there i marinated this is boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. are lovers. oh are the look to. be. the schmidt of the end to guess which country is singing that same tune overtaking india as the number one consumer of gold will tell you all about it just ahead and boom bust days golden with george sheldon who joins me to talk about whether the gold standards in flexibility contributed to debt deflation in the one nine hundred thirty s. plus comedian and author leak and it makes a big deal debut to talk about how chevron tried to mend his relationship after customers had to go through an explosive mistake on their part chevrons part you

don't want to miss a moment and it all starts right now. with . our lead story today gold now india has long been gold's top consumer however china has recently overtaken india as the country with the highest demand for the precious metal chinese demand for gold bars coins central restored thirty two percent to record levels in two thousand and thirteen even as the price of gold slumped twenty eight percent now according to new data from the world gold council china over took india as the world's top consumer of physical gold importing over

one thousand metric tons of the metal to india's nine hundred seventy five metric tons now while gold has taken a wild ride in recent years chinese buyers are obviously undeterred before two thousand and two it was a legal for chinese citizens to own gold but now it seems they just can't get enough of it now the sharp rise in chinese. consumption partially offset a steep fall in gold demand elsewhere and according to the world gold council last year's price slump contributed to a two percent fall in the global supply of gold now green like capital's david einhorn once wrote in freaking piece criticizing the federal reserve's monetary policy relating to the central bank to force feeding some one too many jelly donuts in the hopes of a sugar rush now with the fed maintaining record low interest rates einhorn says quote as a result i will keep a substantial long exposure to gold which serves as a jelly donut antidote for my portfolio well it seems like the chinese market is

long the antidote to fed monetary policy but with that said there are also long the don't. us. us. us. us. now stand on the subject of gold a lot of economists fall for inflexibility of the gold standard for contributing to the debt deflation of the one nine hundred thirty s. now i recently interviewed george celdran professor of economics at the university of georgia and a senior fellow at the cato institute and i asked him what his thoughts were on the inflexibility of the gulf standard specifically in relation to its contribution to debt deflation of the one nine hundred thirty s. here's what he had to say. that is a very oversimplified perspective on what happened in the thirty's to put it mildly

the true story is far more complicated the old gold standard which was in place in the decades prior to the outbreak of world war two the classical gold standard didn't create deflation problems although there were of course debtors who wish there had been more inflation than there actually was under that regime they always do it doesn't follow that the regime actually created a non healthy rate of deflation for the most part it didn't now with world war one basically the old classical gold standard broke down and after the war there were attempts to cobble it together that invoked some let's say short cuts being implemented or special arrangements being made to try to economize on gold because the world price level had risen substantially when the gold standard was suspended so now nations faced

a stark choice of either deflating even more dramatically than some did after the war or evaluating their currencies in terms of gold and if you do. or coming up with some ways to run a gold standard on the cheap as it where and that sort of great britain in particular tried to do and to do so it needed the cooperation of other countries including the united states france among others well what ended up breaking down at the end of the thirty's was this special gold standard arrangement sometimes called called the gold exchange standard because the cooperation it depended on simply proved unsustainable when france in particular. decided to act in a way contrary to the england's being able to stay on this to stay on the gold standard so it was a tragedy really england really should have devalued the pound after the war

realistically it didn't have the gold and then we might have had another round of a stable sustainable gold standard in any event the jury rigged version set up after the war collapsed so calling that the gold standards of flexibility is rather too simplified was the. instability of a an ad hoc version of the gold standard that was not the same thing that had done so well before world war one now looking to today we have a fee on money so some and one of the flaws of the system seems to be the in compatibility of america's domestic agenda with its role as a reserve currency now how the us and its status as a debtor nation when its role as a reserve currency means that foreigners are obliged to accumulate dollar reserves i don't understand how that could work. well there are a number of issues here first of all we should understand that our status as

a debtor nation supplying the international reserve currency actually makes us pretty lucky it means that people hold our dollars and we get their goodies just in exchange for these bits of paper that's not a privilege other countries enjoy so if being a debtor means getting people to hold your debt and being able to use that debt instead of having to pay that's not such a bad thing what would be bad is if everyone decided all at once that they want to cash in these dollars that would pose a challenge of course for our monetary policy but. otherwise it's not clear that this debtor status is a bad thing more broadly it could simply mean that a lot of people like investing in the u.s. and that can be a sign of health we have to distinguish between the debts that we accumulate simply

