy money policies have drawn criticism too for having a similar kind of currency devaluing effect meanwhile though the u.s. and china have a unique and interdependent relationship that's very important to understand as economies one and two on this globe so our guest is here to help us get to that and her international consulting firm she's an advocate for an advisor to american companies doing business in international markets notably china she's held presidential appointments in the administrations of five u.s. presidents and was u.s. secretary of commerce where she helped not only to increase american exports but she led a mission to china in one thousand nine hundred two to normalize commercial relations so she can give us a very unique and important perspective that's part and understand barbara hackman franklin she's president and c.e.o. of barbara franklin enterprises and her story is told in this new book it's

a matter of simple justice the untold story of barbara hackman franklin and a few good women who she has been a major trailblazer for women in and in the public and in public works so thank you for being on the show and for the work that you've done for women like myself thank you and thank you for mentioning the poor. young women this happened forty years. you know when i served in the white house of president richard nixon we hope that young women and young men will realize how much has changed since then and of the wonderful trailblazing that was done by so many people back then absolutely just hearing your story it certainly made me aware of how much has changed just in the last thirty to forty years even and you've been an important part of that so thank you and now let's move on to your real bread and butter which i'm so excited to hear about from your perspective which is u.s. china relations because we often hear from u.s. politicians especially in election year is very hawkish rhetoric towards china and i played one example of mitt romney saying i would label them a currency manipulator if i was in office i'm curious from your perspective you

would buy businesses doing business in china that i would presume see china as an opportunity i'm curious what their perspective is from them how do they see china as an opportunity to have exactly right it's a two hundred billion dollar market for u.s. companies and u.s. products and services and we see that very clearly and a number of things are happening to try to win hands that opportunity i think what china has just done here with its currency flexibility move just right now yesterday is a very good move because i think it begins to to play down some of the political concerns about currency many companies are not as concerned about currency as i believe perhaps some politicians and some others here at home where we're jobs may or least perceived jobs have been lost because they've moved to china jobs move all

over the world actually so i sometimes think china gets more of the blame for that than anything is is is accurate yeah so i really think what we see it in business terms is a great opportunity of that market now i think we have to understand how interconnected and i think you set this. how interconnected the two economies are and in fact the very foundation of the u.s. trying to bilateral relationship today is economic didn't start out that way it's a very complex relationship because they are customer but they are supplier there's competition between us and there's collaboration between us and so it's a complex matrix kind of relationship and we simply have to ravage it well on both sides so that we don't have trade frictions getting out of control and there's so much i want to get to you on that because you have been meeting with both american and businesses and officials and chinese officials for many many decades now is

there an impact of the domestic rhetoric that comes out and for example the u.s. when you do have all of this rhetoric about currency devaluation and then needing to let their currency rise as just one example does that have any impact well i think it does i think it is it's a concern really on both sides and then sometimes there's rhetoric from the chinese side right about the u.s. so i think we need both of us to play down this sort of rhetoric because we are inextricably bound together we've got to make this relationship we're not only for our our each of our countries but the global economy now is very dependent in many ways on how the u.s. and china behave and we are going to have trade frictions but the key thing is to manage them well so that they don't get out of control we have a trading relationship with canada you don't hear a whole lot about that you don't hear a lot of canada but we have that's our biggest one and we've learned i think to

manage those disputes well here is the same kind of lesson i think the u.s. and. chinese sides need to learn about about our our frictions and our differences and you know we have a long history here of of different kinds of relationships back and forth but. in the two sides of but this is a new era this is the twenty first century well that's an important that's what i want to ask do you think it's become more politicized in recent years or has it always been this way what is it i'm curious what kind of that the root it. oh i i it's hard to say because the relationship is so complex but i think some of it is just plain not understanding the real dimensions of this economic relationship and not out of people to people level i think we need now more work to build trust and i'm talking government to government business to business people

to people that's why these student exchanges and cultural exchanges help to build this from the grassroots up and i think we need to do this because neither neither one of us is going away now their system is different from ours that's part of the route we don't like the way their system operates we we like our system of democratic governance and capitalism entrepreneurial capitalism the two things are connected so what's made this country great they have a different model we don't agree with that but that's the way it is and i'm i think we need to be pragmatic and deal with what is and make the very best of it for all sides so is the reality of business and kind of the business world yes i want to play a sound bite from get em all the chairman of g.e. when he was asked about china and i think the interviewer was a little surprised by his response let's take a listen. you're afraid of china. we see them as

a big market and big opportunity. but it is good that they're there it is you know it is a big market and a big opportunity and we need to just get over the hurdles and get on with it because we we benefit here are some of the benefits from china trade and from what china has to offer and now trying to wants to turn itself into a more consumption oriented society that's in this last twelve year plan actually was in there before yeah well that's that's a good thing if that's a consumer for us yeah and so that is here and you want it increases in value they'll be able to buy more important sadly thankfully and so that's that's why we need to keep this this thing going i would say that the currency issue is not at the top of the list of business business concerns you know some of you do it well they are rare i'll tell you what what is high level concern is intellectual

