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tv   [untitled]    July 5, 2012 10:00pm-10:30pm EDT

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i am. welcomed a loan to show where i get the real headlines with none of the mersey because i live in washington d.c. so it's never going to get our financial check up a day early laura lister is going to join me to talk about how much farther the barclays scandal could extend allocate a preview of what to expect from tomorrow's jobs numbers then negotiations have been going on all week in san diego for the trans pacific partnership agreement so we're going to talk about why people are saying this is a win for multinational corporations and a big lose for american workers and as this is thursday andrew blake is going to be on the program to talk tech to me a new app helps you record police fraud and rand paul launched
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a campaign to defend internet freedom and siri has some competition so we'll have all of that and more for tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at what the mainstream media decided to. so the president is just kicking off a bus tour and the maids three media is following his every single. morning the president is kicking off a two day bus tour of ohio and pennsylvania it's being called the betting on america bus tour will kick off a two day bus tour through ohio and pennsylvania trying to sway blue collar workers into swing states to keep battleground states today and tomorrow stopping first in ohio then in pennsylvania two days two states in america's rust belt ohio and pennsylvania and the focus is jobs jobs jobs the first one of his campaign and the focus will be the economy specifically getting americans back to work it's
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a safe bet the president will showcase the auto industry bailout which mitt romney opposed this betting on america bus tour will take the president across the aisles now. our manufacturing bill is a bus tour on ground force one begins in northern ohio with three schedule campaign stops what he's trying to do is tell his economic policies president obama takes the beast on the road in his first bus tour of the twenty twelve campaign and states are also prime territory for his push to rebuild u.s. manufacturing campaign is calling this is betting on america bus tour. now i get it it's an election year this is part of the campaign and so the media is doing what it always does that's going on the campaign trail covering it like it is the president's last ride on earth they will suss out every little detail and story that they can from this bus tour and they are be there for all the special and often pre-planned photo ops is the president glad hands gives out ugs and kisses babies and all that other good stuff but in light of this i'd like to bring a little something else up today no we didn't have
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a show yesterday so we couldn't report on this event for you until tonight's show but don't worry because you still wouldn't have heard about it yesterday if you were watching the cable networks because they never touch this stuff is a yesterday the european parliament dealt a huge blow to act that's the end of counterfeiting trade agreement and we've spoken about it many times before on this show it's been years in the making all the negotiations have been very secretive and while the public and congress were excluded the entertainment industry and big pharmaceutical companies all they were shown the door and let write in now it's actually pretty similar to the secrecy and the approach of drafting the t p p which is the trans pacific partnership agreement we're going to skies that later on in the show but the thing is with active sea at lums attempts to take on counterfeiting and copyright infringement all into one agreement then it aims to create a so-called global standard global standard for these issues which in reality is really about a few countries making everybody else adapt to the way that they like to do things
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and it's had its opponents for years especially from those who push for more transparency and a lot of people in the tech community but only in the last year did we really see. we act to gain notoriety when on a mass scale protests erupted in europe and it made a difference like i said on wednesday the european parliament voted four hundred seventy eight to thirty nine rejecting. now that is a big deal some people out there have taken this to me that the agreement has been killed altogether but the truth is we do still have to be wary we have to realize it isn't completely out because only six countries need to ratify the agreement in order to put it into effect so we can make sure to keep an eye out on that for you but let's get back to the president for a minute shall we see president obama's side act in october of last year he did this without congressional approval because according to the logic of this administration it's not a treaty it doesn't change u.s. law and so therefore obama can call it an executive agreement and there are the years of congress that have been outraged over this they've shown it publicly but
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all along the way it's been one of the stories of the mainstream media just chooses to ignore so it's interesting to me to see how the most secretive the most broad sweeping international agreements that we signed on to they don't consider big. oak among guys you follow the president's every footstep on the campaign trail but then you give him a free pass when it comes to act and the t p p it's pretty ridiculous but since it just continues the trend i'm not entirely shocked that a major smack in the face from europe is also deemed unworthy of coverage as just another thing that the mainstream media chooses to miss. all right so it's time for our weekly financial checkup and your luck because we're doing it one day early time so that means that you have to wait one less day to watch it now we're going to continue to talk about the barclays market manipulation fallout moody's and standard and poor's both cut their outlook and of course
