economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on r t. there i marinate it this is boston these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. first up investment advisor and financial blogger mike shed lock discusses minimum wage inflation and the overall health of the u.s. economy you won't want to miss our interview that's coming right up then film director jim bruce is back on the show today he is joining us live from los angeles to discuss his latest documentary money for nothing plus he's giving us his take on the regime change over the fed and finally in today's big deal ed harrison and i are talking wall bucks water wall bucks you might be asking you got to stay tuned to find out it's all coming up and it all starts right now.

our lead story today cigarette now for those of you out there addicted to tobacco you know full well that when you need a nicotine fix you just got to have it however one place you're not going to find it is that c.v.s. no not anymore now the country's largest drugstore c.v.s. caremark has announced that starting october first they will no longer sell cigarettes and other tobacco products the move will cost the chain an estimated two billion dollars per year however that loss of cell actually accounts for just a small fraction of the company's total revenue which topped one hundred twenty three billion dollars last year now c.v.s.

is the first major pharmacy to ban tobacco sales though many smaller independently owned pharmacies have already done so c.v.s. medical officer dr troy brennan said quote this action may not lead many people to stop smoking smokers world probably simply go elsewhere to buy cigarettes but if other retailers follow this lead to battle products will become much more difficult to obtain so how do smokers feel about all this so we hit the streets to find out. people like me who want to stop smoking we have to go a little bit further to get the pack of cigarettes you know and for me to get up at midnight or some way that or ten o'clock at night to go to c.v.s. when they're only have twenty four hours i can run in and grab effects and cigarettes but if i can get them so easily it'll make me think twice before i go out and buy that pack i think tobacco is on its way out and it's going to become more of a niche market and not something that you're going to find in every corner store i think it's good for their image i think they're going to take a slight hit on their like market share or whatever but i think overall it's

a good choice for them for their if they want to be concerned of the pharmacy that smart. now while c.b.s. executives know full well the decision will cost them billions of dollars in the short term the company believes they'll make more in the long run by banning tobacco sales and by ditching tobacco products c.v.s. can further develop their pharmacies into full fledged health care providers striking more profitable deals with hospitals and health insurers in the process now c.v.s. didn't become a multibillion dollar drug store by being bad at business they did not but there you have it. the u.s. economy has seen an even recovery over the past four years now this despite the economic expansion and the fed's best efforts to put

a floor under asset prices many people are feeling the weight of poor wage growth despite all of this now our next guest financial advisor an economic blogger like shylock talked to us about the situation and i started off by asking him why a lot of people still are saying that they don't see the recovery and believe america is still in a recession today. tell us we're back in a recession now i've accidentally an erroneous flee thought we were on the verge of recession a couple of times well the spread came out through massive q.e. . managed to at least create some sort of business climate where jobs although hiring was not robust didn't expand much and then obamacare came along and actually kind of got lucky if you want to look at that way we created because of the obamacare artifact we created. millions actually of part time jobs

where businesses came by a reduced the number of workers reduced the hours that people were working so people want out and took on a second job so you look at the jobs just you see the jobs were going up something like a hundred eight hundred ninety thousand jobs a month if you actually look at the employment report the employment was only going up one hundred ten one hundred fifteen thousand a month there are a difference of sixty five seventy five thousand jobs a month where is that discrepancy i think is people taking extra part time jobs. that's good that they can do that that's good business can hold on but it creates an illusion here that the job market in the united states is better than what it is now the president has begun signing people up for his signature piece of legislation the affordable healthcare act and the process has not been smith to say

the least do you think obamacare will eventually be a success. government to manipulation is never success by definition so no i think we're seeing more and more people come to the realization the unions were actually complaining about obamacare and what it did to them today and they were one of the biggest backers. it did create a different set of winners and losers there are some people who were not insurable before who have insurance now so they turned out big so that was big in their favor but everyone else especially small businesses have to have seen lots of heights in there so we created a bigger pool of of losers a small pool of winners and yes i have to realize there's the insurance industry that wrote this ad everything in there was was for them so another group of

losers is it is ted and t. heir people and they're not ted but people in their early to mid twenty's right health who have no health care problems at all they are subsidizing those with problems is that a good thing or a bad thing i think it's a bad thing because it's another economic distortion mike i want to ask you about minimum wage obama and many in his party they're keen to get it increased do you think this would be a good idea. i know i've talked about that on my blog is probably is as you're aware i think it's a very bad idea the argument goes something like this you know why are u.s. taxpayers subsidizing walmart employees if wal-mart and mcdonald's just paid a minimum wage. pick your number twelve eleven fifteen dollars an hour is what

