crossed out what seems to be the never ending euro calamity i'm joined by rodney shakespeare in london he is one of the founders of the global justice movement in brussels we have used and usually he is president of the e.s.c. europe two thousand and twenty steering committee and in new york we cross to stephen foley he is an associate business editor of the independent all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want robbie if i go to you first in london we have cameron and obama saying there must be decisive action on the euro and then we just come out and just hours ago we have the european central bank saying well it's up to the the polities and individual countries of the euro zone is this a political vacuum is this where are we going here or is it just finger pointing. it's a complete back gross bankruptcy of new thinking cameron probably means more austerity which will make the thing worse. lending creating money interest rate to the banks will be putting money into a never ending black hole and of course there is the third thing in their minds

which is basically to print money as was done in nine hundred twenty three in germany none of this will work the thing that is required is an economic democracy in which you use national banks and that can include the european central bank for interest free loans to spread the real economy to every individual in society in other words you go for the ordinary people and through them that is the solution they are productive and their consuming power but we must have a revolt against the banks and we must have a revolt against the elites of europe who are part of a structure who are selling out the rest of the world that only thinking themselves used to regularly you in brussels what do you think about that because you know we keep hearing about this calamity but where are the real solutions because the people did say that it's not their responsibility it's somebody else's ok and we're just having these everyone is it crossed purposes right now the house is on fire

now what is going to be done to put it out. i think you exaggerate. there are tensions that's undeniable but they're working hard to to come with the solutions and i tell you one thing that the bank president the president of the commission the president of the council and are working now on a plan that will be adopted probably on june twenty sixth. in order to get at least a part of the problem in order ok. if you say that's the date that's after the greek election stephen what's going on here are people working at cross purposes is there any idea how to solve this problem. well i mean every time every time it looks like we've overcome one particular problem the next one erupts

certainly. no agreement on what. an ultimate solution to the problem will look like but there are there are solutions that can be found to each emerging crisis as it comes out i would i would reject the suggestion that the house is on fire but it's certainly a very dangerous time and the biggest and most dangerous crisis facing the world all right gentlemen before we continue our discussion with have a look at some of the elements that brought us to this point in time. g. seven finance ministers and central bank governors met on tuesday to discuss the use in precarious banking system ahead of the g. twenty summit in mexico the meeting of officials from france germany italy japan britain the u.s. and canada came amid speculations that spain is now in a situation of extreme difficulty and might need a bailout german finance minister shall be a was at pains to l.a. fears pressroom worried about the looming meltdown the spaniards are doing

everything right and nonetheless they are coming under market pressure we need to manage this through close and trusting coordination the press conference had an air of visible hawkishness and there were no clear signals to him in stimuli despite the fact that some governing council members were clearly in favor of the june rate cut marian jargony once again called for a response from political leaders the e.c.b. president stressed each of the crisis hit states should more nato their domestic issues more closely before anyone decides on the eurozone wide solution all countries have all countries all areas have to work together. and they have pretty much first and foremost they have to address their own problems. then they should worry about the. the loss of their policies or lack of policies to the rest of the world in the meantime the us treasury issued

a weak statement on the feasibility of european fiscal union but the lack of a powerful voice in proactive political leadership suggests the eurozone will continue its attempts to fudge its way out of the crisis any you didn't cross talk r.t. . ok rodney if i go back to you i mean it's no wonder the president of the european central bank speaks that way he's already injected a billion euros into the system here and we still have our borrowing costs that are sky high i mean he hasn't really done much in is stephen pointed out maybe getting one crowd going from one crisis to the next but no ultimate solutions here on the table there is no to what solution in the present thinking and nothing i'm sorry to say this use nothing will happen on june twenty fourth there the reason is that the system is the turning to up hold the interests of our financial elites when it's understood that banks should be the means by which on the ministration is made of

