wealthy british style. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports . about the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour well it seems

like a pipe dream right now america could have a massive high speed rail network in the future it could connect millions of people nationwide so what might that network look like and just how ambitious a project is also right now there are well over three hundred million people in the united states and many of them are struggling to survive day to day so could increase in the american population really be a feasible solution to many of our nation's problems and while they may call themselves the tea party the tea party of today looks and acts nothing like the tea party of seven hundred seventy three which was a group of bostonian who fought back against transnational corporate power i'll tell you all about it and cites to later. in screw news back in two thousand and nine president obama and congress set aside ten billion dollars to begin work on a national high speed rail system similar to what other developed nations around the world already this is what the president. imagined

a modest system connecting major cities in the north east the north west california and the manufacturing heartland but ultimately austerity obsessed republicans in congress and the states killed the project but that hasn't stopped some americans from in visioning what our nation's transportation for structure could or should look like in the twenty first century with high speed rail this is a map created by a high speed rail advocate alferd to invasion in all the major cities in america connected by high speed rail it's like a metro map you see here in washington d.c. or new york city along the stretched across the entire nation since two made this map it sparked the imagination of many progressives around the nation who are begging for new infrastructure spending to put americans back to work and update our transportation system to the twenty first century which is how realistic is this dream of high speed rail joining me now is the man who created this vision alfred to graphic designer and high speed rail advocate alfred welcome here. thanks

for joining us what inspired you to do this. i mean you're in. your market. right. we need to. bring up now. so your map you know some people have said this is way too ambitious but take a look at this map of the proposed interstate highway system in one nine hundred fifty five i'm not sure if you can see it but it's it looks very similar to the map that you put together of the of the high speed rail given that and we and actually it's even it's even bigger than the map of the high speed rail given that is a national high speed rail system really too ambitious. not. out. i'd.

be a doctor. yeah . that's as remarkable and seems entirely entirely possible entirely credible. i'm sorry our skype connection is disintegrating on us as we speak so i'm going to have to thank you very much for being with us tonight alford to thank you so much for joining us. in the us the rest of the news conventional wisdom says that overpopulation is a global threat that has the potential to wipe out resources cause widespread famine and bring our environment civilization to its knees but what if conventional

wisdom is wrong and if having more children and increasing the nation's population was actually beneficial to the survival and growth of that nation america's fertility rate the number of children a woman has over the course of her lifetime has been on the decline since the height of the baby boom is it really possible that given this boost that is really possible a boost in this rate and overall population could solve many of the problems we as a country face today my next guest thinks so and i don't joining me now is jonathan last senior writer at the weekly standard author of the book what to expect when no one's expecting america's coming demographic disaster jonathan welcome great or you good fair hearing here he wanted me to run. i have actually i don't write you know i look here i look at the history of the renaissance. your argument. the argument is that throughout human history whenever you have population declines bad things happen we are headed on the glide path right now most people think population peak in fifty or sixty years around ten billion globally and that is going to be in

contract i think to follow so we look at times when we had population declines that we knew of like when a third of all the people in europe died off in in fourteen thirties what was the consequence. it was the one essential we have a renaissance but there are other others you know benchley have the right to such a ruckus as there are actually generation polygamous writes about this in the history of the climb of the greek city states to the point of roman empire had this oh yeah i can you know i could give you much better examples for why the greek city states of the roman empire fell apart there perhaps relation to glacial now they are an economic stagnation they call demographic they are not any economic stagnation you know it's all a judgment but well actually i would. i could we had actually done entire programs on this on the show about average of hands about it japan's doing just fine thank you very much you know they don't think they have that they have a decent standard of living they have a reasonably high level of why are the one of the liberal and conservative parties in japan trying to outbid one another in terms of raising fertility apply because it seems you don't understand their own economic situation apparently but you can't

go back if you would if you very simply go back to the renaissance what happens when population declines the demand for labor goes up when the demand for labor goes up the price of labor goes up or the price of labor goes up then people can work less for more money for the same amount of money or they can make more money you middle class emerges people have greater wealth their pay more taxes so they can you know they can pay for the retirement of their elders if that's your concern and and i mean the renaissance came about because people have leisure time with me who don't count but let me help you out with your argument in fact there's another example of prosperity in face to client population sure after civil after the civil war six hundred thousand americans to ireland as mass immigration from ireland is causing people to leave there and so you can have some short term economic growth provided that you lose population across the board the problem with fertility based population decline is that shift your entire age pyramid you want many more old people the young people and all the economic gains that you think you're going to make because it's going to labor shortage and whatnot not materializing because you want to decrease demand basically for everything but health care i understand that