because where i make on a me that's attractive to investors or the economy that supplies international reserve currency from debts that we accumulate because we're not able to pay our bills because the dollar is excessively. and excessively easy money there are a number of other healthy ways to become a net debtor and these we have to worry about but in general i think that if we had a policy that truly cater towards the requirements for macroeconomic stability domestically our other international policies would actually be less challenging for one thing if we had a rule that allowed deflation and in times of rapid productivity growth. we would also have a dollar that was stronger internationally than we do when we resort to

easy monetary policy is a way to keep our domestic prices from falling so i think my recommendations about deflation actually would make life easier for us internationally as well as dimon probably would but make people they point to the gold standard as a way out of this but didn't appraising world war one standard and as most monetary regimes do because countries didn't want to add here to the restrictions well that's right but the real problem is that too many countries were relying by the time world war one broke out too many countries including all the principal antagonists in the war they had gold standards but they also had central banks and the central banks exercised monopolies of currency so they basically where the institutions that were solely responsible for maintaining the gold standard and

of course they were in cahoots with their governments or depended on them for their privileges so when those governments went to war and decided they wanted to finance it with paper money it was easy for them to essentially allow or even command their central banks to suspend payments so they could resort to inflationary finance if you want to have a stable sort of sustainable gold standard the moral of the story goes what you need is a gold standard it isn't maintained or managed by national central banks you need a competitive system canada had such a system though as part of the british dominion as nations it was also bound to cooperate with england in the war. scotland had such a system before eight hundred forty five people who advocate the gold standard and

i sympathise with the kind of arrangement they want to get back to have to understand that as long as we have central banks where i'm unlikely ever to have a real gold standard that's reliable and that's more true now than it was in one thousand nine hundred team because now people know that the central banks are perfectly capable of not really making on their gold commitments of devaluing the their currencies in terms of gold if we went back to an international gold standard tomorrow managed by the present world central banks there would be a run on every one of those gold standard currencies the very day we deem ability of those currencies and gold was announced and that would cause an immediate collapse that's a rather dire prediction but i have no doubt that it's true i want to thank you for your time and your insight we have to have you back on very soon thank you very much it's been

a lot of fun and appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. now where is george celdran university of georgia economics professor and author of the theory of free banking. time now for a quick break but stick around because when we were turn we're bringing you part two of my interview with ben steele senior fellow or fellow and director of international economics at the council on foreign relations then in today's big deal i'm joined by our tease me camp to discuss chevrons ricks recent pope paul you won't want to miss it so stay tuned but as we head to a quick break here are some of the closing numbers that the bell sticker out.

twenty fourteen promises the ultimate in the exhilarating winter more than are. still in use in l.a. i make seven zero in on the rest of our lives take news team for sochi twenty four take. all ought. the journos have this specific tendency of seeking out negative stories about russia and what could be more negative than the possibility of a major terror attack when it comes to western media there is a tendency to look at the caucasus emirates for through the prism of what the russians do that is don't look at the idiology don't look at the actions of the caucasus emirate names instead look at the way the russians on occasion violate the political civil and human rights in combat in the job just.

right see. first street. and i think that you're. on a reporter's twitter. and instagram. the in the. know c.n.n. the m s n b c news have taken some slight risk but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's closer to the truth and might

think. it's because when full attention and the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on we're going to be coming back. and our teen years we have a different pretty. good though because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not. that. you guys have to the jokes will handle the stuff that i've got to. i welcome back now when we talk about our global financial system there is one meeting that underlies much of how it functions the famous bretton woods conference

which set up many of the institutions that rule the institutions and rules rather that determine how sovereign nations interact with one another economically now the phrase bretton woods has become shorthand for international monetary cooperation and you often hear pundits calling for a new bretton woods to hash out modern economic differences like liquidity and leverage ratios for international financial institutions but what exactly happened at the conference was a really a paradigm of cooperation dr ben steele the author of the battle of bretton woods argues in his book that the meeting was instead a way for the united states to neuter great britain and cement the importance of the u.s. dollar when the allies met in bretton woods new hampshire in july one thousand nine hundred forty four the second world war was still underway now i asked dr ben steele why the allies were in such a hurry to establish a new monetary system here's what he said. well there were two reasons in particular first and foremost f.d.r.

