no there i'm marinating this is boom bust and here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today. first up some say that bitcoins nefarious gone in taishan with the virtual black market is fading however a new web site may prove otherwise we'll tell you about the online assassination market coming up concerning our t. correspondent megan lopez she joins me in studio today to discuss the n.f.l. now pop quiz is it a sports league b. trade association or c. a not for profit the answer is probably not what you're thinking and finally in today's big deal rachel courteous and i sit down to discuss the economics of thanksgiving double double it all starts right now.

leading off our headlines today big coin now with the shutter of silk road last month an opening in the online criminal marketplace has popped up and as many of you already know bitcoin has been heavily linked to illegal virtual enterprises but now the virtual currency has an even darker association murder and through the web site assassination market now according to an article published in forbes the assassination market is a crowdfunding service that lets anyone anonymously contribute big coins towards the bounty on the head of any government official. a kind of kickstarter if you

will for political assassination now according to the website's rules of someone on the market's hit list is killed in the hit men can prove he or she was responsible for that killing they will collect a bounty for their services alleged targets on the sites including federal reserve chairman ben bernanke the president barack obama and s. a director keith alexander now bernanke he has attracted the largest bounty so far with an offer of one hundred twenty four bit coins or roughly eighty thousand dollars concerning stuff now on the subject of bitcoin the price of the virtual currency has skyrocketed in recent weeks as well and as of midday wednesday bitcoin was valued at over one thousand dollars now at the start of november was trading at just over two hundred dollars that's a four hundred percent increase in less than one month's time elsewhere while this probably doesn't come as a shock to many people it's now officially official television is dying media stock analyst recently noted that the pay t.v.

industry has reported its worst twelve months ever in q three of this year alone all major t.v. providers lost a collective one hundred thirteen thousand subscribers and now while that might not sound like such a huge number this also includes internet subscribers now from the beginning of two thousand and ten to the end of this year roughly five million people and their cable and broadband subscriptions broadband internet was supposed to benefit from the end of cable but it obviously has not now the bottom line and we're at the beginning of a historical shift in the way people consume television and this includes t.v. shows and movies which are now primarily being viewed via the internet or on mobile devices and this hurts cable providers and leaves broadband companies increasingly an able to retain their customers. and finally as americans go grow more pessimistic about the labor markets consumer confidence has declined to a seven month low now the drop helps explain why some retailers see the need to

match competition discounts this holiday season household purchases make up seventy percent of the u.s. economy and more unemployment and more employment not unemployment employment opportunities along with wage increases would help lay the groundwork for an upswing in consumer confidence well there you have it we'll be tracking these stories and keeping you posted on all the late. over the past couple of weeks the s. and p. and dow jones have surged to new highs however within the new job market the unemployment rate continues to hover around seven point three percent so how much higher can the markets go and do rising markets signal a recovering economy or is this simply another bubble just waiting to burst i spoke

with kyle harrington from the founder of parenting capital management and i started off by asking him about the underlying health of our global economy. i want to see a healthier marketplace what the underlying fundamentals what i what i'm referring to is the employment market place to be healthier to sustain the equity markets in a healthy way right so you're kind of saying that this current market rally is been a reaction but a short sighted reaction no. i think so and you know what i i want to listen i'm excited that the market is over sixteen thousand and we have clients that are in the markets and that are are making money i just i want to be cautiously optimistic with respect to the direction of the market over the course of the next six months now retail sales will be an interesting number aaron here in the you know the holiday season is upon us and so to see if consumers are spending at

a healthy pace will be very interesting because remember we do still have a a sluggish and i don't want to continue to repeat myself but we do have a sluggish employment marketplace and so. how retail sales looks i think you know keeping an eye on that sector of the equity markets will be very interesting you know over the course of the next two months do you think the fact should be targeting employment. i think that the fed is basing. you know their decisions and watching very closely on the employment marketplace and what i'm saying is that the employment market place over the course of the last twelve months as we see jobs being reported each month to me is not going in a very very strong direction and the fed and bernanke at the current time and yellen will inherit this role is sitting there and you know we just had

a taper discussion is bernanke going to start tapering and the decision was actually for the you know i was actually correct about i thought that he would not do anything because i think he realized that the employment market place the blood you know the debt levels in the united states in general as well as in each individual's household i think were not healthy enough for him to to begin that process now like you said the fact they quickly backed off taper talks after interest rates they spiked what does this tell us about the reliance of banks on q.e. i mean obviously it has to say something what do you think. well you know i we have become accustomed erin to this quantitative easing and the fed being very involved in the markets and continuing to distribute and buy back treasuries and be involved in what i like. to see a more freer market in a market where the government in the fed is not i don't want to you know i kind of

