today on r t money sex and drugs as president obama prepares for his second inauguration a new report looks at the profits of corporations during his first term remember he's the one accused of being anti-business but do that is that what the numbers say find out just ahead. and do the crime face the time many nonviolent drug offenders are locked up for long prison terms thanks to the mandatory minimum sentences are to explores the sentences handed down and asks if the crime fits the punishment. and it's award season in hollywood but we're not covering that we'll take you to las vegas where the oscars of porn are being held this weekend we'll

have a preview and take the pulse of america when it comes to the adult film industry. it's friday january eighteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm megan lopez and you're watching r.t. all right well it's an argument we've heard time and again over these past four years it echoed through the halls of congress by republicans when president obama was first sworn into office and it was once again reverberated on the twenty twelve campaign trail president obama is an enemy to business he's a socialist by nature and by practice that combative rhetoric was brought up once again this week when the c.e.o. of whole foods john mackey described the president's new health care law as downright fascist here's a few other examples of business leaders taking shots at the president. every business guy you know when the country is right rocco and the way he thinks he

wants to reduce your vision of wealth and he he's a socialist or we have people running the show who seem to really not have the slightest idea how the world works frankly but here's the thing according to an analysis by bloomberg news corporate profits are the highest they've been under any president since world war two take a look after tax profits are up one hundred seventy one percent the s. and p. five hundred index has gone up eighty percent since the president took office and a couple examples of how these corporations are doing now caterpillar in profits i've grown thirty two percent since last year and yahoo profits are up sixty seven percent now whether these profits are because of the president's policies or in spite of them that lies not the holder so was all of this obama bashing overblown or is there something more to the data from or our team producer just in other hell is the here in d.c.

and anthony rand as our director of economic policy at the reason foundation is in our new york studios welcome to you both anthony i'd like to start with you we've heard a lot of chris a criticism of president obama but if these numbers prove anything he is not the worst socialist in history right. well it all depends on how you define socialism i think even the president is that he's in favor of redistribution of wealth and that's a good things it's all about like the language the language that's used it whether or not it's positive or negative gets gets thrown around for some political reasons but i would say in answer to your question there at the top are these business results the results of the president's policies or in spite of them i think that they are a result of the president's policies we the bush administration and the obama administration bailed out large corporate financial institutions and the federal reserve has spent the past four years with its quantitative easing program providing cheap loans to large financial institutions these two things combined

have allowed for corporations to make a lot of money and that's not being realized on main street because all that money more or less just sits with those organizations they're not investing it they've got productivity up all unemployment stays down so i would say it's because of the president's policies but not necessarily in the ways that he may want to be and just saying i want to get your take we have heard different corporate c.e.o.'s say that it is in spite of president obama's efforts that they are experiencing this one hundred seventy one percent profits what is your take about this the test and how president obama stacks up against them considering the stimulus and quantitative easing so corporate profits after taxes are at about one point seven trillion dollars as of two thousand and two and before the financial crisis they were at about one point three trillion after taxes so even even with the financial crisis in between corporations are doing just fine i would definitely say that

financial the federal reserve's quantitative easing has had an effect but it's also important to consider things like unemployment and low wages have also another factor to consider as to why corporations are doing so well and we've also heard other things other other. kind of reasons why this the higher profits is happening one of the things that people are attributing to this and they maybe i can pose this question to you is that only one third of the dod frank act. requirements are being imposed tell me what type of the role that plays into it. well if you if you're going to look at the results of regulations directly affecting businesses we haven't seen that much of dodd frank actually be implemented and a lot of the final rules that he's been have been announced some some of them like the basel accounting requirements for banks are going to be fully implemented until two thousand and eighteen so in some sense there are certain regulations that

