so sunny so i'm like and you know what i got to thinking of the people i really hate this world and none more so than jamie diamond what he is but as mel he came walking into walls he came tumbling in public and proven himself to be an idiot savant but without the savant. hey there i'm lindsey francis broadcasting around the world from washington d.c.

tonight we've got a tax reform blueprint to talk about one day after the health care defeat on capitol hill also china loves oil and it might be in love with u.s. shale gas we've got a full report on that coming right up and the c.e.o. of this scandal ridden credit monitoring company equifax walked away with a massive pension after i had exposed the data of one hundred forty three million americans happen my gas explains how consumers can fight back down by boom bust first right now. it is tax reform time as health care stood dead in the water on capitol hill tuesday senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said it himself where we go from here is tax reform fast forward twenty four hours and we've got our hands on

a first edition blueprint of how the republicans plan to build that reform if nine pages long and it's called the unified framework for fixing our broken tax code top line item income tax of course under current law as it stands now taxable income is subject to seven tax brackets the framework to consolidate consolidate back down to three brackets taxed at twelve percent twenty five percent and then up to thirty five percent the plan does pitch also the idea of a fourth tax bracket for higher earners of thirty five percent also included in the document is an ambitious twenty percent corporate tax rate and references to a streamlining of business tax breaks we shall see if that streamlining means a closure of loopholes also. u.s. businesses could face a repatriation tax of around ten percent to bring that money right back home. and be scandalised chairman and c.e.o.

of equifax richard smith is out of the company but he gets to keep his eighteen million dollars pension some people have a problem with it because when hackers exploited of software flaw in the credit monitoring giant system they stole the social security numbers birth dates and other personal data of more than one hundred forty three million americans the company was warned about the flaw months in advance according to equifax the breach took place from mid may from july it was discovered july twenty ninth and within the next two days three executives sold off shares totaling nearly two million dollars and then on the seventh equifax told the public about it smith has issued the predictable apologies and retired he will receive his two thousand and seventeen bonus or severance pay but that cool eighteen million dollars pension he does get to keep smith was set to face a congressional hearing on october third over the scandal no word now on who will replace him in that chair. and as the apologies from equifax continue and the

investigation carries on we hear promises from the company to further protect consumers but how sincere are these promises and how can we fight back let's bring in someone who knows you know show she is criminal defense attorney you are an expert in this stuff you deal with these corporations all the time one of the big issues with equifax in this situation has been the consumers right to sue them equifax is offered a year of free credit monitoring but only if consumers waive the right to sue and move to arbitration how common is this sort of practice. this practice does not seem to be very common though it's understandable why i quote facts would want to do this they're facing a lot of millions of dollars over the course of many people who could sue them so it's totally in their self interests to offer some kind of incentive so people don't sue them right so basically it's putting consumers on the back foot but the

consumer financial protection bureau got to talk about that issue to regulation back in july this year that prevents banks from requiring mandatory arbitration this came from the wells fargo case is there anything that prevents companies like a fax from abusing their power and pushing in a way that anyone seeking legal action to move to arbitration is there any way they can fight back against that. well it's going to be really important for individuals to stick together and really file these class action lawsuits to protect their rights and have lawyers who can protect their rights because as i said before these companies are patrician they want to be able to solve these cases behind closed doors it prevents bad publicity for that and the payout is going to be a lot less their parts well speaking of a beautiful circuit some numbers out about the complaints against equifax let's look at the total number of these are consumer complaints filed against equifax

each year through the consumer financial protection bureau in two thousand and sixteen it was up near little it was over fourteen almost fifteen and a half thousand this year just so far above fourteen these numbers were pulled in september in two thousand and thirteen we saw a little over four thousand. are numbers like this taken into consideration when you're looking at an investigation over lax security and maybe not caring about consumers. yes everything needs to be taken into consideration whether there had been a pattern of these security breaches whether other people had had their identities stolen as a result of any security breach is what's key here is that the people who are suing are able to prove some kind of actual document as a result of their names and information and personal data being leaked and with a breach of this big it's inevitable that that damage will be able to be proven ok so if you can't prove that you've been damaged materially yet can you be

