oh i'm john marvin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. after years of technocrats and bank stirs having their say on european budgets democracy finally had its so what did this weekend's elections across europe mean for the one percent trickle down austerity agenda and the future of the global economy also as austerity gets the boot in europe republicans of the united states doubled down on their own version of soon republicans really trying to protect this time around as they shred the social safety net in america and later mitt romney caved into the religious far

right in his party parting ways with his openly gay campaign spokesman and now that same religious far right is opening a new line of attack against romney talk about this new attack later that our political panel. needs you know this in votes across europe this weekend working people sent a very clear message to the technocrats and banks toure's choking them with trickle down austerity that message was no more in france socialist candidate francois hollande who campaigned against austerity defeated conservative president nicolas sarkozy in elections on sunday in his victory speech along told the french people that quote austerity can no longer be the only option and quote and that his mission is to now quote give the european project a dimension of growth employment and prosperity for the future. along pledges to do

that by undoing some of the austerity budget cuts and instead raising the minimum wage for french workers hiring tens of thousands of new teachers and paying for it all with a new seventy five percent income tax on those who make more than a million euros a year at the same time a lot is promising to balance the french budget in five years already holland's pro growth agenda has received support from other european leaders including belgium's socialist prime minister and italy's technocrat leader whose watching austerity take a toll on the italian economy as well but what does this election in france mean for the overall strategy of germany which has been pushing austerity on neighboring countries well so far not much despite a clear electoral rebuke of austerity volcker out of the conservative german parliamentary leader and a close ally of chancellor angela merkel doubled down on austerity after the french

elections saying the position of the german government is clear we will continue on our saving af but miracles conservative government in germany might be in trouble too in state elections on sunday support for merkel's coalition government. just ahead of a crucial election in germany's most populous state next week meaning the anti austerity wave that is sweeping europe right now could topple europe's top dog germany as well and then there's what happened in greece the nation most ravaged by trickle down austerity elections on sunday the two ruling parties supporting austerity only won thirty two percent of sunday's vote as the greek people instead opted for far left and far right parties that are both opposed to more trickle down austerity and bailouts of the banks years. now the future of greece in the eurozone is once again very uncertain as the greek parliament will find it very difficult to sign off on another round of bailouts next year to prevent greece from defaulting

and leaving the euro zone analysts in europe in fact are now putting the odds of a greek exit from the euro at seventy five percent so stay tuned the battle between democracy and shock doctrine banks toure's is just beginning where to lead is anyone's guess joining me now for more discussion on yesterday's historic elections across europe and what they mean for the austerity agenda and the health of the global economy and its impact here in the united states is max fraud wolf economist an instructor at the new school university and senior analyst with green cross capital mack mack's welcome thank you for having me thanks for joining us again what does the introduction of a socialist president in france mean for the whole continental us austerity agenda that's being pushed by the the banks there's. well the austerity agenda was often pushed principally by germany but with a very heavy dose of support and an important empowerment of germany out of france

it was in fact such a franco german alliance that i got the nickname mirco z. sort of referring to uncle of merkel in germany as well as nicolas sarkozy and france they're part of that team is of course been thrown out in an unprecedented rebuke the first time in thirty years we've seen a sitting president go down especially go down as badly as he did in the first round and then a little bit less badly but fairly definitively in the second round how much longer will have for ability to set policy will depend a little bit on next month's parliamentary elections in france who are beginning to see an old coalition fray them or cozy coalition led by germany but with also france and we're beginning to see the first sort of early infant steps toward a new coalition which includes the irish the belgians the italians as you mentioned earlier and the french and clearly the majority of the publics of europe including to no small effect to the german public push toward a sort of more growth less austere way of moving forward with

a penchant for raising higher income folks as taxes as a way to move forward with growth and without the really painful cuts in employment and wages and government services that we've seen really decimate places like latvia ireland greece to some extent spain and many nations actually in eastern europe as well as at the end of the day are these various countries going to be able to pull this off just by doing things like raising taxes on wealthy people in their own countries isn't there a need to have a national currency and a national central bank that can regulate. monetary policy are we looking at the first really major cracks in the euro itself. i think we've seen some major cracks of the euro in some extent the two thousand and nine and after financial crisis is the first stress test of the euro as an operating mechanism in difficult conditions and i think we'd all be kind of in agreement here that it hasn't been without its

blemishes that it's very significant issues in multiple nations both politically and economically so much as the first but it's a bigger task on the other hand you know of course we need structural change these are structural problems decades in the building and just having a devaluation won't work very well either we could ask the argentines how they got out of their crisis and it certainly wasn't just dealing king from the dollar of the dollar board they had ten years ago on the other hand we're going to see the model shift away from the model pushed by the i.m.f. and the european union and the bundesbank in germany a little bit toward the models we saw flirted with or used in places like iceland and argentina which is an attempt to grow out of a crisis with some officially targeted sensitivity to equality the needs of lower income people as opposed to the push from the washington consensus or the most recent manifestation of what's called despond the german e.u. i.m.f. consensus in greece when president papa drew suggested that there should be

