begrudgingly slip off their shoes and empty their pockets one man didn't see a reason to stop there so he stripped down completely naked and went into the security line now funny or weird and maybe kind of gross as this case may be it does bring up the question of government overreach and it's an interesting article that exposes the issue and definitely worth a read now on to more personal things you can follow me on twitter at the c caf another want to hear from you tube in about thirty minutes. free. education free school or free. three. three stooges free. and free broken videos for your media project free media john darche dot com.

good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. these are your headlines for april eighteenth two thousand and twelve european banks are under pressure to raise capital and the euro could collapse triggering panic in financial markets and another great depression and these are all the warnings coming out of the international monetary fund central banks have been waiting they appear to be moving away from the euro by buying more gold we'll talk about all of this and while we're on the topic of the i.m.f. as policymakers descended on washington for this meeting it seems all about raising money to boost the i.m.f. firepower aimed at course of trying to put out europe's debt crisis and the guard continues to collect money for her war tess we've seen it before. the trees most in the i'm here with my little bug churchly collect

a bit of money. we thought about a davos but how much debt kenya a row of debt as economists michael hudson always ends famously says debts they cannot be repaid will not speak to him and british m.p.'s a savior as you've been penalized by the bank of england money printing should be compensated for it while citigroup investors say exactly should not be compensated so handsome late for poor performance that's a first for a big u.s. bank but does it matter we'll tell you what we think let's get to today's capital account. the international monetary fund and the world bank are gearing up for their spring

meetings it's happening now in d.c. they get officially underway at the end of this week in washington and there is a view outside take a look at this the giant clouds in a screen a world bank propaganda that's set up outside getting ready for these meetings that's amusing we don't think we've seen that before the world bank's mission remember is to support or to reduce poverty but it's been subject of course to much criticism over the years for social engineering shock therapy the lending conditions of the washington consensus so while we're on the floor we have some of our own ideas first let's look back at lore remember in medieval europe there were people like robin hood who would steal from the rich and give to the poor take a look. a lot of your need for such regimes. to.

still and gems off their fingers well now you have the rich stealing from the poor through massive debts that cannot be repaid debt that are beyond the means of the borrower to repay whether it's a defrauded mortgage holder or a country forced to cut vital public services in order to prioritize debt service payments so the poor are buried under of debt for the benefit of the rich creditors and the arguably bankrupt banks doing the the poor to default and order to end this perverse reverse robin hood situation let's bring in michael hudson and ask he's professor of economics at the university of missouri kansas city and author of super imperialism the origin and fundamentals of u.s. world dominance and dr hudson thank you for being on the show it's always a pleasure to talk to you. ok so let's get straight to this lots of headlines coming out about the i.m.f. japan is pledging sixty billion dollars to help the i.m.f.

expand its resources we know they're trying to get poor hundred billion dollars in new money this week lagarde is old or urging nations to follow japan's lead dr hudson how does this do anything if the giant debt overhang is still there in europe sucking capital in the other direction into that bank or black hole because the debt is so big and everything is going towards debt repayment servicing the debt instead of building economies. oh in member back in two thousand and eight the i.m.f. had lost almost all of its present americans except one turkey are paid just about the last customer of its president eric very good and said out get out never come back but save the i.m.f. from just being told it up and going home was the financial crisis far other countries aren't very interested in getting money except for those in the european and us that remember they just had a very. contested vote over the who was going to be the next the head of the world

bank and for the first time it wasn't a representative of the u.s. pentagon and the u.s. military establishment but it was the u.s. candidate and you had criticisms from the third world countries saying wait a minute why do we want to be the major contributors and we have such a tiny voting right and it's the doubters and it united states and europe are one of the moderates and so i don't think they're going to be very interested in it i am a. freshly when the i.m.f. runs to impose on europe really the same kind of austerity programs that it imposed on latin america africa and asia and turkey from the one nine hundred sixty s. on through the early two thousand so other countries except for europe have rejected the kind of austerity programs that the i.m.f. is selling and i don't think there is going to be much impact in the meetings in

washington at all except the usual self congratulatory austerity in stuart hand. that held together that we hear some ads out on that note of the developing countries like you talked about you know we've seen them say that we may play the pledge more money to these i am firepower finds if we're given where are our weapon i am that that there is changes to the cloud as. i thought it was interesting because now europeans are worried because those changes are supposed to take place in october and we know it's in november the presidential elections in the u.s. so they're worried that congress would block changes to the quotas in the i.m.f. i know in the past you've said hey this is kind of a joke the u.s. controls the i.m.f. it doesn't matter what they say so it's all the all of this discussion about changes to quotas is this kind of a joke or do you think this is actually a real thing. there's no doubt america's allies are going to contribute and always that's. but i don't think it's going to be very important and i don't think it's

