leases last year last three billion dollars they also lost their c.e.o. in the past few months and two years ago however when these folks launched the subprime auto leasing program to put their badly paid drivers and new vehicles they couldn't otherwise afford they apparently did not do the math remember they started a program called exchange leasing because they were having a problem they were growing fast but they didn't have enough drivers with good cars to drive everybody who wanted a nuber well on july twenty fifteen when the exchange leasing program was announced the company gushed we're excited about how these new solutions we drivers unique needs and offer more and better choices and greater flexibility than ever before their actual pitch from this exchange leasing program with a nuber at that time then goes on to say i don't like most multiyear leases

that have high fees for early termination drivers who participate in exchange for at least thirty days just thirty days will be able to return the car with only two weeks notice and limited additional costs the program allows for unlimited mileage and the option to lease a used car with three teen maintenance also included so the only penalty for returning your car for a two inch of it after thirty days was to enter the fifty dollar deposit and we're going to get to the shocking numbers about how wrong they were but on the surface max does that look like any sort of leasing program that any auto manufacturer in the world would everett and turner into. no only what a cliffhanger can hardly wait to get these numbers they're so shocking all of the key phrase in their sub prime and we're talking about growth at any expense growth

at any expense which is the business model of cancer and we saw it during the real estate subprime crisis banks they ran out of people to lend money to but they were making a lot of money making these loans and the loans are backed up by the federal government and the taxpayer similar to what we saw in the savings and loan crisis and all the laws that were in place to safeguard people from a savings and loan crisis were changed to make what was even legal in the one nine hundred eighty s. legal so the subprime crisis was a repeat of the crisis except all the illegal activity was made legal so they had to repeat and they ran out of customers so they started making loans to people so-called ninja loans no income no job people without any if you could fog a mirror they'd give you half a million dollars to go speculate the property market it blew up as it of course it had to. and then the government printed fifteen sixteen seventeen trillion dollars

taken principally from people's pension accounts to make it all economically work and gave it to the bankers to reward them for having changed the laws to make what was the legal legal and they became fabulously wealthy in the price of fine art went up another hundred percent and a boss at painting hundred eighty million or whatever that's all the result of poor people defaulting on mortgages during the subprime crisis now of course look at that they say no bankers ever got in trouble there is never any penalties for committing massive fraud in the banking sector let's commit massive fraud the loan lease business well importantly nobody but nobody but their investors are paying big time for this the drivers wouldn't otherwise qualify for a loan in the private sector outside of working for they wouldn't have qualified here they're able to jingle mail just give the car back for two hundred fifty bucks

in the meantime what they were getting is cars that have been driving for four of like six months and they had twenty thousand miles on it so here's the wall street journal on this article where they defrauded themselves essentially wall street not wall street journal but are. messed it up for themselves and their investors well the exchange leasing division had been estimating modest losses of around five hundred dollar per auto on average these people said managers recently informed executives that the losses were actually about nine thousand dollars per car about half the sticker price of a typical least vehicle so they were losing not five hundred dollars as their entire business plan and their projections and their earnings when they're presenting to goldman sachs and other silicon valley sort of investors to give us

another few billion dollars so we could lose more money in order to gain market share well here here they were estimating we're going to lose five hundred dollars on this program you know but we're bringing in way more than that on getting these drivers and you know saturating the market with drivers well they were actually losing nine thousand dollars on average they own forty thousand of these vehicles now each one having a nine thousand dollars on average loss so they've either got to sell all of these vehicles in an already collapsing used vehicle market and prices because so many leases from three years ago are coming off off lease right now. in the regular market but you're competing with rundown cars that have way more mileage and then somebody who's leasing a car from one of the big auto manufacturers well there's a big number attached to the with that the total of cumulated the aggregate number

that to me i think you is at three hundred sixty million dollars in losses if they sell these of course they could do something else which is just try to package up this book of leases that they hold exchange leasing because they're shutting this down if they've shut down this unit they could either sell these forty thousand vehicles and you know realize this thirty three hundred sixty million dollars loss not like they need anymore tax writeoff or a buck or they could sell the leasing program to somebody else and maybe change the terms and conditions of all these outstanding leases that these drivers still haven't turned in their totality of the forty thousand vehicles i understand when you say that there are no investors outside of the private investors who are being impacted by this problem over there at goober but i would disagree and that goober is on a private market basis they did a round of financing putting them at a value of seventy billion dollars and there's

