take your stuff. and the movement. makes your statement. split the word illegal. street. and welcome back to the big picture i'm sam sachs in for tom hartman coming up in this half hour the fukushima nuclear power plant is still facing major obstacles and the potential for more devastation more than a year since this nuclear disaster started but that's not stopping the japanese government from restarting the nation's nuclear power plants the heck is going on here and republicans have introduced their new tax rate proposal which would raise taxes on the middle class while giving the wealthy elite a nice tax break surprise surprise what kind of tax reform is really needed in

america in order to make everyone pay their fair share again. why don't you take a look at some of these pictures coming out of tokyo over the last few weeks hundreds of thousands of people have rallied in the streets of japan in what many are calling the largest peaceful protest that nation has seen in decades. and they're protesting nuclear power and they're in the streets because their government has recently restarted two nuclear reactors for the first time since the march eleventh two thousand and eleven earthquake and tsunami triggered one of the worst nuclear disasters in world history at the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant in five hundred days since that quake and tsunami the crippled fukushima plant still teeters dangerously close to igniting yet another nuclear catastrophe as

a japanese newspaper reported last week plant operators at fukushima still face a number of hurdles before this crisis is resolved that includes trying to figure out why eight million back or as a radioactive cesium still continues to pour out of reactor number two every single hour and also trying to figure out what to do with the massive pools of spent radioactive fuel that are dying going above the busted reactors and they're also trying to figure out what to do with the reactor four which could completely collapse should the ground start shaking again in other words the japanese people have good reason to be fearful of nuclear power right now as for the rest of the world kevin camps joins me now he's the nuclear waste watchdog beyond nuclear kevin welcome back to the show thanks sam. thanks for coming on so we're we're now more than five hundred days since this crisis began and there's reports that eight million backgrounds of radioactive cesium are leaking out of reactor two every hour what does that mean while. radioactive disintegration per second so eight million

back corrals is eight million radioactive disintegrations per second in this particular case it's radioactive cesium which is a human muscle seeker self that gets out in the environment gets in the food supply you eat it it goes to muscle tissue it causes health damage so. a millions i guess sounds like a lot i mean is that does that pose a threat there i mean you said if it gets in someone's muscle tissue will it get into someone's muscle tissue at that rate it is a lot as an hourly account you know this is still a major radioactivity release going on but you have to add that eight million back or elles per hour to the forty quadrillion back or alls of radioactive isotopes that tokyo electric admitted to a few months ago and as tom and i have talked about in the past they keep doubling their estimates of how much radioactivity has gotten out since march eleventh two thousand and eleven right so we've got sort of got this way i mean any idea where what's behind this leak i mean do they have any clue where this leak is coming from well ironically unit two from the outside looks the most intact it looks largely

intact there are some holes in the walls of the exterior but the worst explosion actually took place internally in unit two severely damaging the radiological containment structure which then just gushed out massive amounts of radioactivity and still is at this point apparently according to these reports so we've got we've broken through rip their moment we've got basements filled with radioactive water we've got reactor four on the verge of collapse this crisis is still very much ongoing right when they have to continually cool the reactors so that the meltdown cores don't again enter a meltdown situation and then form critical masses and spew yet more radioactivity and you named high level radioactive waste storage pools fukushima daiichi unit number four has one hundred thirty five tons of high level waste in that pool and that entire structure is listening it's tilting it has bulging walls and two places and they just did a p.r. stunt where they removed a fuel assembly from that pool but it's unused it's not high level radioactive

waste workers could actually handle it without radiation shielding but that high level waste if they had been near it that can deliver a lethal dose of radiation in seconds or minutes well i guess when they get done with the p.r. stunts we're going to actually have to do something about these pools and this is unprecedented new. nowhere in the history of the world or dealing with nuclear power as man tried to do something like the japanese are going to have to do it fukushima so are we are we about to enter still the more the most dangerous phase of this cleanup as far as comes to workers you know in the next few years that you know for pool lacks the infrastructure right now it was destroyed to remove the high level radioactive waste because you have to put radiation shielding around a transfer cask that weighs one hundred tons they need the structure to be rebuilt the crane put in place that can hold that kind of weight they're not even going to start doing that until december two thousand and thirteen and there's a ninety percent risk of a seven point zero earthquake in the next three years that could topple that

building and the radioactive fire could release ten times the radioactive cesium of chernobyl so it would dwarf what's happened already if that if that fire were to happen and yet we there are reports that people are moving back into neighborhoods around the fukushima area isn't that a huge mistake it's really nightmarish there's one report that said people may be moving back to within six miles of fukushima daiichi and i had heard previously that the twelve point four mile mark was where people were moved moving back to there are lots of radioactive hot spots in these areas the food supply is contaminated fukushima city fifty miles away has hotspots tokyo one hundred fifty miles away the closer you get the worse it is people are going to pay what their health and their lives if they're large if they're moved back in large numbers of these places as you mentioned earlier the japanese government keeps revising upward their numbers of radioactive release just how much british it was released so they've lied to the public about the dangers of nuclear power in just the last

