tv Prime Interest RT May 11, 2013 11:01pm-11:29pm EDT
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in the numbers and breaks down the financial news it missed by others that's next right here on r.t. . good afternoon and welcome to time interest i'm very i'm boring here and washington d.c. gets her head blame. uncle sam is growing and it revenue that comes and goes taxes to fannie and freddie bailout were payments the u.s. is in the black but only temporary the treasury released of budget figures today for april and reported that one hundred twelve point nine billion dollars surplus is ahead of expectations of one hundred seven point five billion dollars for the future might not be so rosy of the treasury is expected to run a deficit again next month we'll talk about the u.s. debt and budget with abby martin the host of breaking the sat in just a bit. and what a way to close the week for jamie dimon earlier the fed began investigating j.p. morgan for energy market shenanigans and shareholders threatened to pull diamonds
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from the board but yesterday the state of california filed suit against the bank alleging new a rampant robo signing fraud and this time it's not about mortgages but credit card debt what's next on a loan anyways as the result of the suit to the bank giant estimates it could face sixty billion dollars in losses beyond reserves already set aside that's about one welds worth of hedging. score and finally after taking years to simply define what a swap is under john brain the commodity futures trading commission is close to another landmark how to make electronic markets for swaps themselves and this is no little deal now we're talking about a three hundred trillion dollar market so we're wondering how long it will take for high frequency trading to migrate to this soon to be liquid market and how long it will take to see the market anomaly and much less a wash and who cares if one hundred million dollars or so vaporizes from the
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balance sheets of j.p. morgan endorser bank in just fifteen minutes just wondering why. sure to keep those will be handy boy all right let's get to what's in your mind. the last time congress voted to increase the debt limit they capped at sixteen point four trillion dollars this means that the government's not allowed to issue any above that amount but earlier this year congress and the president signed a bill into law called the no budget no pay act and this bill temporarily suspended the debt limit until may nineteenth under this condition congress would have to
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pass a budget or else they would not get paid now come eighteenth that's right around the corner this is the day the debt limit will be reinstated and we capped at whatever amount the debt is on that day as of yesterday our debt was at sixteen point seven trillion dollars so we racked up just three hundred billion dollars in a few months now congress has decided not to get into another debt debate right away instead they're going to rely on the treasury to use their extraordinary measures to pay their bills according to the bipartisan policy center yesterday one of these extraordinary measures comes from fannie mae who will be paying the treasury fifty nine point four billion dollars after reporting record profits last quarter so essentially one of the driving factors bailing us out of another debt ceiling crisis is only temporary is the housing market due to rising prices and cheap money in part thanks to fed manipulation now now i have with me abby maher in
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the host of breaking the set to weigh in on this thanks for joining. thank you this is amazing so jealous. thank you. well we're certainly an extraordinary times in history calling for extraordinary measures of our debt is unsustainable if we divide it among all americans that's fifty three thousand dollars apiece now what type of extraordinary measures would you like to see the government take. it is certainly extraordinary times and we do need to take extraordinary measures and you know to hear everyone kind of squabbling about on the corporate media about cutting very small pittances from this or that when ignoring the elephant in the room i mean three words for you perry and military industrial complex i mean this is something that's been growing astronomically since eisenhower left office he warned everyone stop otherwise we're going to go bankrupt and of course we've seen over the last fifty plus years and especially in
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the world i mean we're talking about a budget allocated to the military that's doubled since nine eleven and you can even argue that nine eleven it wasn't necessarily a failure of intelligence it was it was just a failure on the part of the administration at the tate growing the budget double creating two giant new agencies the department security the transportation security administration these two things were completely unnecessary they've done nothing except grow this massive bloated budget surplus in the military which two agencies or you were very department of homeland security i think was a completely useless budget i'm sorry useless agency because it has we there's no threat of terrorism facing this country you're more likely to die statistically is slipping in the bathtub and you are dying from a terrorist attack so the create this mall to a billion dollar agency in the wake of nine eleven to try to catch terrorists on the home front i just think is not working it's just coupled with the massive growth in the surveillance state we're seeing the erosion of our privacy systematically they want to break down some figures because it really is truly astounding and it just is so crazy to comprehend u.s.