many of them are clamoring for then we wouldn't have to see a you know all of this food stamp support and. other support you know welfare benefits well what did god there's no proposal in congress or anywhere else that i saw hey ok let's lower let's let's cut food stamps if we raise the minimum wage the first thing that's going to happen is a minimum wage it's going to go up and. the costs of the benefits are going to go down the money's already been allocated it's going to be spent perhaps squandered but it is certainly going to be spent now look at the on saying ok first first small number of people there retain their jobs. their wages go up but what about everyone else what about the people who shop at wal-mart well prices are going to go up and what about the stores that wal-mart doesn't open

because. their costs went up the yet to look at the un seen the stores that don't go up those are property taxes that won't be collected those are construction jobs they won't happen that is hiring that won't happen so you know the argument is the question that i was asked is. why are we subsidizing shoppers in wal-mart why are we subsidizing people who eat at mcdonald's well that's one of these why is the sky growing guided by. this guy isn't brain we're not really subsidizing these people a lot of these jobs wouldn't exist at all at higher minimum wage wal-mart right out of oakland some of the story they might like low grade our tax dollars and a fall over elsewhere but i want to tell you about this my friends this couple of

from the u.k. she was a recent guest here seizing on boom bust and she suggested that we have no minimum wage but that the government top up working wages below the poverty level doing this in order to maintain a living standards do you think this is a reasonable solution. no solution at all or should mean a government interference in the free markets that all the problem here. is prices are going up and wages are going up to match so what's the problem here is the problem that wages are going up where is the problem the prices are going up everyone's screaming here more inflation more of a question for you know a program and once at the monitor it's one zero zero my god heaven forbid prices fall why don't the very thing we made is for prices to fall instead you know they're trying to force prices up and but money doesn't flow and jobs

don't flow where central banks want to go. liquidity goes where the return is higher and where the return is highest is in asset bubbles in stocks and bonds didn't benefit any you know the erin is is we need these things to protect the low wage holders well they're not the ones that have assets so we're spawning asset bubbles at the benefit of those with first access to money who is that well it's the banks and the already wealthy so here rather than fix the problem and the problem is central banks trying to create inflation. we go after a symptom of a problem the symptom of the problem is wages haven't kept up but if they force wages up what are the employers going to do they're going to go out and they're going to hire robots because the fed has forced down the price of interest

rates they can go out and borrow money cheaply and invest in hardware and software robots and get rid of more of lloyd's mike i want to thank you so much for your time i'm sorry we were running slim on it here but we will have you back on very soon hopefully thank you for your insight your time it's great pleasure to be on the show or and hope to be back again. that was financial advisor an economic blogger luck. coming up documentary film director jim burrows joins us live from our los angeles studio to discuss all things but you won't want to miss that then in today's big deal ed harris and i look at the payments big corn cryptocurrency is and the taste of the original content that only mr harrison can deliver you definitely won't want to miss it but as we head to a quick break here's a look at some of the closing numbers today the bill stick around.

the star wars. to the finish line of the marathon.

hubris is an award winning documentary filmmaker his most recent film money for nothing inside the federal reserve warns of a u.s. central banking system that has lost its way now jim believes that the instability of our nation's economy increased once the fed began taking extreme measures to

pump liquidity into the markets be a quantitative easing of course now in his eyes easy credit and misguided market intervention were a huge source of what fueled the crisis in the first place now bruce believes we're trying to solve the problem by doing a lot of the same stuff that caused the problem in the first place never a good solution joining me once again to talk all things that is writer producer director jim bruce thank you so much for being here on the show now since we last spoke a lot a lot has happened at the fed most notably the passing of the torch from bernanke you to yellen who kicked off her first official week as fed chair woman this very week starting on monday but i want to ask you young has said that she doesn't see risk in the stock market right now do you think she's misguided in her current belief. you know i think it's typical of fed officials they never see the problems we for. you know the people that i listen to i think are people with a better track record people who saw the crisis coming last time around they have

been worried especially in recent months about overvaluation in the stock market you know i don't necessarily think we have a massive bubble of the kind we had in two thousand but i think stocks are definitely priced at a point where you know certainly when janet came into office they're priced to in some ways to perfection it's going to be very hard for i think for prices to keep heading north now in your film yellen she kind of came across as part of this crew within the fed that's critical of the recent policy employed by the central bank even though she supports the banks current easy money policy now this seems a little depressing this but do you think we're going to see any material changes with yellen at the helm of the fed now i don't think so i mean that's one of the things i worry about is that i wish the fed was rethinking some of its policies i know they're rethinking kiwi and they and they it's seems like across the board fed officials are saying we're going to taper we're going to keep tapering you know no