forty seconds we have left surely that is the american government lying to us about the dangers of nuclear power right now and how safe our plants are very much so incredibly in the huffington post just yesterday senator reid the senate majority leader was quoted as saying that the nuclear regulatory commission is an industry front. he called the guy who lied to his face he said yeah you call the international one of the n.r.c. commissioners and that's true and most of the commissioners are just industry rubber stamps and here's the senate majority leader saying that's the case here and that was blamed in japan for the fukushima disaster the collusion between regulators and industry we have it right here and we're also using the same exact design plan so the fukushima have the spent fuel is in there you know i don't know my general election season you know just said nuclear is not the way to go he just said that in the last couple years we should listen to him seven thank you so thanks a lot for a real show that claim to have to be on nuclear the world is waking up to the dangers of nuclear power but we also need to be waking up to the dangers of fossil

fuels which are accelerating global climate change ice in greenland is now melting in a president and president great excuse me and we're just coming off one of the worst if not the worst heat waves in our nation's history if we don't figure out a way to produce energy more responsibly in troubling times are ahead here's tom explaining why that is. this is phytoplankton basically giant clouds a little tiny plants that fill the oceans it's the bottom of the food chain meaning that if it collapses so too does all of their marine life it also produces about half of the oxygen in our atmosphere it's a kill off the phytoplankton and the world as we know it ends the bad news is we're killing off the phytoplankton back in two thousand and seven a study was done on the reproduction rate of fido plankton off the gulf of maine and scientists were alarmed to learn that the reproduction rate had decreased by a factor of five as in five hundred percent. as in the amount of phytoplankton that could be produced in a day now takes five days to produce and now

a new study by the bigelow laboratory for ocean sciences sciences finds the phytoplankton reproduction has not bounced back in maine this is big time bad news for maine's marine industries because the food chain that leads to every fish we eat starts with phytoplankton phytoplankton no fish even more frightening this phenomenon isn't exclusive to the gulf of maine it's happening all over our planet as the science journal nature published in two thousand and ten the world is losing one percent of its phytoplankton every single year and in the northern hemisphere places like maine we've seen a drop drop off of forty percent since one nine hundred fifty in phytoplankton so we're not just talking about maine fisheries getting wiped out we're talking about fisheries around the planet this is a catastrophic shake up of the global food chain and it's not just about the food we all like to eat but we like to breathe even more someone can go a few days without eating but you can only go

a few minutes without breathing and we can thank phytoplankton for giving us oxygen to bleed to breathe fully half the world's oxygen supply comes from phytoplankton which inhales carbon dioxide and vines the carbon exhales oxygen but fire plankton are being killed off by a one two three punch of warmer waters change in salinity levels and most importantly increasing levels of carbonic acid in the ocean and acid formed when the ocean absorbs the carbon dioxide that we are pumping into the atmosphere when we burn coal oil gasoline and natural gas the global warming from our burning these fossil fuels is melting permafrost and ice around the arctic circle exposing ancient peat bugs to the air that have been and these things have been trapped out of the ice for hundreds of thousands in some cases even millions of years the peat then decomposes releases methane a greenhouse gas that's twenty five times more potent warming. our atmosphere then carbon dioxide team of ecologist with the university of alaska fairbanks has found

so far more than one hundred fifty thousand of these methane leaks bubbling up into the arctic so to recap humans releasing carbon into the atmosphere is causing temperatures to rise which is causing polarized caps to melt which is releasing methane which is causing temperatures to rise even faster which is making the oceans more acidic which is contributing to the death of phytoplankton which on which the global food chain serves depends to survive and we humans depend on to breathe if this continues we're looking at the end of the world as we know it in this century and the republicans in power and the oil barons of their slaves to are determined to let the phytoplankton die off those lawmakers include people like virginia state delegate chris stoll who stripped out the term sea level rise from the state study on climate change because he said it's a liberal code word the oil coal and natural gas barons are now hiring the same phony scientists and using the same tactics that the débâcle companies used in the one nine hundred ninety s. to deny clear scientific evidence that their products were actually killing people

the two thousand and ten election so over three hundred million dollars in outside corporate cash spent a lot of which came from climate change denier noire coal and natural gas corporations and every single freshman house republican has gone on record to deny the existence of manmade global climate change meanwhile phytoplankton continues to die off because global temperatures continue rising we haven't already had it set me boy when it comes to climate change and unless something is done very very quickly we will very soon. after the break yet again republicans are looking out for the interests of america's millionaires and billionaires while leaving everyone else in the dust but inside still we take tom has a solution to this problem a new campaign is unveiled after the break.