there's concern are being offered by the fears are for the future the environment of there's going to be a lot of regulations there's a lot of smaller regulations state level regulations and fears about tax code or that's the the rhetoric that business leaders are largely focusing on and where i do think that today's data is nonce sort of reflecting the reality on the ground is that sure you've got a lot of profits at these large corporations but what we haven't been seeing is investment in the economy and that's the reason why the economy is weak that's the reason why import unemployment is still a significant problem is you can make a lot of money you can borrow money from the fed for basically free and then you can loan it back to the government and make a three percent profit on the free money that you got in the first place and you can rack up a lot of profits but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have a strong economy without actual investment in the economy itself we're not going to see economic growth so just jim let's talk about this piggybacking off of what

anthony is saying one of president obama's approach is to fix the economy that's kind of the trickle down economics so we're seeing this huge growth in profits on top on the part of corporations is it trickling down and if it's not why not so you mentioned caterpillar had a record profits and what wasn't mentioned is that caterpillar also instituted wage freezes for a lot of its blue collar workers so even though they're making record profits it doesn't necessarily trickle down now there is there are expectations that there might be more hiring in the future so that still has yet to play out we don't know what this will look like and so. it might not it might be a positive thing in the future but we still have yet to see it play out that if companies don't hold on to their money as reserves that means that they need to be investing in the economy and hiring more workers and you brought up the. the i'm sorry you brought up that that the points as it were the future and how unemployment can affect profits in the future another thing that could really

affect it is the new health care law is a lot of people are saying that these taxes are going to play in effect do you think that there will play as they go fact a slowing down profits well as of now so corporate taxes for obamacare in the fordable care act those don't come into effect until two thousand and fourteen so right now when you see corporation complaining about it it hasn't taken effect yet what would be more of a concern is if there are more debt ceiling debates or more more uncertainty in congress that i would see as being a bigger factor than the health care i think the important things to look at if you're the if you're a small business guy a middle business guy or even a large corporation and you're going to see a large tax hit your books in the next couple of years invest when you're looking at expanding your business or investing you are looking down the road so while on the one sense i think that there's been a lot of businesses that have been complaining about the president from a political perspective they're conservatives and they're just going to complain

about the president no matter what it doesn't it's doesn't deal with the fears of businesses looking at increased regulatory cost or tax classes one two three four five years down the road and that limiting their investment decisions today and i think the other thing that's important to pay attention to here is when you see industry groups like the chamber of commerce saying the regulatory environment is hitting the economy look at small business and look at entrepreneurship over the last two presidents clinton and bush we saw about eleven jobs per one thousand workers created by new businesses. every year and that number dropped to about seven point eight workers per thousand per year under the under the past four years now that's not necessarily all the president the economy has a lot to do with that but we've seen slumping entrepreneurship at the small business level that that's a huge problem the economy and that is the regulatory environment is a huge reason why we're not seeing more small businesses can trying to compete with

the big guys that's an interesting point anthony and i do want to bring up another point kind of segue this conversation a little bit corporate profits might be up but americans are equally dissatisfied with congress and with corporations in there is a new gallup poll that was put out that says sixty four percent of americans are dissatisfied with congress and only sixty five percent were dissatisfied with corporations now obviously republicans and democrats have different opinions about this but how does the government and corporations that practically become synonymous in many americans minds and they object that question a. we're going to get just seems opinion looks like we have a little bit of issues. are they synonymous sure so there's been a huge amount of dissatisfaction of the american public with both congress and the financial services industry and i think part of that is because you've seen a huge revolving door in washington between wall street the big banks and politics

and you have huge interest lobbying interests where basically a lot of lobbyists write the bills for for washington so there isn't there isn't much difference between between the two and i think that's something that's been reflected especially as as people become dissatisfied with both and let's go ahead and talk about the dissatisfaction of congress we just had an idea for a new congress member sworn in with a one hundred thirteenth congress and you know despite running on platforms of being just like the average american the median net worth of each one of these incoming freshman is about a million and sixty six thousand dollars so that's a million dollars more than the average person anthony we've got you back so let's talk about this can congress say that there are to correct our economic problems considering that there are just so woefully disconnected from them. yes and no i think one thing that we just have to realize is that the people who run for public

