i also know he perjured himself in a senate hearing. for the revelations provided by edward snowden he denied the b. n.s.a. was carrying now wholesale surveillance of the us. the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an ethical trouble for government claims that cannot be verified you would have thought they would have learned something after serving as george w. bush's useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable a little. time

soon dollars ario this is a boom bust broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. coming up tonight cold status for the third straight day the precious metal is on a roll downhill as traders freeze for an interest rate increase and waiting in the balance is not just traders americans are also waiting for the federal reserve's next move and the health care debacle american lawmakers continue to debate on the floor with little success stand by it all starts on boom bust right now.

it's all about signaling strong economies today first in the czech republic where the central bank is hinting at hiking interest rates for the first time in more than nine years as you can see here the last time rates went up was at the beginning of two thousand and eight and rates have been near zero at point zero five percent since two thousand and twelve the czech economy is on pace to grow about three percent this year unemployment rates are among the lowest in europe and wages are going up houses in prague are flying off the market in a matter of weeks often times with multiple bidders which means housing prices are also rising check national bank is pointing to the third quarter of this year is being a prime time to hike rates but not everyone is convinced it would be the first rate

hike in europe in about five years and some investors are worried about the timing and what it will do to the global markets if the u.s. and check raise rates around the same time. well. speaking of raising rates the federal reserve just announced it will not raise rates right now in a statement wednesday we learned the fed is leaving its benchmark interest rate between one and one point two five percent the announcement does not come as a surprise inflation has been weaker than originally expected though the fed believes it will rebound in the near future what investors were looking for in this statement was a more precise timeline on when the fed wants to start downsizing its bond portfolio which will apparently happen relatively soon the fed currently has a four point five trillion dollars balance sheet in treasuries and bonds it bought up after the financial crisis the dollar dropped on the announcement while gold rebound. after sliding most of wednesday waiting for news from the feds well to dig

deeper into this announcement and what it will mean for growth i'm joined now by peter schiff c.e.o. of euro pacific capital peter thanks for joining us today look the fed just released its plan for the next few months and there was of course some things that many people are predicting one of them is that the interest rates were not going to rise not going to change what kind of impact do you think we can expect from this sort of announcement. well no impact i mean pretty much everybody knew the fed was not going to surprise the markets and hike rates this meeting although they did indicate that they would begin to shrink their balance sheet relatively soon but by relatively soon they may mean they may mean never because you know shrinking the balance sheet is a lot harder than expanding it you know quantitative easing was the fun part quantitative tightening is not only the hard part it's really the impossible part

but it is possible that janet yellen may in fact begin the process but it's never going to be completed long before that day comes we're going to have to go back to zero percent interest rates the fed's going to relaunch quantitative easing q e four maybe it won't be janet yellen that does it maybe it'll be whoever donald trump appoints to replace her why do you say that we're going to go backwards now was pointing toward that happening. well look the u.s. economy is long overdue for recession anyway i mean this is one of the longest expansions in history it's certainly the weakest expansion in history and it's required the most amount of artificial stimulus in history but look the economy is slowing down dramatically even the way we measure it the consumer is dead he is loaded up with debt retail sales are plunging we can't be far from a recession and so what is the fed going to do and. next recession they're going to

do exactly what they did in the last one they're going to lower interest rates and they're going to quantitative easing do you see a disconnect between what you are saying to us right now and what janet yellen is saying in her federal reserve statements she continues to point toward positive things happening in the economy and kind of brushing off things that look a little bit more negative like this stalled growth. because that's all the fed ever does i mean they're always optimistic they're always positive they never acknowledge the problems even if they see them they're not going to admit it i mean they were very positive going right into the financial crisis of two thousand and eight i mean it's like you're a weather man and there's a category five hurricane right off the coast and your forecast is sunshine in this great weather i mean that's the federal reserve so they're never going to give you an honest assessment of the economy even if they honestly understand it so what doesn't surprise me that the fed is very sanguine about the future but the future unfortunately is quite bleak is specially as a result of the policies that the fed has pursued because everything that the

