you don't know i'm tom foreman welcome to the big picture. welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour while

corporate executives are wining and dining their clients was steak dinners and expensive wines thousands of halmos americans are struggling to find the food they need to survive how could eliminate corporate wining and dining write offs help put an end to homelessness in the united states and internets daily take way back when of a company was facing hard times its c.e.o. would give up his or her salary for the good of the employees in the business those days are long gone c.e.o.'s continue to pad their wallets as the rank and file workers carry all the birds. in the us the rest of the news we hear a lot of simpson bowles you know those two guys who make forty thousand bucks a whack as a speaking fee run around the country and as republicans and down. try to find some

way to avert a disaster that they created and then in the name to the fiscal cliff and that's just how simpson and bowles would like it alan simpson a former republican senator bowles a former banks are both very wealthy came together last year and thought of a way to reduce the deficit that asked the very rich to sacrifice virtually nothing and the very poor to sacrifice a lot all the ladies fight a lot of name dropping congress never passed their vision in fact their own committee never passed their vision but simpson and bowles perfectly personally have profited off it ever since as i mentioned collecting as much as forty thousand bucks each and speaking fees to promote their plan a plan which mangles the poor and middle class in america it's almost christmas time nearly fifty million americans live in poverty as a result of thirty years of reaganomics new numbers out of the housing part of housing and urban development show that homelessness in america is still a big problem the numbers holding steady from last year we shouldn't be rejoicing

or celebrating people like simpson and bowles his priorities in life are to protect banks and not homeless americans in fact you know just how much it would cost to cure homelessness in america but twenty billion dollars according to mark johnston acting u.s. it system housing secretary for community planning and development and while twenty billion dollars seems like a lot of money it really isn't when you put it in context and compare it to things we spend a lot more money on bridges for example if we finally stop rewarding big oil for destroying our environment and cut off their taxpayer subsidies the savings would more than cover the costs of ending homelessness in america or even cut off the tax breaks for people like mitt romney and paris hilton who make their living sitting around the pool all day collecting their capital gains checks so shouldn't we be doing that joining me now to give his take is david see it come true conservative commentator and pro-business said david welcome back to the program thanks for. tom

i really appreciate your having me back thanks for joining us and happy holidays to you david so why do you hate homeless people what's why why why why joe ball's going after them i knew that question was coming and i don't have a good answer for it you know there's just something about him but i am standing with you on the desire to help the homeless and i know the estimate is that it would take twenty billion dollars and i think what we need to do is collectively come together and close the most insidious tax loophole in the entire internal revenue code and that will generate immediately the first year twenty eight billion dollars and together we can solve the homeless problem and that loophole is section one fifty two the odious provision that allows illegal aliens and others to to talk. take a pendent adduction for people who supposedly live in mexico now that system is

rife with fraud and we have no way of verifying it and yet they go ahead and just allow it year after year after year tom there's been a lot of talk you know that the president is secretly a mostly a socialist or whatever i'm starting to think he's secretly in the tea party for not just taking out his pen and saying we've got to close this loophole today and he could help the party likes illegal immigrant this taking tax deductions for us are ok nobody seems to be almost heartless to punish these american citizens many of them david corporate after harper ok i can't speak to your suggested deduction i have another math i'm not that familiar with it but i do know that eliminating corporate meal and entertainment write offs the ability you know you and i are both business just those are what i read in

a necessary expense as we need it so ok we need that you know the schmooze and booze those clients that and make that money and keep that machinery running where converse lee this horrible sixty billion dollars a year should that's three times the cost of homelessness and i'll tell you something on this and no one refutes or disputes my figures we would have twenty eight billion dollars eight billion dollars more then these good folks at this institute estimate they need and they're also wrong anyway. what about the oil industry here you know we're spending not just the twenty billion dollars easily on direct subsidies and the like that but also arguably we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars helping the oil industry transport their product from companies in the middle east to the united states with the navy they're not paying a penny of that in fact many of these companies pay nothing in us income taxes you and i are paying for all of that is not time to say. enough already if you want to military to protect your oil shipments hire one. crime david that's