a national referendum as to whether they should you know jump into this austerity pond with both feet he was basically taken out before he could even have his referendum and replaced by a greek banks to. power the technocrats going to fight back against this change in france expect them to. yeah i expect this is going to be giving i think you're absolutely right that is the beginning of push and shove and the push and pull here it's not the end but what we are beginning to see whether it's the united states quite frankly or in western europe is that the austerity programs are massively unpopular with the public the more deep those austerity programs because the more suffering they engender the more unpopular they become this is been more or less the case with austerity programs for about thirty five to forty years mostly in the developing world where they were tried and pushed historically and increasingly in the developed world which is in many ways in the situation that we

saw developing countries in in the seventy's eighty's and ninety's and we're seeing a very angry public response here on the other hand there's going to have to be structural change in europe that's probably undeniable and the sixty four thousand dollar question remains does europe try to integrate more to ride out the crisis or do the european union begin to disintegrate on the mismatch between economic orthodoxy and the will of the general public's in a democratic environment given those two scenarios which do you consider more likely. i think you'll probably see a middle of the road i think along them company will end up being a little bit less radical in terms of forging a new way and some of their proponents might hope they would be but they're certainly going to do things differently than start cosy company i think we're going to see an accommodation where there's a more of a credible threat from the countries that if the op if the medicine is potentially fatal or unbelievably a misery to refuse it and so more accommodation will have to be given what that's going to put the stress back on is the german public and the funding nation

countries where if their publics also walk away from the experiment then you could have a very fast very full spectrum disintegration of the will to european union which i think would be very dangerous and could be destructive and could actually create a global financial crisis if it's handled in appropriately or it moves on to leave rapidly and with a sort of lurching every man for himself element could a trigger for that be next year when the greeks are due for a second round of you know whacking their own people with us territory and you know borrowing more money and paying back more in just this whole thing and and given the the changing nature of the greek parliament that there's a very real possibility that they'll just say no thanks. it's quite possible an orderly exit of greece or a sort of second class citizenship for greece inside the european union wouldn't necessarily be an existential threat although it would not be supportive i think seeing what happens with italy seeing what happens with spain and seeing to what

extent the german public asserts its opinions in elections that are coming up which don't look particularly favorable toward on the limerick one company i think maybe the big public we haven't heard from yet which may hold the key to the future is the german public if the german public also abandons austerity or loses interest in the european union but i think this becomes much demmer and much dicier very quickly i think we'll begin to see the contours of that later this summer would it be that the germans are abandoning sturdier would it be that the germans or the average german person you know the german people are saying we're tired of being the bankers for all these countries that in the in the minds of the germans clearly have been profit and therefore to hell with it will go back to the judge mark or you know or they're they'll continue to say is merkel has been saying basically for the last two years they're going to play on our terms period. well they were already seeing that battle so it's a great question we're seeing merkel come back and say the fiscal integration pact

is not up for revision we're also seeing all along what riding a wave of popularity saying you elected me and for that reason and for the reason of the mass of people in france and other countries it is up for grabs i think that if the german public moves decisively and actively to the left or the right you could see real trouble for the experiment quite frankly because both the far left and the far right in europe are garner garnering much enhanced support across the continent as they really are here in the us as well with the tea party and occupy wall street in a different way they're guarding that support by rejecting the conventional wisdom rejecting policies as usual and tapping into a growing wave of public disapproval if not outright reads with traditional leadership parties and approaches do you think that these elections have put the possibility of a worse than two thousand and eight market crash back on the table i don't think they've put it more than the financial markets the financial markets tend to be very mediocre political analysts often and they often kind of go with the need jerk

and i like whatever sounds closest to their opinion we've also seen in case after case where what they thought was best didn't turn out to be i think we're going to see people give a bit of a chance to the european it's moving in a different direction it is better for u.s. corporations as well as for global growth if europe doesn't pursue a narrow a sturdy program because let's be honest here the europeans may only be about ten percent of the world's population but they're still about eighteen percent of world g.d.p. and having them invested in the negative growth which they have been is terrible for the global economy so sometimes markets do better when they get what they need and less well when they get what they want and that is the sort of brighter prospect that looms a little more likely in the wake of this weekend's elections very interesting will be fascinating to watch and see how this all plays out max broadwell thank you so much for joining us. always a pleasure thank you will have more on the elections in europe in particular what they mean for republicans and democrats libertarians and greens here in the united states right after the break.

