i'm going to do just that and you're watching our. hello i'm john harshman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture it's good prize for the white house but is the stock market surge of the past few months just a mirage we'll ask him is richard wolf in just a moment. they will be met with five years as

a fury. like the world has never see. donald trump is now threatening north korea with virtual annihilation after that country took a big step forward in its nuclear program is the president of the united states now the number one threat to world security. and said jelani and i the politics. the dollar nasdaq and s. and p. five hundred all fell today after trump's threat to turn north korea into a nuclear wasteland but over the past few months they've been on a record setting surge one that the president has taken as gospel proof that he is indeed making the economy great again market at an all time high trump recently tweeted that just doesn't it doesn't just happen so how much credit should donald trump take for the booming stock market and more importantly does all his success

on wall street mean anything for the economy as a whole joining me now is richard wolf is a professor at the new school cofounder of democracy at work and the author of numerous books including capitalism is crisis deepens essays on the global economic meltdown richard wolffe welcome back. thank you very much glad to be here tom great having you with us before we get into the stock market stuff and all the things relating to it. i'm curious your thoughts and you know as a student of history and economics. what what's the relationship between war and the threats of war and an economy. it's an old story it's a very dangerous game it has a little bit to do with the temptation for leaders for many many generations when they've backed themselves into a corner when they've made promises they are finding it impossible to keep to solve

their economic and political problems by a war. sometimes there are all the reasons of course for the war but the political and the economic are always in the mix and so i suspect that mr trump facing his failures to get the health reform as he called it through having taken way too long to get almost anything done is trying to figure out what to do and which way to turn and there are always people who are telling him that war is what he ought to do that war will magically solve the problem and so the temptation is there and when you have a president like this you have to worry of course that temptations will become decisions from which there is no turning back i will tell you that in the case of north korea and in many other cases mr trump will go it alone he made

manufacture a coalition of the willing but it's p.r. it's not real the rest of the world including most of our allies if not all of them don't want this are afraid of this see this as yet another military endless conflict with no resolution like afghanistan has been like iraq has been like much of the rest of the middle east looks like it's becoming these are very dangerous decisions that we have put in the hands of a person who screams at us every day that he's not the right one to make such a decision it certainly seems and that's a very cogent analysis. to the stock market and you know i want to kind of bring this back around to bit but to the market. this market has been basically surging ever since a drop down to around six or seven thousand points in two thousand and nine as i

recall or maybe mid two thousand and eight can down trying to take credit for those he certainly is trying to. yes i'm i'm surprised that mr trumpet's maybe i shouldn't be. you know if you take credit for what the stock market is doing when the things are going up that's like a boomerang that's going to come back and when the stock market goes down you're going to be stuck with the responsibility which you yourself insisted on when it was going up let's review very briefly one of the key reasons why the stock market has gone up is precisely because this government has pumped an enormous amount of money into the economy to try to prevent it from dissolving after two thousand and eight and nine but it has been unable to get going again of of vibrant a growing economy so where is the money going to go to it isn't going into forming

what we call capital building because the business is creating a new wealth it isn't doing that it's rushing to where money goes when it can't find the productive outlet and that is to loans to one another it is to be bidding up the prices of stocks it is to companies buying back their stocks to drive up the price because that's what executives bonuses are tied to we have a kind of strange surely a round of money from cash to securities to bonds to cash this is not a good idea this is being looked at with great trepidation by many of the biggest leaders of finance in the united states jamie diamond today worrying about it many others this is a very dangerous time you know the history of capitalism is it's a very unstable system every four to seven years it has an economic downturn on the average now it's just an average so you don't have it each time well we've been now

without a downturn since the crash of two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine do the math we're due for the next. one and everybody who knows what wall street is like sees it it is explored merely short sighted for the president to claim credit which by the way doesn't deserve a million things shaped the stock market but it is dangerous for him because when that downturn comes and it's highly likely before his first term is over he will get the blame and given his prick carry is situation in our culture blame for an economic downturn is the last thing he would want. and number one the stock market if you could speak to this issue of whether or not the stock market actually represents the real economy you know the what impact does this have on the average person's life and secondly do you see any indications that we're in a bubble or