a conservative position big oil you know we have a symbiotic relationship with it when we had hurricane sandy we felt a ripple i was on a line for hours waiting for that gasoline there were people who couldn't eat their alums who still of oil heat i mean we've got to look out for big oil don't kick them because they're doing well what we need to do is just if it down that you're talking like an addict saying he wants to protect his pusher. i'm so it's not as if not my car burns petrol i have to buy that gas yet electric car i don't have an electric car i can't even afford it right now because of this economy and you keep telling me the economy is going well but it's not what i see out there right now i think it's i think the economy is not doing all that well i think i'm inclined to climb to agree with you on the i'm very concerned about this fiscal cliff it appears that the president just keeps wanting to print up more and more money and it's the evaluating and your people in your viewing audience they're just

not getting the raise on the president doesn't control printing money that's the federal reserve and if you're talking about the debt ceiling the debt ceiling is not a raising the debt ceiling doesn't allow the president to spend any more money raising the debt ceiling allows the executive branch to pay off the debts that were incurred by the republicans in the in the legislative branch so it's basically just paying off the credit card. going to spend the money over the past four years and the way it was spent a lot of money over the last thirty years david reagan started this scheme a great you know i would go back even farther i would go back to the early seventy's but in the here and now we are spending why old lee we've got you know it's funny i was speaking to some young people from occupy wall street and i understand is there any what happened against bankers what we're spending what have what all the other developed countries in the world spend tom. right now we've got to control our spending we've got to get rid of this insidious provision this

section one fifty two and we've got to help american homeless people stand with me on this a margin all of your viewing audience to write your congressman write your set and homelessness into david seelig very david thank you for being with us that is a tom thanks for having me on i keep waiting for that invitation conversations with great minds david thank you oh videos they. were just a few more weeks left in two thousand and twelve will soon be closing the book on the hottest and most extreme year of weather in american history so far the last eleven months of marked the hottest period in our history and once december is over two thousand and twelve will officially be the hottest single year ever recorded averaging a fold agree above the previous record in the first eleven months of this year eighty five percent of our nation was hit by the top ten percent of the warmest temperatures ever in our history and with the hotter weather comes more extreme weather according to the national climactic data center forty six percent of our

nation experienced a very extreme weather that's more than double the average of extreme weather for the united states this is what the carbon industry's global climate change has brought us and more troubling is global weirding is just getting started as the national oceanic and atmospheric administration warns more boric are breaking heat and extreme weather events are ahead in the near future tragically we must prepare for life on a hotter and more hostile planet brought to us by the oil gas and coal barons and the industrialists who bought off our politicians funded hack scientists to muddy the water and threw over two and throw over two point four million pounds of carbon pollution into our skies every second with no regard whatsoever for future generations it's time to take our higher ground.

thanks. crazy alert in a galaxy far far away forget about dealing with the struggling economy or clerk kirby global warming it's time to start preparing for interplanetary war at least that's the thinking of some fifteen thousand people who have signed a petition on the white house's we the people petition page to build a death star by the year two thousand and sixteen that's right fifteen thousand people think that the united states needs to build a copy of darth vader's fortress in the sky in the popular star wars movies of the petition quote by focusing our defense resources into a space super priority planned for our spirit superiority platforms and weapons systems such as a death star government can spur job creation in the fields of construction engineering space exploration and more and strengthen our national defense for us

we also need to develop the technology to be able to do all of that with a. i think we all know who is really behind this petition clearly darth vader has come back from the dead and is trying to breathe new life into his strategic defense needs side five will be special attacks and should. coming up whatever happened a corporate c.e.o.'s like steve jobs who shared the pain when their companies were in the gutter rather than making their employees carry all the burden tell you and i still eat take. the worst thing. my house a good player gun club element. that i want.

to give you never seen anything like the color. i was so there's a disconnect about what's officially reported what actually happened we can't accept the stuff that's handed down. below.

are going. to. look.

