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tv   Prime Interest  RT  July 16, 2013 1:29pm-2:01pm EDT

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it might not be so rosy carrie and boring will break down income inequality later in the show the hey let's not forget how the merger between city and travelers that created the too big to fail they seem at citi group happened and the first place that would be their preferred c.e.o. of glass steagall and the one nine hundred thirty air act that separated banking from gambling many have figured that out as one of the proximate causes of the financial crisis but talking the proximate cause is there is always the fed itself with bernanke is whipsawed monetary policy and let's not also forget that citi received nearly one hundred billion dollars in federal emergency landing at the height of the financial panic thank you bloomberg and mark pittman for that will dodd frank prevent a repeat of or rhyme of two thousand and eight justin underhill interviews f.d.i.c had sheila bair on to big to fail in just a bit and here is what and your prime interest.
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m.m.t. who are modern monetary theory it emerged in part from the writings of warren mosley or in his book seven deadly for a fraud economic policy it's a model of the economy that relies on precise definitions of financial assets such as u.s. treasuries and it also incorporates national accounting identities such as the g.d.p. recently i spoke with mr mosley about the importance of these identities within the m.m.t. framework here's what he said. loans create bank deposits to the penny so if you borrow two hundred thousand dollars to buy a house you take it all for two hundred thousand the bank gives it two hundred thousand that were. so the house the bag now has
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a two hundred thousand dollars loan and there's been a two hundred thousand dollar deposit that didn't exist before and it's a bank liability and we tend to call them money under certain definitions of money that would be considered money so what you have is bank loans made in dollars create going to causes in dollars but there are no net assets created their own loans are something somebody owes in the eyes of something somebody as they kind of cancel each other out they net to zero so for a living i'm sorry so from the end they don't study perspective or the moser economics perspective what the what is the solution to the current crisis that we have in this country in terms of unemployment etc off ok well look unemployment is always the evidence that the government has not spent enough to cover the tax bill and the residual savings desires for lack of a better word ok or another words if the government doesn't spend enough to cover
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the need to pay taxes and a desire to save the evidence is unemployment people looking for paid work in can't you can't find. it so let me ask you so we're not spending enough right now and your prescription would be to spend more money to cure this unemployment problem. well what i'm saying is the deficit is too low so you can either cut taxes or increase spending well the government spending is that necessarily productive spending or is it just consumptive spending because it seems that the government could just build potemkin villages the way china is and yes it would put people to work but would that really solve problems. ok so no question about it what you're saying is absolutely correct the the government could spend money to build the panama canal an improved terms of trade and costs and you know it world prosperity market spend money and blow up the panama canal which would destroy world trade right so we're talking about two different things one is the problem of unemployment. which is people looking for paid work you can't find just because you
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solve that problem and others work for everyone doesn't mean you have anything near an optimal solution of how to allocate your resources which is you to your point what is the m.m.t. definition of government itself i believe that's an interesting i've looked into it and could you explain that for our viewers. you know in our case i guess i've never specifically defined that it's done let's say it's doesn't include our federal reserve for instance yeah well yeah the federal reserve and the treasury are both agents of congress. ok and let me ask you there are primary dealers who transact with the treasury directly and they also transact with the fed would you go so far as to say that these big banks and brokers like j.p. morgan and goldman sachs are part of the government given their roles in purchasing government debt. i would say as banks they are agents of government even without that particular role ok because they are at government charters all their
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liabilities are insured directly or indirectly and they're operating under strict regulatory environment where other assets are regulated and they're public much like the military is and much like the military they have rules of engagement where the soldier can point his rifle where every wasp but at the same time he still is you know a government agent and so have the ability to price risks in order to make return for a private investors but. they have fairly narrow rules of engagement and they're operating under strict regulation and supervision over there i'm sorry i consider public sector entities ok and would let's extend that a little bit a lot of corporations like g.e. lockheed martin derive a significant part of their income from government contracts so would it be i mean could we extend this definition of government to include maybe fortune fifty fortune one hundred fortune five hundred companies as well. you know you could you can define anything that you want personally i would not do that because they're
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not under the same regulatory environment that banks are in they're not government chartered the way banks are yes they have corporations and they're granted limited liability which is extremely important most of these corporations would be very different without it which is a government protection and so in essence the government certainly entitled to rig regulate them for public purpose in exchange for that but i'd say it's a whole load of magnitude different from the banking system ok and let me ask you. you know give me the back the government accepts bank deposits for payment taxes it does not accept liabilities from general electric or pay no taxes ok that makes it clear and i'd like to talk a little bit about the federal reserve because we have all this talk of tapering and what do you see is happening with the federal reserve into the next year are we going to have a tapering what is the federal reserve going to do. i think we are going to have tapering because i think that they believe that it's responsible potentially