going to make much of a difference for how the world will go up and ok i don't think if they make a change as far as but could change the i.m.f. now says and one of its recent reports that the euro could collapse and this is being billed as a big deal because it's the first time that i am that is saying that's my question to you they're talking about the collapse of the euro there's plenty of people in europe already seeing their lives collapse whether it's someone in spain who's unemployed or someone in greece who can't get their medicine and is digging in the trash for food literally as we've heard reports what's more important the collapse of a currency that's been around for fifty years or the collapse of a condom means they cannot grow under all of this is that well first of all the euro is not going to play so the question is what will it clacks against and the euro and the dollar are pretty much in the same situation they're both going to that we all share olympics which isn't moving very fast the i.m.f.

when it makes a. wild statement like europe euro is going to collapse it means do what we say we want the following little change and what it means is if you don't give us more money to the banks for us to give the banks then there's going to be real trouble so all this is is threatening to cause a currency play out in the banking collapse if it doesn't get its way up. the people's. health and welfare is much more important and if the i.m.f. doesn't collapse then the economy will but the real worry is that the euro aren't climbs the worry is that the euro will survive and will hold together and will continue to impose on greece because of austerity and it imposed on. latin america and other countries and asia and the asian crisis that maintain eighty eight but little bit of them. to europe what it's done to these other countries and beth

would be an utter disaster but it's a disaster that will benefit the united states and will benefit you know i.m.f. quite a bit because they hope that if there is pressure on governments that he fell this will force governments to begin selling off their private interest rupture and they say greece may collapse and that they mean as greece will collapse unless it overrules a democracy in one of. technocrats which means the bank lobbyist to come in and sell off its land sell off its water and sewer system sell off its ports sell off its tourist areas so off it's. part of an on itself offer very little amounts to be financed on credit by the banks to buy them out creating a huge bank market and create what looks like the biggest resource prayer since the breaking invasions of europe thousand years ago and a thousand years ago it took an army to grab land an infrastructure and take over

the government and today without an army without forest in the european central bank and the european union is being able to grab the end of a better country a greece spain portugal ireland and to impose tribute without any military force that i'll just by trying to convince the. people that as moderates there she said there is no alternative and to make sure there is no alternative there is no discussion of actual alternatives of course there are many alternatives really of course i want to get into those i guess i'm going to finance a worker which really does seem to be the name of the game and the direction that things have gone in but rather on the technocrats that have been installed to push through some of these reforms it doesn't even seem like they're able to do it mario monti in italy eyes that's a mess of budget target italy's delayed by one year its plan to reach a balanced budget in two thousand and thirteen according to reuters and the

particle prime minister has written that the country can't definitively promise that it will meet its targets to return to capital markets before september of two thousand and thirteen so was the problem these countries or is the problem these targets that seem ridiculous. it would be a disaster to balance the budget when the government runs a budget deficit as the united states though does it creates money to pump into the economy and running a government budget deficit is the only way to pull europe's economy out of the depression and the last generation that they're calling it you mentioned unemployment in spain the unemployment among young adults and fifty percent and the average unemployment is twenty three percent it's twenty three percent also on portugal. this is the sas they're the only what they need is more government spending and more government deficit spending not less and so by trying to run a budget surplus surplus the big technocrats are saying is we want to squeeze the

economy so that the government doesn't have enough money to pay its debts so there s. the sell off whatever public domain or has it distressed prices for the creditors to foreclose or to take over and by fire sale prices will they surrender that's the question at the same time we saw deficit and debt create this problem in the first place i want to ask you about debt forgiven. when we come back as another one of those possible solutions so dr hudson sit right there we will have more with michael hudson professor and author in just a minute and still ahead it is a first for a big wall street bank a group of investors are trying to buy a small battle against cancer and executive pay but are they shooting the lengths we'll give you are three cents and first closing market numbers.