was anxious to use this conference to send a political message to the enemy axis powers that it was the allies in the united states in particular that had the compelling vision for the post-war era he believed that this could actually serve to bring the war to an earlier conclusion second the united states believes very passionately that it would be critical to reestablish a semblance of economic and monetary stability very quickly after the war to prevent the world from sinking back into a depression and conflict in this regard they were actually very unsuccessful and it took the marc. plan launched by the united states in one thousand nine hundred seven to a by the western european and indeed global economy now you have written a book about bretton woods the conference itself was the conference contentious and anyway. it was very contentious between two countries in particular the united

states and great britain the united states was very conscious of the fact that britain was going bankrupt during world war two and was intent on using this as an opportunity to ensure that in the post-war era a great britain did not once again reemerge as a political and economic rival to the united states so bretton woods among other things sought to establish the u.s. dollar as the unrivaled global currency the global unit of account the global unit for trade now why didn't we go back to a strict gold standard after bretton woods. there wasn't really any support for it . and the united states had no intention of binding itself to the old implicit rules of the classical gold exchange standard they wanted complete freedom to monitor. operate their currency as they saw fit the only thing they were

willing to do was make the pledge that they would keep the value of the u.s. dollar fixed to gold in exchange rate of thirty five dollars an ounce this is a pledge they were forced to read nega on in one thousand nine hundred ninety one what do you explain that john maynard keane's idea for a bank or. keynes wanted to establish a new super national currency which you would call bank or which he hoped would eventually come to rival the u.s. dollar and supplant its global role i should emphasize that keynes would never have propose. such a thing or his government wouldn't have allowed him to if he and his government had felt that there was an opportunity for reestablishing sterling as a major international reserve currency but they knew that there was and the second best alternative for them was to find

a way to contain the power of the united states by limiting the influence of the u.s. dollar now having suffered a huge financial crisis and can the one during the great depression do you think we will soon revisit the idea of ideas discussed at bretton woods. well interestingly enough back in two thousand and nine the chinese central bank governor joe produced a statement that got enormous attention saying that bretton woods had really been a terrible mistake we should not have pursued the plan of harry dexter white and u.s. treasury we should have pursued the plan of john maynard keynes and the british to establish a new super national currency now whereas china is not currently pushing in that direction they are pushing in the direction of weakening the influence of the u.s. dollar for example in recent years china has signed by loughner all agreements with

russia turkey. japan and brazil to begin trading with us dollars as an intermediary vehicle right and then short of the votes to come we'd love to have you back here to talk about that sometimes in all those multi-vitamin trade agreements ben thank you so much for your time and your insight if we have to have you back on very soon. thanks very much aaron. that was author and director of international economics at the council on foreign relations dr ben still turn out for today's big deal. time now for the big deal i'm joined by our team resident comedian that we have here if we can we think the movie you know they're very very good now in today's big deal chevron attempts to put out some fires but they actually have only fan the

flames now comedian and author we camp like i mentioned before he joins me to talk about dylan or pennsylvania dylan where one of chevron's natural gas wells exploded starting a fire that lasted for days not hours deeds one contractor was killed another injured so chevron decided to apologize if it seems fitting no way they might as well now here's a letter chevron sent to you about one hundred local residents and that right there that you see and hear upper right hand corner that is a gift certificate for the pizza is chevron doing some best business practices with his coupon for pizza so i mean that is that is insulting to me and i'm not a resident of i think this is a great idea this is this is how far a parent we fall in that if you go up to some of these people that look your town is being destroyed there's explosions people are dying there's smoke over but you're going to get a pizza yes. just don't mention it or they might take away the piece so i'm not

talking about it they could pull that pizza right out from under it the town is on fire but they get. it is a good idea so i think disaster pizza and with all the explosions going on around the country i've come up with my own disaster pizza place and we're going to have a menu here keystone x.l. explosive stromboli cancerous chemical spill spaghetti flammable tap water fettuccine and our trademark blood. the long barbecue chicken wings i think are going to be very popular but what does the fed if you need the playmobil. now i mean for. ever or something that you should be mad about it's a question you know it just seems like you can't get mad at chevron but is that all they could possibly do to make it up to residents of del mar is there something actually this smart or from a marketing perspective they could do just so you can get to the children can you can can you i mean i know you can you can get sees me going out of there we want to