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responsible for asset bubbles so i think the reality is that we will have it you know however i think there are probably mistaken in most of their understanding the notion of one aetate of easing itself well let me ask you about their one point seven trillion dollars in excess reserves that basically the fed is paying zero point twenty five percent interest on and yes they're not causing price inflation or serious price inflation yet but what if there is a crisis of confidence in the u.s. dollar is it possible that this could matter someday even if it's not right now ok don't forget when the fed is printing reserve balances right that's pay for securities at the same time you can say they're on printing the securities soak up treasury securities are nothing more than dollar balances in securities accounts it's said in reserves or dollar balances in reserve accounts of say so in the fed by securities are they doing is deafening securities accounts credit in reserve accounts if you have the exact same number of dollar balances that that said to the
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penny so if you include treasury securities under your definition of money they are not printing any new money they're on printing one form of printing a different form and that's exactly why we've seen absolutely no signs of she we when we look at any of the actual economic indicators so it's so number one they're not printing money in a way that matters to any. that was my interview with warren mosley president develops co inc so let's turn to period who will be breaking down income inequality . all right well on saturday a jury ruled that george zimmerman was not guilty of second degree murder and manslaughter in the death of trayvon martin the ruling sparked protests across the
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country about race and unequal justice but there is a deeper issue here that everyone seems to be missing and that is income inequality expression as it applies to minority populations so let's break it down and come any quality is the unequal distribution of householder and the vigil and come across the various participants in an economy and income inequality is in the united states is a larger than you might realize in two thousand and ten the top one percent of income earners earned as much as ninety three percent of the country's and come growth according to an economic policy institute study between one nine hundred seventy nine and two thousand and five the bottom fifth of household income grew just two hundred dollars adjusted for inflation and the top point one percent of households and calm grew about five point nine million dollars during that same time period let's look into this
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a bit closer as it is applies to minority groups in two thousand and nine a representative survey of american households revealed that the median wealth of white families was about one hundred thirteen thousand dollars compared with about six point three thousand dollars for latino families and five point six thousand dollars for black families and here's a graph from that same survey comparing the median net worth between the white in africa. african-american families as you can see and nineteen eighty-four the difference between african and african-american and white family net worth was just over eighty five thousand dollars and this gap has significantly grown over the past two decades to over two hundred sixty five hundred thousand dollars in two thousand and nine we can also see how this affects unemployment in the united states according to the u.s. department of labor the unemployment rate in two thousand and twelve was seven point two percent but among african-american populations it was thirteen point
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eight percent income levels also vary by race gender as well and the u.s. males earn almost thirty seven percent more than women overall factors contributing to this include work preferences women are less likely to travel or relocate for their jobs women are also more likely to work for the government or nonprofits than men now there are several explanations and arguments for why income inequality has continued to widen during the post civil rights era access to education is one of the obvious but one of the less obvious like homeownership and taxation in our post industrial economy education plays a significant role in income inequality and the upper income tax bracket earners are more likely to have a college education than the lower quintiles and the rising cost of an education creates a barrier to entry for students from low income families to attend college now a less debated factor of income inequality is homeownership studies have shown that
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the number of years of families owned a home was the biggest driver of wealth growth by race for most families the hallman is the largest item and they're well a portfolio and it makes up an even greater percentage for minority families and addition minority families are more likely to lose their home and foreclosures. there are also debates around the tax code and how it affects the income gap some say that cutting taxes expectantly on top and her income earners contributes to wealth and equality while others would argue that there have been large changes in the way people reports have axes resulting and exaggerated data so if you are enraged about unequal justice you might want to take some time and to look into unequal income growth too as the us continues this debate around george zimmerman let's not forget the role income and equality is continuing to play in the economy in the early one nine hundred seventy s.
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and has grown significantly also referred to as the great divergence the wealth gap today is the biggest between the middle class and the top income earners. and stay tuned because coming up next justin underhill interview the xterra woman of the f.b.i. see if she will bear on too big to fail then political commentator sam sachs goes toe to toe with bob inglis on apple's new and though i fully named it i want. one of the great state blind to what is happening in their country. the american dream is disappearing. the houses with gardens are laid. the poor are left hopeless the streets are full of angry crowds that are fighting against.