you just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old on the job a true. i'm a contestant and i am a total get a friend that i love grab because he is a planned trip. he was kind of a big yesterday. i'm very proud of the little she has played. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you blame somebody else hears you some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm charge is

a big issue. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through. who can you trust no one who is you. the global missionaries where are we heading state controlled capitals school sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our t.v. question more. welcome back here in washington we're getting ready for the i.m.f. and world bank meetings our guest doesn't think they will amount to anything significant so we're trying to have

a conversation that is significant i let's bring michael hudson back and professor and you can of economics university of missouri kansas city and author of super imperialism the origin and fundamentals of u.s. world dominance and dr hudson before the break you were talking about deficits and i don't know that we agree with you that a balanced budget is a bad thing deficits have been part of the problem so is the real issue here debts and the fact that debts that are so odious need to be forgiven. yes well it is of course our debt is the issue and that's what it's really all about the test can't be paid and creditors want to use their creditor power to try to foreclose the fact is these debts are owned by sovereign countries and any sovereign country can do what argentina did and simply say i won't pay so that that's a very tenuous only if the debtors believe they have to pay and believe it's a good idea are they going to pay well obviously the greek up population press very

heavily not to pay and that's in angela merkel and sarkozy said wait a minute you can't have a referendum about this if you have a referendum people were told the wrong way you cannot have democracy we reached a point now where democracy is incompatible with the world that structure and so are the the creditor position has forced a transition from democracy to elp oligarchy and what some urging is the walls three by wall street people say well one percent against the ninety nine percent and they are willing to push the economy into the pression if they have to take one any loss on what they have and they say all of the loss on our private planes our holdings of government funds all the lost has to be absorbed by the taxpayers we the one percent can or take any of us at all you have to do what ireland and force your economy into a last generation into

a depression in order to pay us and out it's amazing how they're actually able to convince populations to do it and when they can't convince the population to say it's time to end it mark received there is no alternative put in our representatives and let us resolve is much as they can and it just so that i can clear it up the private debt restructuring in greece doesn't count because it's peanuts when you look at the big. it's not enough for the great reasons a small economy of course it's very major they're using greece as a text just text they say no country no matter how small can stand up to us remember creditors or politics it's like the united states versus the ana stam we're really like the united states versus they want to make sure that no one will emulate reefs iceland was bad enough so they're they're using greece as an object lesson because they're worried was that if greece doesn't pay its debts then

ireland won't pay spain what they portugal on the way and all of a sudden you have democracy and that would mean curtains for the system well on the note of iceland iceland did different things when it handled its crisis very markedly different it refused to pump money into failed banks it required debt write downs in situations where mortgage debt was too high for borrowers at is their next step and i'm sorry i'm afraid you're wrong there and for iceland as such is made some very bad air is that the situation in iceland is much worse than it is in any other country in the world because in iceland alone its debts are indexed to the consumer price index which means to the price of imports so if you borrowed say hundred thousand dollars on a house you now own about one hundred eighty thousand dollars it's because of the indexing for mortgage ice and banks were bought up by a vulture banks that have not lived not written down the debts as they were

supposed to do i slowed is still a disaster area what about reports that iceland is now paying its i.m.f. loans harlee unemployment is down growth is above average there is a program to write up a portion of mortgage debt to one hundred ten percent of households pleasures laughed at are you saying that these things don't matter in the big picture is that what's being messed up the there is still massive foreclosures there and the mortgage debt is nonstop so high. i but it's i'm starting the whole sold assets to such a point that ten percent ten percent of wastelands population thirty thousand people but had to emigrate to norway a lot so our unemployment is spreading but the president of iceland did say was that there was a silver lining to the bank crisis and that was that the banks in iceland and ben implying all the best mathematicians and the best minds to do a scene of capitalism gambling and once the banks going under well all of

a sudden all of these good mathematicians became available for the. computer industry for high technology industry and so a little inside technology industry depending on mathematicians and high skilled people are really taken up so that the that that sector indeed is taken up but the icelandic mortgage debt situation is still a very poor iceland has repaid asylum meth along because it runs the i.m.f. to get out of there forever just wants to get rid of them so that it doesn't have any control over the icelandic policy because the i.m.f. has consistently misrepresented the statistics are based on your forecasts of bennett dismally wrong it's done an embarrassment after the i.m.f. and they literally run away with their tails between their legs so then when their president of iceland says that there's an orthodox policies that the orthodox i am that would like to think learn more from here and then he learned that they learn from the i am math do you think that's the bottom line i think he was being polite

i've never enough any i.m.f. economists learn anything because there are i want soon a religious fanatics because every religion is spent on the side of god it's not predators like the i.m.f. it is but they're like sectarian politics you i don't think you can teach an i.m.f. economist on it but. gave up our forty years ago and i think most people i know here so he was being polite what he meant was we were right and they were wrong but he said it not all work like or not is the light it's a lot more exciting we appreciate you being on the set thanks so much that was michael hudson professor and author. very much or.

