it turns out brain anatomy has a lot to do one that is and it's geeky science and the minute democrats want to help americans republicans say no way they're fine spending money on golf balls and greens feeds why i'll explain in tonight's daily today. in the eyes of the rest of the news on tuesday in a rare act of bipartisanship the senate passed the small business jobs and tax relief act that legislation is aimed at giving some much needed stimulus to america's entrepreneurs by giving any small business that hired more workers in two thousand and twelve a ten percent tax credit it also gives away new tax credits for small businesses who invest in new major equipment it's no secret the small businesses have taken quite a hit following the bush great recession and there's new evidence out now that suggests

america's entrepreneurial class has been suffering for a long time before barack obama or even george w. bush was in the white house in fact the evidence shows that american entrepreneurs have been getting pummeled for more than thirty years now according to a new study released today by the new america foundation the for the number of entrepreneurs per capita has dropped by fifty three percent since one nine hundred seventy seven and since one thousand nine hundred one the number of americans who are self employed has dropped by more than twenty percent now the words americans who used to be able to start their own businesses increasingly being forced to join the ranks of the working poor our nation quite frankly has forgotten how to foster an entrepreneurial class over the last thirty years so why is that could have something to do with massive tax cuts for the wealthy and for transnational corporations that have made rich even richer and big corporations even bigger to for small businesses out of the marketplace or maybe it's because we're no longer enforcing the. german antitrust act and jump head first in the so-called free trade

which is giving way to giant transnational corporations and small business upstarts basically can't compete against not only that we've destroyed the social safety net in this country which used to give americans a chance to take risks and try new jobs because they had a net of security to fall into if they failed that if they fail are condemned to indefinite poverty so no one can afford to take risks to start small businesses so what is it that's really behind the death of the auditor class in america and how do we revive it very soon when is the author of that new study i mention on this topic by the new america foundation as well as the author of the brilliant book corner a new monopoly capitalism in the economics of destruction and joins me now here in washington d.c. barry welcome and thanks for having me so what prompted this study what got you started on this well you know it sort of came from just walking around the streets of the united states walking up and down main streets and towns in the west and the east and middle america and seeing the exact same stories in the exact same place

and and then wondering. what happened all the little people that used to be there and so we set out to we've been reading all of these studies that show that entrepreneurial is a united states remained pretty steady over the last generation and we just assume there was something wrong with the numbers so we set out to dig deep in the numbers and what we came upon is just a fact that the people have been studying the. elitism in united states had not been correcting for the change in the population hadn't changed for corrected for per capita so the number of entrepreneurs might have remained the same but the number of people in our population gone up so the actual percentage of honor yeah drop so we what we found out is that it was a really shocking dramatic drop between night as you mentioned between one thousand seventy seven and two thousand and ten we saw more than. the number of

printers created firms created each year dropped by more than fifty percent yeah i think you know i think it's pretty amazing back in the sixty's there was a t.v. show called wood sixty six martin milner and the other guy but and they basically traveled across america in their car and they had a little town every week and it was and every town was uniquely different i hitchhiked across the united states one hundred sixty seven or sixty eight i think yes sixty eight and it was amazing i mean every town was unique every town was different today you could drop out of an airplane and sixty thousand feet and land some random place and you have no idea where you are it's always the same burger king the same olive garden the same macy's the same what is it what switch flipped that was that they changed america from two hundred years of being unique everywhere to being now one giant imagine this country you know in this study we actually don't address that in the study we just one of the look at the numbers but

just from my own work looking at sort of changes in law i've been doing this for looking at the covering business as a journalist for twenty five years and what we my guess is and my my my conviction is that the main change is that about thirty years ago in this country we got rid of our anna trust laws for all intents and so basically if you're if you're a large corporation that's right so if you're a large corporation you have the right right now to do whatever you want and to squeeze anyone to whatever extent you want and here we are thirty years later we're seeing a radical decline in the number of independent businesses independent citizens that are left in united states do you think that the fact that thirty years ago a small business could buy health insurance for their employees expend in. simply