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there's now the question of how big this really is how many other banks are under investigation now one of those. biggs under investigation also includes j.p. morgan which is also in the middle of an energy probe so there's a lot of possible corruption that's coming out and of course we have a batch of new reports today that are being used to try and predict tomorrow's jobs numbers and a.t.p. survey tells us that one hundred seventy six thousand jobs were added in june so as you can see there's a whole lot to discuss get started with our financial checkup. joining me is lauren lyster host of the capital account here on our t.v. lauren jealous yeah let's start with lee and again nice to see you as well let's start with the basics right for what is a library what is a year of war where the we have a lot of this going on out there the ok right the life or and the euro or they are essentially benchmark interest rates that are used and affect trillions of dollars
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every year and consumer and corporate loans with the library and you are a bore are basically the average rate that banks lend to each other that in the interbank lending rate so library is the london interbank offered rate euro borys the europe interbank offering rate and what's different between the two is the euro bore it reflects upon the euro that's typically that you apply to the euro the libel or has ten currencies that it's used as an interest rate for so that's why that's a little bit of a broader impact and an editor deal with interesting about it is these aren't set by some free market method of price discovery banks issue there they turn in basically their numbers to what's essentially a pole so for the library there is eight hundred banks that issue there are you know numbers for what banks are allowing them to borrow at and that's what dictates it and then the euro bourses a larger panel but that's what i think is really interesting about this this is
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a free market price discovery interest rate this is banks that are essentially polled that then from. these rates are about the case of. does that make it less shocking then maybe that is that there's market manipulation i'd be all right if it's already something that's being pulled aside of the votes of banks themselves then why wouldn't they try to tailor in a certain way i'm not making excuses always so good for it but it seemed like an easy formula that you would want to try to you know to trip up completely looking at bankers and expecting them to always do the right thing and i think we have enough of history that we've seen to know that that's not usually the way things operate so i had the same reaction you did i was just talking to another analyst who said now of course nobody's surprised and it's not just barclays it's got to be more banks than that as we know that a lot more are under investigation and there's a belief that yeah other banks were in on this also that i think there's what twelve other banks so far worldwide they're under investigation has become even bigger you know i mean how how large of a probe is this going to be what i know that it could become much larger in terms
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of the number of banks that i've seen the settlements and what kind of litigation risk is the question and terms of who will settle what will the settlements be and what kind of payouts will these banks have to make because the u.s. banks the overcall ready are dealing with a lot of litigation and possible litigation costs a rising from the mortgage crisis and mortgage suits c.d.s. litigation so already some us banks analysts say are in a precarious situation because of their litigation costs and this could be one thing that adds to them because the banks that are involved in this program bank of america j.p. morgan citigroup all u.s. banks some of those especially bank of america that are in a questionable situation ok and five other thing is right i think that if you you talk to any average american out there that's probably struggling right now with the economy maybe doesn't even have you know does have a job if their homes underwater do you think they're really going to feel bad for the banks they have all these litigation costs right now they have with the how do i you know who is for all of the corruption that's going on i don't know let's
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let's look at this this fee the barclays got right was like four hundred and fifty million dollars sitting around there is that again is that just. changes of the slap on the returns are kind of are we getting some words that were considerable that's actually a pretty large settlement if you look back to abacus settlement that goldman sachs settled with the s.c.c. upon that was a five hundred fifty million dollars settlement and that was a record so four hundred fifty million dollars not far behind if you look back i just did look at two thousand and eleven the top s.e.c. settlements they range from eighteen million to one hundred million so one hundred thirty million i think was the high end so you can see that's quite a large settlement and barclays stock price fell sixteen percent the next day because i don't think investors were really expecting it was kind of a surprise these banks have not that are under investigation and from what i understand have not said how much money they've set aside in case they have a settlement to arise from this so that's a question mark so that that obviously impacts the stock manchester's basically worried across the board right exactly there's no idea who's the next yeah but i