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military spending as it stands right now larger than the next fifteen come. trees come by and. before but you know nine eleven was a very scary day for many people in a way what would you have liked to see the administration do in response if it wasn't for entering this country well first of all we invaded and occupied a country to find one man when it's completely unnecessary second of all we. morally occupied a country for the next decade that was totally unrelated to nine eleven that had nothing to do with it based on known lies which was a war crime in the geneva conventions so it's a dance the war crimes act so those two things i think were completely going to hell is what would you have what would have been an appropriate response if you didn't agree with what the administration. will parry and if you look at the n.s.a. documents before nine eleven there were seven briefings from a high level intelligence officers to the bush administration so i mean i'm not i don't believe that they it was acts that i mean i believe that they were well
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informed and i don't know the attacks could've been prevented that we had the apparatus in place to prevent the attacks that's not what this conversation about the conversations about how much are we spending in two thousand and fourteen president obama's allocating one point one five trillion dollars in discretionary spending all right out of that fifty seven percent military i mean you just to look at the world spectrum and say do we need this military budget do we need this military surplus the iraq war alone or three trillion dollars one hundred i mean so when you when you're looking at how much money we're sustain around the world we have nine hundred bases and one hundred thirty countries we're giving sixteen million dollars to honduras every year to fund their death squads i mean are these things that we need be doing what i think you know one of the main arguments that people would bring against them that you know is clearly defined in the constitution constitution that the government plays a role and in defense and military so where would you draw the line i would scale it back to pre nine eleven levels which was still more than adequate still more
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than all the next you know probably ten countries in the world to come. and to grow it to the growth to the point it's at now is just completely irrational on reasonable makes us less safe because we need to justify having these massive toys and you see kind of that crackdown the police state air crackdown and also just justifying the military spending abroad continuation of these these counterproductive strategies and global terrorism so you would like to see us go about our defense department but just in the budget again and in the case that the debt senate and the debt ceiling is reached the house just recently passed a credit act this was yesterday it was done in a very partisan fashion only one hundred twenty one members voted for it one hundred twenty seven voted against it. the bill would prioritize debt payments this would mean that bondholders would be paid first before making payments for all other government programs so medicare social security the military now do you ever
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wonder what's going to happen when our interest payments grow so big that we have to make these decisions between paying our creditors and finding government programs you know period it is a sad state of affairs and we have come to the point where we are paying creditors on our debt more than we are figuring out what the hell is going on with this country and our economy i mean it's just such a sad commentary that we are now focusing on how are we going to get rid of this debt trillions of dollars in debt at the same time ignoring the elephant in the room and it's really a drop in the bucket i hate to say it but once again when we're addressing social security i'm sorry. much for weighing in on this important issue i know it's close to you and your popcorn thank you.
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all right i want to take some time to address viewer comments we've gotten a few comments on facebook and twitter and on our you tube channel the first comment is from jonathan shaw he asked me on twitter to explain fractional reserve banking so fractional reserve banking is. and summary is when you put your money into a bank account the bank loans a portion of that out so instead when you see your balance sheet your statement from your bank your the full amount you have in there is not actually sitting in the bank the bank takes part of that and they loan it so this is called fractional reserve because they actually only hold a fraction of their reserves and banks are only required to hold around ten percent depending on the structure and the type of bank it is but the reason why this could pose any type of issue is if everybody went to the bank at the same time and tried
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to withdraw their reserves this is what's called a run on the bank and we have federal deposit insurance to cover this. so it shouldn't be an issue but there's a lot that goes around with this and it will take some time to explain it more in detail but essentially fractional reserve banking and in a nutshell he has one hundred forty characters but that's my to an explanation and the next comment comes from a lifeless person one nine hundred ninety three and he wants to know if i am economically or financially trained educated and then trevor picker responded that i have a degree in telecommunications to be an intern at the white house and that i apparently have no financial training or telecommunications training either well i appreciate your comments and your criticism on this chopper but your facts are a little bit mixed i have a degree from the university of florida and business administration with a focus on economics and while my time in college i spent
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a semester at the white house as an intern i was chosen among three hundred applicants to be an intern and then that really sparked my interest in politics so after graduating college i went to capitol hill where i worked for a member of the financial services committee and i learned the legislative process while working there and then prior or after leaving the hill that's when i started here at r.t. to host prime interest. and you know i have a big passion to spread economic and financial literacy and that was one of the big reasons why i wanted to come here so you know i always want to take the time to break down these complicated issues for the viewers and. show you why you need to pay attention to these important. important economic and financial issues that are going on all over the country and all over the world so we appreciate your feedback continue to send us more and we will continue common on em. now up next i have an exclusive interview with congressman ross regarding the online
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download the official publication yourself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television early just doesn't do so now with your mobile device so you can watch artsy anytime anywhere. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations rule the day.