you know the word artificial comes to mind i don't want to see an artificially inflated market because i don't think i know that that's not a sustainable effort and so i believe the fed does want to start tapering and does want to get less involved but you know there are you know i think bernanke he did the best job he possibly could with respect to managing that process otherwise. as you know i think we've been in a different situation but when that tapering store it's the question is how much is the market affected on the downside and i am starting to see money managers spying the exits and looking like how to maneuver if in fact that happened so i would say i would suggest you know for some of our clients we suggest to try to stay in liquid positions and what i mean is e.t.f.

mutual funds stocks that you can trade out of in case you have gains and you want to go to the sidelines because the fed has decided to taper and the market is has turned downward now i'm on the subject of you know an exit strategy for the fed it brings up the question is raising interest rates now substantially different than it was in the one nine hundred seventy s. . well i think i think raising interest rates now. will have a quicker more direct effect on the equity markets people are waiting the risk reward analysis so right now people are saying well i don't want to have the in a cd i don't want to be in a money market i'm not getting any rate of return and in fact i'm getting less of a return than i am in based off of the inflation rate so i'm losing money so the only place to go is the equity markets and so that's one of the reasons why i think

you're seeing such an explosive jones when rates if rates get increased i think you will see a quicker effect because people will start to weigh well if i can get higher rates in treasuries and it's somewhat comparable or how much more comparable is the equity markets people are going to start weighing that decision quickly now i want to quickly move on to the stimulus program across the pacific the nikkei it's calmed down substantially since the extreme volatility that experience this past summer and i want to ask you how has the massive stimulus program in japan affected the japanese economy do you think. now it is a great question i mean you know that let that be you know a discussion for what could potentially happen here i mean you know you you have to have error in a fundamental economic infrastructure that is let's call the let's use the word healthy. and if the fed or it whether it be in the united states or in japan or

whatever country you're talking about is overly involved when the plug is pulled with respect to that governmental body being involved you don't want to be left holding the bag and i and i think that you know the japanese marketplace is demonstrated to extreme volatility and i fear that that could be the situation here and then you throw on top of it and i mean the issue of just overall u.s. security call it global security with respect to terrorism and terrorist attacks you see if you throw about in the mix as well how these equity markets can demonstrate extreme volatility. that was coherent and founder of harrington capital management. coming up while some football team score points this week we'll

explain how the n.f.l. scores a big with its nonprofit status and what can satellite images tell us about retail rachel curtis and i discuss why some investors get ahead of the market by snapping up. and as we head to a quick break here's a look at some of today's closing numbers.

like a classic. if you go to job the price is the only industry specifically mention of the constitution and. that's because a free and open process is critical to our democracy all business. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and i was proud silicon we've been a hydrogen right hand full of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what are probably others but once i charge it on this show we were to feel the big picture of what's actually going on. we go beyond identifying. rational debate real discussion critical issues never ever ready to join the

movement then walk to. the national football league is projected to collect upwards of nine billion dollars this year yeah true story and that's jewett to their nonprofit status that money is untouchable by the i.r.s. untouchable by the i.r.s. and now this has led some such as senator tom coburn to cry f.l. and this year he sponsored a bill to revoke the n.f.l. tax exemption argy correspondent megan lopez has more. it is america's most beloved past time. when the weather gets cold millions gather around their televisions to cheer on their favorite football teams they spend billions on game tickets and memorabilia but while the team score big often taxpayers lose the

national football league is projected to generate nine billion dollars in revenue this season yet for decades the n.f.l. has enjoyed a tax exempt status the n.f.l. is exempt from federal and state corporate income tax under section five a once the six of the federal tax code teams are for profit entities and pay taxes but the league which sets the rules negotiates contracts disciplines players and comes up with a programming schedule does not of course it's a system thirty games of the thirty two teams making profit in itself is not a profit maximizing profit making organization the purpose of a trade association is to promote the interests of an entire industry and not just one group or champa. using that logic the n.f.l. should be promoting football in general and not necessarily only the thirty two professional teams one of the big issues is is that organization promoting the

entire industry or the entire profession or are they only promoting a subset of that and there are many many many cases and rulings in cases that i've been involved in where the ira says no it's too narrow it's not broad enough to justify c. six exemption to me when you look at the n.f.l. it does seem to be very narrow another sticking point employee salaries and a fellow commissioner roger goodell made a whopping thirty million dollars last year but we only know that because as a tax exempt entity the n.f.l. is required to report its employees salaries major league baseball forfeited its nonprofit status back in two thousand and seven reportedly because changes to the tax code were going to force the league to disclose the culture was paying its executives r.t. reached out for comment on multiple occasions to the n.f.l. all requests were denied sports fans and non sports fans alike are starting to blow the whistle on the n.f.l.