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questions on the dot com. well go back a lot of big stories on the political front of breaking this week from the elections in europe to mitt romney's failure leadership when it comes out his

campaign parted ways the openly gay spokesman rick grinnell to the latest republican to so i don't working people what impact might all of these stories have on the two thousand and twelve election season for an answer i'm going to turn it over to my panel richard follower democratic strategist and host of the richard follower radio program and vince colonies senior editor at the daily caller gentlemen let's get started first of all the elections in europe were i was just talking with max wolff about these. voters from france to greece to germany or reject you know sturdy local elections in germany even the they're not going to down electing either socialist or new nazis so both sides who are both opposed to austerity here in the united states we have one party that is absolutely committed to austerity particular at the state level but now at the federal level as well that's the republican party best represented by the paul ryan budget. how how are they going to push this ahead or should the republicans recalibrate and say hey

wait a minute this isn't working in europe we should do it here but you see the elections as a warning shot to the united states the well the way it played out i see the austerity the austerity that the ryan budget represents in the united states if it were implemented is what has been going on in europe for about a year and a half two years and it's taking down their economies. and so but you don't think the austerity measures that europe has tried are are not something that's coming in the talland of collapsing economies i mean what you're saying is causation that the austerity measures are why europe isn't doing well yes when in fact most people who would argue for us terry would argue the opposite that austerity is the result of europe not doing well for a long time and end up well in the collapsing. because you're they were a standoff that i or do you consider these are going to fight it you know i agree with you i definitely think what we what we're seeing not only in europe we're seeing in america is that the people are realizing that you know you cannot just

continue to make cuts on the backs of the of the poor both in europe and america i mean i think in europe what we've seen it seems ridiculous unemployment amongst young people and you know this all started as can continue to contribute to that and we're beginning to see the same thing here in america america with the student loan debt crisis that's going to continue to happen these bubbles are going to pop and the republicans are just i really do believe their sleep at the switch here well i think what you have is europe has shrunk itself together in the euro zone and all and everyone's holding on to germany and france and hoping to to make it through the storm to germany and to the truth to germany and you can see what's happening is these countries are not satisfied with the fact particular the people nobody likes austerity nobody i mean it really is just well uncomfortable with these countries but what these countries are saying and what those who those who favor saying is look this is how we solve our problems that's going to have the weight of the greens and i said hey it's debts now they don't feel like they owe the german response to the crash was the kurtzer by program this is what the german

government said to the factories because factory demand was down twenty thirty thirty five percent whatever the number was they said the factories ok instead of laying off people like you know other countries have your people work half time or three quarters time pay them for that have time or three quarters time actually pay them for full time and we will pay you the company will give you the cash to make up their pay and then. passed that through to the workers so the workers were working twenty and thirty hour weeks instead of forty hour weeks and they were getting full forty hour week paychecks and that's why germany's economy bounced back within sixteen months and none of the other countries did this and now the germans are saying to the greeks if you try to do what we did we're going to stick it to you but you just said you know a segment i mean greece doesn't even have a good shot of staying to be a part of the european union any longer well they should in the first plane because they are now they they did that thing with goldman sachs and they're all i get it and they're relying on germany to keep them afloat i mean what's what's happening is all across europe we're seeing a bunch of countries where people have gone where these countries have gone into massive amounts of debt and the ones that are in the worst place like greece need

to pay back that debt or they're being propped up by places like germany who have expectations when they give that money but when these countries learn to actually spend responsibly you know these countries in greece projects that they don't want to learn from europe is that we've seen sustained economic growth in europe until recently at the same time we've had a sustained economic growth although we've also seen that they can invest in their people who can invest in college university to see that invest in the senior citizen invest in the sick the poor education whereas in the united states we don't see those investments so when our when this austerity bubble pops there will be no investment our road will fall apart our schools are fall apart and solar colleges and universities what austerity bubble well this is what he started this is the way that this is eisenhower got us out of the biggest debt that we ever were in which was after world war two we spend our way out i mean stimulated all i'm saying is that in europe if if the solution is to double down on the policies that got them to the place where they are now i don't see how economic success comes you know i

if the if the policy is austerity i agree with you i don't think that well that we are talking about republicans are trying to promote austerity here though the republicans agreed to seventy eight billion dollars in cuts to the defense department last earlier it was last fall they agreed this thing you know the super committee quack quack quack they said fine. and will do this house senate both now they want to read litigate this and not only that they want to pull three hundred seventy five seventy nine million billion dollars out of unemployment benefits food stamp programs and health insurance programs for working class and poor people in the united states in order to keep funding level or even raise funding for the millionaires and billionaires in the defense industry they want a little more they want to build more mansions in virginia so that and take the money out of the out of the mouths of and then the poor people do include giving tax benefits to illegal immigrants i mean they're cutting those back as well this is the argument that republicans continue continue to make every time they make