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think you bring up a good point which is that you know taxpayers would there going you know why would we feel bad for these banks and that's a good point you know we're kind of talking about this from a shareholder perspective how investors are impacted when the stock price falls sixteen percent when all of a sudden there's a barclay's settlement announced but taxpayers in the u.s. do have to carry and so far that there is an implicit bailout guarantee if any of these banks fail in the u.s. and causes demick risk that then could threaten to bring down the financial system if you don't think that the u.s. government would step in do it maybe even that in iraq i just believe that they would and so taxpayers you know do have to care and pay attention when there are these kind of settlements that banks are dealing with in these. manipulation that they're possibly potentially involved in because the day taxpayers may still be backing this bad behavior which is horrible right and it gets overwhelming at a certain point every single day we see a new financial headline out there of another investigation another probe that's going on and so there's two more right we're going to take on some of these
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shocking and there's so much going on there's a probe into. who is the former i.m.f. chief and that's for falsifying accounts misleading investors. j.p. morgan probe into potential energy market manipulation you know what are the little details you give us about these specific probes well the thing that really struck me about the bankia probe was i can't remember the last time i saw fraud on the front page of a mainstream financial newspaper because it feels in the united states you know i've joked about this a lot on our show fraud is the ask word on wall street you hear lawmakers and officials on wall street and bank c.e.o.'s afraid to use that word of fraud as if you don't then it doesn't exist despite evidence to the contrary of widespread fraud throughout the financial system what i thought was interesting was this is a criminal fraud probe are was like ok it's a pro we've got a somewhere but then it's not even here yet. again and it's you know thirty three current and former executives that are in this probe no charges yet we don't know if there will be so course that's
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a question mark but i do think that that was it rose my eyebrows that this was a criminal probe going on with current and former executives at one of the largest banks in spain which by the way had to be basically partly nationalize and get a huge bailout so obviously it's way down on their economy and taxpayers aren't happy about that now the j.p. morgan market manipulation this is over energy manipulation grid operators in california in the midwest brought brought to light morgan's abusive bidding practices they allege so we'll see where this goes but yes another another park every day when. you have to do is you're right though that's what i love is the take here is that now t.v. time it's got a p.r. crisis on his hands that we that's what you see in a lot of the press and same thing i just don't care good you know he should have a p.r. crisis on his hands because there's a lot of things obviously that i'm going wrong just real quick let's get into a little preview of roi you might see tomorrow tomorrow jobs numbers are going to come out for the month of june and there's always these these reports that come out
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ahead of time to try to give us a look there's the a.t.p. survey like i said estimating a hundred seventy six thousand jobs were added by a private and. more than i think the ninety five thousand that economists are estimating how often can we trust these kind of predictors you know what's their track record like the a.d.p. is typically a bit sunnier the government figures that we're going to get out tomorrow so you could expect a lower number which people do people have been expecting a number that isn't even high enough to move the dial on that headline unemployment rate so i think you can i don't have a crystal ball but i think you can expect something lower typically though looking over the last decade the a.t.p. and the government figures that come out haven't been that far off but you know each month you can take it as kind of a one off thing you have to look at the big picture and it hasn't been a pretty jobs picture so we'll see if tomorrow bucks that trend on that so so i think that of course set up a little bit of it that's always the bigger problem too right is that you just have this one day where everybody is obsessing over numbers and discussing the figures
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and they just kind of move on or we forget about the larger economic problems that are going on so we're going to talk about housing mortgages how kind of debt is really holding the economy back to tomorrow show thanks lauren right thanks. hi guys it's time for our first break of the evening but when we come back we're going to tell you about wiki leaks latest document dump and then josh eidelson will come on to discuss the trans-pacific partnership negotiations are at least what little we know about the secret of talks that are going on and get this with. the news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule today.
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there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact also. the full source material is what helps keep journalism honest we want. we want to present. something else.