oh. yeah that's a linda whoa word is an enthusiastic n.f.l. fan and yet she started a petition on change dot org to end the organization's nonprofit status there. cities that's outside of their stadiums but then they blacked out so to me i was trying. to really give the fans a voice so far three hundred thousand people have signed onto the petition and have to fill a sports stadium linda says it's time for the n.f.l. to start listening to its fans. seemed like a sort of an economic way to not only a guest only to say oh you're a nonprofit there's not really any good reason for you to be on our profit so maybe congress can look into that and change that status earlier this fall senator tom coburn introduced a bill that would effectively strip the n.f.l. of its nonprofit status but lobbying dollars are

a blitz on legislative actions the n.f.l. spent almost two million dollars on lobbying efforts last year alone it looks as if this tax exempt status is a political football no one wants to touch in washington meghan lopez r t. our correspondent meghan lopez she's here now joining me to talk about the first and foremost a fantastic profits so well done thank you and thank you for being here on boom bust sir for your first appearance and. now i want to first start off by asking you how exactly did the n.f.l. gain this toxic exempt status that seems like wow what a blessing with that one well if it were to be able to answer that question we have to go back all the way to nine hundred sixty six now in one thousand nine hundred sixty n.f.l. was considering merging with the american football league the a.f.l. in order to be able to merge they had to go through antitrust laws in order to get an antitrust exemption in order to that they had to go to congress ok so they went

to congress they said we want to merge congress did in fact get that exemption and then they said also we would like to be a tax exempt status because we want to consider ourselves a trade organization meant to benefit the entire industry of football as a whole so they are in fact considered a nonprofit status and just kind of separate what that means because nonprofit people tend to think charities that a charity is a five a one c three so that's your make a wish foundation that's your your red cross but a five zero one c six is business league the chambers of congress real estate boards boards of trade and also as a result of that nine hundred sixty six law professional football leagues now the interesting thing is that that also gives a broad a kind of ruling for other sports but it also that nine hundred sixty six law had nothing to do with football except that that was added on as a little amendment what history lesson for all the football now you mentioned in

your story the trade organizations that are designed like you said to promote the interests of the entire industry the question being what about college football what about you know other types of about how are they benefiting from this trade organization in this tax exempt place that they have today well what you're getting down to right there is. the real crux of the argument so when you have these trade organizations these trade associations as i mentioned the main thing is that they are supposed to be devoted to improving business conditions of an entire industry now the n.f.l. is arguably just one company so the people that are critics against this nonprofit status say that it is not promoting football as a whole but it is promoting the thirty two teams which fall under this n.f.l. league so when it comes to the that's something else it's also a non profit but the interesting thing is that it doesn't really need the n.f.l. help because it doesn't have to deal with things like trade with the players associations or players unions because they didn't raise

a student so that's kind of separate but overall when it comes to this trade association the question is does it support football as a whole like say tennis does professional tennis from the moment you enter you get a number you're given discounts you're given so many different things to kind of support your education and training from the moment you enter tennis until the moment you decide to leave the sport but the n.f.l. arguably doesn't do that now i have to ask you what do other sports leagues. or n.h.l. or do they enjoy similar tax exemption services numerous ones of them do which is interesting because as i said going back to that tax law it says professional football leagues but some of the ones that do is the national hockey league or the national hockey league is on the same level as the national. p.g.a. . says that it is under that tax exempt status and interesting one is that major league baseball was also considered tax exempt until two thousand and seven and the reason that two thousand seven porton is because the little caviar is that in order

to be a tax exempt status you have to disclose how much you're paying your executives and mopey reportedly didn't want to do that so they took that and i said will be a poor profit status and the other interesting thing to mention is that the n.b.a. was never part of the tax exempt status it's always been for profit it's interesting now i want to finally ask you speaking of salaries. the n.f.l. roger roger goodell he makes what is this thirty million dollars a year that's not pennies are there no limits on employee compensation for tax exempt groups when it comes to tax exempt groups the rule is that a tax exempt organization can pay no more than fair market compensation for services rendered but it's very hard to say what that number or that what that magic number should be considering the fact that there is nothing like the n.f.l. so obviously these organizations are very big they're very complex but at the same time and it's important to mention that the teams do pay taxes the n.f.l. entity the n.f.l. enterprises do pay taxes but the n.f.l.