office are usually those that have disposable income the high of a higher amount of wealth and you can't run for congress or the senate if you have to work a forty hour day or forty hour a week job if you have to work forty. but if the types of people that wind up running for congress usually are those with higher net well so that i think that inherently those are the people who are going to be in congress i think the american people are probably a little bit more concerned with whether or not the individuals in washington can reduce the amount of money that they spend from taxpayer pockets as opposed to just how much those congressmen have made in their previous lives and interesting conversation i want to share to continue testing under heller to producer and anthony around as our director of the economic research at the reason foundation thank you for your opinions thank you. well if you thought the u.s. war in afghanistan was the longest war in american history think again since the one nine hundred eighty s. the u.s. has instituted a perpetual war on drugs remember the just say no campaign well that was just the

beginning for decades federal and local law enforcement agencies have been cracking down on people in possession of drug paraphernalia one of the harshest ways was the anti drug abuse act of one nine hundred eighty six which allowed prosecutors to mandatory minimum sentences to send thousands of people to jail for years without a judge's approval but now democratic senator patrick patrick leahy wants to scrap minimum sentences altogether he says that one size fits all crime strategies are mistaken just don't work or to correspondent liz wahl profiles one family who was caught in the crosshairs of this type of prosecution it didn't matter they still went to prison in spring of one thousand nine hundred ninety eight karen garrisons twin sons were top students about to graduate from howard university they had dreams of going to law school but that all changed. the informant claim that they

were at the. drug transaction the man that worked on their car was indicted for cocaine and crack distribution he told authorities the garrisons were involved in the conspiracy his sentence was reduced i think he did like. eleven months something like that i mean when they were going in a few months later the investigator told me he was coming it was common. that eleven months paled in comparison to what the twins faced fifteen and a half years for lawrence and nineteen and a half years for lamont they were charged with conspiracy not possession neither man had prior crimes on their record and there was no other evidence against them to this day they say they were never involved with the drugs they were sentenced under mandatory minimum laws critics of such sentencing say a one size fits all approach means oftentimes the punishment doesn't fit the crime mandatory sentences are made by legislators whether it's members of congress or

state legislators and they've never laid eyes on you they have no idea what you've done they have no idea how deeply involved you are the origin of mandatory minimum sentences can be traced to nine hundred eighty six when major laws in the war on drugs were passed president ronald reagan touted the drug abuse act as a way to clean up the streets at a time that crack and cocaine abuse was running rampant thirty seven federal agencies are working together in a vigorous national effort and by next year are spending for drug law enforcement will have more than tripled from its nine hundred eighty one levels decades later the war on drugs rages on with many saying it's done more harm than good as a country i mean we are paying for so many people to be welfare that used to be supported by the person who's now in prison so there's this sort of ripple effect that cost us not only to incarcerate the person but then to take care of the family that's left behind strict drug sentencing for mostly minor offenses floods us jails

a disproportionate amount of those that land behind bars are minorities and never noticed that difference in white and black and too used to be in the criminal justice system and they don't hear. and it's what they do if mandatory sentences don't work what's the alternative advocates for reform say it's time to get rid of that because judges are in a better position to decide on fair sentences than congress when somebody goes to prison and really the whole family goes to prison because they often lose their breadwinner. they lose assan they you lose a daughter i mean it's such a deep impact on the entire family it's an impact the garrisons know all too well but i've tried to fight. this day and. then they want to have one with my sons this past christmas was the first one the garrison family spent together and more than thirteen years the once aspiring attorneys say they no