one's backing off that right now so i think that maybe that's a good thing but i think the general philosophy behind fed decision making and fed policy making won't change at all under janet yellen and that's one of the things i'm concerned about i think given what we've seen over the last ten or fifteen years the idea that the fed should keep pushing us apart is you know keep promoting you know easy money in the same incentives that led to the two thousand and eight crisis to me it seems like it's time for a change but i don't think that's what we're going to see now you've said that you'd like to see the fed return to a more traditional role of a central bank given your assumption that the fed has veered from its traditional role how realistic is such a return given the current state of affairs in the u.s. economy. you know i think i think that's the problem is to some degree because their policies haven't worked that well they sort of need to keep going with the thinking that the that the sort of irony zero percent rates haven't been

a cure all quantitative easing hasn't been a cure all it hasn't created real sustainable economic growth you know in two thousand and nine and ten they said it would happen in two thousand and ten eleven and they each year they've kind of pushed out their forecast for return to sustainable growth and to some degree because their policies haven't worked they're sticking with them that's the sort of ironic situation room and now they've gone from saying promising more q.e. more q.e. now they're promising you know the hold rates at zero for longer than anyone could imagine are you know they keep changing the language but basically they're really trying to convince investors that that there's you know even as they withdraw q.e. because i think they're concerned about their balance sheet. that you know everything will be great times will be good the stock market's going to keep going higher that's a signal they're trying to send i think the big challenge for janet yellen is it will she be able to keep this up and you know i think ben bernanke he was able to over the last five years create the expectation that the stock market couldn't fall

almost and we have people saying it on financial news repeatedly as long as the fed's in there as long as the feds you know you know pumping money into the system you know prices are going to go up so you have to buy that's that's been you know the last five years and i think right now we're seeing even with the recent poll back i think it has somewhat to do with the fact that there's a new person at the fed ben bernanke is not there anymore and it's really a psychological support the fake created this expectation that the stock market would keep rising no matter what and i think to the extent that that support is broken it's going to be very hard for janet yellen to see really install a floor under asset prices now in your film the fed it came across as a serial bubble blower that helps wall street at the expense of main street now this concept is infuriating to millions of people but the question is how can we as regular citizens do anything about it. i mean that's you know the strange thing

about the fed is these aren't elected officials so it isn't as easy as going to the voting booth you know next fall and saying you know i want somebody new to run the fed you know the fed is a creature of congress and i think the way the average person can impact the fed is by letting their their congressperson know that they're not happy with current policies and and one of the goals of the film is to bring about more awareness at the congressional level of the impacts of fed policies on the average american you know that we point out in the film that it's a very regressive policy if you're if your goal in stimulating the economy is to stimulate stock prices and financial asset prices if that's how you're trying to stimulate the economy you're really going to benefit by you know by the nature of what you're doing the wealthiest right and the banks is as mish was saying earlier so i think the average person it's they can write their congressman they can email their congressman they can go to our web site money for nothing the movie or good you know send a copy of the film when they care about it so it's it's all about you know i think

creating awareness creating we're trying to with the film generate public opinion and create some awareness at the congressional level that this this organization that congress is charged with overseeing has really kind of wandered off its path now i have one quick question we saw severe market jitters when the fed even mention tapering last spring could rates be raised excessively as they were in the one nine hundred eighty s. or is there something something substantially different this time around thirty seconds i'm sorry we're running out of time. no problem i mean i think the problem is we've created an economy in a financial system that requires constant intervention from the central bank massive deficits from the from the government and really can only run on low rates so i worry we've become japan we're at the point where the fed really almost can't raise interest rates and it's not going to be a smooth transition to normal policy i think we won't get back to normal i think we'll have another recession before the fed gets anywhere near normal interest rate

and i would argue that because once again the fed has waited too long to raise rates genom sorry we don't have more time to thank you again for taking the time out of your day to come on the show and we love having years to come back soon that was money for nothing and director of their own director jim verse. mr harrison joins me now edward to talk about bitcoin for retailers yep that's what we're talking about now everyone is talking about the minimum wage these days u.s. president barack obama even made it part of his central central part not just part of central part of his state of the union address last week by increasing the minimum wage for government contract workers to over ten dollars an hour believe his ten dollars and ten cents that's a little bit over fast food workers launched a campaign to increase wages in the fast food industry and giant u.s.