and what we're seeing as as we see the aging of america and as you know the ratio is changing has changed significantly in the last thirty years or so is that people are working on. they were going to live longer oh you know my dad's generation the retirement age for the guys who fought world war two they were retiring at fifty five and sixty now people are retiring at sixty five sometimes seventy percent of your idea of getting out of our friends are in their eyes and so if you want to get a fair amount of look over here we like scandinavia right now like france they devote enormous resources to birth boosting their fertility rate they've been at this for eighty years are they wrong and i don't know that they're they're putting enormous resources to babies and they had a housewives allowance all right you know of course so are they wrong to try to boost their while they retain rearguard want that's coming you know we did our show from sweden for a week and one of the things that we discovered was that most of the people who are promoting that boosting fertility rate are the people who are freaked out about brown people coming as it were immigrants they do there's nine hundred thirty

exactly and they've been freaked out about it since one thousand this we've been in europe the fascist the this has nothing to do with the. first world war you have no idea what you're talking about know what i do know what i'm talking about when it comes to the to this this is you know phobia about there's brown people so we need to produce more white people in these countries this week yes in france and thirty look at the programs they started in the do you generous program started out in which you were having national in their teens to some extent those are the people who are. obviously there are also well intentioned people who are saying yes let's have national day cares about quality of life it's not about producing more that's not better is not the intention of the programs to boost fertility the what you see is in their economic interests of the people this is where we came from so they seeded their economic interests you want to tell me that they're wrong that's fine i'm not saying that having an increasing population is necessarily a disaster but what i am saying is that having a decreasing population is not a necessarily a disaster either you can compensate for either one of them the factory out or

a lead right now as i say not as this early as well you just say that but chances are it seems like there is some historical precedent to suggest that right now it doesn't add up and you know wages right now are right now you've got a household wages equal in what individual. wages where thirty years ago we got there for every job right now there are four people looking for that job if we were to have the population of people working in the workplace to decline because they age themselves out of it or die out of it then the demand for labor will go up the labor will work force will tighten up the middle class will get stronger that's a good thing what happens capitols. you thought that what it does now and what they want to keep what the capital pools have to do in this part of economic dynamism kept capital pools of ok by capital pools you're referring to the asset base of individual families you talk about household wealth no i'm talking about the actual asset base the masses of capital giraffe there to sort of carry on investment new enterprises are at the capital right now in the united states arguably is what

sixteen trillion dollars house is as you said here he drives you know shift again is all but the age ratio here on this really don't lose sight of that with total population when you're age ratio shifts your capital pools begin to shift because people aren't looking to invest capital do not want to grow there's no drawing of john or there or their support only hits right right but when they draw down what you're missing is that when when and when an older person spends money a younger person is getting that money. the capital pools are simply moving health care they're moving since you know so much larger money on health care if i go you know you probably know better should i go to the hospital where is that money going and so they go into the you know it's going to the twenty so helders or seven hundred be infused with capital but it sort of leaves the rest economy behind but that cap and no your your argument assumes that that's not a little people who are putting in twenty five reports on the money if they sing it all right will have put the money into the health care system that's only going to old people it's not it's going to go to people so the rest the world is crazy you've got to figure it out over a nation over europe they're freaked out about their fertility rates i disagree with those areas and with our presence there is they're not freaked out about all

right well then why are they showing reports why the european commission pretty angry about this stuff because there's there's all of this there is a freak out about immigration in these countries if you look at what's go. germany with i mean it's been three generations down the turks are still trying to. i have no idea i've been in singapore and worked in singapore but i've never discussed these issues with anybody on their fertility rate for like twenty five years and singapore maybe throwing money at the problem from one point one one point three right now. is that why they're. so so what benefit will singapore get out of raising their fertility. when the last time i was in singapore there i saw some pretty huge slums it looks like they've got plenty of. they don't think so so yeah maybe you understand the business better than they do well you know do you think that having a large slums is a good thing. historically fast of the human condition right i mean nobody's

eliminated them not when there's a shortage of labor so they're never slums and. radically diminished and they didn't diminish in the united states after world war two and after the civil war whenever you have a population that has decreased you have a general increase in wealth per person i mean this is don't want your book keeping aren't well a problem solved ok. that's what thank you for. thank . you thank. you you thank .