longer want to be part of a justice system they call corrupt in washington liz wall r t. the discussion of mandatory minimum sentences has caught the attention of numerous human rights advocates and also caught the eye of darker documentary film producer david cohen he recently made a film about mandatory minimum sentences in relation to drug crimes here's a sneak peek at the film titled the house i live in. war against drugs i think i should have wrote a prison guard on my forehead when i was born because it just puts me. right there to go to prison i would like in thirty years twenty years for drug trafficking to have life without parole for three ounces of meth instead of the twenty thousand two hundred people i've sent to federal prison i've seen three or four were cars racing for people who are drug you're watching for an education. to make. the documentary recently won the two thousand and twelve grand jury prize

at the sundance film festival and producer david cohen joins me now to talk more about the film welcome sir megan thanks for all right so first off explain a little bit more about mandatory sentencing and why it's such a problem right now where you heard julie stewart in the segment you around there say when you put someone in jail from a family you affect the whole family and part of what's happening is people are being put away for a long time for drug offenses we think it's a health problem more than a punishment problem when you have mandatory minimums you take away discretion from the court or the system itself and you remove the ability to treat it like a health problem and say well this person has to get ten years or this person has to get twenty years and they go away for a long time and we don't really fix the problem we just stuck with the result and it's not working ok so let's talk about food the people being sentenced are and also how long the sentences usually range from it can be any number of duration but the problem with the long ones you know you can be put in jail for life for

possessing drugs in california recently there was a change in the three strikes law it used to be before this recent election that you could go to jail for life in prison for the rest of you for a drug possession or nonviolent offense a petty offense now the law is changed it has to be a violent offense for your third offense to receive a life sentence at least that makes a little more sense you know so now the drug offenders are not in that category of life in prison that's a severe penalty for an addict so there must be a better solution and we have to find it ok and we know that the sentences are disproportionately applying to people of color how. well originally drug laws if you see the movie the house i live in the drug laws were targeted towards minorities regionally and we didn't know about this until we researched the film in got into it and spent four years making the movie in twenty different states but he learned that originally it was the chinese that were targeted for the use of opium and in california the chinese immigrants were coming in they were cheap labor pool

and the people there were making the laws didn't like that and so they said well how can we remove that cheap labor pool and we can arrest people for being chinese but we can arrest them for using a substance that is associated with the chinese and that was opium and so it went crack was associated with black people we know that forty percent of the crack users supporting percent of the drug users in america are black people forty percent of the crack users are black people that means that by definition the majority of crack users are white people that's not the story that's been told in the media and that's not where law enforcement is targeted so there's been this racial bias from the beginning on how drug laws have been in force ok and let's talk about what inspired you to make this film how did you come up on this day in the first place well eugene directly is a social issues documentary filmmaker so he makes movies about issues this issue was important to him because someone in his life and each other which you see in the movie. is a black woman who was

a caretaker in his home and eugene is very close to her like a second mother to him and he learned of her experience in her family's experience in wanted to tell the story of black families in america a severe impact on black families in america or the drug policies of america and eugene saw a story much different than his own so he wanted to get at that and he delved into it for four years and as i said traveled across the country and met a lot of people in wanted to tell that story now a cock's of the argument that our documentary makes is against drug offenders minor drug offenders but obviously mandatory minimum sentences. base a lot of people for a very a variety of crimes are you in saying that you want to outlaw all mandatory minimum sentences or are you more focused on the drug sentencing in particular we're particularly concerned about drug sentencing i think that any time you remove discretion from a sentencing dialog it's dangerous. i think it's important have guidelines i think it's important to. guide ourselves in the right direction but to say that you can

use your judgment if you're a judge which is supposed to be what you're there to do that's dangerous particularly when it comes to drugs so we're focused on drugs i think we could take a look at mandatory sentences in general though we're not against punishment for deserving cases but there needs to be some discretion ok so let's talk about we only have about a minute left but i have to ask you talk about the cost impacts of minutes minimum mandatory sentencing you talked about it at the beginning a lot about obviously it affects the families does it also affect the prison system a trillion dollars have been spent in the last forty years on incarcerating forty five million arrested people two and a half million people in prison that's a lot of money some of that money should be used towards rehabilitation it should be towards getting these people back into a productive life back into their families back into communities where they can be contributing if you want to be a taxpayer you know and i can help everybody we're spending a lot of money on incarceration in these are going bankrupt so we need to direct