league does not so it really is because we have to explain to get those numbers or it's really up to the people that watch the sport meghan thank you so much it's kind of my opening and really interesting to know that the n.b.a. never part of this is thank you so much that was negative and now it's time for today's big deal. joining me now. is to talk turkey it's good to have you here this week and if you happen to be one of the thousands of holiday shoppers at the mall someone might be watching you when it's not just on a security camera now companies such as our as metrics they snap hundreds of photos of shopping mall parking lots by using satellites that data is then sold to analysts looking for more real time information about the number of customers

heading to stores over the holiday weekend traders in the retail sector then trade based upon that information the analysts actually count the cars in each photo. they go to cars and then on. to figure out how full the parking lot is going to ask you rachel instead of government surveillance we see the market. driving spying what do you think of this is this is the next thing to comment on should we be scared of this for a couple years i don't think this is anything new i think that we've already learned that companies like target women are pregnant often before the women in the family some selves you know based on the purchases they're making we know that goldman sachs says that the reason they have such a marketed vantage is based on the information that they have the market is based entirely upon the information that you have in your ability to kind of gain a strategic advantage on that information so the fact that now they're looking overhead at cars i don't think that's the most effective way to determine whether parking lot is a market and the kind of this seems like a pretty bad indicator considering for instance how many people are online shopping you don't know how many people are even in that car and where precisely they will

be shopping right let's say you have people at a shopping mall who knows if they're going to. so to me that seems like it's a it's an indicator with a lot of flaws that being said market surveillance is something that's always existed even when we're talking about government surveillance thanks to things like google and that and you know other technology companies those technology companies were already gleaning from data themselves information about customers to make money do you think we'll see this expanding over the next few years just in terms of i mean basically coming up at a really really expanding i mean i don't know i think that as long as people think that there's a strategic advantage to be gained by learning a kind of information or piece of information they're going to find innovative ways to get that information more quickly and more effectively than their competitors now we know that more stores than ever there are going to be open the thanksgiving holiday shopping and i will not be in any of them let the let the record high i'm

really interested in decatur know innocent i know marketing indicator things are. in fact this stuff is crazy and one hundred fifty five years will be open on thanksgiving which is crazy because they had also. the parade may or may not actually be happening we'll have to see you. are you saw story on gawker actually right before i came on here that a manager at a pizza hut was fired because he refused to open his store on thanksgiving first of all who's ordering pizza on thanksgiving i don't even think it would be very crowded but people are feeling a lot of. yeah exactly oh yeah i'd like that turkey pizza with gravy. a little slow that i don't i just don't understand why people would shop there anyway but it does seem to be a trend to have black friday become black thursday because we've long crazy holiday season but we've also seen that a lot of times black friday doesn't necessarily even have the best or cheapest prices it's just the hoopla around it where people know the price is got to be good

but it's fifty percent maybe off of a higher price to be given that they jacked it up to it's often a scam now finally you know it's easy in there. but i know where we'll see you at the turkey table you better way to this is really important before we go i really want to know can you please fill us in on how to do things giving dinner like properly be any tennis advise google there's been all i did target or a macor if you needed to jeff i would be delighted to turkey dinner in the car probably will be on friday on my way elsewhere but i don't know i think that the best way to eat thanksgiving is to actually enjoy it right a lot of people are writing articles about you know what you should or shouldn't say to your family members don't talk to your family at all so we're thankful and then you drink a lot and then be very vessel for an hour you can see also in today's show on you tube youtube dot com slash boom bust archie we also love hearing from you so please check out our facebook page at facebook dot com slash boom bust r t from all of us here boom bust thank you for watching see you next time but i.

when the crisis leaves us traces everywhere. empty clothes rooms become the norm. children pay for the mistakes of adults. by working in a tobacco field or in a cafe. they are the ones who come back home blasts. so his games are just in their memories. put on your cultural phenomena like. the face time people.

pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure. i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question for.

coming up on r t it turns out that the n.s.a. isn't above watching you watch porn documents reveal that the n.s.a. has been gathering records of online sexual activity hoping to shame radicals with it the seedier side of surveillance ahead and the u.s. government is planning to empty out its embassy at the vatican the stated reason security concerns but is there more to it than that a look at the divide between the u.s. government and the vatican coming up. and a new video puts a damper on the thanksgiving turkey undercover investigators reported footage of the crowded sickly conditions at a turkey breeding farm more on that later in the show.