a lot of problems over and if goober in fact collapses let's say the way enron collapse and ron was an eighty billion dollars public company that did collapse it set off a crisis in the counting industry for sure and it had ripple effects throughout the economy and throughout the the markets now if tanks that's a seventy billion dollar potential loss as you point out it's mostly private investors which would include let's say goldman sachs and others but if these folks like the goldman sachs suffer any losses at all remember they then can go in the government for a bailout so they could go to the government and say blew up we need a bailout and the government because it is staffed by goldman sachs. employees mostly trump they would rubber stamp that fail up and then to pay for the bailout they'd have to go into people's pension accounts and they'd have to grab that money or wells fargo and go into your personal account and grab that money to give to goldman sachs bankers and make them whole because they're god and i'm her just you

know and out in the meantime the public infrastructure and you know the public transportation system which is taxis are part of it in new york city and chicago and washington d.c. and los angeles and never really have a taxi system but that's all been wiped out like a lot of those medallion owners certainly in new york city remember they were selling some people bought them for a million dollars and now trading at like one hundred thousand dollars which is probably even overvalued in the with the existence of but if we were also implodes just as the entire tax system and all the cities implodes it could be quite chaotic well you're indicating there possible contrarian play that a taxi medallion in new york city might actually have bottomed out and the value might be starting to go up i mean if it for a contrarian investor like a warren buffett who says i like to buy straw hats in the winter time and go against the crowd you might look at this as say hey look at taxi medallion in new york is trading artificially cheap i think i'll load up on taxi medallions but

we're not saying to do that but we're stuck because of course i was going to say no time bought a hundred fifty thousand dollar taxi rebellion and now it's only worth twenty one hundred taxis and the parked in my bedroom flat in queens i don't know what to do and finally speaking of contrarian investors i don't know if this guy is one but he says people need to get outside their bias and this is ray dalyell everybody needs to put five to ten percent of their money in gold multi-billionaire investor he runs what's his name bridgewater associates out of connecticut one hundred sixty billion dollar hedge fund and he's saying that the political risks are rising rapidly and people don't seem to be accounting for this and they're so. and i think you call some that they're biased towards the u.s. dollar and they are there keep on buying u.s. treasuries and they're against gold and gold barbarous relic but he says most immediately during the calm of the august vacation season we are seeing too

confrontational nationalistic and military a stick leaders playing chicken with each other while the world is watching to see which won't be caught bluffing or if there will be a hellacious war and to the odds of congress failing to raise the debt ceiling leading to a technical default a temporary government shutdown and increased loss of faith in the effectiveness of our political system rising it's hard to bet on such things one way or another so the best that one can do is be neutral to such possibilities and buy gold he says you know five to ten percent this is a standard wealth management tool for those with wealth to manage many americans have course don't have any wealth but here he's saying five to ten percent we haven't heard people say this most people are even on the financial news on the scene and b c's in the hedge funds of the world are all piling into big going what are your thoughts on this as a putt for everything you just said is true and it's been reflected in the price of bitcoin whereas great value oban anyway we've got to take

a break we'll be back right after this don't fret and go away. the city i'm in the midst so mark was the hardest by the twenty eleven tsunami but it was damaged mostly by the radiation after the nuclear disaster of the hotel not nearly enough somebody did not do we do with them to with the thinking a little bomb or something they're not going to do that i am a little sentimental detected the room decontamination is not complete much many local news good. in their houses and farms most of us you know. it's going to. be a nice night give. me a few ticks don't want to they stay strong like their ancestors centuries ago did.

not mean that also you will fail. to be sure the one i. told find a way to rebuild their lives in the wounded. were . leveled warhawks selling you on the idea that dropping bombs brings printers to the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battle for food still . produce talk spread a tell you that every gossip the tabloids but ralph most important. the hoth of advertising tell me you are not cool enough to buy their product. the talks about me and all that are on the watch.

