bought a bag of the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour remember the big banks the government bailed out just a few years ago well they didn't learn their lesson and they're back playing fast and loose with our money is there any way to rein these banks in for the second time or should we be preparing for yet another financial disaster also

congresswoman michelle bachmann has made some wild accusations during her time in congress and it looks like they've heard her progress in seven chance to take back her seat the last democratic candidate for minnesota's sixth congressional district jim great. in screwed news the banks are possibly close to crashing our economy again you'd think after being responsible for the worst financial disaster since one nine hundred twenty nine and having to be bailed out to the tune of fourteen trillion dollars that are big banks and their banks toure's would think about reforming their ways well that's not the case bank of international settlements says that a new report that those financial institutions which got bailed out in two thousand and seven two thousand and eight the last two years of the bush administration are today behaving far riskier than the banks that didn't get a bailout as the report says during the crisis rescued banks did not reduce the risk in this of their new syndicated lending compared to their non rescue peers in

fact our results suggest that the relative riskiness of their lending increased the american people were told we have to rely on wall street to get our economy healthy again today wall street is doing just fine working americans are suffering through a depression not only that wall street is back gambling with our money just like they did before the crash. so what lessons can be learned here before we see a repeat of the financial meltdown joining me now is max fraud wolf economist an instructor at the graduate a graduate program at the international affairs at the new school university a max welcome back to the program always a pleasure thanks for having me it's great to see how many how many chances are we going to give the banks to behave responsibly and do you expect that this kind of behavior on their part that the bank of it owns international settlements is now called out could actually lead to another crash and we could be looking at another you know the secretary of the treasury shaking his hands and holding

a piece of paper going we've got to do something like we saw with paulson. i think we're less likely to see that i think as the sort of banks go right now this indicated loan book which is what the bank for international settlements mentions and your piece wisely brings up maybe more rest risky but generally speaking the banks are holding more cash they're taking less overall systemic risks than they were before they still take risks yes have we failed to rein in the worst of the risk taking absolutely i don't know if that's just the banks i think we could ask that question pretty reasonably about some of the pharmaceutical industry the h.m.o.'s and whole bunch of different sectors that being said i do think the u.s. economy looks a little peek id at the deceleration and the continued inability to get job growth with the fiscal cliff approaching does mean that the kind of alarm bell we're seeing here from the b.s. should be wrong i just don't know if it's going to be the banks this time and i would see that's a little bit less likely than last time well and you make an excellent point i mean ever since eighty two and reagan stopped in force in the sherman antitrust act

we've seen basically industry after industry be dominated by between three and seven companies in there i can't think of a single sector in america but that doesn't describe including banking i mean the six largest banks in america control assets that are equal to about sixty sixty five percent of the u.s. g.d.p. should we be seriously looking at going back and doing what richard nixon started against breaking them up should we be going back to an to an aggressive antitrust posture and maybe starting with the bankers. well i think we've been lax in the anti trust in the competition department for a long time and i think we feel that when we look at our cable t.v. bill and we figure out which phone company to use when we go to a hospital or a doctor or a drug company or a bank or a cereal company or of meat company and so i think we kind of have a soup to nuts situation where two to four firms control and off the two to four firms control off a lot of industries and part of what being bigger does help you do is buy lobbyists

and buy influence and the kind of irony of all this is we have an increasingly market fundamentalist political system then there's the talks about free enterprise and what they often don't mention to us is that the benefits of free enterprise work when we have robust competition when firms are price takers from the market not price makers in the market so that same kind of montreaux that fundamentalists market muncher that we get to explain more and more of our lives is less and less true as behemoths firms siddhis try these industries and little firms and competition become mostly something for the history books one does it doesn't that demonstrate that markets don't exist in a vacuum they aren't created by transnational corporations or or or you know the heirs of the rockefeller fortune or whatever that market's just like you know just like a football game is the creation of the league and the rules are there i mean the markets are to a certain extent the creation of government and we have to have appropriate rules just like get them decent rules for a football game or did it just goes nuts without proper private property laws and