federal reserve has done in the aftermath of the two thousand and eight financial crisis has made the underlying economic problems that caused that crisis worse and now the fed has set us up for an even bigger disaster and one of the takeaways from today's statement really stuck out to me it seemed pretty counterintuitive the fed said it wanted to get economic levels to a point where it neither encourages nor discourages economic activity peter what does that mean. i don't even know if the fed knows what that means because you know we want the free market to set interest rates so if you want an interest rate that is conducive to economic growth let the market set the rate when the fed sets to rate it's never going to get a right it's either going to be too high or too low and in most cases it's too low but the interest rate being too low distorts the economy what it's resulted or what it's produced is slow growth because we have minimal capital invested. we don't

have enough savings and real production so we divert resources from main street to wall street so we get asset bubbles and we get a weak economy and that's what we've had what would you suggest then we're talking about a stage right now where it looks like interest rates are going to stay between one and one point two five percent probably at least until december what would you be doing instead at this moment to brace ourselves for what's to come in the next couple of years. well i think the dollar rally that we had in twenty fourteen twenty fifteen was really a soccer rally it was a bunch of currency traders betting on the efficacy of fed policy and i think they bet wrong in fact coming into this year the most crowded trade on wall street was long the dollar the dollar did rally the dollar index rallied about six percent between the time trump was elected at the time he was inaugurated well since inauguration the dollar index of collapse about ten percent right a new low for the year today and i think the air is only just starting to come out

of this volatile so i think the dollar's going way down especially when the fed has to do it about face and you know donald trump basically is daring janet yellen to raise rates because he basically has that angle and the carrot that he might reappoint her provided that she keeps interest rates low and i don't think is going to reappoint her but i don't know that yellen is going to take the bait i mean maybe she will have to raise rates because she doesn't want to appear to be caving into his pressure but i don't even if it matters if the fed manages one or two more rate hikes before janet yellen leaves office you know they're pretty much done they never really normalized interest rates so the rate hikes that we're getting are too little too late to help the dollar is going down and what might be a real problem is if the dollar really tanks the trade deficit is going up because americans are going to have to spend more for their imports and that lot rising trade deficit could annoy president trump because he doesn't like the trade deficit is a problem but he always strengthens protectionism and. could be an even bigger problem

so the president of the federal reserve bank of minneapolis neel kashkari said that the fed has been raising rates too fast and the next rate hike isn't expected until at least december so obviously that goes against what you are saying is increasing rates quicker something we should be concerned about i think you've answered that obvious where does that come from that idea that it was too fast that we weren't ready when it's been well eight nine years. well they've been you know i don't even say they've been raising them in a at a snail's pace because i think sales are faster but you know they have certainly accelerated ever since trump was elected the fed has high grades three times before the election during the entire eight years of obama they raised rates just was so you know they have certainly picked up the pace even though the economy is no stronger and in many cases weaker now than it was in the years before trump took office so i think the fed has been emboldened to raise rates because they have

a fall guy and donald trump i think donald trump has made the mistake of claiming ownership of this economy claiming ownership of the stock market taking credit for the stock market's gains that is supposed to strengthen the economy and so he set himself up perfectly and the fed could take advantage of that because with everything comes tumbling are coming down they can blame it all on trouble peter schiff c.e.o. of europe pacific capital certainly a pleasure talking to you thank you so much. well coming up after the break norad make over the north american aerospace defense command may force canada into uncomfortable political territory we go to toronto without report and as we go to the break here the numbers at the closing bell.

it's called the feeling of something. everyone in the world should experience. and you'll get it on the old rolls. the old according to a gesture. welcome to my world come along for the rye. bread you have for breakfast yesterday why would you put those for the faces here why for those who donkey. what's your biggest fear you are going to bid on a hay ride when so less time to read a book or you say if you ever met the pope comes the best quarterback. let's point the topic that doesn't belong on the piece now i did did you do to question more.