retailer wal-mart has been a focal point of criticism because of the number of people it employs with wages near the minimum wage level but the minimum wage is a contentious political issue some say higher minimum wages would increase unemployment as demand for workers at higher wages would fall others believe that the increased wages would add demand to an economy burdened by household debt without background our very own ed harrison has an interesting idea on how to deal with the problem that he has written up on his very fabulous i might say fabulous blog credit write downs and tell us the basic outline of your idea because it is forget about the minimum wage as a contentious issue as you would say think of wal-mart in terms of a p.r. campaign wal-mart could say look you know what we want to do is make sure that if we use the we our employees that they're going to continue to shop with us and that

we're not going to actually have to raise prices or eliminate workers or whatever. so what they could do is use the big cooling algorithm to create a crypto currency of their own that's called the wall books or whatever they could . give the money to top up the wades of the workers to say ten dollars and fifty cents and using that algorithm to top the wages the customer that is the employees can shop at wal-mart they can buy anything that they want wal-mart but here's the thing the big coin algorithm means that it could be securely transferred to anyone just one of the two million wal-mart workers i have a question could i exchange my wall box for me you can exchange or wall your your wall box for big but you can exchange them for us dollars so that's the key so the person in the employee could actually take the wall box and the cash out of the

system and it's almost like having money and then people can come into the system from out shop at wal-mart except this seems brilliant in the sense that it tackles minimum wage it also helps wal-mart you know not that we're all looking to help wal-mart but it's from a business perspective it's a good model but i ask one other big retailers like target or i don't know c.v.s. like we mentioned before what's another one. or any one of us can they employ a similar method definitely without a doubt i mean from my perspective the whole point is look you know we want to workers to be happy we want productivity to be a set of a if you could you're a big employer you have a lot of stuff one on ok ad now list five reasons a crypto currency payment system won't work for a retail chain can you briefly tell us a little bit about each one of these you have five let's say i do ok so the first one is solves the minimum wage issue you know the retailer would no longer be

a target of attacks like wal-mart is second reason i have here is that it's all the lever of cost issue that i was talking about that's because all the extra money that's spent is spent only with that company so costco wegmans whatever you name it then the. third thing is that it solves the credit card processing fee issue so you will remember target wal-mart target was actually a victim about to use all of you out there you know millions were involved with that goes out the window because bitcoin is a secure payment system and a fourth issue is that it brings competition to the payments think about when you think of the payments will you think about paper out i mean there's no one else out there google all of this starting but i think when he was. in the last thing is it helps the bags if you think about people who work at wal-mart middleweights bank account fees etc people don't actually need to have a bank account they could actually run everything through the payment system and

they would have lost fees as a result target and we would all love to not have to deal with our bank anymore and you are fabulous and this idea i think is absolutely fabulous original content right here and that's all for now but you can see all segments featured in today's show on you tube you tube dot com slash boom bust r.t. also hearing from you so please check out our facebook page at facebook dot com slash boom bust r.t. you can also tweet us at aaron aide at edward m. age from all of us here at boom bust thank you for watching the next.

day. and i think this is a roll over and sit and distasteful policy but also well that's dangerous to go with. a threat to create a kind of civil conflict with places like ukraine is russia the threat to the west because the west certainly portrays russia as some kind of threat i would put it differently all right i would say that the west is a threat to itself. that is not only highly provocative it is closing down opportunities that we have with russia to solve major problems affecting our own national security so what we say today on your show peter if you

target in the united states will be dismissed as propaganda. is there a new cold war brewing pitting the west against russia what is being called a reset relations at the start of the obama presidency today is in tatters western media and politicians are determined to between russia and the worst possible light even to the point of undermining the sochi games what are these new cold warriors which she's. one of. these polish face i think. a pleasure to have you with us here today.

coming up on our. snowden revealed the expansion of the n.s.a. surveillance many have tried to discredit have among them capitol hill lawmakers attacking both snowden and the reporter that helped him what this could mean for journalists and their sources ahead. and since news broke about the death of actor philip seymour hoffman the dangers of heroin is back in the news in afghanistan the heroin business is booming now lawmakers in washington are trying to figure out how to stop the flow of heroin into the u.s. more on this front on the war on drugs coming up. and we're only two days away now from the start of the sochi winter olympics.