these smokescreen argument like dick cheney would say it's a smokescreen one or one of the one little bit that happens the qualifying for a tax credit means we shouldn't give tax credit to middle class and working class families who have children this is the argument that you guys always make to no avail at the end of the day when it comes down to it tom we've seen double spending at the defense department over the past decade and the result is that because we are in two wars now that both of those wars is wrapping up it's time for us to create a leaner leaner greener and more more agile fighting machine and that means decrease the amount of money but the pentagon is spending money more effectively that's what we've seen the secretary defense talk about and in return for that we need to continue to help the middle class and the working class continue to live in this country republicans want to take food out of the mouths of babies and then when you make that argument they get upset at you but it's the truth and i think it's how do you defend i think about the out of food stamps to give it to boeing i think mostly what richard said was an absurd political argument but what i will not at all but what i will say is that for republicans this is obviously a political move they're trying to play to an election year crowd saying hey look

we're focusing on cuts hey look we're going to protect the fans i think it's going to play with if you're going to own or if you can reasonably approach this from a bipartisan standpoint i think from just any logical standpoint it's clear that defense needs to be tightened up there need to be cuts and to define and so when or to make it more efficient doing that there if they want to cut money from unemployment benefits look a lot of this not actually people are repub what you're talking. about that was the sequester if the democrats are facing down the same issue and they are when it comes to medicare and the things that will be cut now they're going to try to resolve the till after the like they're going to try and do the same thing and that is just that you know they hear me out that is to say they will seek defense cuts and they will seek to raise taxes on the rich as a as a counterbalance to this they will do the very same thing it's not it's all politic that's not us not we have not seen one bill introduced by harry reid that would do that when we already want to even though less than full and you know let me finish we all walked into this saying we will we will have to cuts here and cuts if the supercommittee cannot come to a deal we agreed to our part of the bargain the republican the fortunate want to renegotiate their part and now the americans have to suffer because they can't get

anything done in washington they carry neg without bipartisan support so it's obviously not going to pass the senate it was only going to happen it shouldn't it wasn't it let's move on to speaking of republicans let's move on to mitt romney after the far why right religious wing of the party forced mitt romney into basically shutting up at all timidly pushing out arguably his foreign openly gay foreign policy advisor record now this bryan fischer had led that charge the american family association bryan fischer it's been a guest on this program a number of times. this is what bryan fischer had to say this is how he spike the football watch this. if mitt romney can be pushed around intimidated coerced co-opted by a conservative radio talk show host in middle america then how is he going to stand up to the chinese how is you going to stand up to putin how is you going to stand up to north korea if you can be pushed around by

a yoke like me. play yoko like me. doesn't fish you have a point there's a problem in that he does have a point but it's true and i think beyond that point the thing that nobody seems to be talking about to talk about on my show last weekend is about this whole ron paul movement the slowly trickling romo is happening at all the states where he's going in and he's winning all these delegates he's taking over state parties because state parties have had enough or they don't want mitt romney so the truth of the matter is it's a very very slow progression which the republican base is separating from the nominee including members of congress just took they just took nevada i think in the last few hours they took and was in the latter earlier today. i want to say that ron paul is getting half the delegates out of massachusetts mitt romney's home state i mean this guy is really doing some damage here and it's because people don't want mitt romney i don't know i mean they're not going to ron paul for leadership on north korea and somebody else i think it's going to be anybody but romney i think what you have here is

a radio host is probably overplaying his influence one of the things we know is that if you followed this cornell story you saw that you did have social conservatives that came out and said this how can you support somebody who's so up in the supports gay marriage and how can you have them on your campaign and then i got played up by a liberal drumbeat in the media it's totally true not now it's only because the liberal media did perceive criticism from the right on this and felt like hey this is a great story when we cover it and that's what it was you know the liberal whatever the media took picked up the story after this john was already fired he got fired for saying you know he resigned there was a pressure he resigned because the republican party or some members of them had a problem with who he loves or who he wanted to who he wanted to be with and they had a problem with that therefore they told mitt romney they don't want to be part of the campaign instead of mitt romney making a strong leadership thing saying that he's the best spokes person in the republican party on national security he caved to his party and we as a democrat said this is horrible and we know where we are part of that everybody should have the opportunity to only your didn't rush in at the end it wasn't it

wasn't my understanding is that the reason that he. resigned was because he was basically told shut up and stand in the corner you know don't you know wonder how these things play out i don't know but i know i do know that that's how you know that functionally what he's saying and i do know that functionally if he's good at what he does it shouldn't really matter i mean his point the point that he's there for is to represent his candidates positions in whatever capacity that again but his candidate would let him represent his positions as well as they maybe maybe they came to some sort of mutual agreement i don't know. but you left the campaign . to me so i just did this all the time by the way when they feel like they've become a distraction well we'll see how this all plays out richard followed and scholars thank you guys thank you very much. still to come could put barack obama meet the same fate as john kerry this election season the swift boaters are back and they hope history repeats itself.

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