out of this the seventy's my recollection is the blue cross blue shield initiatives like thirty eight dollars a month for each one of my employees and was not a big expense. that i mean that has just exploded in the last thirty years could that be part of it or even that when i mention the set up the thirty years ago if you stepped out and fell. and you know i did with one business i mean i had one that collapse and i had six that had really well if you stepped out and failed you could always kind of pick yourself up there was a social safety net there was unemployment you know health care was my life but those things have changed a lot here and now there's a number of factors i don't want to give the impression that it's only a single factor in addition to the health care issue there's also less credit that's available. in communities you know the. eve of the banking system has been radically centralized and big banks don't lend the little people so but all these factors the one that is sort of changed most

dramatically is this issue of concentration or the large size of the project you know just a century thirty years ago a generation ago a company like wal-mart would have been essentially elite regard is illegal we did not want to have a single company operating in fifty states we didn't want to have a single company with its hands in the pocket of one hundred senators that was regarded as a fundamental. huge danger politically and and it was viewed that way by both barry goldwater and lyndon johnson i mean back in the sixty's this was this was not so partisan you know there was a basically you go from the new deal in the one nine hundred thirty s. well into the essentially it's one thousand anyone for fifty years both parties wanted to see power distributed in the political economy we didn't want big monopolies we want individual citizens to have the average. to go out and make

their own way so you know we all know the story of the frog in the pot and turn the peat up slowly in the frog just kind of falls asleep and gets cooked turn up fast the frog jumps out this is happened over thirty year period thirty one years i guess. are we i mean there's an entire generation of people who have no recollection no idea how different america was for all of our history before that is it possible to to awaken people to that to say hey it's possible to to to to break this stuff up is there. can we do it. i'm convinced we can and there's the two reasons one is people still want to have their own business they want to be their own boss and we see that with all the polls people who. you know kids today coming out of college they want to have their own company but we see it also with older folks people in their fifty's and sixty's they want to retire they want to don't really want to retire they want to have their own little business for you know ten twenty years so people want to do this and the other thing is that we have

to remember is that this happened once before in this country during the plutocratic your power was radically killed today it was eight hundred s. and it was right up in one thousand nine hundred twenty three so the giant. sort of powers woolworths and a and p. and then what happened is that beginning in one thousand thirties and forties the people rose up and they took down these powers and they made space for their neighbors for themselves and neighbors to go in and make a community of business people hopefully we can do it again barry thanks so much thank you put the great work in spreading the good work thank you to the death of the american entrepreneur as the consequence in my opinion of thirty years of reaganomics for some reason republicans are perfectly happy with doubling down another thirty years of reaganomics and see to it that they don't succeed.

our first comments and i come to surat of called into our viewer rant line and had this to say about america's wealth. this is ron from on i was just wonder why there's ever no mention of the rich people that have all this money that they've made where they made it like maybe off the other ninety eight percent of a. they worry about who pays what tax and what tax isn't going to be paid but most of those dollars come from the poor folk to the middle class. i'm just curious why have you never been spoken about thinking. you know that mitt romney is a third of a billionaire is worth three hundred fifty million dollars you gave one hundred million of it to his kids and he's got one hundred million in his for a one k. or something like that but in any case he's a rich guy. but that's you know so was franklin roosevelt he wasn't rich like romney but franklin roosevelt was

a rich guy too i don't think that americans. i get all upset about rich people trying to run for political office i think the problem that romney for example is facing and that many of these plutocrats are facing is not that they're rich or the koch brothers in their political activism but rather that they use their riches to corrupt the political system and it's in the case of romney and bain capital to pull to the business system to further enrich themselves very often at the expense of the average person that's the thing that i think is going to be a political liability for these guys our final comment the night comes from community lobby you tweeted us surprised to hear tom harkin say the vote isn't guaranteed in the constitution is that so how can a marker see thrive with no right to vote well there is no actual right to vote in the constitution it's it was not put there by the founders because there were groups that they didn't want to vote back then and this is the original one of the original sins of america and we're still paying the price of it is the original sin

that came out of slavery and it was wrong then it's wrong now we should actually amend the constitution to say that there is an affirmative right to vote that would then lead to things like voting day being a holiday and anybody being able to you know every american citizen be able to vote . coming up considering they complain whenever democrats spend money republicans are sure to spend millions of dollars themselves while we republicans hold ok spending money on political theater but not ok spending on programs that help americans like food stamps or unemployment i'll explain in tonight's daily to.