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the storm the american dream. actually what happened there i don't know. piers later is when i got arrested for. for a crime i did not do. we have numerous cases where police officers lie polygraph results. innocent people to the police officers don't beat people anymore i mean it just doesn't happen really. in the course of interrogation why because there's been this is like no because the psychological techniques are more effective in obtaining confessions than physical abuse they were taking they could get what they wanted they could say what they wanted and there was no evidence of what they did or what they said. some of these traditional chili lines they've been bred and developed and passed
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down from generation to. this is a total destruction of the culture in mexico telling them i mean this is not going to impact asylum in mexico whatever happens here. in the in the you know in the in all the border and so forth. why do you think this country is full of obese and sick people because we have a crappy food system. i
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to ensure that banks have the fish in cash on hand that there are requirements for the level of capital that banks need to set aside the bigger this buffer the better a bank can weather financial turbulence there are different proposals for determining capital requirements one proposal is to use a percentage of a bank's total assets and another is to weight each asset according to risk under current risk weighted assets rules the holding government that is considered to
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have zero risk earlier i sat down with former f.d.i.c chairwoman sheila bair and asked about the incentives the banks have to increase holdings of sovereign debt. there's absolutely a strong incentive it's more for g.s.t. security sirrah because the fannie and freddie securities or because they're implicitly government explicitly government back to this point that you get a very good as your percent risk rate so there's you don't have to you can fund all that with leveraged money you don't have to fund any of it with your own equity capital so that is yes that is just another perversion of their risk weighting system we have now in in europe it's created very perverse incentives to load up on high yielding distressed sovereign debt and some some banks have done exactly that to get their ratios higher because you know you can fund those assets with zero percent equity capital you can do it all with leverage and as for if we were to find a way to orderly wind down banks would that solve does that is that enough to solve
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the issue of too big to fail or or is there do we still have too interconnected to fail you it is there are there's a lot of work that still needs to be done and that if it is a good proposal to reduce credit concentrations among different. large institutions we have i have suggested in fall the comment letters. this effect that not i'm audience simon johnson to caring that they have minimum debt in equity issuance is the holding company level and that debt cannot be held by other large institutions we do need to reduce the interconnectedness the capital rules ironically right now those risk weightings they give you an incentive to buy another bank step because if you buy another bank's debt that so you'll have to find that twenty five percent . to the risk weighting is only twenty five percent of what it would be if you held a commercial entities jet so you know what the bank with the big cap rules say is if you hold cities debt you have told one fourth you have fund that with one for the capital that you have to fund i.b.m. step that just makes no sense whatsoever so the capitals give banks incentives to
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invest in one another which needs to be changed so there's a lot of work we do at the capital we need to up the dead oceans we need to reduce interconnectedness but you know that is in process the rules have been closed most of them but they have been finalized there's a lot of industry lobbying to stop that pushback and the industry can't have it both ways they want to say oh well too big to fail so over it we're fine and don't worry about us on the other hand the regulatory measures that will really into big to fail they fight tooth and nail so that it gets very frustrating and so what about proposals like breaking up the big banks do you see that as a reasonable way to go about it i would i would like to see the market drive that i really think that if we can convince the market that too big to fail is over forced them to issue substantially more debt in equity to the market to a market which understands that there are no more and implied government support their money is at risk i think that by itself will drive drive either smaller size
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or break ups of the share returns i've said this a lot of people have said this the share returns for the biggest banks are not good i mean city of b. of a if had terrible performance since two thousand j.p. morgan chase is a little bit better but even j.p. morgan chase feels in comparison to the smaller banks they have a more you know a simpler. understand what you dish well business model so by teasing this implied government subsidy out forcing the market to fund these became less and where were they clearly understand their money's at risk i think there's funding costs will go up significantly and that by itself will prate a tremendous pressure to downsize and break up i would like to see the market do it that i think it's very difficult for congress or even regulators to say you know your optimal size is one point five trillion or you should be more than x. percent of g.d.p. or it's arbitrary it's probably going to be game a bull in the market i think again if you if you miss the market the government subsidies are over with that they will they will find the market will find the optimal size of
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a sufficient size of these financial institutions was that difficult to convince the market that it is i mean that's one of the reasons why i wrote my fortune column that the fortune column was really got the headlines adjusted to big to fail is over and i think investors should assume that too big to fail is over they should assume that if they vest in these mega banks their money is going to be at risk and they needed to stand the risk that these banks are taking and if they don't understand these risks they should get out and the big bond funds i think need to have to take more responsibility for market discipline for analyzing these bank balance sheets the regulators need to get more information out to them as well but yeah i think if you're a holding company investor your money is clearly a risk now and people should understand that this is they're the ones that are going to be absorbing the losses of these institutions fail so taxpayers are going to take the risk and more and finally do you think that too big frank gives regulators the tools to overcome a lot of the issues in the banking sector are are the is the potential there i do
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think yes i think the tools are there they absolutely are there too in too big to fail to give us a stable financial system the regulators need to use the tools congress needs to support them using the tools the president needs to make this a priority the industry needs to stand down and let the. finalize these rules the authorities are there but they need to use them you know we had a lot of authorities prior to the crisis that we didn't use and look what happened you know we had the authority to set mortgage the fed had the authority to set mortgage lending standards across the board they didn't do it the f.c.c. and see have the see have the authority to apply some market regulation to drive it as congress strip them of that authority so there or they were tools that could've been used prior to the crisis that would have prevented it that were not and we should learn from that the tools are there now congress has given the regulators a lots of new tools they need to use them. that was my interview with former f.b.i. c chairwoman sheila bair now it's time for today's daily door.