compensated for the fact that someone has your information. not yet so you have to wait to be you do you have to have an actual damage the way the court system works is you can't have future damages you can't say you know it's inevitable down the line if my information is out on the internet that someone is going to steal it you have to show that you have suffered somehow and perhaps there's a creative argument beyond just saying someone stole it and have my but that's going to require some creative thinking on the lawyers part and using equifax would would push for the longest possible arbitration known to the history of man or do you think that there's going to be you know a fair push for this to be taken care of. well i think a longer arbitration obviously cost more money but i think they're going to be stalling a lot every step of the road one of the fundamental. aspects of suing

a company and litigation is for the company to provide something called discovery that's basically information that talks about some of the inner workings and things specific to the security breach they're already stalling the order you don't want to turn over information so i think it's going to be a long road ahead what about the investigation into executives who sold stock before this was made public how ugly can that get. i think for the individual executives it's going to be ugly i think there's definitely. the feeling at least of impropriety and i sure they'll be able to you know prove that they're selling stocks as a result of the security breach so for those individual executives they could be facing. civil and criminal charges i think as it pertains to the individuals again the key word is is there actual damage and can they prove the

nexus between what these executives did and the harm that they received what sort of an argument can equifax maker. we're not disclosing this to the public sooner than it did several weeks went by we didn't know about it and equifax has hit back and said well it wasn't material to the investigation it would've helped us at all to let the public know about this nothing really would have changed i mean does that hold any water whatsoever. it seems to be a then excuse i also think equifax is really going to try to pass the buck and plaster the blame around here with large companies like this there's other companies underneath that are actually collecting the information as well so i think they're going to spread the blame around and try to pass that from themselves to anyone else that they can that is very scary that there's these small operators underneath all this thank you so much for input i was going to sue cora

a very accomplished criminal defense attorney who just gave us her expertise thank you so much thank you. asia is fast becoming a big buyer of u.s. crude oil despite the fact that the two regions are half a world apart as the world's fastest growing consumer of oil it's not surprising that asia would turn to the u.s. as a source of energy since the u.s. has been increasing its output but in fact a global oil markets are caught off guard over how quick the trade flow is changing so joins me now to follow the shifts of that the u.s. into china making some money how significant is this relationship between asia and the u.s. lindsey it's huge i mean first take into consideration the asia's the biggest oil consuming region in the world and then i'm going to give you this statistic for just up until now in twenty seventeen asia has imported one out of every three

barrels that the u.s. has sold overseas that's a huge increase we can show you a graph that shows you just how huge it is paint a picture for us we're talking about going from basically nothing to now buying a third of u.s. products so that's about three hundred thousand barrels a day on average right now it's nowhere close to what opec pumps out an excellent obviously but it is something and part of the reason that we're seeing asia turn to the u.s. is because its own. regions resources are drying up at least the quality resources so they're looking for other places to go and in order for this trend to continue in order for the united states continue selling to the biggest oil consuming region in the world the u.s. prices need to be steep discount because like you said it's half way around the world we're talking about more than twice the distance is shipping to say europe so they have to keep that in mind prices have to be competitive because it costs more to ship it over there what triggered this what specific change happened ok so we can take you back about two years to news headlines that we were seeing we have an

article we can pull up for you it was late twenty fifteen when the u.s. lifted a forty year ban on oil exports now that ban was in place since nineteen seventy five one hundred seventy five the united states were in the middle of an energy crisis it followed opec oil embargo on the u.s. so the u.s. was in a situation where they needed to be more self-reliant it lifted some import restrictions and banned exports now forty years later the ban is lifted oil begins trickling out of the u.s. and experts think that's only going to be jumping leaps and bounds year over year as that continues to happen i mean just last week the u.s. broke a weekly export record one and a half million barrels per day compared to less than a million just the week before this week u.s. crude hit a five month high more than fifty two dollars a barrel fifty two twenty two so crude production in general for the united states has jumped nine percent from this year compared to last and opec meanwhile has been cutting production so you see this trend continuing in the u.s. kind of becoming a bigger part of the global picture and knocking back on its heels in time and time