the official. called touch from the top story. on the. video on demand. and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the dot com. this is bill gates second richest man in the world and one of the most giving men in the world at least in absolute dollars donating millions of dollars each year and billions in aggregate to charities and foundations that help people across the globe these are the koch brothers worth a combined fifty billion dollars and while they give a lot of money organizations that promote pseudo science very little of their

fortune goes to truly helping others so what makes bill gates such a caring billionaire and the koch brothers not so much the answer may lie in a small region of the brain that's right the first time ever researchers have discovered a can a connection between altruistic unselfish and. caring behavior about others and the anatomy of the brain to see if a person's ability to be generous and on selfish had neurological causes the inner researchers at the university of missouri and department of economics gave a study group a set amount of money the members of the group were then told to divide the money between themselves or an anonymous other person the researchers found that while some people were very willing to share their money others were almost never willing to give up their money for the benefit of the other person past it is shown that the area of the brain where the parietal and temporal lobes meet is linked to a person's ability to be empathetic or to put themselves in another person's shoes

and according to the researchers at the university of zurich our ability to be generous to others is directly related to our ability to be empathetic to have empathy as a result the researchers believe that structural differences in the area of the brain where those two lobes meet might be linked to a person's ability to show a concern actually experience a concern for others according to a more ashima a post-doctoral research or at the university is zurich the researchers were right . that people who behave more altruistically also had a higher proportion of grey matter at the junction between the parietal and temper alone. ernst ferrer one of the head researchers of the study says that these are exciting results for us are one should not jump to the conclusion that altruistic behavior is determined by biological factors alone the amount of grey matter in the brain and a person's ability to be altruistic can also be influenced by social processes by the way we grow up i've always believed that if we taught children how to be

empathetic as part of their school curriculum we didn't up with a more altruistic society and as a result society would move away from the idea that everything revolves around the individual and toward the idea that there are other people in the world who matter and who need help so what's the big picture in all this well two things first people in the world who hang on to their wealth rather than help others aren't necessarily snobs their brains are just constructed differently which gives them which causes them to be less giving and less compassionate secondly if we make an effort to teach empathy to our children it will develop it will affect their brain development and possibly in no time we can turn america in the world around where you create a society where the wealthy care about the poor a society where everyone understands the idea that we're all in this together.

it's the good the bad of the very very lewd dip bruce lee ugly the good texas district court judge disallowed triano on monday triana ruled that the atmosphere must be protected for public use just like water in a ruling tree on a set of air and the atmosphere are public trusts and therefore must be protected for the well being of the public legal analysts are saying the tree on its decision could help future climate change lawsuits that are designed for states or the federal government to cut emissions kudos to judge triano for giving a big win to the protection of our environment the bad u.s. olympic lympics is just two weeks away and over the course of a month americans will be filled with patriotism as we watch your favorite athletes compete but our athletes will not be wearing american make clothing and the walk in the streets of london is the official uniforms for this year's olympians are made in china you would think that american olympics would be representing american

olympians would be representing the very best of our country every way possible including by showing off our manufacturing sector. in the u.s. olympic committee decided to rely on cheap labor from overseas rather than putting americans to work and the very very ugly colorado secretary of state scott guesswork republican gessler wants to make sure colorado continues with florida started on tuesday he sent a letter to department of homeland security asking that they help verify the status of five thousand registered voters as part of colorado's voter purge and just like in florida gessler says he's going to sue the v.h.s. if they refuse to help colorado has a large population of latinos and they're the ones largely being targeted by that state's voter purge because they tend to vote democratic so just like in florida republicans in colorado are trying to rig the election for mitt romney by preventing democrats in voting and back is very very.