people have got to know whether or not their presenters are working people deserve to know your difference at this point does it mean a guard against the military industrial or we're all going over the golden gate in our world. war raging over there. yes we do but remember. where. the senate made some moves on health care overnight but it took a tiebreaker to get there the senate voted fifty one to fifty to move the health care bill to the floor to debate with senators split fifty fifty it took vice president mike pence as tie breaker to get it done while all this vote does is say

that the senate is now officially considering legislation to repeal obamacare but passing any amendments to do so seems unlikely at this point senators voted last night on a full fledged bill that would have repealed to replace the affordable care act and unsurprisingly it failed fifty seven to forty three and a new amendment wednesday aimed at just repealing it also failed forty five to fifty five republicans are now starting to talk about doing what's called a skinny repeal which could repeal just certain parts of obamacare they don't like like individual mandate but keeping most of it intact. in other news the u.s. is facing major international backlash after the house of representatives overwhelmingly voted tuesday to impose new sweeping sanctions on russia over its alleged interference in the two thousand and sixteen u.s. election the measure passed four hundred nineteen to three putting pressure on president donald trump to eventually sign such legislation when it reaches his desk

but the measure is getting pushback not just from russia. but the european union as well the e.u. warning wednesday it would act right away to counter the post sanctions on russia saying it would unintentionally harm europe's energy security interests and firms that do business with russia brussels could also file a complaint with the world trade organization if the u.s. and e.u. cannot work things out diplomatically meanwhile russia says the latest push for sanctions leaves no room to improve ties between washington and moscow and that the frayed relationship is reaching unchartered territory. an upcoming make over of the north american aerospace defense command is expected to push canada to invest into the modernization of the aging defense system norad most notably protect both canada and the united states from intercontinental ballistic missile attacks but an increased threat from low flying cruise missiles will likely be a priority in any updates to the system artie's out smile of it is in toronto for

us with this story alex first of all just want you to give us a quick break down of what norad is that a lot of people don't know that this thing even existed norad was put into place back in one thousand nine hundred fifty eight that was its first incarnation and it was basically to combat the the cold war of fears that the u.s.s.r. might attack north america there was surveillance systems basically to see if any planes were flying over north america that were unfriendly at the time and that eventually grew into something much bigger it was anti ballistic missile system so you know you could might remember back in the day the threat of nuclear war these missiles coming across from russia or china wherever this system is just based on radars on all lot of surveillance can ism's all along the northern shores of canada down to the bottom of the state's planes up in the air just basically seeing that our skies or see it and the missiles on coming in now nine hundred eighty ronald reagan actually pushed us a little bit further you might remember the war on drugs was nor i became

a player in that it in two thousand and six that agreement actually pushed it into . maritime properties as well so we're talking about a water boats coming in and just can do that in the states knowing what's happening at all times now in this relationship the reality is that the u.s. is the big brother here they make the most of the calls but both countries have planes involved they have systems involved so it's a big investment on the part of the part of both canada and the united states and what if both parties hope to achieve with modernizing the system well you know things have changed once again so looking at just back to february when the president trump and prime minister trudeau met they were already talking about norad and one of the biggest threats that some generals are saying are cruise missiles no cruise missiles flying a very different way than intercontinental ballistic missiles they fly low they are quick and they're hard to detect so what we're saying now and what a lot of generals are saying is that cruise missile missiles should be put into the equation and systems systems need to be put into place to combat that now there's

a different philosophy when it comes to these things in the states and canada and this might be a little bit of area of contention the americans are saying that you know what we need to have a first strike type of idea we need to know if the cruise missiles are coming out of a submarine where they're coming from we have to hit those submarines first be a chinese summary a russian submarine or a terrorist threat for that matter we have to take them out before those things go up in the air canada has a very different approach a preemptive strike is not a part of our vocabulary so what we're saying is that possibly batteries in canada that would just basically knock down these things once they are in flight now again this is for canada is a big issue even having that to that degree and what really might happen and just i mean the american planes are here every once in a while we know that our systems are tied together quite tightly it might come down to the u.s. sending their systems to canada to combat this is just a part of the agreement but when it comes to donald trump we know it's america first thing and he wants to see his partners investing money in these things so he