well go back now some quick republicans are trying to rig the next election news we can add virginia now to the growing list of states controlled by republicans who want to rig the game to make sure a republican is the next president reagan state senator bill caruso introduced legislation to change how virginia hands out its thirteen electoral college votes rather than a winner take all system which had president obama all of virginia's electoral college votes this year because he won the majority the vote that state republicans want virginia's votes doled out based on who wins each individual congressional district and since republicans have gerrymandered the heck out of the state to keep republican districts intact the scheme would greatly benefit the republicans in fact had this system been in place this year that romney would want to majority of electoral votes in virginia ninety four despite losing the popular vote in the state had the rest of the battleground states adopted the same scheme romney would

be our president today even though he lost every single battleground state and was the national vote this is a scam and republicans in ohio are pinned and pennsylvania trying to do it as well progress is going to stay diligent and push back against republican efforts to rig our next election. just. it's the good the bad and the very very pirate tish's slee ugly they're good at as in are last week's fox last week fox the so-called news's sean hannity attacked as near for lending his voice is voice over to a california federation of teachers cartoon video on income inequality and he called as near a hollywood liberal along with some other not so nice things well as or has fired

back at hannity last night's episode of the young turks as they are told chug a chunk huger that he was fine with hannity calling him names as were also said he thought hannity was behind on his rabies shots despite what sean hannity may think income inequality is a huge issue in america today good ows ed for drawing attention to it for standing up to the bullies at fox so-called news the bad matt barr barbour is the host of a christian talk radio talk show and on yesterday's episode he was talking about the so-called war on christmas by atheist groups and he gave his take on the best way to deal with atheists is with. what do you do with a bully if a bully keeps getting his way in intimidating kids on the playground and nobody stands up for themselves then the bully is encouraged to embolden and continues to bully more and more people but when a little kid is being bullied and he turns around and punches the bully in the mouth metaphorically speaking of course then the bully oftentimes is proven to be

a paper tiger. arguing that physical violence is the best way to solve a problem pretty sure that makes someone a bully and a very very ugly justice antonin scalia in a surprise in a speech at princeton university yesterday scalia stood by remarks he had previously made equating homosexuality with murder and beastly al. and asked by a student about the comments scully remarked if we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality can we have it against murder and we have it against other things going on to tell us didn't i'm surprised you're not persuaded the fact that scalia compared homosexuality to murder and beastly ality is bad enough but the fact that he had the audacity to stand by such ignorant hateful comments that it's very very.

michigan isn't the only place where workers are getting a raw deal twinkie maker hostess continues to screw over its workers the company is in the process of completely liquidation and eighteen thousand unionized workers are set to lose their jobs more troubling they could lose their pensions that they've paid for according to a report by the wall street journal hostess's c.e.o. gregory rayburn essentially admitted that his company stole employee pension money and put it toward c.e.o. and senior executive pay while this isn't technically illegal it's another sleazy theft by a hostess executives who paid themselves quite handsomely thank you very much for running their company into the ground just last month a judge agreed to let hostess executives suck another one point eight million bucks out of the bankrupt company to pay more bonuses to their c.e.o.

and their senior executives if there's no way to recover the money for the houses and plans for workers then we the taxpayers through the pension benefit guaranty corporation were the ones who get stuck with the bill so the workers have at least some retirement from the money that they paid. hostess shows us clearly what bain style predatory capitalism is all about big bucks for the very few rich executives layoffs and poverty for the workers in their communities and don't mourn the loss of post as brand so what will i do without my twinkies they will be back become pretty is currently negotiating with over one hundred potential buyers right now to bring twenty in wonder bread ning dongs back into the marketplace the hostess story really has nothing to do with the unions it has everything to do with the enron is ation and the bain is ation of the american economy in

classic and riles and ron style back in two thousand and five hostess sent out a letter saying that they had a very very profitable quarter stock jumped up c.e.o. charles solvent and many of the senior executives sold chunks of their stock nice profit c.e.o. and senior executives are making how big the workers were making a decent living at that time one of the hostess workers my kamel blogging as blue barnstormer over at dealey code noted that he was making forty eight grand a year a bit over the us median income and had insurance on a pension then a few weeks later in two thousand and five came the letter saying that. profit was really just the coding error the company is actually in deep trouble although the c.e.o. of the top guys at all made a nice killing selling the stock when it was high and high the way paying a maximum income tax on a fifteen percent because they use that capital gains loophole that mitt romney use become a millionaire they now want of the workers to take