here were republicans on wednesday voting to repeal or weaken obamacare for the thirty third time thirty three zones they tried to kill obamacare and unfortunately for them the first time was not the charm charm nor was the third time the charm nor the thirty third time a charm despite all their efforts obamacare is still law but republicans do have something to show for all this bluster and all these votes and that is a fifty million dollars bill a tab left over to be paid for by you and me the taxpayers it is the thirty third vote to repeal all or part of the president's health care law no republican effort

that according to a c.b.s. news tally has taken up at least eighty hours on the house floor that's two full work weeks since early two thousand and eleven the congressional research service tells us that the house of representatives costs just twenty four million dollars a week so with two weeks spent repealing the law that comes to a little under fifty million dollars. fifty million dollars fifty million dollars spent doing absolutely nothing except political theater fifty million dollars wasted and this coming from the same party that has committed itself to getting rid of every ounce of waste in government spending is the same party the force more than five hundred thousand americans off unemployment insurance because according to the republicans we just can't afford it. this is the same party that has again and again and again tried to cut back on food stamp

benefits for low income americans because according to them we can't afford it wonder if they realize that the fifty million dollars they just spent trying to repeal obamacare is equal to how much it costs provide food stamp benefits to more than thirty one thousand people for a full year or if they realize that the fifty million is also equal to more than three thousand americans collecting unemployment benefits for a full year or if they realize that that fifty million could have been used to send more than six thousand students to a public college for four years for free most likely. they don't realize it because right after voting to repeal obamacare for the thirty third time the republicans went ahead and wasted even more taxpayer money talking

about. the gentleman from florida tracking. ask unanimous consent to address the house out of order for one minute that objection now speaker of members of the house i've been asked to report the results of a competition that took place on monday at the columbia country club the competition is called the congressional challenge cup it's a little bit where a team of golfers from the democratic side of the house play eight team of golfers from the republicans out of the house and i wanted to report to the house that this year's winner of the congressional cup is the republican team well at least there's that even though republicans failed to take health insurance away from one hundred million americans thirty three straight times they can take some solace in knowing at least one the impression on golf term. and wasted even more taxpayer money

bragging about it on the house floor to try to convince republicans that what they did the what they just did was a huge ways to government money they could have been better spent helping the unemployed the sick helping indebted students it's not going to work it won't work because they frankly don't give a damn about the poor the sick or students so maybe if we speak in their terms if we tell them how that fifty million could have been better spent on things republicans care about then they can really understand how much money they've wasted on their obamacare crusade for example fifty million dollars could have bought ten new mitt romney mansions each complete with its own fifty five thousand dollar car elevator yamit you should be angry or it could have purchased thirty three thousand semiautomatic rifles for sure of joe arpaio southern border goon squad yeah i'd be mad to sheriff joe could have funded eighty more hours

a witch hunts eighty hours of congressional hearings into fast and furious or planned parenthood or whose loa phobia. takes you off to the right chairman isaac or could have funded four hundred sixteen thousand rounds of golf at st andrews for the annual congressional golf tournament can now be played for the next fifty thousand years. all right no need to cry about it speaker boehner point is for a party that talks a lot about how we need to tighten our belts cut every nickel a waste in government spending and even begin to span in programs like medicare and social security to reduce the deficit it really doesn't help if fifty million bucks are being wasted on political stunts in the house of representatives. over the next four months republicans are going to go in front of voters and make the argument that they deserve another two years control and house of representatives they'll

talk about how many times they voted to repeal obamacare how many times they voted to hold attorney general eric attorney general eric holder in contempt how many congressional investigations they've launched into planned parenthood but they won't mention is how much taxpayer money your money my money they've wasted doing all this stuff and how now one of those so-called accomplishments will create a single job for even one single white american so i say republicans are really serious about deficit reduction and should start with reducing themselves and their frivolous pursuits. as the big picture first night for more information on the stories we covered visit our web sites of thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and r t dot com also check out our two youtube channel is there a link to thom hartmann dot com this entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and you can visit tom hartman dot com and download

the audio podcast of our daily three to six radio show we also have a new it's actually newly updated tom hartman i phone or i pad app in the app to abstract been made super cool for the retina display on the i pad he said this feedback a twitter of tom underscore arbonne on facebook at tom underscore our our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at thom hartmann dot com and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active tag your suitable.

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