wealthy british style. that's not on the title. markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report. if they shoot something inappropriate for public they can easily be shocked by.

casualties of war ok. i wish he would have never happened but it has happened. in a war a t.v. camera becomes an unnecessary what destroys their own safety all foreign nationals including journalists and inspectors should leave around. and it's clear what happens with such witnesses i got him on my site. ready to protect me to. shoot nurses shooting on our t.v. .

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images. from the streets of canada. showing operations ruled the day. last week democrats in the senate passed legislation to extend tax cuts for ninety eight percent of the nation while forcing the top two percent to pay their fair

share of that so now all eyes are on the republicans in the house of representatives will they concur with the senate democrats and let ninety eight percent of americans keep their tax cuts or will they hold middle class tax cuts hostage as they've done for three years now to make sure the super rich keep their unnecessary budget busting tax cuts well this week we've learned an answer to that question republicans in the house plan to counter the senate vote with legislation to give millionaires a massive one hundred eighty seven thousand dollar annual tax cut while raising taxes on the middle class and working americans. the so-called tax reform law being considered by republicans this week would drop the top income tax rate in america down to twenty five percent and rather than closing loopholes that allow corporations like g.e. to pay nothing in taxes republicans are getting rid of deductions that give average working families some tax relief according to an analysis by citizens for tax justice the republicans plan would massively shift the tox the tax burden down the

income scale hitting the low and middle income americans the hardest so if there was ever any doubt that the republican party is officially the party of by and for the billionaires and there isn't any more recently tom gave his take on what the top income tax rate should be in america and for any billionaires watching at home you're not going to like it here it is tonight's daily take. i believe it's time that we reconsider the role billionaires play in our economy and in our society in fact i say it's time we outlaw billionaires by placing a one hundred percent tax on any wealth over nine hundred ninety nine million nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars trust me we'll all be much better off in a world free of billionaires look around the whole planet is in crisis europe is on the brink of collapse the united states economy is out freak climate change induced

weather is becoming more and more common our streets are becoming breeding grounds for social instability and all the while there is this very small cog array of very very wealthy individuals billionaires who are sucking up more and more of the wealth that used to belong to working people just look at these numbers post world war two all income levels in america grouped together the lowest income level the twenty percent poorest americans actually grew at a faster rate than the top twenty percent of the wealthiest americans during this time billionaires were few and far between in america as wealth was more evenly distributed but since reagan and since in human talent he was instilled in our culture that greed is good and super rich shouldn't be questioned arac as to sacrifice any more for their nation and income for the top has increased rapidly while income has actually fallen for the bottom americans since one nine hundred eighty the top one percent have sucked up eighty percent of all the new wealth

created in our country and in two thousand and ten the richest one percent of americans received ninety three percent of all the new income earned that year there are now over four hundred billionaires in america in fact today the richest four hundred americans all of whom are billionaires own more wealth than the bottom one hundred fifty million americans combined. in fact the richest six members of the sam walton family heirs the wal-mart fortune again all billionaires own more wealth than the bottom thirty percent of americans combined according to a recent study from the federal reserve median net worth for middle class families dropped by nearly forty percent from two thousand and seven to twenty two that's equal to wiping out eight eighteen years of savings for the average middle class family and much of that money went to the richest four hundred americans all billionaires who collectively own one point three trillion dollars worth of wealth the issue here isn't punishing the wealthy the issue is acknowledging that

billionaires uniquely have sucked up so much wealth out of our economy that the rest of us are drowning what's worse is the rest of us are working harder and harder productivity has steadily increased post world war two and it used to be that income gains increased right alongside it around the time of ronald reagan productivity and wages began to diverge while productivity increased wages stagnated that's because all the extra profits made by increased productivity were not given back to the workers like they had been all the way back to the george washington ministration but instead since reagan have been pocketed by c.e.o.'s and corporate executives in other words we're all working harder but unfortunately by no will of our own we've been forced to give up these fruits of our labor to the elites to the billionaires as wealth has exploded and continues to increase year after year and what have working people been given out of this deal with the billionaires we've been given political corruption as billionaires like sheldon