a pretty bubble period you know prior to trump's fire and fury comments regarding north korea the market had been going up is it possible that his comments could be the kind of thing that could push this you know is this recovery so fragile is it so held together with bubble gum and bailing wire that that you know talk of war or not now the silly war itself but these kinds of importuned or importuned convert you know comments could be the thing that could trigger a recession or burst a bubble. absolutely let me give you the best example of how shaky this recovery is we were supposed to have over the last two years at least rising interest rates to try to hold down the explosive potential of all that extra money we pumped into the economy to save it from crashing so we were supposed to raise interest rates a lot we haven't done that we have barely raised them at all and the reason for that is very simple this fragile recovery is so fragile that if you up the interest

rates which make it more expensive to buy a home which make it more expensive to buy a car which make it more expensive for companies to borrow to invest the fear of janet yellen and her colleagues at the federal reserve is that this fragile recovery will dissolve that said the threat of war or indeed any political upheaval is easily able top of all that fragility to take us over the edge and when you add that we're due for a down because we've had the forty seven years of survival if you like well then you have a very dangerous cocktail that could be exploded by almost anything the if i could just slightly change the subject the texas observer texas newspaper magazine has a fascinating article about a van or me texas little town in texas which was taken over by libertarians and

turned into a laboratory for their anti-government philosophy experiments been a disaster of an army and police department lost accreditation its fire department collapsed stray animals are roaming the streets if this is what libertarianism actually looks like in practice why does it continue to fascinate so many americans i mean is that is discredited is flat earth for earth there is the best my knowledge there has never been a successful nation state county or even sitting government along libertarian lines . you know you're absolutely right the bigger example these days is the entire state of kansas or in some ways the state of illinois which is governed by people who believe this look the libertarian dream is a kind of utopian image of a society that doesn't have an oppressive government controlling it i find that attractive too but realism requires that you understand that in a society as competitive as so much riven by struggles between business and labor

between one comfort company and another if you don't have a government you're going to be in the kind of condition these states and that city in texas find themselves in and what's the cause of it look it's a dream that people have i'd love to not pay taxes who would disagree and then you get into the fantasy i don't have to pay taxes nothing bad will happen if i don't pay taxes well you won't have a government and in a society as conflicted as ours is without a government you're heading into the kind of disaster that they've discovered so i think you have to ask the hard question if you want a society without a government you will have to change the way it produces and distributes goods and services and a good bill else on top of that so you don't need the government otherwise that government is the product of centuries of understanding that we are so troubled and conflicted that without saddam or project or some general control we risk the kinds

of experiences that these little cities and states who try to actually do it find themselves in richer we have just a half a minute or so i'm curious how long you think this fascination with iran libertarianism and friedman ism is going to stick around the republican party and even a few democrats. well i'm afraid that it has a cachet that it has become a way of thinking you've found the magic bullet if only you get rid of the government everything else will fall into place dangerous way of thinking the institutions we have have complex leo arrived it will take a complex multi-dimensional set of social movements to change all that one magic remove all of the government is a fantasy by people who are upset about where we are and who want to hold on to an easy solution that involves paying less taxes very attractive my guess is it'll

stick around but serious people will go beyond that and i think pretty quick well richard wolffe professor it's always great having you with us thanks so much thank you coming up tensions with north korea are now kicking into overdrive but is donald trump the real threat to world peace. and genius and tonight's politics panel right after the break. all the feeling. every the room in your ear. and you'll get it on the old world. according to jess.

all the world this and all the news companies merely players but what kind of parties are anti america play r.t. america offers more r.t. america offers. many ways. just like the real take me back turned bad actor. you could never hear on. the part. of the world all the world's a stage we are definitely a player. there's

a real irony going to. be told what a. responsible way it's new people and their it's always. always. seems you know little or are you now a wholesale surveillance you feel you have always more as an. excuse to sell a song you like a boy or girl is already knows it's garbage in real. as wild and unstable as donald trump seems should we be more worried about the possibility of a president mike pence let's ask its politics panel. will be for tonight's panel are nick jonas media reporter for the daily caller and lani

journalist at the intercept and thank you both for being here with us tonight. so according to a blockbuster report in the washington post today u.s. intelligence agencies now believe north korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that it can fit inside its missiles donald trump's response to this news was predictably measured and responsible. may get the word for it to the united states. they will be met with fire fury. like the world has never see. he has been very threatening. beyond a normal state. and as i said they will be met with fire fury and frankly