might be pushing canada into the corner saying you need to invest in this. and this preemptive not preempt legal language might need to change when it comes to canada but it would be very tough for justin trudeau and the liberal party to sell that to canadians and what we might see batteries on the ground the problem is that there's nothing here right now these type of things batteries that are against cruise missiles or they're that exist but are still in development to a certain degree they're not one hundred percent yet but like i said donald trump wants to see this is probably the most likely it will happen soon and both countries will have to cooperate well and it will be interesting to see how the rest of the international community reacts to it because we've already seen some negative reactions coming in different parts of the world from other ballistic missile defense systems so alex the highly veteran porting for us from toronto thank you so much for that thank you.

driving cars are expected to hit the market within the next four years believe it or not as of now a lot needs to happen though to make that a reality california is the mecca of self driving vehicle development and it's now taking the leap and actually changing roads and regulations to accommodate the cars of the future artie's for you to santo joins us now from los angeles with the latest on this procedure how many companies are we talking about that are testing autonomous vehicles in california. simone there are about thirty six companies in california right now that have been permitted to test and they're currently testing about two hundred different autonomy's vehicles on our public roads here now these not only include car manufacturing companies but also technology companies like google and even systems manufacturers as well so now this testing has been going on sorry for about twenty years in california so that's something that's really

exciting to see as you mentioned they're going to be rolled out in the next four years so there's you know what needs to happen before. these cars can be safely rolled out on the road especially when we're talking about mixed traffic situations . that's a great question there is a lot that still needs to be done in terms of infrastructure rules and regulations right now testing does require a driver to be present but the california department of motor vehicles has just proposed rules that would allow completely driverless testing california is also starting to modify its roads to accommodate autonomy vehicles for example they passed as one which is a new transportation revenue package that will allocate funds toward maintaining intelligent transportation systems and this includes things like cameras signals signs meters and charging stations and it would also build infrastructure to vehicle communication systems so that these autonomy vehicles can communicate with traffic signals and things like that to make traffic flow

a lot better but we do still need some federal regulations before this can really be rolled out on a mass scale simone right so we're talking about the state of california right now and the things that they are doing to try to prepare for this your talk and then you mention federal regulations has the federal government taking any steps to try to regulate autonomous vehicles or is this kind of the wild west right now. it is sort of the wild west but just last week a u.s. house panel did approve a sweeping a proposal allowing automakers to deploy up to one hundred thousand self driving cars without meeting existing auto safety standards so why would they want to do this is a good question to ask as well now this rule is meant to make it so that auto makers can build prototypes without backup manual controls which are required by law now but critics worry that this is going to have a negative impact on public safety the proposal also has rules that would prohibit states from regulating mechanical software and safety systems for autonomy vehicles

which critics say takes away the state's rights to regulate vehicles in favor of the federal rules but supporters do say that this will help streamline regulations for these cars nationwide now automakers will still be forced to submit safety assessments to the federal government and meet certain safety requirements and while states cannot impose performance rules they can set rules on registration licensing liability insurance requirements and safety inspections so these lawmakers say that they're open to hearing some comments on this and that they are open to changing the proposed rules but they are likely to vote on this in september after the summer recess is over and if they pass it this will become the first real set of federal real regulations surrounding these autonomy vehicles ok ten seconds you're sitting in los angeles worst traffic in the country how do you feel about personally riding in one of these driverless cars eventually. i am so

excited for that if i could not wait because if i could sit in my car and do some work on the hour plus that it takes me to get to the office every day i would be so perfect artie's pretty despondent reporting for us from los angeles thank you so much. well following following an effort from international law enforcement agencies to take down dark wet. the underground economy has taken a sizeable hit but could the dark web markets eventually recover we're joined now by boom bust bianca sheeny outside mandalay bay hotel in las vegas nevada to talk more about this one. bianca what can you tell us. well just to give you some insight alphabet a was about ten times the size of silk road and alphabet also had its own backup website that users could go to an alphabet it was initially taken down so i'm here at black hat my spoke to a lot of people to get their professional insight and also just our general