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on monday the senate passed the marketplace fairness act which has caused quite the discussions among consumers and retailers this bill would require online retailers to calculate and collect taxes from over ninety six hundred local and state tax jurisdictions the debate now is centered around whether taxing powers of the state and of a should be able to collect taxes across their borders and not i spoke earlier with dan mitchell of the cato institute who does not believe and representative dennis ross let's listen to their discussion. representative ross
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was also a original co-sponsor of the marketplace fairness ags last congress so mr ross can you please explain to us why you believe that states should have the power to collect taxes across state borders. well it's clearly an opportunity to provide jurisdictional infrastructure to allow for the collection of taxes that are due when i was in the florida legislature several years ago i was a sponsor of the streamlined sales tax because the state of florida was losing several billions of dollars a year. that they could not recoup and i think what we need to do is to be honest with each other and so you're either going to have be responsible for self. paying our taxes or allow for an infrastructure that has the jurisdiction of authority to make sure that taxes are appropriate collected so that we do have an even playing field now mr mitchell do you believe that the states should have the power to collect taxes across our borders what i have a problem with is the notion that a state can force an out of state merchant to be
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a deputy tax collector this gets into technical issues about origin based sales tax systems versus destination based sales tax system but and my son. who have thinking it's simply a notion that a government shouldn't have the power to enforce laws outside their borders a much better approach is to rely and use taxes although they are difficult to enforce but most importantly just keep sales tax rates low and then people won't have an incentive to go online in hopes of trying to protect their pocketbook mr us you think that's reasonable. well i agree with him believe me i agree with him very much i.q. big sales taxes low and this presents a quite a crowd under a bite frankly is is how do you extend the long arm jurisdiction of a state into another state's jurisdiction to collect that state believes as do them and i think the only way you do that is to allow for the federal authority to provide that that infrastructure and you know it is one thing i have to give credit to the sponsors of the market fairness act is that it is an option for the states
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to opt in or not opt in on it and i think that's what we're about we're saying if you want to extend your jurisdiction and you need the congressional over the federal authority to do so we'll provide you that infrastructure but it's really a states' rights issue as to whether they want to exercise that option and change their sales tax system simplify quite frankly in order to be able to collect across state lines now this is he who has gone all the way to the supreme court in the quote the says in there was a time and that a business must have a physical presence and the state for that state to acquire the tax is. mr ross do you believe that the supreme court had a bad ruling. oh no not at all that was back in one thousand nine hundred eighty two and back then the internet didn't even exist it was a word that wasn't even around at the time and i don't think that the supreme court justices that that time realized what was going to happen with the implementation of technology you know what's interesting is people talk about wanting to collect this tax and having some hard times because of software if you order something
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online and you try to track that package it's amazing how instantaneously you can track that package the software in the technology exists to implement this i think on an almost. stress free basis but do i think the supreme court was wrong no no you know let me tell you something over the last two hundred thirty seven years the supreme court has had their decisions changed many times dealing with a lot of various issues that some of us would think would be important today so i think the supreme court in this particular case was correct we had you know the long arm jurisdiction did not exist for states that time it doesn't now based on. the quill decision and i think i want to keep pace with commerce the federal government has to act to make sure we do have a fair and balanced playing ground for our merchants but mr president you think it's time for congress to act on this. i think that this is an issue that states should be in control of by themselves i don't think congress should be intervening and forcing out of state merchants to be deputy tax collectors for state
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governments that have sales tax rates that are too high as especially when it would require the collection of a lot of private and personal financial data that would wind up becoming i think a magnet for hackers and identity thieves you know any vaso mentioned that there are some privacy issues regarding this legislation can you elaborate on that well that's precisely the concern and order for this system to work on to the marketplace fairness act somebody will have to collect the data on where you live which one of the nine thousand six hundred sales tax jurisdictions in the u.s. what you're by how much you're paying for and then they'll have to share that information with the state governments or the local governments that are imposing the sales taxes and i just worry given the government's incompetence at all levels federal state and local in terms of protecting confidential information that this could wind up being a real headache for millions of americans all it takes is one hacker to break into one of these databases whether it's your credit card information your personal