interest free loans for the real economy to every individual so that they increase their own productive capacity and their ownership in other words economic democracy but what we've got is something which is much worse than nine hundred twenty nine nine hundred twenty nine they didn't have consumer debt they didn't have all this housing debt but the debt today's many times higher we're seeing the fourth operation of the kondracke t.f. cycle and the present elites in europe all they can do is to sort of basically sit on their hands and anything they do with their present mindset will make it worse you see is simply one of this elites and he has the faintest idea what is happening and he and his colleagues have no solution to it you see you want to reply. yes. all this criticism of the lead just totally wrong the elite is very much

interested in vestment stability and job creation they are interested in greece and what is happening today and that makes the markets as well as politicians very nervous that is a renationalization of the banking system and this creates dysfunctional cross border banking operations we cannot without the banks so something has to be created to do all that to get the fabric again streamlined and that is a banking union i'm sure that within three months we will have a banking union ok well can you explain what that you are this what does that actually mean because i mean the nationalization of the banking system that sounds like a better idea to me than what we have now. that's absolutely not true is the banking business we really have now is the banking system in the european union for the people how's it work for the people we have a crisis yes of course we have a crisis but we cannot reside banks what we have it is have national average ever

seem to have nationalizing over the system working without banks i don't see the system working now right if you want to jump in there. yes i do use his assumption is that the free market quote is basically a little bit out of balance and with a little bit of a twisting of the adjustment here it will come back into balance he does not understand that the present system is fundamentally flawed and he's going down hill and he has nothing to offer he cannot come forward with a substantial practical proposal which will solve the problem for the mass of people in spain it's fifty three or fifty four percent of unemployed amongst the people between eighteen and twenty five uses got no sure lucian's of that the same with any of the other countries stephen you want to think i actually think the run is suggest. rodney is really not suggesting a practical solution either the notion that in an era of globalized capital markets

you can just sweep away the banks or have a banking revolution across europe as is is neither realistic more practical and it's certainly not the right solution to the incremental problems of the of the euro what we need right now is to is to prop up the banking system and to make sure that the banking system is not a mechanism for contagion across the and that is to their credit that is what the european leaders are talking about right now we're talking about using the banking system and using the recapitalization of the spanish banking system which will come after the i.m.s. report next week using that as the mechanism to introduce transfers from the richer nations to the poorer nations of the periphery now that's going to be good for the people of the periphery only sweeping away the banking system having a revolution and causing causing chaos in global financial markets isn't going to do anything for the man on the street in madrid or in athens even if i could feel if you i mean what point do you stop recapitalizing banks again in the you have

a slippery slope you have moral hazard here how do you stop that. well you start recapitalizing them when they're fully recapitalized we're going to learn next week what the i.m.f. estimates of the needs of the spanish banking system are you know it's a very it's very clear what the solution is here we fill in the black holes that have grown up inside the banking system at the moment we organize a transfer of political power to the center of fiscal responsibility to the center and we restore growth of the eurozone through an end to the crazy policies of austerity now that's the solution the question is what steps do we need to take between now and getting to that solution. before we go to the break own head. proposing a form of. increase that borrowing from the banking system spreading in the wrong areas he did not listen to what i said is there has to be a new interest free supply from the national banks all from the european central

bank which supply must always be for the real economy and for the spreading. i'm ignoring the fact that. on not got the jobs. here we're going to. continue our discussion on the euro crisis state. of the war and the going away of the soviet union many people thought that nuclear weapons disappeared. something might be going off by mistake. or weapons on hair trigger alert. to use it as

a threat. but you know if you keep spinning a trillion dollars a year on weapons of going to blow everybody you know people are dying from these weapons but until we actually see if people don't make up. a bill. that represents the firepower of the second world war this. fire of the world today.

if you can see. the future. please. i'm here a little too mind you we're talking about the turmoil in the eurozone. see. if you say. ok you said let's go back to you in brussels here i mean there's been a talk over the last few months of mutual izing the european debt and within the euro zone i mean that was one way out in theory it probably makes sense but politically it's very dangerous isn't it. yes what is dangerous is that you take one step without taking the other steps and what has to be done is that steps has to be taken simple time is lee now