and time again we've heard president trump complain about these huge trade deficit with countries like mexico and china of course the u.s. is up in exports that have any political implications of course everything we know that we do. let's take this first from a just perspective smart to diversify their product it increases competition it keeps the prices low the added bonus here is. pleasing president trump i mean he's railed asia especially china like you said about those trade deficits if these countries can find favor lowering that deficit that trump is rallying against by increasing what it imports from the united states isn't that a win win and then it's good for the global economy as a whole it's good for the united states in raging in the global economy there's a conference happening right now in singapore and it's for the asia pacific petroleum and they've had the largest u.s. delegation to date it's been happening thirty three years this year largest delegation because the united states is getting very involved in asian markets

we're going to see this trend just continue going upward very interesting stuff thank you so much. time now for a quick break stick around though when we get back we may be facing a housing crisis in los angeles also nike cuts loose it got dismal numbers and now it's switching up its retail game as we go to break here are the numbers at the closing bell. oh.

we cannot stop the technological revolution and then the area whether it's. you know the military to grow certain or get. on the skin though with human beings or computer technology in a general way or any other technology because it's driven by you. human curiosity. is with me because i cannot. believe what. i said the most i knew but i you. know it was but i get sort. of this yes or no but if you dump it out and just see your own that is.

where they boo you go get a good area for immigrants it's this we never really know for sure but this is been active area. thank you so. yeah. you know well when i started no i did. the world's biggest sports where brand is suffering nike's first quarter revenue post and flat at around nine point one billion dollars hitting above nine point zero nine which was the estimate nike used to run miles ahead of the pack its north american sales though saw a three percent dip last quarter and it's put pressure on cutting costs and

expanding away from home growth in china for instance rose nine percent last quarter now you won't even report future orders right now an important indicator of demand for retailers but how much will it be depending on those retailers as we move forward well five years ago in two thousand and twelve only four percent of its sales were direct to consumers cut to two thousand and seventeen and you can. see in yellow on the right it's at twenty eight percent of the total more and more it's running around the retailers and going directly to the customer so instead of finding the solution a foot locker at the mall you'll now go online to nike's website it's sales shot up nearly twenty percent and it's just signed a big deal with amazon. and california has some of the lowest housing vacancy rates in the country the high cost of real estate and sky high rent keeps turnover rather low however landlords in downtown los angeles are now facing the opposite problem

vacancy rates in the newly developed areas appear the highest in seventeen years as the state's housing crisis worsens local advocacy groups are pushing for the construction of war affordable housing boom of regina santos rather has the story of california is in the middle of a housing crisis half of the state's residents are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and homeownership rates are the lowest since world war two the median cost of a house is half a million dollars twice the national average as a result more people are renting but between two thousand and five and twenty fifteen only twenty one units of housing were constructed per one hundred new residents to the state this has resulted in a lack of availability and sky high rent especially in cities like los angeles san diego and san francisco. areas that have seen a boom in new development are still on affordable for example here in downtown los

angeles most of the new high rises cater to the wealthy rent is so expensive that vacancies have reached the highest rate in seventeen years landlords are now offering perks to incentivize move ins but the median price for a one bedroom downtown is twenty five hundred dollars per month and in this building a tiny four hundred eighty seven square foot studio starts at around two thousand dollars per month so six weeks of free rent or free parking for an entire year will not offset the cost income over the past two decades hasn't kept pace with escalating rent what was once considered a low income problem is now everyone's problem matters finds that even extremely high incomes aren't enough to blunt the cost of housing in san jose where the current median income is nearly one hundred thousand dollars renters can still expect to pay forty percent of their monthly income on rent it's no wonder homelessness in the state is on the rise los angeles alone site twenty three percent increase over the past year but the heart of the problem just blocks away