isis militants are just shows patrolled by. enemy troop movements have been spotted on the other side of the river. here in the only two groups of militants have joined forces with. those groups leaders have declared their determination so for an independent islamic state in the philippines. even after two months of funding the army keeps finding hidden weapons and explosives. not being rationed in areas where civilians used to live on a daily occurrence. or not well meaning walk with their bundle but what are you annoyed. this is the news it is

a scene no. walking dead. unbelievable it is and it will make my head is the fishes a city in the us all down. in case you're new to the game this is how. the economy is built around corporate corporations washington washington media. control the voters elected the businessman to run this country business equals. boom bust it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. welcome back to the kaiser report imax keyser time now to return to our

conversation with international film star all around nice guy soon to be a starring in a new our t.v. show the gap the great american pilgrimage i give you stephen baldwin stan welcome back to serve our i well this is been a fascinating discussion i want to pick up on a point we made in the previous segment about the left wing in america the media in america a lot of these questions are open questions and they are debated in the mainstream media and the page of the new york times and the l.a. times and so i think if you know what do you think about my my thought on this is that part of the reason for this show great american pilgrimage is to go out and talk to people i you know you and i can talk about this all day long but let's go talk to people see what they're thinking what's going on they're the ones who are making the votes they're the ones that are making the political right reality happen right you know. and i got to tell you. as you and i do because most of the folks watching the show don't really understand completely how well you

and i know each other how long you and i know each other the fact that we're friends is i think is richer respects regarding funny you know i would must match kaiser's as much as i do if max keiser wasn't is funny as he is so that's why we're on board together you're going to be producing and you'll be producing as well we're going to come up with a lot of fun ideas but the idea is basically every time i meet people they go what are you doing what's coming next i go we're going to the city called the gap the great american pilgrimage in an r.v. with the dogs and talk to people about america and everyone reacts the same day literally so. really sounds. so max i'm excited to go out and experience the great american pilgrimage again i think are you were were so fired up to turn to turn this program into you know for our t.v. . parts unknown you know anthony bourdain or like

a duck dynasty and you know i believe the best way to do that is to give people an experience that makes you laugh and they enjoy and they feel good about while at the same time really talking about the issues really talking about sanctuary cities we're going to talk about. immigrant policy except for a. across the board from from trump to guns to bibles to the qur'an and whatever it is we want to know. as the. creators of of the gap we want to know from people. what happened how did we get here not what happened in a bad way or good way just how has this progress here in this country that you know really are seen now in twenty seventeen degree just movement and surge of pruett test in the united states since my team sixty seven sixty six sixty

seven sixty eight. so that fascinates me and which fascinates you you're a serious guy and you're driven to our community. but you want to do it in a way that's unique and fun and i think oh this coming together on this journey is going to absolutely result in that outcome yeah well agreed on those points and this does have a fail of a one nine hundred sixty eight political awakening to it in america and the point is that to go out there and find out what's going on and as you point out we have known each other a long time maybe experienced decades of american history and in a country that's not bad old america is only two hundred forty years old they've been alive for a significant portion of the history of this country so here we are traveling through america and what concerns me a little bit is that there seems to be this rising tension between two to two

divides politically and america is not without political division and resulting in conflicts before i think sixty eight with a very polarizing period you know the kent state incident the murder can't stay for example the whole debacle of the vietnam war this was to mulch us turbulent times going back of course you could go back to the civil war clearly is you know another example we have the illinois the state of illinois deva is being talked about now is the first american failed state the economy of illinois about to go. illinois is about to go under the entire state. and this is bringing about a huge dislocation in america so what about this this tension that's happening in the hatfield versus the mccoys almost you know families are being split apart as they were in the civil war as they were during the vietnam war there is

a real powerful sense of of of tension bleeding into. some violence so what's your take on that are we is a trend becoming more pronounced are we in your opinion i mean we'll find out a lot of more about this on the road but the you see from your observations that the trend getting more divisive stephen. this is what basics are exciting to me. is that we really can't be sure you know can we. you know for me max what i've witnessed. over fifteen. baby bowen is fifty one and what's what's amazing to me and my observation is this slow erosion of tolerance is what i call it. and really the interpretation of tolerance because in my perception the liberal movement in

america is is looking to take the constitution and ethics and moral ethics and you know tolerance and on a lot of what is that in the iliad will wright that i have to be one of the members of we the people. is that now that the most dangerous aspect of all of this is now free speech tolerance all these it not only can you not disagree with the progressive movement but you can't say that you do and in fact what they're hoping for relative to all of this genes that they are pursuing is that not only that you. approve of it but that you agree with them as well that you must agree with these perceptions.