property protection and the chinese government has put in place the kind of law or regime you need it's the enforcement that's on even that's of i would say paramount concern to our businesses more so even than the the currency also we want an open investment climate we have one here trying these companies want to invest here which they can try and large they can and we shouldn't be afraid of that either because they can come here bring capital create jobs now we want the same thing on the other side and there are some restrictions today in china about foreign ownership in certain sectors we would like to see those removed and i think as we talk and negotiate and consult constantly that we will make progress i'm i'm optimistic about the relationship well that's good here just real quickly i'm. curious because you have been working on this relationship between the u.s. and china since you went over on

a mission in one thousand nine hundred you have things gotten better or worse ok it's hard to tell from the rhetoric is it better or worse oh back back in those days it was. it's a it's a leagues different his whole i can say. my mission as the president george h.w. bush was to reconvene with my counterpart in the u.s. trying to joint commission commerce and trade j c c t which had not been meeting since the events of june of one thousand nine hundred ninety eight tiananmen square because there was a sanction placed on trying one of eight that we placed on trying to hit high level government to government contact and so my mission took that away and gave a green light to american companies who wanted to explore doing business in china but were a little bit reluctant because they weren't sure how their government was going to feel about it and now you say that it's this huge opportunity for them i want to leave it there for a moment we have to get a break when we come back there's

a lot more i want to talk about so we will have more of our bragman franklin president and c.e.o. of barber franklin enterprises also still ahead bankers and insurers will have to pledge an oath to put their clients' interests first the oath as part of new financial regulations there will give you our three cents with special guest to loose change today alone in a coffee but first your closing market numbers. you just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old so if you told the truth. i am a concession i am a total ghetto i love that. he

was kind of the guest today. i'm very proud of the world she has played. you know sometimes you see a story and the 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 is ok. i'm charging the big picture of. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions. made who can you trust no one who is imbued with a global missionary see where we had

a state controlled capitalism is called sackfuls when nobody dares to ask why we do our t. question more. welcome back let's switch gears from china in the u.s. through the world economy which remains on life support from central banks and has deteriorated since last fall that's according to the brookings institution financial times tracking index and we know a lot of that central bank support and the put it he has been pumped into banks at the same time banks still appear to be fighting attempts to brain and risk wall street banks are for example reportedly resisting a federal reserve plan to limit their exposure to individual companies and governments it's a law that's attempting to rein in counterparty risk now banks are using the liquidity please saying it will remove liquidity this is what remember they've said

about the volcker rule too so it remains to be seen if this will be an example of big banks getting their way also being propped up but i'll tell you this i don't know a lot of small business owners or entrepreneurs that i talk to they get to tell regulators what rules they want or who have benefited from central bank liquidity the syllabi so my question where are we with entrepreneurial capitalism that's my next question for barbara hackman franklin president and c.e.o. barbara franklin enterprises stories told this book a matter of simple justice the untold story of barbara hackman franklin and if you good women she's also an expert on corporate governance and has served on boards of directors for fourteen public companies so this is your expertise as well and i know you've said you are an ardent supporter of american entrepreneurial counselors and my question to you. after seeing today to fail banks get bailed out get bigger have be propped up by zero percent interest rate and liquidity facilities from the fed and so many examples of corporate welfare for other corporations to where are

we with entrepreneurial capitalism and or if you can i talk to a lot of people who are small investors small business owners who say this is not a level playing field this is not fair well you know our our culture has in it entrepreneurship the people who came here and settled this country initially and who come now are risk takers we have to have that in our culture if we're going to continue our capitalist kept our kind of capitalism and i think we can there are some things that we have to do here at home policy wise i believe in order that we we have a climate in which small business people feel good about trying new things about investing about hiring that's been our job creation machine in this country's small businesses well what do we have to do i think we've got to send a message to the world and fix ourselves a plan rather create a plan to fix our deficit and debt problem we cannot continue on the path we are we

are going it's simply is unsustainable we have a tax code that is really out of kilter with a lot of the rest of the world now we've got to either the highest or second highest corporate tax rate in the world and now we hear about more taxes to tax to tax those at the top of some of those people who are small business people think we need to redo our tax code to have a fair shake here but but so that we do stimulate those who want to invest and grow and we need to spur innovation do whatever we can to to continue the climate where people want to figure out new ways of doing things and do them and take risks i. we've at the edges been off that of this part of it because of the economic downturn and this financial situation that you were you were talking about in who's fair and who's not fair and here we have got to get our act together

i believe in governmental policy work well i think that's really fundamental here that's interesting i also want to ask on that note of innovation we recently saw this jobs act passed bipartisan support and signed by the president on the one hand it is supposed to allow small businesses to more easily raise capital because it allows crowdfunding but not a lot of regulation on the other hand there's a lot they got and it is a bill that i speak spoken to a lot of people who say this is an open door for fraud this rolls back a bunch of sarbanes oxley type security laws and allows companies to not report a lot of a lot of accounting and auditing things for years after going public companies make a billion dollars and allows pump and dump schemes and things they created enron and worldcom to happen to happen again it's something like this and that positive or negative well it's hard to tell on this one. and i am no expert on what is in there and what the the outcomes will be often with it with pieces of legislation