thoughts on the dark wet and on alphabet a and they all sort of share the same sentiment on one side it's a positive success for law enforcement that they were able to take down a black market of this i mean there were tens of thousands of vendors on the day and they also had hundreds of thousands of customers but on the other side the dark web is massive and there's a lot that we have yet to see so they think that we're going to continue to see more alpha base and more silk road in the future and we don't really have the ability to stop that that said they do recognize the downside to the dark web but they also are telling me that there is a positive side to that their web just overshadowed by the negative sides about it so take a look at what they had to say about. much of what's known about the dark web is negative to many it's simply a digital version of the underground economy that's attracts nearly all physical human interaction which is its biggest selling for their criminal underground tombs

to conduct most much of their behavior from a cyber perspective because software like tor provides complete anonymity criminal groups have thrived in the hidden part of the internet whether it's illegal drugs weapons money laundering and so on in the dark with this chock full of black market products and services even a global law enforced. initiatives aren't expected to deter the high demand we see online it was just an integration of so good right so of course there's going to be many others to come off it is like they're just making huge amounts of money out of this and unfortunately there is obviously a really high demand for be able to goods trade and they can't really do so so the downside of the dark web has made itself loud and clear but overshadowed in this negative implications for the other reasons people use it most people think about illegal activity on the dark web comes to mind but a lot of security experts here a black hat say it has advantages that are keen to open society without the ability

to search the internet anonymously fear over privacy rights and mass surveillance only gets worse whenever there is oversight folks will try to do their business and do it out of the public eye and so the dark web is a place where people go to do that so while we acknowledge the bad we should also consider the good and remember the tradeoffs between privacy and security reporting in las vegas with the sheeny. so bianca you said it in your package right there that the dark sides to the dark web are really obvious let's talk more about the positives of it what examples can you give us. so most of the positive side of the dark web really comes down to privacy for example if you live in a country where there is intense regulations of the internet or the perceptions the dark with allows you to browse the internet without fear of introduction from the government or some other sort of authority but in

a more general sense in the dark with a lousy consumers to browse for you know products that are not legal in please so on the other side if you're using the service web and you're on amazon and you're looking to buy a television or something the next second you open another search browser you're bombarded with ads from sony or from other companies that also want to buy that television so it all comes down to. privacy and trying to subvert mass surveillance even if you're not looking to do anything illegal i think a lot of our viewers are going to be looking to see how they can start searching on the dark web now boom bust bianca sheeny reporting for us live from vegas you can catch more of bianca's reports on the dark web from the blackout briefings in las vegas throughout this week thank you so much. zuki bean a fruit parfait pumpkin or flavors you don't usually associate with kit kats but in japan those flavors are turning taqwa into money since two thousand and ten kit kats sales in japan have increased by more.

on the trial though we have spent countless hours poring through documents that tell the story about the ugly side of. corporate media read uses to talk about news conference coming up i'm going to paint a clear picture about how disturbing to look forward conduct has been in march these are stories that you know no uncertain terms i might have known you're close to the american. question.

i do not know if the russian state hacked into john podesta e-mails and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has not provided credible to support his claims of russia i also know he perjured himself in a senate hearing planned three months before the revelations provided by edward snowden he denied the beat n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the u.s. . the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo chamber for government claims that cannot be verified you would have thought they would have learned something after serving as george w. . as useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming interesting.

to hear the stories about people telling you can't do something and honestly sometimes you wish those people would tell you that you could have a chip on your shoulder to keep you going and a lot of times i had to manifest was kind of thing because i had so many people who were supportive i'm very aware i was going to represent a lot of people but i my journey was a little different you're only as good as the person you're working across from especially when you talk about villains because they're good guy no one cares about the good guy if the villain is not a threat and so we needed that to. play and. i think we all thought that this was the time to sort of. the things that were going on in society obviously.