of these changes to the landscape and the tradition and the foundation of what has built this country and that's the people so i'm excited that great american pilgrimage is going to go back to that grassroots thing to say hey look you know in in in sixty eight this happened in seventy five that happened in eighty one that happened and you know as if we progress through this transition. it's going to be interesting to hear the voices of people who agree with or disagree with it and everything in between and that may get to honestly and simply communicate that from their hearts. so yeah it's to me max it's a super wild crazy freaky time in american history right now and i'm going to go right into the vortex and i want to do a search warrant right into that with those people agree or disagree who are you

where you're from god bless you what do you got to say about we were what's happening here on the great american pilgrimage is going to be excited and i'm thinking about the one nine hundred seventy s. which of course in american history was a time when workers had the greatest purchasing power of of any time in the last hundred years wall street was on the way down workers' wages actually because inflation was on the out they were getting great purchasing power with the wages that they were making and that during that time we had filmmakers like alan pakula who may have things like all the president's men the parallax view and films that challenge the official american narrative you know the only guy we have out here today who is challenging the official american narrative is oliver stone who would put out things like the alternative history of america series or he'll go and interview flat america potent in moscow and you know as a journalist but my question is. where did all that great

filmmaking go were those directors go and are we on the verge of possibly going back to an era where we are what we will see hollywood directors challenge the official narrative and come out with socially relevant and challenging material stable. it's a great question brother because you know in hollywood you have people like me and dean cain and some other folks who are willing to to to really stand up and give their opinion then james woods is like throwing down on his twitter he sees a magazine. so obviously for the most part of a majority of hollywood folks that do not agree with any kind of fiscal conservative or total perspectives in that regard which is which is fine you my thing is this i'll never forget i went to the premiere of syriana that clooney put together and afterwards i walked on i went you know the movie was kind of wild and

you know it was more entertainment in my opinion than trying to seriously sarcastically communicate a message which is that liberal message but i'll never forget clooney same to milliken i said hey looks great i mean this really agree with all of it but i said look pretty cool get seated in the guest because yemen is going to be firmer this one causing the trouble isn't it and it kind of did then i went well i guess for you bro yeah but you know when it comes to like the coal miner and people like that who can afford to go see this movie mr clooney you know those little people who do their best to pay their taxes to. you know. i theory you i guess the point i'm trying to make is this is really quite simple. i'm we're grateful and motivated and inspired to live in

a land. that no matter where all the dynamics are regardless if seventy percent of the messaging in the media is this the people are what matters americans are what matter most in america. so i'm looking forward i think right now like you said. mr stone and some folks are are obviously in an incredible minority in the content provision world called hollywood but that's strange and that's changing the rattling of this change and all of this protest and resistance and all of this disagreement and discourse is what america's all about it's a good thing that we have the the rights and the freedoms to to have this conversation to have this it's the platform of politics that we do that is

truly a democratic and free lessons of state and before we got to go one last question if you looking forward to what compare the national in our to the gap the great american pilgrimage where you can anything that's going to compare more to the thout of music are apocalypse now. be like if we did our own version of apocalypse now would it be like if alec baldwin were playing a colonel walter kurtz. kind of scene that kind of brando alec kind of coming together and then alec under no perhaps like brand new must have done want to choose maybe hope break out a ukulele and just start singing. on a mission folk song like i couldn't make you willard and then i guess that makes me the dennis hopper character the photojournalist it tells the police can't land on

a fraction ok i was going to do it for this episode the kaiser parts they have all the thanks much bring up and that's going to do it for this edition of the kaiser report with a mask as our station i would like to thank our guest even baldwin john to catch us on twitter it's kaiser report ental next on buying all. the analysis so it seems wrong. wrong just don't call. me. yet to see palin does this come back to. and it again should be close to

trail. when somebody find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. with this manufactured consensus public will. when the ruling classes protect themselves. in the middle of the room six. month old i know melissa i noticed but one million people died and.

he killed people even. now no one's going to wait to choose a few bodies around him and that's. why .

developing news is lunchtime police in finland confirm they're investigating friday stabbing attack in which two people died as terrorism an eighteen year old moroccan suspect is in custody. i. city on edge this. this weekend as people come to. fourteen dead and with the killer. elsewhere the white house loses yet another key figure this time chief strategist steve. at a move seen as a victory.