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well join the sun remains holed up at the ecuadorian embassy in london but today wiki leaks announced a new document dump sees a trove of more than two point four million e-mails that they're calling the syria files and they focus on the ongoing conflict between the assad government and the rebel groups released a statement today explaining the publication which said the material is embarrassing to syria but it is also embarrassing to syria's opponents it helps us not merely to criticize one group or another but to understand their interests actions and thoughts it is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it now so far only a small portion of these e-mails have actually been released but they show that finmeccanica and italian defense contractor has provided the assad government was secure communication systems throughout the conflict and the company had been helping the government since two thousand and six didn't seem or didn't appear to be too deterred by the violence or the threat of sanctions from nato and e.u.
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member states according to an e-mail from october eleventh of last year simone but next representative from a finn that kind of has subcontractor named cell x. well he told the subcontractor in syria as already said by phone we have to manage an unexpected problem with some connectors part of the goods under shipment which are manufactured in usa as you know to the usa in position to not deliver any electronic components manufactured by them we have to found an alternative solution now the nec he then said that the company would look for alternative manufacture outside the us and secured one according to an e-mail sent a week afterwards to the correspondent concerns of delivery of quote chopper accessories but it's unclear if that refers to helicopters maybe that's playing for a secure communications and finmeccanica is an extensive business with armed forces around the world in may they secured multi-million dollar attack helicopter improvement contracts with the department of defense and britain's ministry of defense and finmeccanica representatives. commented on the syrian deals and that's
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according to reports it's also not clear if the department of defense is going to bar de bar the company from future contracts for its work with the assad government but don't worry we will keep you updated on all this any other revelations that do come out from the syria files as they emerge. now all this week there have been secretive negotiations going on in san diego that's over the t.p. p. which is the trans-pacific partnership agreement it could be the biggest trade agreement in u.s. history and also leaves room for expansion now so far the countries included are the us australia brunei chile malaysia new zealand peru singapore vietnam mexico and canada but the problem is that we know very little about it as we've discussed before on the show the obama administration has resisted transparency in these negotiations even to the point where senator ron wyden the chair of the senate trade committee where he was denied access to
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a draft of the twenty six chapter treaty and what we do know has come out and leaks and so far the growing list of voices in opposition they say it they see it as a threat to american workers and a win for multinational corporations so let's find out more joining me to discuss this is josh eidelson a contributing writer at salon josh thanks for joining us tonight and i guess let's first start with just what we've already learned from the leaks that have come out about the i mean if you look at labor unions or groups like the a.f.l.-cio they're outraged they say that this is going to really hurt you know the american worker there are also a lot of people that are concerned that this is going into copyright infringement legislation right a lot of tech people are concerned so tell me what some of the most damaging details have been thus far. they sell you on a so in the chapter that was leaked in draft form what we see is what's called in the investor state dispute resolution procedure which isn't what you would associate with tree it's in fact only reportedly two of the twenty six chapters of
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the deal currently under negotiation are what we think of as traditional trade agreements what this dispute resolution process creates is a tribunal where private sector lawyers potentially with industry each ties would sit as judges in a corporation in one country could come in sue over a regulation or anything else than on their profit in a mill their country and so you see an infringement on people's right in a democracy to pass a law that protects health and safety or protects workers they pass their law then the government potentially is liable just like on their next we had provisions like this under now in over three hundred million dollars have been paid out corporations as a penalty for passing laws that protect the environment or protect consumers now as i also would you say that if you are a domestic u.s. company and you look at this or you were angry and feel like suddenly multinational
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corporations have more power than even you do right if they have the right to sue over regulations that they don't like and they get to bypass u.s. courts and just completely go around it depends on what kind of u.s. company i was i mean it depends on what kinds of values i had for example an american company made fifteen million dollars out of charging a mexican municipality for regulating the waste dump under nafta that was on the american something. but certainly if you are a company or anybody else that believes that public policy should go through a democratic process milledge and matter what people think that people should have access to the documents that are being voted on that they should be able to vote people in or out or change the laws then you should be concerned and it is absolutely true that the outside the u.s. company would have a power to do list laws to challenge us regulations that a u.s.