choose your language. calling me kevin though in federal court today still some of the. treatments that the consensus here can get to the opinions that invigorating to. choose the stories that entire life truth be access to your office.

and welcome back today the senate voted to reauthorize the violence against women act the major anti domestic violence law first passed back in one nine hundred ninety four the law also known as provides a number of protections for abused women and gives assistance to law enforcement agencies to curb violence against women unfortunately that was expired last year when republicans caved to election year politics and refused to reauthorize a new way that included more protections for undocumented immigrants native americans and women in same sex couples in other words republicans opposed stopping violence against women and be opposed violence against women unless those women are lesbians and documented immigrants or native americans but now that the election is over the senate again took up the measure passing it today by a vote of seventy eight to twenty two now i know you're thinking who are those twenty two senators who opposed reauthorizing the violence against women act well

here they are all twenty two of them all of them as you expect are men and one of them marco rubio is giving the republican response to the state of the union address the night all of them believing that the federal government shouldn't play a role in protecting women from violence or the federal government shouldn't play a role in protecting certain kinds of women from violence naming namely undocumented immigrants native american women and lesbians but in the end there wasn't enough of them to kill vala so now reauthorization goes to the republican controlled house of representatives and there you can bet there are more than twenty two lawmakers who don't think the federal government should play any role in protecting women from violence especially native american women female undocumented immigrants and lesbians so a lot has been on the books since one thousand nine hundred four. it's done extraordinary work helping law enforcement protect women from violence is in serious danger of being the latest victim of the tea party house of representatives

that is unless you make your voice heard call your member of congress especially if he or she is a republican and tell them to immediately reauthorize the violence against women. is just. is the good the bad in the very very rose or rosario slee ugly the good governor mexico new mexico governor sees me susanna martinez martinez a republican said on monday night that she would be willing to sign proposed gun control legislation that is aimed at closing the sole so-called gun show loophole in the mexico or tina's told a local blog site that quote i think i could support it if it stays the way it is that it has number one keeping the guns out of the hands of people who don't have

any business having guns a bill to close the gun show loophole has already passed through committee in the new mexico state house will be taken up by the full statehouse tomorrow kudo's to governor martinez for standing up to her party for putting the lives of americans ahead of gun law in the interests of the bad fox news news was breaking all over the world yesterday fox so-called news decided to devote a whole four and a half minutes to discussing whether singers adele and kelly clarkson are too fat can do to lose weight take a look. well adele and kelly clarkson certainly cleaning up but now critics are taking to twitter saying they both need to slim down adding that their current weight is nothing to idolize but is that criticism fair nutritionist carrie you for it says yes absolutely it is now you would not be doing what you did nothing away from either moments find out so early how it's not absolutely what stuck in your throat. well the women are obviously the plant and they're hardworking they both came from low means that now they were accepting the grammys last night the highest

honor you can get music industry and i don't claim to know what us should only once a week and there you have it another day and i was sexist and objectifying the rant coming out of the talking heads of so-called fox so-called. and the very very ugly tennessee state representative mark. cody introduced a bill in the tennessee state legislature that would strip campus universities state universities and campus police departments if they don't allow faith based and l g b t bigotry. has been leading this campaign for several years after hearing about how christian student groups of vanderbilt university aren't allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation podium mediately withdrew the bill after introducing it with plans to replace it with another very similar version basically podi is threatening the safety of students on college campuses with his own desire to discriminate against the community and that it's very very.

in december of seventeen seventy three a group bostonians board ships belonging to the east india company and committed one of the largest acts of vandalism in the history of the world throwing what would be today millions of dollars worth of tea into the harbor. this tea party as it was called was a revolt against transnational corporate power and that powers stranglehold on the british government but fast forward two hundred forty years later and the tea party is now owned by transnational corporate power and has been used to subvert our government how did this happen a new study published in the scientific journal tobacco control reported on by stephen webster on raw story reveals that today's corporate funded tea party goes back a long way well before the election of barack obama. talk of

a new tea party to advance corporate interests in america began in the one nine hundred eighty s. and one nine hundred ninety s. when tobacco companies invested heavily in building new broad alliances with other organizations in hopes of fighting back against the emerging anti-smoking agenda in congress according to researchers tobacco companies like r.j. are lorillard and philip morris funneled millions of dollars into an organization called citizens for a sound economy and guess who founded citizens for a sound economy none other than david koch the purpose of c.s.c. was to build a coalition of tobacco companies and corporate polluters who would oppose regulations on smoking and air pollutants being considered in congress about it's estimated that at least five point three million dollars was funneled into c.s.c. by big tobacco. in one thousand nine hundred three a philip morris p.r. flack wrote a memo outlining a strategy for fighting any new taxes on tobacco or pollution by joining up with