that money towards rehabilitation and in the end spending a little towards that now sees a lot in the long run david producer of the house i live in i know that your documentary is also available on i tunes on demand and on amazon and i know you're going to be screening it tonight at the shiloh baptist church thank you so much for taking a little time out of your day before the screening to come in to talk about this it's tomorrow and thanks for having me thanks so much mike. well if you couldn't get enough of the glitz and glamour making its way on to the red carpet during the globe and golden globes get ready for round two the avian awards are just about to kick off this weekend in las vegas they are essentially the oscars of adult film intertainment r.t. correspondent ramona lando is in las vegas right now and brings us a preview of what to expect sin city has definitely kicked it up a notch we are here at the hard rock hotel in las vegas for the thirtieth annual a.v.n. awards now things are a little empty tonight but just in

a few hours this place will be packed water wall with the best and the bright is in the adult film industry who's seen this year's awards will be us or keira and jesse jane and before things get started there will be a very stylish red carpet which compared to some of your more traditional hollywood red carpets will be quite risky you won't want to miss out on that in las vegas. are to be as they heard ramon say tune in next week for a wrap up of this porn star studded event and while people in las vegas might be accustomed to the spectacle of adult film intertainment what does the rest of the country think about this industry well more harshness of the resident took that question to the streets of new york city to find out.

porn this week let's talk about that you don't approve. i don't i don't disapprove i guess. whatever people want to check out that's fine you're turning red i definitely think it's more mainstream yeah i definitely think it's maybe not fully socially acceptable but the acceptance is definitely improved do you think that's a good or bad thing. no comment well it's socially acceptable to some people and to some people it's not socially acceptable about you i think is deviant behavior and i don't deal with it so do you think that it's all deviant though or is there any part that's just natural sacks of people wanting to look or you see the thing about it is when you look at things you know if it can change the way one has an outlook i think there are degrees so i think it depends on the person who is watching and enjoying but i think there are probably some degrees like beastie ality bad by the

way. yes like soccer girl porn probably five it depends who's watching it are you why didn't. you think more people watch it and admit they do definitely yes so why do we feel so weird about it in society because it might be taboo because it's something that's kind of like unmentionables and it's being brought about in the forefront some some people might kind of feel to be exposed so that adds to the pleasure at least why is it so blacklisted i mean we all have sex right . blacklists i mean for kids like i say make sure the kids are exposed to air right can they start being exposed. sixteen. yap i'm totally against anything to do with pornography i have i have three girls and several grandchildren female so if it were something that were more loving and

worth something them respected women why do you think that would be ok i don't see hope or not if you would ever respect women it's. that would be that's that's really kind of trusting statement do you think that you're in the minority or the majority when you say you don't look at it. i bet it's fifty fifty yeah i would guess so you don't get it meaning you don't find it stimulating it's not interesting even the weird stuff. probably especially the word sort of what you think porn is good or bad the bottom line is with an inexhaustible demand and a huge profit to be made porn is here to day. that's going to do it for now for the story as a cover going to you tube dot com slash our to america our check our website or to

dot com slash usa don't forget to follow me on twitter and underscore lopez and be sure to tune in to our five pm show well tell you how the occupy movement is fighting to help a columbine high school survivor keep this house off the auction block. somebody ever. left nothing to live. for precious children. rajiv shoulders. leave it to die. hard to. educate.

in iraq. don't come down on my grandma crime. or. her grandma coming up. next. the worst she goes the. white house of the day the radio guy bought a bale of minutes from a quick profit i want to watch quote for about fifteen years you've never seen anything like this i'm cold.