a big pay cut hummel notes that the hoops later became the justification for asking the workers to take a pay cut which they ultimately agreed to and his pay dropped from forty eight grand a year in two thousand and five to thirty eight thousand dollars a year year last. but every year three dollars an hour of his compensation showed up in the workers' pension fund instead of his paycheck year after year after year so it supposed to be and with eighteen thousand plus workers that's millions and millions of dollars dollars that the workers had essentially paid in at the rate of three dollars an hour then came the bain style takedown in order to strip the company down to its individual brands and sell them off piece by piece hostess needed to bust the union the union said no not so much so the company went to

bankruptcy court a method that bain and other vulture capitalists often use to kill off unions in the meantime and c.e.o. and senior executives were paying themselves handsome salaries and big bonuses and where was that money coming from. i don't august twelfth two thousand and eleven employees got a letter that said that the company was going to quote temporarily suspend its to its pension funds that would be that three dollars an hour that this worker had to go she added as part of his compensation instead of paying it to him by putting it into his pension fund now the company said they were going to put it in later as the letter i want to make clear that those temporary suspension of payments to the pension fund will not affect your pension benefits workers believed management kept on working but it turned out as we learned from that interview in today's wall street journal that the senior management wasn't just borrowing the pension funds they were using them to fund ongoing operations including big paychecks for the

fact gets close to c.e.o. gregory rayburn the currency you want to make it clear that he wasn't around when that particular thing happened whatever the circumstances were he told the wall street journal what arlo's decisions were i wasn't there. after all rayburn isn't a baker is a bank is the owner of coby partners a company that tells corporations how to restructure think mitt romney and he's going to make a very well at all this bankruptcy court just ok one point eight million dollars in christmas bonuses for the new fat cats at hostess. here's the incredible irony to all this if you borrow money to pay for your or your kids' education you can't get rid of that debt through bankruptcy that was one of the great reforms of the bankruptcy laws during the bush era. but if you're a c.e.o. or a buyout banks and you borrow money from your employees pension fund to be able to

cover your own paycheck and million dollar bonuses and then take your company into bankruptcy neither you nor the company have to pay those employees back even a single penny part of their pension is picked up by we the taxpayers and the rest it's just loss there used to be a time in america when business people had at least a modicum of ethics mostly it was because the majority of businesses were small or medium sized and locally own so the owners and managers had to look the employees in the eye or the unions were strong enough to keep the c.e.o.'s honest reagan and reagan put an end to both of those when he stopped in force in the sherman antitrust act wife you know most of america's small and medium size businesses and when he kicked off the modern war on unions by firing the patco union strikers you can see the result most clearly at any shopping mall or any downtown in america

what before reagan were all locally owned businesses are now big chains from food to jewelry to clothing. here also used to be the c.e.o. share the pain. lee iacocca famously took a dollar a year as pay when he was working to turn around chrysler steve jobs did the same when apple was in trouble pretty much everybody who's ever started a small business knows what it's like to make payroll for workers while taking little to nothing for themselves during the early years of the company but in today's post reagan bain model american capitalism there's never any risk for the c.e.o. class instead all the risk is carried by the workers you know karl marx famously wrote in das capitale his analysis of capitals that capitalism contains within itself or at least unregulated capitalism be contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction if marx was right that the young green

shoots of that destruction may well be the corporate and billionaire excesses ranging from the hostess debacle so the billionaire oligarchy koch brothers funding anti-union efforts by rick snyder and the republicans and machine and that's the way it is tonight tuesday december eleventh two thousand and twelve for more information and the stories we covered visit our websites of com free speech to organize. and if you missed any of that i'd show you cannot watch it hulu at hulu dot com slash picture also check out our two youtube channel is there a link to tom harkin dot com also tamari dot com check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget democracy begins when you show up when you speak out when you participate get out there get active tag york city.

lead. today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china corporations are rooted a leg.