power the likes of which this world has never see before. so it sounds like donald trump is threatening a nuclear holocaust. this concerns me tremendously my original question is you know what should concern us more a trump or or or president i would like to hold that in abeyance for a moment just you know get both of your thoughts on what this means you know now we have north korea threatening saying well you know yeah we're thinking about a preemptive strike on guam this just in the last few minutes your thoughts. yeah i mean and and i looked at the statement that came from north korea and it looked like what they were saying was they would test a new type of missile or something in the area of guam as a show of force so i don't know that it's late threatening started or anything but from my understanding it may have actually been into our direct response to what donald trump said which sort of shows you that the issue of having

a war of words about this i mean i think generally both sides are not seriously considering military action but i think that when you have a head of state you need to be serious that what you're saying especially when you're an american president because honestly what donald trump says something like you normally hear north korea say they're not normally serious about it as just their political style their bluster but hearing an american president say that it's very it's very very rare unlikely to see an american president is that have rhetoric i think trying to think seriously about that because people take it more seriously when it's america saying it well it's also classically the kind of bluster that you get from small powers small people people who feel impotent or who feel you know restrained in some way and they're angry about it which i think is probably donald trump's life story but it shouldn't be the united states i mean teddy roosevelt said stand or walk softly and carry a big stick. this is the big one nic your thoughts i don't think it's anything surprising that the people that voted for trump wanted tough talk from him and then i think there's something to be said for show strength there's

a reset for reminding north korea that there is a mutually assured destruction element to this if you progress we will respond in kind and then some and that has been the m.o. the united states they've warned off countries before agreeing to the escalation never ever i was going to tell you if you have the senate i'll history of not it's in that if i may definitely there's been a sense of escalation here but we have puffed out our chest before we rushed into war we were scared of nuclear weapons with iraq in the middle east and look what happened we got untangled in a war that lasted ten years so there is a certain fifty fifty here he has to be careful but i think if you watch them walk all over them they might be more bold to attack one of our out. do you really and if there is there any possibility that general but master or general kelly signed off on that statement i don't know it's hard to tell he does go off the handle he goes on twitter he says things that is advisors are unaware of but i think their mere presence is going to help going forward i think they're going to stop it before it gets any further out of control but like i said i spoke in our policy

expert at the daily caller he doesn't want to see the world involved in flames he wants to stay in power and i think he's just trying to look more powerful than he really is he's been doing this for years so now that it's escalated i'm not surprised trump is blunt he's not george bush he's not barack obama and he's doing what he promised the voters he's putting america first showing strength and we're going to see how it turns out of the things he promised the voters was no more stupid wars and we're not in a war yet well you know just this ok we'll see where it goes blackwater founder erik prince the oligarchy brother of education secretary and billionaire betsy to vos as told usa today that the trump administration is seriously considering his proposal to privatizing the war in afghanistan under princes plan five thousand five hundred private contractors primarily former special operations troops would advise afghan combat forces the plan also includes a ninety plane private air force that would provide air support believe it or not

princes actually compared this plan positively to the east india company which looted and pillaged india on behalf of the british empire by the way did the same thing with the north american continent which led to right to seven hundred seventy three in the british and the the boston tea party aren't some things like war or prisons best left to government pick i would say so even libertarian would say that the government has certain roles like in immigration or in wars but i think we should pull out altogether i think the government should continue on the path president obama started in withdrawing us from afghanistan it's been a disaster it's been our longest war i don't think there's any room for private contractors or the government anymore. i think we should be focusing our attention here at home and on the situation with north korea interest. yeah i mean i you know it we can say the government is doing it better or the contractors to do it better but i mean at the end of the day you know i've heard privately that like mcmaster for instance is very reticent to pull away from afghanistan that he really

is a true believer and having a strong military presence there and creating a government there but in a day i mean you know how many how many years can you keep doing this and we can talk about whether it should be private contractors doing it should be rather through our military but to me that's the wider issue and the contractor issue is another thing because it's a member erik prince also the brother in law of our education secretary about to devise maybe that he's trying to get a piece of the action i mean obviously he can make money from that but i think obviously you know they mix right the wider issue is we know what's what's the point of continuing to do this for so long i mean they've done it but little gains and well what it what it what erik prince is pitching is you know first of all i think we need to to to recalibrate our language because the war in afghanistan was over in about three weeks we took down the taliban they were gone we conquered the country that's the end of the war it was the beginning of the occupation we've been occupying this country for fourteen years just like the british occupied india for what almost one hundred years and people don't like to be occupied so you know it