a few things are clear everybody including the spanish government including in the greek government is agreeing on financial dissipate and everybody is now agree also of a growth pact that is more money for for for growth but within the framework of the measures that have been agreed upon so on the principle of coordination one is agreeing what is lacking is trust between countries trust between banks the trust between banks has to be brought in by the banking union that will be proposed by june twenty sixth and at the same date the germans and the spaniards and everybody will agree a road map back to normality and the best argument for this is that david

cameron went to berlin today he is out of the euro zone he is here a skeptical the first hour and they still is and he pleads in pledges very much to mrs. merkel to to follow that road map so all europeans are now oh. very. intense discussion the eurozone members and among your members in order to get those in order and i feel that. it is a blessing in disguise that tension is golub so strongly because there is no alternative ok stephen if i can go to your me a lot of criticism of the europe in the way this crisis been managed is that it's been to the advantage of the banks saving financial institutions and not thinking about sovereign debt since in the end actually jobs for people how much of it of today do you think it's been looking after the financial institutions and i would say the very rich. i don't i don't see that characterization being

a fair one to be to be honest the the point about the point about about maintaining a stable banking system in globalized markets is is we've seen what not having a stable banking system in globalized markets means we had it here in this country in the u.s. in two thousand and eight when lehman brothers went down in the money markets collapsed and was teetering there was no alternative to propping up the banks this is how this is how the man in the street gets his get his money out of the cash machine this is how we get paid this is how bad has it and he has to be alarmed really this is eleven needed jobs for average americans we save the banks that it saved the economy. well it's sort of the economy yes because without the banks there would have been no economy and they would have been no jobs there's no well there's no reason why this is your argument. is that it was are you doing a plenty of calabar private capital could have done the bail out easily easily well i mean what you want to jump in. here really i mean it's simply not the case ok

there's i will tell you this i was here reporting on i was here reporting i was here reporting on the on the crisis in two thousand and eight there was no private capital there was no private capital for the banks there was no private capital for the auto industry there was nothing except the u.s. government standing in the way and frankly the alternative of letting the financial infrastructure collapse would have been so much worse no less and the what's happening in the euro zone is incremental political solutions to the emerging problems but what you haven't had over two years of this unfolding crisis is you haven't had a banking collapse now i think i think we should actually pause and give some degree of credit to the to the political elite spinning so traduced on this program that we so far over two years there hasn't been a moment there hasn't been a lehman brothers moment that has tipped the banking system the financial infrastructure and for humanity there was a quickly and receive an if then he came. there and they displayed the reseller

greece is so important you know the entire banking system will collapse i mean really go ahead jump in. i can't here believe that i'm hearing what stephen is saying he was talking about a stable finance banking system the system which built up debt and absolutely broke the world banking system a system which has no concern for spread in the real economy a system which is in fact a toll of our financial elite and it is absolutely lucian's that he say and at the moment stephen has no proposal he's not even interested in the greatly increasing unemployment going on in country after country throughout the world in the usa it's twenty to twenty two percent stephen and there's fifty fifty million people on food stamps stephen and i think you want to take account of these things the usa is responsible for this and it's dollar is in its practice is really as you say really doing this and you're suggesting you're the solution you're suggesting which is to

collapse the banking system of the eurozone is no i didn't see you know she was unemployment in the eurozone i tell you that much now listen the really lost their sense of what i see is a europe is there as a policy is the authority of the austerity policies the austerity policies across the eurozone are not working they are making matters worse they must be stopped and they will be stopped because of the election in france because of the pressure of the g seven because of the pressure from the g. twenty we're going to reflate the global economy we're going to take on and we're going to take on extra debt frankly in order to make sure that people can get jobs and we can bring unemployment down it's absolutely vital that we do that there has to be an into austerity that doesn't have to be a banking revolution there has to be an end to austerity and that's what we're going to get in the eurozone use you want to jump in in brussels go ahead yes please first of all i would like to say that you have also the brazill three agree coming into force now you have a number of financial directives which will be adopted within now and two months

and that will bring. the way the banks are maneuvering and are operating so i have absolutely adamantly against any suggestion that the elite of the banks in the lead to the politicians are all together in basket. on the ground. there is an analogy there was i right and there were that great stephen jump in well i was going to say you're absolutely right we have proposals coming out of the european union just in the last forty eight hours which which sets out exactly how we will resolve to get into trouble in the future and how we'll make sure there be no more taxpayer bailouts for the for the banking system resolving all the problems that we learned about in the banks and bringing the banks under control and my goodness we know that's a serious problem it's being done it's being result here in the in the u.s.