eight of the koch brothers now proudly by politicians and legislation to benefit their own selfish interests like tax cuts for wealthy people deregulation of polluting oil corporations free trade for job outsourcers we've been given we've been giving gigantic transnational corporations. we have been steered by billionaires they can crush the competition of small businesses and kill the american entrepreneurial spirit cording to a new study released today by the new america foundation the number of entrepreneurs per capita in the united states has dropped by fifty three percent since one thousand nine hundred eighty seven and since one nine hundred ninety one the number of americans who are self employed has dropped by more than twenty percent americans who used to be able to start their own businesses are increasingly being forced to join the ranks of the working poor crowded out of the market by the billionaires corporate domination we've been given financial instability as billionaires having more money than they can spend in

a dozen lifetimes go to wall street to gamble. as author larry beinhart discovered whenever tax rates at the very top drop below fifty percent the super rich have a lot of hot money to play with and there are always subsequent economic crashes it happened in the twenty's it happened in the eighty's with the s. and l. crisis that happened just a few years ago with the housing bubble bursting not only that the billionaires have even denied us and themselves happiness as a twenty ten study by the proceedings of the national academy of sciences found emotional well being rises with income but there is no further progress beyond an annual income of seventy five thousand dollars low income exacerbates the emotional pain associated with such misfortunes as divorce ill health and being alone we conclude that high income buys life satisfaction but not happiness in other words once your basic essential service which could be achieved with seventy five thousand dollars a year or even just a basic middle income any extra money doesn't make you any happier but above all

else are subservience to the billionaires has given us a perverse form of capitalism corporate capitalism which subjugates all the needs of our society the clean air food water security healthcare education retirement and energy to the demands of quarterly profits to the demands of a few billionaires who sit in corporate boardrooms and figure out what extra bit of profit they can squeeze out of their workers out of their fracking wells out of the gulf of mexico out of bombs being dropped on afghanistan out of health care premiums and out of pensions and retirement as pulitzer prize winning journalist chris hedges routinely points so corporate capitalism laissez faire capitalism if left unchecked will kill us and the way to put a check on it today is to cut off the spigot fondling what was once middle class wealth to the billionaires. we can't say we weren't warned of the dangers that might come with the rise of the billionaires our most influential founding father

thomas jefferson wrote exhaustedly about the dangers of an aristocracy or what the billionaires would even call back in his day as he wrote to george washington in seven hundred eighty six day maybe at some distance beyond the reach of our lives perhaps yet it will certainly come when a single fiber left of this institution will produce and hereditary aristocracy which will change the form of government from the best to the worst in the world i shall think little also of our government's longevity unless this germ of destruction be taken out and as he wrote to john adams in nine hundred thirteen rehashing a debate the two would add over the senate which at that time was handpicked by wealthy state legislators the artificial aristocracy is a must civitas ingredient in government and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy i think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief is arming them for it and increasing instead of remedy in the evil we were

warned by president grover cleveland the only democrat elected during the robber baron era who in his eighteen eighty eight state of the union address said as reviews of the achievements of aggregated capital we discover the existence of trusts combinations and monopolies of the citizens struggling far in the rear or as trampled to death beneath an iron evil corporations which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people are fast becoming the people's masters and we were warned by franklin roosevelt in the aftermath of the great depression when in one nine hundred thirty six he called out the economic royalists who today would be billionaires saying. a small group had concentrated into their own hands and almost complete control over other people's property other people's money other people's labor other people's lives for too many of us life was no longer free liberty no longer real men could no longer follow the pursuit of

happiness these economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of america what they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power and our allegiance to american institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power we as a nation listened to roosevelt's warning and got behind him when he put a ninety four percent top income tax rate on the billionaires or their equivalent in the dollars of that day republican president dwight eisenhower kept that tax rate at ninety one percent during his administration and even richard nixon embraced a seventy percent tax rate on the billionaires today at thirty five percent and we know where that's got us our nation does not thrive on the goodwill of billionaires we thrive on the hard work of average americans who wake up every day go to work care for their families raise their children to believe that america is

a we society a place where we all work together not a place where we wait for scraps to fall off the billionaires dynasty billionaires are not job creators they're not smarter than the rest of us and they're not harder workers of the rest of us they are hoarders plain and simple if they had to convert their wealth into actual cash they would be able to move around their lavish mansions. we need to bring back common sense taxes on wealth including an absolute taxable of one billion dollars that once and for all prevents the ascendancy of predatory billionaires in america time to join the no billionaires campaign. and that's the big picture tonight tuesday july thirty first two thousand and twelve and it was our big move to seven pm so thank you for watching if you missed any of tonight's show we'll be rearing the show at nine pm eastern time and for more information on any of the stories we covered you can visit our websites any time thom hartmann dot com free speech org and. also check out our two you tube channels

there are links to thom hartmann dot com also tom foreman dot com check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback and as always says don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active tag your it occupies something we'll see tomorrow. wealthy british style. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy

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