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company wanted and vice versa so how big is this thing really now right because canada and mexico they're both pretty recent additions and in that sense would you say that it's becoming a behemoth because there is room for expansion here too absolutely i mean the concern that advocates of raised what if this is the last train deal that we get to even have a fight over because with the provisions that allow the new countries to come in with for example the trade representative saying he'd be delighted to include china in the deal it could be that what's being negotiated in san diego right now behind closed doors is a global framework for trade that could incorporate new countries and remove the need to negotiate new agreements so that closes the door on the opportunity whether it's through politics or through protest for people that are reading these provisions that are unpopular here unpopular in many of the country if they're being effective or in terms of what's going on in san diego this you know is more
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than about a week long i think of these negotiations are going for have you heard any details is there anything that's leaking out to the major league was the one that came out last month of that chapter and if it speaks really to how. how transparent the process is that for example when i went similar widens office for comment as you mentioned the senator doesn't have access to the traps proposals even though hundreds of corporate representatives who are advising us do even to the world trade organization negotiations in the past the draft documents were available here the put the parties agree for four years after the deal passes no one will be able to see the documents so when i went to senator weiner's office and asked for a comment on that leak their response was we can't comment directly on that we can say what a shame that this is the only way people find out what's in these things is through information that leaps out is ridiculous right and i think there are way around six
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hundred representatives they're going to they're taking part of the negotiations at least this weekend so six hundred corporate present is but the public isn't allowed to know congress isn't allowed to know do we have any idea you know who the companies are any any of the names they're. there are i don't have a list but i can say that this is a pattern there was research done several years ago that looking across countries that the more veto players in the country's political system know the words the harder it was for the party in power to get laws passed the more likely they were to sign these trade agreements so in other words it's a way even if you don't have to deal with the filibuster you don't have to go before the people you make these deals even if you get wiped out of office and the other party comes in and they're still bound by the deal there's no way for an individual country to renegotiate the deal and deal with jack's proposal without giving getting everyone else so what obama does now in his representatives to is
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binding law and her comes into office and states in the future the same thing is true in these other countries yeah i mean it's becoming a trend to just in a way that we started out the show talking about act at another massive international agreement that was negotiated behind closed doors that need congressional approval and at the same time you had a big industries you know the entertainment industry pharmaceutical companies all that were allowed and so i mean it just i have to ask this question i feel like it's something that we came asking over and over all the time but the truth is that it is an election year the president is going to need labor unions to be behind him if he wants to get reelected especially if you look at the state of the economy right now and so they're angry about this they have this they don't like this but you know is it going to be enough to sway them from not voting i mean is this something that the president should be scared about. you know what struck me when i talked to a trade official at the air france c.e.o. and she said we have all these concerns about ways that labor regulations like
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maternity leave like anti sweatshop provisions could come under attack and there was legislation and we took these concerns to the obama administration negotiators and they said that they meant share those concerns but they couldn't explain to us what that's pretty damning so people are expressing disappointment at the same time the significant majority of u.s. unions both of the union federations are all in for obama pledged a lot of resources and there are reasons for that there's clearly a worse alternative but it does speak to the political predicament that labor is in that the obama administration while making some good moves like their replacement for a liberal ations board have undercut unions repeatedly and largely done away with now how that plays out in the voting booth it's hard to say immediate increases the challenge ironically for those in unions they go out to talk to their members and other people in the working class and make the case for obama given that obama has
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not done everything we could do or pledged to do specifically like one tree that would have helped union members and helped working people in the u.s. play as hard a look at this thing and say that he hasn't taken a very pro corporate stance in this regard you know when it comes to international policy and that's a fact our josh thanks so much for joining us tonight thank you. part of time for another quick break but when we come back our teens and who blake is going to be on for the latest installment of our new technology update talk tech and they will be discussing google's recent mac talk about siri as well as an android app that lets you keep tabs on those to keep tabs on feel all that important factor that's. you know of 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.

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