through the dodd frank legislation and there's more than needs to be done it's being it's being discussed in every country in the in europe and centrally in europe and we will do that there will be there will be a resolution to all these all these revelations about bad banking that we that we've learnt are going to see even if i could to separate even if i could stay with you if i could see what you see even if what if the greeks opt to get out of the year all that collapse your house of cards. it's only going to be you know it was even here go ahead stephen go ahead. well i was going to say it's a very it's a very dangerous moment. i would use the analogy of two thousand and eight again when when the u.s. government decided not to bail out lehman brothers there was this sense that because everyone had been talking about it because people would come on t.v. programs like this and talked about the the idea of letting lehman brothers go bankrupt for several weeks and months are up to it happening that somehow we were

prepared for it the idea of greece leaving the euro zone and although we've talked about it for many many months and although it started to become something the politicians are allowed to say out loud i'm not sure we've really worked through all the financial consequences all the knock on consequences for the rest of the eurozone debt for what the global financial markets are likely to do and frankly what what will happen on the streets of athens when they realize that their savings are suddenly worth a fraction of what they have now is probably not much more than they have right now rightly if i can go to you there's talk about a new economic union within the eurozone did people vote for that or is it just going to be elites again deciding what the new economic union will be about if there was a vote taken in almost every country in europe at this moment they would vote against immediately in ireland they've got scared and there is this moment in greece they're being terrified out of their lives when the re fundamental way the

people of europe know that europe is a failure very quickly i understood use the be saying more austerity and they understood stephen to be saying that there should be more keynesian now i don't obviously want to come between these two who obviously think differently from what we. know austerity or more putting into debt. but you still want to find out in brussels go ahead sorry yes i am living in brussels and i'm living in europe and the impression that all populations want to get rid of the euro is completely wrong and the french are afraid really germans are afraid of it all says a scandinavian is the dutch the telly ends and even the greeks eighty percent of the greeks want to being in the euro zone because they realize that if they fall out of it they they they are completely broke ok if you think you know me i mean i'd like to stay with this trial here steven will give you the last word on the

program what is the political dimensions of all this he said that they will have some solutions maybe they will but is that democratic is that fair to the average person in the eurozone because the decisions are being made for them. they made by their elected representatives i mean one of the things i would say actually is the politicians in germany the politicians in spain the politicians in greece. when when it comes to the negotiating table they push very hard i mean what's what you've seen work from spain over the last the last few days has been very good negotiating by their politicians they will need they will need help to bailout their banking system but what they're determined to do is to make it help specifically for their banking system they're going to ask the they're asking germany they're asking the i.m.f. for money to prop up their banking system rather than to prop up the spanish government itself and that will be much better for the spanish interest rates it'll be much better therefore for the spanish government's finances therefore they will

need to cut less therefore there are a gentleman as a journalist absolutely fascinating discussion but we're run out of time here many thanks to my guest today in new york london and in brussels and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember.

u.n. security council members endorse kofi annan six point plan for syria as russia criticizes other states for laying the blame for bloodshed soley on the assad regime overlooking atrocities committed by rebels. this is a fresh massacre reported in syria on the eve of kofi annan his briefing to the u.n. with the timing of the slaughter raising suspicions among some. global political focus shifts eastward delicate iran and afghan issues being discussed in beijing is about amir putin meets with the country's leaders. rising cases of assaults on women in egypt's tahrir square revealed the plight of female protesters whose hopes for democratic changes are fading islam if strive to take a grip on power. up next the big picture stay with us.

i'm sam saxon for tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. eight months after it started rumors are spreading that the occupy movement is dead but just days after big money one in the win wisconsin recall and we need to occupy now more than ever and mitt romney is either a liar or he's suffering from amnesia why is latest comments suggest that republicans really don't understand how jobs are created and later look into the hacktivist collective known as anonymous.