just seems logical that whether we try to do it the way that the british east india company did it using erik prince or whether we try to do it mcmasters way using our military it's not going to succeed no matter what and then and then on top of this you've got trumped on what about there's a trillion dollars worth of minerals in afghanistan and during the bush administration they authorized china to go in and mind that cut china is literally mining copper in afghanistan right now but we're not how come we don't get to steal some of that wealth i mean there's a couple of layers here that go way beyond just it's a war you know i thought the mother of a. all the money i think it's going to cost us billions either way and i think with anything that of that big a scale there's going to be skimming at the top and i think the motivations aren't to help bring about a healthier afghanistan or a more stable u.s. but to satisfy an agenda here and i think it's time to pull out it seems you know thoughts yeah i mean i think that it's been reported that trump has some skepticism

about his worries wondering why has it been going on for so long we can discuss unfortunately the people around him and this is a problem where i think the people around him are as problematic as trump are i think many of them are people from basically the status quo i mean from campaign against quo but people like matt as for mcmaster could easily have been in hillary clinton's administration i think they're big believers in these big military projects no matter how poorly they go i think they have a vested interest in trying to continue that because when they built their careers on an unfortunate thing tommy's the final bit of a spine is they end up these people and ask them what's the point of continuing this forever and ever you know the new york times has published a devastating draft government report about the impact of global warming that draft report was put together by thirteen different federal agencies and concludes among other things that the evidence of global warming bones and the global atmospheric temperatures will rise between two point eight and four point eight degrees celsius by the end of the century this report was leaked to the times speakers government scientists were worried that the trump administration would try to suppress those

concerns of course are justified the guardian for example reported monday that the agriculture department has ordered staff to stop using the term climate change all together so is this any way to run a government this is a government of by and for the fossil fuel industry and not of by and for the people at least far as i can tell let's remember that this report this draft report was available to the public and has been for months so the say that he's trying to bury it i think is false and if you like to stand on there how is available both and you can get the report on line in the draft report is published and the white house has a deadline to review that report and issue their refuting points or their agreement by august eighteenth so i think there's a lot of hoopla over this when. reality it's something that anyone could have looked up at any time and the white house hasn't spoken yet on their final opinion of it and i think we should wait to see what comes out of the white house before we're also going to look at what the white house is doing right now is scott pruitt me it's you know and all these other agencies you know and it's not just the white house i mean rick scott in florida won't let the florida which is now being

inundated by sea level rise talk about sea level rise it's bizarre well i remember the day that president trump announced that he would be departing the paris accords and actually went to the white i went outside the white house just to see who was there as i go over norquist walk out and i saw a lot of other people sort of in the right wing g.o.p. circles when i got from that ceremony but we didn't see if you didn't see people who are impacted by what's happening in the people who are going to have their entire countries destroyed because they live in island countries by global warming it is the scientists who work on this issue you cite a sort of right wing political operatives and i think this is a real failure of well by the proper ministration because hey they believe in science they drive cars don't they you know they they understand gravity they're just going about their just rejecting this one part of science that happens to deal with the you know corporate profits of one of their biggest donors which is unfortunate for the republican party the fossil fuel industry and the question is hey can we destroy the entire planet over this industry because hey the planet will always be here but we may not always be here we may not always have breathable air places to live and unfortunately the choice they're making here is extremely

destructive and i don't know how they can justify doing it well there apparently justify it with simple denial i mean this just it's just truly astonishing all this all this money coming in from these petro billionaires from these big companies that have been denying this for years her republicans do this well i think a big part of it is skepticism on their part not only that the man made contribution to scale well you guys have to be honest the n.o.a.a. was caught fudging numbers to fit their narrative actually two thousand and fifteen yes not yes it is not true that there was elevated settlement there but there was all there so there has been whistleblowers that have come forward that have shown this that many of these climate. you're one of these guys too well that depends i mean always i want to talk well i mean we're talking about imus you don't want to somebody that's concerned about the economic impact i mean we have to wrap it here i'm sorry but next thank you both those and that's the way it is time and don't forget the mocker seat is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag you're on my.

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