competitive in foresman patents and copyrights foresman and payment in force mint money and monetary policy and fiscal policy all done by the government you can't have a functioning market every economist since adam smith everyone left right center popular or unpopular has reiterated the markets the legal stream framework for a market is created and maintained by a state without a state you can't have a free market you have the difference in a free and competitive market at a jungle war of all against all that's the difference between hobbes. cruel brutish and short life and the more sort of saying why predictions of people like smith who said with the right context with the right regulation markets can guide individuals through self interest to create socially optimal outcomes we can debate how true that is but we know that even in the high theory the high theorists who believe this nobody believes that absent competition and a fair flat playing field with clear and enforced rules very very well so next

friday will thanks so much for joining us again always my pleasure great to see you when the banks inevitably lead us to catastrophe again let's not make the same mistakes again let's do like reagan did with the s n l's in one nine hundred eighty six when his as an l. deregulation experiment led to the s. and l. meltdown threw a bunch of gangsters in jail but a thousand of them nationalize the banks broke them up regulated them and turned as an l. banking and we should turn regular banking back into the safe useful and boreen industry used to be when our economy thrived before reaganomics. and i we debut a new segment taking our country back where we will high like he races in congressional seats across the country which progressives are trying to take back to begin by going to minnesota sixth congressional district in the seat currently held by republican congresswoman michele bachmann what was once thought to be

a shoo in victory for bachmann has suddenly turned into a very close race according to a new poll conducted by greenberg quinlan rosner rosin or democratic challenger jim graves is trailing bachmann by just two points in bachmann's favor ability rating has fallen four points and her unfavorable rating has risen seven points so it looks like a progressive may have a good chance of taking back minnesota's sixth congressional district joining me now to talk more about this race is jim graves democratic candidate for congress from minnesota's sixth district jim great to see it thanks for joining us. thank you for having me on are you surprised that the race is become so close. when that really we kind of did some preliminary work before we got into it and we had all the data down pretty well that if the people know what's going on if they know what we stand for and you know michele bachmann stands for getting nothing done taking care of herself they're going to her own best interests not the people that we

would have a good chance here and we think we're going to win by four to six percentage points . jim graves you said that when people know what you stand for and know what the issues are then they're going to they're going to vote for you rather than congresswoman bachmann what are those issues one of the things that you're running one thing is that people know that we've got to get the middle class back in the game michele bachmann she's more to the koch brothers and to rubber norquist pledge in that kind of thing than actually working for the people the six districts the people the district a good hard working folks there struggling to get anyone struggling a bit more probably the most people across the country a lot of foreclosures a lot of people unemployed underemployed you know that this seven and a quarter an hour thing doesn't get the job done if you want to support a family and have a good life so they're looking for some opportunity and i'm interested in creating opportunity and jobs while bachmann's very interested in creating headlines and

there's a big difference there tremendous difference do you believe or as your polling shows or whatever that michele bachmann is running for president and going out and making all these wild statements about muslims and weird conspiracy theories and and going off you know after gay people and whatnot that that stuff as a national topic but that has hurt her. at that point of her i mean there's no question she's been absent she voted ten percent of the time when she was out doing her thing for president she had no problem taking a page he had no problem taking or benefits but she didn't represent one sense of people and we want to bring to bask in the she did fifteen debates with us running for president outside the defect she won't debate us once before the last day of almost the election so she says she's running she's fighting and we've got her better than is the position i think we're going to win this why are you serious michele bachmann will not debate you. she will not debate us we've asked for debate

she's going to debate us. two days before the election now realistically that seems very clear that she doesn't want to to really talk about the fact she doesn't want the facts out before people make the decision also don't really vote in there that i mean a lot of people will have already voted by then. there's early voting obviously anybody absentee voting is just not that i mean the people we save when people make an informed choice let democracy work course she's always been into theocracy not democracy and it happens to be her way or no way but michele bachmann is stepping serving herself and not the people in the district and the people know that they can feel they can sense that they don't want a superstar fox news person they want so many it's working shaking hands meeting with the people in the district on the groud on the byways and the main streets representing them rather than the presidential candidates and how can a gym great how can people find out more about your campaign you know to go i jim

graves dot com it's our web page jim graves dot com that has a link to our facebook love to have you join us and where to get this thing going to make this country more civil and we're going to get people back to work and i'm going to start supporting him. last it really really supports the entire economy that is great taking our country back one congressional district at a time jim graves thanks so much for joining me tonight and also thanks so much for having the courage to stand up and run for political office that's a tough tough thing that you've taken and i honor you for that. thank you tom appreciate it very much thanks a lot jim graves dot com check it out. going up while mitt romney's mormon faith has been on the backburner over the past several weeks it's possible that his faith was the only thing driving does mitt think he is the mormon savior of america and that he's destined to take over the white house no matter how many gaffes e.-m. i'll explain in tonight's kalitta.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a donor. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about you sir are a fool you know what kind of my terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want the usa to defeat terrorism be a liberal and the christian point you. can stick your beliefs about it because it's going to school for you to distract us from what you and i should care about because there are profit driven industry that sells us and facials that garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that.