like this there are unintended consequences i think you're solving one problem but you're but are good friends in the congress are creating another so i don't know i would just like us to take a deep breath and step backward here as a country and that we have we're going to have a election here very shortly and i'm hopeful that whoever is elected whether it's president reelected or governor romney by the way i support him but i disagree with him on some of his trying to resurrect and and our congressional people but they will get serious about what we need to do here at home and didn't even mention our education system that's piece of this puzzle too in order that we can be as competitive an economy and a country and be stimulating the. very people we want to invest and create. a market a lot of who would want to compete and they just feel like there's a lot of red tape in the way i really appreciate you being here and filling us in on so much of this from your perspective that was our brackman franklin she is

president c.e.o. of barber franklin enterprises thanks again thank you for. all right before we go let's wrap up with some loose change and we have a special guest today that hope. to the law to make coffee will an encouraging nature who is taking a much needed day off and shannon in the control room so let's take a trip down memory lane as tomorrow is tax day in the u.s. and let's look back at timothy geithner's confirmation hearings for a second. but i used. my returns.

prompt you to report. from form of purchase on your argument. not to my recollection. remember that he basically got busted for using turbo tax and evading taxes and failing to pay some of his i.m.f. income due to the software's oversight will the turbo tax defense actually work for him the iris wave penalties against which isn't the case for the rest of taxpayers they can't use that defense and with so many people filing electronically three quarters expected this year to be electronically filed a number of those i'm sure using tax software is that fair alona you're asking me i mean. i know that's a no brainer that obviously it isn't fair i mean really this is one of those examples where you see the policies haven't exactly caught up with what the current reality is and if so many people are now using turbo tax other kinds of online software i know that i did i don't know about you then i'm terrified to read of my

guy who gets to have his fees waived because of some mistakes claims mistakes we don't really know if there are mistakes or not or purposeful then i think the rest of us should you know it's kind of a weird policy to have to say that only those people that actually use an accountant can then blame those who can blame those mistakes on their accountants but the rest of us can't blame it on purpose completely i think that if there is not some way that the laws catch up with the rest of us that this is really crony capitalism at work to need guy in or gets away with turbo tax gets his fees waived but if you make an honest mistake you get these you get interest you get penalties i think that it's a racket that in the us in order to pay the government your taxes you have to either pay an accountant or turbo tax or some kind of software that's going to open you up to all these problems shannon what do you think they should really call those. and everyone should use it. i like it i like the guy or girl let's focus on that instead of the buffett rule which we've already exposed as a sham and move on to the next story because this is kind of crazy are we on

drones drones we know is a expanding industry it seems colleges are taking notice take a look. he emeril classroom looks like a room for high end gamers. they're actually simulators giving students the experience of taking off and landing drones for missions along the border. so there's actually a drone major and according to bloomberg and roman and universities with majors and joe drone flying and creation are on the rise salaries are pretty good at least fifty thousand dollars and for those in dangerous locations which i don't know what is in a building that's not up to code or something but i mean is this really where it's come to we have a bull market in targeted killing is exactly where it's going on fortunately i mean right now i think already the drone industries about a six billion dollar industry from the recent reports that i've read it's going to

be over eleven billion dollars twenty twenty one and now we have not only in our military the cia increasingly relying on the use of drones but we also have the f.a.a. bill that just passed which means that in a couple of years our skies are could be opened up to domestic use of drones in a science can be used by media organizations of course police departments law enforcement are going to use it. and commercial organizations might use it so it's not shocking to me i guess it makes sense but obviously opens up a lot of legal ethical questions not only of killing from afar with the push of a button which by the way there's a really great piece of rolling stone about that today by michael hastings but. no it's really good. because of this obvious talk about all the. privacy issues as well and you have to wonder what it's going to mean for those drone operators already some of them have p.t.s.d. and at the same time some of them feel like they're a little bored because they're not getting in on the action and just have to push a button from far away so a weird murky mess let's move on but i endorse this only for the food delivery

drones that we've heard pitched by some tech companies go down francisco. and let's move on because we have to get this ok bankers in the netherlands to be on the lookout because you know similar to this maybe in their future. i say solemnly pledged to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. i want to give my teachers. the respect and gratitude that is there to do. ok so not the hippocratic oath but the dutch want their bankers to give and oath swearing that they will put their customers first no it's supposed to go into effect about the same time that goldman sachs is reportedly going to come there i think they need to be giving an oath i think this is to be rolled out and they need to give an oath to the taxpayer that they're not going to rob them and we've got a cycle and i think it's lovely but how much is an oath really going to be right if you can just promise that you're going to do everything that we would need laws we would need regulations we have a president who took an oath to uphold god why is no reason for going better than

nothing at least it's symbolic we can't take their knighthood so they can swear on something that's all we have time for that's it for our show thanks so much for tuning in do not forget falling etc lauren lyster thanks so much for watching and we will see you tomorrow. which is that so much. i mean when you see these people that many people are turning to facebook's timeline to share all kinds of experience with moments others are concerned about security and safety of this new. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then he lives something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't i'm tom harkin welcome to the big picture.

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