other anti-tax groups to create a new boston tea party memo reads grounded in the theme of the new american tax revolution or the new boston tea party campaign activity should take the form of citizens representing the widest constituency base mobilized with signage and other attention drawn accoutrements such as lapel buttons and outs petitions and. even costumes ultimately the tobacco companies failed and were hit with a massive two hundred billion dollars settlement in one nine hundred ninety eight but in two thousand and two the david koch's c.s.c. purchased a website usa tea party dot com or us tea party season eventually plans for this tea party were put on hold after all a republican corporate is george w. bush was in the white house and republicans were in control of congress. but after the banks has crashed our economy and the democrats swept into congress they

revived the so-called tea party and sure enough it was revived by c s c only by now c.s.e. had split into two astroturf corporate funded organizations americans for prosperity and freedom works from two thousand and nine until today these two organizations have used corporate media outlets like fox so-called news to promote their tea party bussing in uninformed americans from all around the country who have signs and rally against their own best interests to rally on behalf of the one percent. so as early as the one nine hundred ninety s. a campaign funded by corporate fat cats and big polluters like the koch brothers who oppose new regulations and taxes on themselves it was underway it was a campaign specifically referred to by some in the tobacco industry as the new boston tea party of course the original participants of the boston tea party two hundred forty years ago would have been horrified by this many people today think

that eighty put the tea party which led to the boston tea party says that the tea act which led to the boston tea party was simply an increase in taxes on t.v. paid by american colonists i think that's where the whole taxation without representation mean campaign but actually the purpose of the t.m. act was to give the east india company full and unlimited access to the american tea trade and to exempt that company from having to pay taxes to britain on t. export into the american colonies and even give the company a tax refund on millions of pounds of tea that they were unable to sell and holding an inventory now their words the tear of seven hundred seventy three was the largest corporate tax break at that point in time in the history of the world. and since at that time most of the british government and royalty were stockholders in the east india tea company it was also a classic example of crony capitalism. the purpose of the tea act was to increase the profitability of the east india company so its stock holders which included the

king. could make more money and help the company drive its colonial small business competitors out of business because the company temporarily no longer had to pay high taxes to england and had a monopoly on the tea it sold the american colonies they were able to lower their prices to undercut those of the local importers and the mom and pop team merchants and tea houses in every town in america. in response to this wal-mart like effort by the by the british east india company seven hundred seventy three and its support the t.x. of the british government colonists here dressed up like indians in the middle of the night ordered ships and commenced dumping hundreds of chests of tea overboard an act that would eventually light the fuse to the american revolution. and yet today the so-called tea party represents just the opposite it's funded now by

billionaire corporatists who just like the shareholders of these to india company want to keep their corporate tax breaks and they want the freedom to watch abuse and pollute whenever and wherever they want the boston tea party was a revolt of citizens against a giant corporation the east india company which ironically also traded in tobacco and whale oil. so my message tonight is an appeal to all of the americans out there who consider themselves proud tea partiers. don't be duped by the koch brothers the way that the east india company tried to dupe our ancestors. and that's the way it is tonight tuesday feb twelfth two thousand and thirteen. for more information the stories we covered visit our websites thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and our team dot com you missed any of tonight's show you cannot watch it on hulu at hulu dot com slash the big picture and check out our two you tube channels there are links at thom hartmann dot com and our show is also

available for free video podcast on i tunes and you can visit our own dot com to download the audio podcast of our daily three to six radio show and we have a free to our i phone i pad in the app store he sent us feedback on twitter at tom underscore our open facebook at tom underscore our open our blogs message boards a telephone comment line at tom harkin dot com and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport it requires your participation get out there get active tell your it see them. i never knew adam lanza in person but i was in the same high school as that he was younger than me just

a little bit younger. i always thought he was different i always into something funny he rarely talks and you know he was a shy kid. i don't know anyone who was friends with him i also don't know of anyone who's particularly mean to the what i do know is that it was very clear that this person was not like everybody else. can imagine the level of mental illness that would be present to murder children. america's you know so when you go on this there would be an american behind every tree with a gun. i think for kids growing up in this environment is good for them at an early age to least see the gun and respected because they need to know what kind of damage you can do. this is our first task as a society. keeping our children safe. this is how we will be judged.