it's thursday are you ready to get he when i say more rally what do you think of being a religion but what about what your parents taught you every night at the dinner table it's always been a common belief that religion or our parents teach us our morals and form our moral instincts but now scientists believe that the brain may have a strong influence on our moral instincts to according to joshua green a psychologist a harvard scientists use stories are the limits to determine how people make decisions and what role the brain plays in making those decisions for example say a trolley is headed toward five people and the only way you can save those five people is by hitting a switch that will turn the trolley away from the five people but towards one person running over that person to hit the switch to save the five people killing

the one green says that most people do hit the switch with a rational being that one innocent person dead is better than five innocent people dead it shows that people resolve some moral dilemmas by using a cost benefit analysis as humans we look at each choice that we are presented with and the consequences they come with and try to pick the one that does the least harm however we don't always use a cost benefit analysis to solve moral dilemmas that we face according to greene we also use emotional decisions sometimes we just know that choices are inherently wrong or on the other hand inherently right so where does this emotional versus rational decision occur basically our brains have two different moral circuits one that says thinking rationally when one coming to a dilemma is the right way to go and another one that says to think emotional. these two responses occur in a part of the brain called the ventral medial prefrontal cortex cortex excuse me

which is an area of the brain where different types of values can be weighed against each other to produce a decision but what makes our brain choose to make rational decisions sometimes and emotionally charged decisions the other times is something different after several experiments greene and his colleague eleanor amate discovered that some to live as that humans face produce vivid images in our brains in our minds which cause us to respond emotion for example if you can visualize the consequence of a trainee hitting a person you are less likely to choose to let the train hit that person green and discover the people who think more visually make more emotional moral judgments as well for instance if you can visualize the carnage and horror of a terrorist attack or more likely to judge it more morally wrong than we would for example a drone attack where it's harder to visualize the aftermath. so what's the bottom

line of this new research well while your parents and school or religion definitely have an impact on your moral compass of the moral decisions that you make the way your brain is organized might be doing a lot more of that moral decision making than you think in the pictures and images in your head are huge part of that process. or is the alert fashionable fishies i mean that may not be able to walk the runway but they still know how to structure their stuff or at least that's the thinking behind the inaugural international goldfish championship which got underway in bruges on province china this past week goldfish in fourteen different countries are competing in the event all are vying to become the world's first goldfish queen

hundreds of goldfish are on display in class polls showing off their skills for all to see are these glamorous goldfish judge you want to ask well judging is based on five criteria greed body shape swimming gesture color overall impression and unlike the models on the runways during fashion week in new york city last week the fatter goldfish is more news in oz or the tracks winning gold fish will be announced on saturday no word yet if goldfish pageants will be coming to the united states soon if americans can fall in love with blue i guess anything is possible.

in the wake of the. it's forty seven percent comments pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle are wondering just what the heck is wrong with this guy he's taken each side of every issue sometimes multiple times he seems to pander to whoever he's in a room with and even made change his skin color to appeal to a certain demographic of voters his band seems to have no quarter he seems. but many politicians and pundits are looking at mitt from what i think may be the wrong angle hear me out on this i want to suggest a theory that i believe explains everything about mitt romney about his campaign and how it does and doesn't work and what he sees for his presidency and it all centers on one very personal core belief that i believe mitt romney whole is

that comes out of the way he was raised and how the way he was raised interfaces with the religion that he was raised in mormonism first let's rewind back to the eight hundred forty s. the founder of the mormon church joseph smith was gearing up to run for the presidency at the same time he was said to have told his followers about a prophecy he was after all a prophet is prophecy wasn't revealed until after smith's death he was killed months before the election of eight hundred forty four by an angry mob but this prophecy which smith himself was trying to fulfill by running for president in the election of eight hundred forty four is known as the white horse prophecy smith's successor as head of the mormon church brigham young relayed this prophecy writing in eight hundred fifty five when the constitution of the united states hangs as it were upon a single thread they will have to call for the mormon elders to save it from utter destruction and they will step forth and do it. several other church leaders have