. know there are there are some things they could do they could stop fracking the other places. they could tell people the truth about the chemical like they will they will even tell the truth about what chemicals are used in fracking they could tell the truth about the billions of gallons it's you of water the fresh water that you used and listen like this is so basically truth they could pay them off with truth i think i don't know if that would work and since they know. now i understand that radio disney they've also come under fire for shall we say fracking up explain precisely what they want this story they were going around for a while with oil and gas companies because they found out that there's a certain time you can get people in order to push propaganda about fracking it's a great time to get a it's cold when they're children when they're a half adults aka tiny screaming blobs of stupidity maybe i only call them that but that's also what i refer to congress as but anyway they were going around to

schools and with radio disney teaching these kids fracking is wonderful. and it does rock if you consider the earthquakes and rock they were in line they're always . wrong literally rock now it isn't the only industry that's getting in trouble for its interactions with its customers now let's look at online retailer amazon the world's eleventh largest retailer and this company made it consumer reports naughty list for a raise. the spending requirements to get free shipping now is that a bad way to treat your customers specifically worse than pizza. is to raise the rates and it is very nice put up or concerned with how they treat their workers i mean yeah let's look at that so they have these massive well warehouses that are just gigantic and these workers are just to the bone and they run around there's been some reporting on this they run around and they're judged by the second how many seconds it takes them to find each product and you know what in one of these

reports one of these got you get fired for one day missing one day a guy missed a day because his baby had just been born and they fired him and he was then going back through the training. and the reason is because people are so desperate for any kind of work that they can just be treated like crap and it's incredible and you know just basis he's always talking about how amazing his company is because of the fact that they have a because it just shows up on your door that you had a lot of your own things like that little margot you know i remember going to draw . on drugs that these are the most amazing technology the world has ever seen and we're using it to deliver slap jobs to agoraphobia i don't know if that's that's really the greatest thing in this is great as some claim here now why stocks are generally higher than we've seen basically since two thousand and six i know it varies day to day but generally they've been so high particularly for these large corporations what do you think that's all about these things correspond stocks really high because workers can be treated like crap like that that is why that's one of the reasons is because you know it's

a buyer's market for corporations they can say we're not going to pay you much we're not going to give you any benefits and you can take the job anyway. you know in my opinion judging how well a society is doing by how well the stocks are doing is like judging the health of a dying man by looking at the leeches on his skin. to look pretty happy you're going to be fine. this is just going to be if you're awesome thank you so much for being here you got it back that's all for now but you can see all. segments featured in today's show on you tube at youtube dot com slash boom bust archie we also love love hearing from years of please check out our facebook page at facebook dot com slash boom bust r.t. you can also tweet us at aaron ate at edward and h. i'll be back soon and tweet at leat at leak out from all of us here at boom bust thanks for watching theo next time shall.

rule rights. to the. paying of the young girls camel for the future hunter. between two and three hundred million guns united states so you can act like they're not here and keep kids away from them. the plaza sound is they were you know i mean this teaches them a lot of for

a responsibility to simply come to pay through the eyes of children if we can't do it for our children for our future. as a country the same. chaos on the streets of kiev after a short truce rioters are again wrecking traffic the so-called opposition appears to have no interest in the weekly look to government force is being. with force where ukraine goes from here is anyone's guess.

more than a dozen people have reportedly been killed in the ukrainian capital today as break a truce with the authorities and a tech police crew was caught up in sniper fire on a hotel at the very epicenter of the violence also. gloria to be a. military some result a hostage taking stealing weapons and conducting kangaroo courts as a crisis starts to resemble a war authorities say they could launch a full counterterrorism response. for any barely possible to make sure. it's dealing with peaceful protesters in an appropriate way but the u.s. and the e.u. turn a blind eye to the haven't been reached by the right is calling on the government to end.