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purchases i'm just very nervous and very leery about giving governments such sweeping powers to collect information on consumers congressman ross do you see this as an essay oh. well i think that the real issue is what's going to happen to the selling merchant with the information that they receive from the online purchaser are they under any obligation to maintain its privacy can they not sell it can they not disclose it to somebody else what guarantees already exists for the online buyer to make sure that whatever information that they put on in. to buy the product is going to remain private and secure this opens up a whole new issue and if we're going to talk about privacy it goes well beyond that which the government will. have to have access to and also goes to what was going what is going to be disclosed by a consumer and whether that's going to be protected in the online marketplace so you see we're in a whole nother realm now that we didn't anticipate ten years ago are definitely not forty years ago when quill was decided you know it's
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a very difficult decision but i don't know how i go back home and talk to my mom and pops ron in the answer you want a company called girls plus who have a unique inventory of grills and smokers that now lose business because somebody can go online and buy it without paying the sales tax you know there's an investment here that we want to see american entrepreneurs make and that's their capital into the into their not only their inventory but also their bricks and mortar into their their structures and i think that is needs to be maintained the sanctity of that needs to be maintained otherwise become we become an online environment which i don't think anybody wants to see an online marketplace dominate this country for that matter the world because then what chance is that this bill have in passing the house are you hearing any togs admire your colleagues at the one million dollars i'm saying might be extended to be considered in the house. i have heard rumor of that and i think that's something that needs to be considered you know i mean there are startup companies that one million dollars in sales quite
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frankly when you have a low margins isn't that much in terms of profit and then the cost of compliance could outweigh really the implementation necessary of the market fairness act so i think that's an issue that we have to address i don't know where it's going to go in the house but i know that it's now over here and it gives us something to to discuss we're getting a lot of pressure from both sides back home and the intellectual debate on this i hope prevails as opposed to the emotional debate which i think you know might have an upper hand on this in some regards ok thank you this is congressman ross of florida district fifteen and dan mentioned the cato i said to him. welcome to the daily duo joining me is prime interest producer bob inglis hey there nice to be talking with you and we're going to talk corruption right maybe maybe
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we're talking about congress so i guess we'll put that in some. now put it back to reported that nearly one half members of congress are now. but have a huge political office to gain well bob is going to make the case i would say you could divide congress into a couple of different categories here there are people that came into congress with some money there are people that made money after they got out of congress and legitimate businesses and there are other people that just kind of play the system we have a list here let's go to frank in the former saturday night live writer and you know he's probably earning a lot of money from his steward small the movie residuals and he's worth about eight million dollars so good for him. well i don't know i don't know who would you like to talk about well according to the c.b.s. news one fifth of all the freshman class from last congress in their office so he's obviously people nineteen of those were republicans by the way only two were
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democrats and what is it what is sleep in the office exactly signified that there's a record money that they don't have they're not millionaires obviously very millionaires. so it's not just once or twice they split the entire term in congress in their office right where they only have to be there when they're in session so they're not there every all right fair enough so that we don't have a plethora of millionaires in congress just almost a majority but yes they're going to be some poor people they're going to be some rich people let's get to nancy pelosi all right she's worth about one hundred million dollars with her husband who's in real estate and there are a lot. a lot of shady deals that have been alleged are going on between her i.p.o. those that she participated in with her husband and one of those was with just a few years ago about two thousand and eight and it had to do with it was right around the time that there was some legislation that was going to hurt the company coming through congress so i would place her in the camp of kind of using her influence the wrong way ok well dare i say all that he is a wealthy member of congress he he came under scrutiny when he was trying to reform
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the postal service and he was trying to expose the fast and furious case now his opponents tried to scrutinize him and new york times article saying that he profit over three hundred thousand dollars for mutual fund that he owns in san diego this is not being completely false he actually lost money on the quays and he donates his entire salary back to charity great guy right and i'd like to say that he did he got his money in the private market through selling car alarms a viper system they had the best commercials in the in the late eighty's early ninety's when he wanted to live your door in the jar. i don't i don't really know that as a boy ok all right talking viper alarms. i .
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was an attacking day here at prime interest first we looked into the treasury's new budget and found a silver lining which became a bit tarnished the further you stand back we nearly broke our own set with abby martin who stopped by to talk taxes then we consider the toll taken by j.p. morgan credit card holders as a former robo signed away the latter's rights at least according to the golden state and there was no goal to be found in our exploration of congressional. oh well. but we did find a bit of unfairness in the new marketplace fairness act as described by congressman ross thank you for watching come back tomorrow we'll respond to your comments to follow us on facebook at facebook dot com. and from everyone at prime interest have a great night.
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good lumber tour. was to build a new most sophisticated. fortunately. mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans and. this is why you should care only. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.
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