since confirmed that this was indeed what joseph smith said and why he was running for president basically the idea behind the prophecy is that one day our constitution would be hanging by a thread. and a mormon would rise up win the presidency and save the nation by being led by divine providence. this all seems pretty far out there but believe it or not this prophecy in my opinion has helped shape mitt romney's life in several different ways literally since he was a tiny child as sally denton writes and salon from the time of his birth march thirteenth one thousand nine hundred seventy through adolescence and into manhood the meshing of religion and politics were paramount in mitt romney's life he was called my miracle baby by his mother who had been told by her physician that it was

impossible for her to bear a fourth child a fourth child of course was mitt from the get go mitt was raised to believe that there was something divinely special about him that he he himself his birth his existence was the consequence of a miracle his dad george romney tried to fulfill the white horse prophecy himself running for president in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight according to the salt lake tribune george was asked about that prophecy and he quote was quoted as saying i've always felt that they meant that some time the question of whether we're going to proceed on the basis of the constitution would arise at this point government leaders who are mormons would be involved in answering that question. george didn't win the presidency but his son mitt. grew up and at least in his mind

evidence again amount for mitt in his own mind that he had been selected by divinity for a special purpose he was popular in school he succeeded in business here and a whole lot of money is a basically anything he touched whatever he wanted he just got just imagine if you're someone who is heard this prophecy and who was raised throughout your childhood and your entire adult life to believe that you're special and your life is being divinely guided and who has had everything work out wonderfully in his life then you might start to believe it's all true to. that might be the case there probably one interesting insight into his thinking that he may be the fulfillment of the white horse prophecy is an interview that romney's campaign manager matt rhoades gave to politico talking about which president mitt romney may try to emulate his politicos mike allen relaying the story when asked rhodes what romney

might do with the budget entitle to reform plans ryan had outlined had already outlined roads eyes lit up he gave me a name james polk rhodes and the rest of the members of romney's inner circle think a romney presidency would look much like the white house and year of the eleventh president president james polk it seems like an odd answer but if fits right in with the prophecy james polk was the man against whom mormon prophet and founder joseph smith ran for president back in eight hundred forty four and at that time the constitution was hanging by a thread the tensions between the north and south were going to getting so that the civil war was lit later in that same generation. and joseph smith thought that he would fulfill his own white horse prophecy by becoming president and saving the union in the constitution so could it be that romney's faceted fascination with

james polk might have something to do with his picking up where joseph smith failed in one thousand nine hundred four perhaps others certainly believe this is the case glenn beck a mormon had fellow mormon senator orrin hatch on his radio show back in two thousand and eight where they had this exchange back says senator do you believe i mean when i heard barack obama talk about the constitution i thought we're at the point or are we very near the point where our constitution is hanging by a he read senator hatch said you got that right now is it just a coincidence that back and senator hatch both formants would use the exact same language our constitution is hanging by a thread that joseph smith used in one thousand nine hundred four in his white horse prophecy i don't think it's cool and i think it definitely explains a lot about mitt romney's blundering campaign thus far if a person believes god is leading them as mitt romney may well believe of himself.

that it doesn't matter what positions he takes during a campaign doesn't matter if he flip flops doesn't matter if he refuses to give any details of his economic plans heck it doesn't even matter if he has an economic plan or all it doesn't matter if he tells a roomful of millionaires and billionaires that piece of the middle east will be accomplished by just waiting and seeing what happens in the future none of it matters because once he's in the white house he believes divine providence will lead him the rest of the way he can't know for sure if this you know we can't know for sure this is what's fueling mitt romney but it's worth asking the question we just saw a republican primary filled with candidates like michele bachmann who openly say and apparently believe. the god was telling her to run for president mitt romney seemed like the one reasonable saying guy in the pack because he didn't use that fundamentalist language but little did we know that he might be in his bike riding

high above all the others as the prophesied a white horse or something to think about. and that's the way it is the night thursday september twentieth two thousand and twelve. and going to. the mission and free accreditation and free in-store charge is free arrangement free. three stooges free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media down to r t dot com you.

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