all right let's wrap up with loose change to have demetrius stand in here because we have talked a lot about limited easing low interest rates and its effect on savers and even now and again we hear someone on capitol hill question ben bernanke about it rarely though here's an example. are you concerned at all about the very very very low interest payments that these savers are getting from these kinds of fixed income assets which are hitting our savings and investment side of the economy. well ben bernanke isn't concerned enough that he does anything differently but it seems the treasury select committee and u.k.'s parliament is taking the side of the savers m.p.'s there want the government to compensate the pensioners and savers for the money printing impact on them by suspending the income tax on savings interest so basically they want savers to be compensated for the central

bank's policies we think will disaster. our country everything everywhere and we can't just have normal interest rates we have to have these kind of ok. and lower rates year raise and give a bike ride here give me a break and i just look at work out if you like goes to the local market rate. well it's like when you give a medicine person thing you prescribe something and instead of dealing with illness you have side effects so then you prescribe something for the side effects and then you you're always dealing with the symptoms and not the problem but if that's the situation that we have had at least they're given some you know thrown a bone to the savors have gotten screwed over i think if they want to get. raised if there's a list well you can recover them or if you consider me or you can go to sleep take some value or suring up the entire economy these guys are professional you know little bit are going to say the word all right all right you know what i think i just don't understand we're all of them money is going to come from if they do

suspend the income tax on the savings rate it's not money from i don't know they always tinker here and there they seem to figure it out. that remains unanswered so let's move on because citigroup has become the first big bank the first wall street big bank to get a giant down from their shareholders over a fat executive pay package and while fifty five percent of those shareholders may have won the battle against the cats in the sense that they voted no to those pay plans the war is not over take a look. before you call this a victory remember the vote isn't binding but city chairman dick parsons called it a serious matter and said the board will come up with another formula a top executives see the thing is it's not binding so now they're saying oh we're going to do something about it and today this is not a binding this isn't it looks like looks like it's just to make shareholders feel better that they have some kind of a say so this is all part this is the same thing is always true is true it's true

in the case of the british parliament it's true and it is the shareholders these votes just like saddam hussein held elections it's these votes are just they're just an actor theatre at this point nothing more nothing less the power resides in the oligarchy it resides in the cloak talk recy of people like. people like jamie diamond ok i would pull rank obama who's a puppet in the government who doesn't actually do anything so basically this is a big shown tell game of them that's great i'm happy for these guys want to i don't need it if you can be is do it the kids don't just do i don't need underneath it get to your point the records have a duty to loyalty to the corporation and not shareholders so it very literally is their responsibility not to do it shareholders not first let's move on because the time one hundred list was revealed today honoring the most influential people in the world we have to talk about a few honorees they include christine legarde mario draghi mario monti ron paul and we can never forget to include warren buffett and you can just guess who penned the

write up to go along with mr buffett if you can take a look it is true that part for the sport of warren buffett for example let me tell you what is with all the economic. but you don't vote for you for the right for in war both pays a lower tax rate than a secretary. if guys are still in bed together so obama rode warren buffett's most liberal person right up as far as corny capitalism is concerned though i think obama is kind of played by warren buffett right. to leave theory and barack obama. is is is still in the high seas and he is living warren buffett had his way with him and broccoli bamma should basically grow care and do something realistic and something that people want to sort of basically just do whatever warren buffett launch and play the tune of one buffet which is like i'm just a little paper boy with the whole. i don't want to have more and better writing his

write up you have some time staffer seemingly less exciting i just want to point out the hacker group anonymous grabbed the majority of the web vote automatically gaining on the spot i think it's interesting the difference between what voters pick and what editors pick shannon do you want to give us some final words on this . i just got the difference between the legs vote and who made it actually angelus just kind of astounds me yeah pretty astounding to leave you with that if that's all we have time for thinking so much for watching don't forget to follow me on twitter at warren lester you can give us feedback on the show at youtube dot com slash capital account and everyone here thank you so much for watching come back tomorrow we will talk to paul craig roberts and until then go to our web site give us a comment and have a great night. you

know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry mark it was a big. mission . critical you should treat. your charges read the richmond three. three stooges three. old free born to live video for your media project free media gogarty dot com. culture is that so much different it is a huge decision.