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guess what we got sam sachs back here at thank you for joining me for today's dual thank you bob let's get to our first story. we got the apple product it's called i watch you gotta love that name i watch out for all this tech stuff according to forbes apple is said to be hiring outside help to tackle design problems with its smart watch and according to the financial times a tech firm wants to bring in fresh pair of eyes to look at the device because it's in the house developers may be struggling to solve the problems i give you the floor this one i don't really get the point of this i mean. i don't even know why we're watch any more than the fact that my wrist feels weird if i don't have a watch on it really seems to check their time with their i phones their i pads i had to help you later watching the one nine hundred eighty s. it wasn't that cool but i mean are we regress into the prior state where you know
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google glasses seems to be the future here why is apple going with a watch yeah that doesn't make sense when i was going to watch that could change it was a t.v. remote control and i could like set up bars and change the t.v. channel that was the pinnacle that i was making all the whatever app. trying to do now it's not going to get anywhere close to this watch that used to be able to change so it's going to cause his goose could i mean he needs a new product pronto all right and he's ensnared in this n.s.a. whistleblower stuff people are angry against these tech firms for basically spying on their customers what's his future i don't know i don't really care about ten o'clock future or whatever i mean i watch is not the future maybe my belt i necklace or i don't use let's move on we have a washington post story samsung purchased a million copies of magna carta that would be jay z's new album in advance and then via an app made the album available to subscribers five days before its widespread release in exchange the users were asked to share access to their social media
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accounts their phone calls g.p.s. location and more this is a private company doing all this is this good or bad it isn't the n.s.a. doing this and i don't think that. this is about i mean j.c. is a corporatist he knows exactly what he says and you know of hip hop he's the c.e.o. of hip hop he's pretty much trying to profit off everything from he was trying to profit off the occupy movement selling t. shirts that say occupy all the streets and all the money from those t. shirts going to him. so he knows what exactly this is going to do this isn't just data that's going to samsung or or whatever this is data that's going to help him sell his target people with his clothes exactly he's a business that doesn't mean that people are privately giving up their own data their own secrecy and i don't i wouldn't do that myself but what's wrong with voluntary subscriptions to to a service like this i just i guess there's nothing wrong with that if people want to do it i mean people shouldn't be so mad that they don't have privacy anymore and you know jay z. can't really boast that he's this working man's person you know on the streets and
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everything like that i mean he's so he's got maybe lots of money and he's made lots of money and good for him but he's got no he's also a lot of his inner. isn't one with one more story and this has to do with facebook graph search was unveiled back in january immediately robbing those who prize their privacy on the. social network the wall the wrong way and as facebook begins rolling out these new features to certain users many are left wondering exactly how to protect their privacy on facebook i mean this is a future where if you like something something something controversial two years ago it could pop up on anybody's radar in including the f.b.i. and we only have about twenty seconds left so what's your reaction to this i think it's for two things it could be a law enforcement search there since i just presume in all that stuff little too complicated facebook's made it easier or it's for crazy girl friends or ex boyfriends who want to search for things a lot easier and i don't know why we did to the wackos on social media well thank you sam if you want to weigh in on today's show be sure to like us on facebook at facebook dot com slash prime interest you can follow sam right here at sam's so
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that you can follow me. sam thank you so much for joining me on today's show you know a little yes. so it was a bit of a mixed bag here it's a day on prime interest as usual the key economic statistics say one thing but r.v.o. another or well maintained and it looks like we're taking a job opening about seal and they have started taking its toll on the economy whatever that is when it's one of those larry king about that and the saying you know only too big to fail well according to the f.a.a. the team it's already in the bag and apple gets what america wants for watching and
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come back tomorrow from everyone at prime interest and going to the three. all over music is our job the army our destiny and these soldiers don't know what real arms look life but it didn't take them a single shots to conquer the world. china and korea try to imitate them america and europe cry bravo absolutely amazing amazing. meanwhile back in russia military artists are losing their grip on the audiences. the young people
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especially soldiers they seem to me to differently from. the russian musical army has been fighting for eighty five years now with stainton with the times and win over the younger audience is up to date or has the time come to give up the fight and make to feel. find out on r.t. . i would rather ask questions for people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my fellow larry king now right here on our t.v. question more he.
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he. easy. to. see. such. a right to see. first street. and i think the church. on a reformer splitter an. instrument. to
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be in the. over three weeks of touching down in moscow n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden finally submit a request for temporary asylum in russia. seven people are killed and over two hundred injured during the latest violence overnight in egypt as backers of the ousted president morsy clashed with police and. protests across the u.s. reach a third day after neighborhood watch volunteer was cleared of murder despite shooting dead an unarmed black teenager.

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