on skid row state lawmakers are now cracking down on communities that delay or derail housing construction but with progress so far down the line many californians are leaving the state in downtown los angeles procedure santos. were due to joins us live now to talk more about california's housing crisis and rent in downtown los angeles let's get right to it is three times higher than the rest of the country why is that. rest of the county lindsey the reason for that is because this is the only place where development is really happening between twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen about ten thousand new units were constructed across l.a. county but more than half of the work constructed downtown and as you said there's a huge problem with filling these vacancies in fact most of l.a. county is at a three point three percent vacancy rate very very low but in downtown los angeles that rate is at twelve percent and that's because while there are these new units being constructed they're really expensive they don't cater to the average income

earner let alone the low income earner and those are the people who are really looking to move into a new more affordable housing and unfortunately this is something that is being replicated all across the state it's not just happening in downtown los angeles we're seeing a lot of gentrification but this is not helping most of the people here lindsey but yeah they sort of built up downtown for the loft crowd and obviously if you want to get into a loft are going to pay top dollar it seems like people living in los angeles would rather have a house on the hill with the pool i've lived there i saw that build up in downtown and i wondered who in the world is going to pay that much money to live as if you're living in sunny downtown new york you know what plans are in the motion to ease this crisis. so right now california officials are putting together housing packages now they have proposed over one hundred thirty new housing bills but unfortunately those are not going to solve the problem not only fifteen have been passed some of these bills that they're looking at include things like imposing

fees on to real estate transactions in order to generate some sort of revenue to then put toward state sponsored affordable housing and other similar efforts they're also looking to start more construction but again if they're only focusing on these luxury properties they're going to face the same problems that they're having now advocacy groups are really putting pressure on our leaders here to build a more affordable housing and to do so quickly but they really need to focus on increasing hohner homeownership as well because that does help people earn some income in the long run and this is something that is hurting the economy a lot of people are leaving employers are having a hard time keeping skilled workers a lot of people are living two to four people in tiny studios we've got people living in cars and vans in the city of los angeles is cracking down on them i do believe in the bay area they're also seeing more construction but researchers there say that it could take between fourteen and thirty six years to lower housing

prices in the san francisco bay area even after all of this is said and lindsey was a big problem over there thank you so much for that we're going to santos coming at us from los angeles. new rules for large corporations in the united kingdom are bringing changes that will affect everything from pay to top execs to participation of the ordinary employees our neighbor to the north canada is keeping a very close eye on what the brits are doing i asked our high leverage to fill us in on this from toronto. you know they're really working out how to value their canada or the states we know what happened in two thousand and eight we saw what corporations were doing we know what the occupy movement was originally all about what happened a little later maybe not so great but the whole point of the matter is that it comes down to empowerment of employees to be able to keep the companies in check as well as pay ratios for c.e.o.'s we see them still going through the roof and the

united states probably one of the biggest culprits but you know they look at the brits they're keeping things in check to canada i was watching the brits closely but here let's talk about what the brits are actually doing so they're going to have to disclose in their books basically say what the c.e.o.'s are making in pay so that people know exactly what's going on these rules around existing requirement they really there are requirements for the shareholders to vote on executive pay but these rules are going to be tightened so not only will they be more out there so people know what exactly what's going on but these people are there their feet will be held to the fire much more than ever before in the u.k. at least so a larger role for workers in decision making and this is a big one you're actually going to see either representatives of the average employee in the boardroom themselves voted into the boardroom or there's a couple other ways they could do it by assigning non-executive employees to responsibility representing employee issues at the board level so either as

a person sitting as a director sitting in the board or one of these representative somebody is going to have a voice down the mass of you know as i meant to back in two thousand and eight these are the pay discrepancies that's one of the biggest things definitely so under the proposed u.k. regime that this is interesting a public register is going to be capped this is more than anything else it's a shaming mechanism so corporations that don't follow this obviously you're going to want to fall is because you know look really really bad if you don't so if a c.e.o. is paid what they are poised think is way too much money twenty percent will be able to vote in this register then things are going to be looked at in a different way so. really it is a shaving back of the news more than anything else the problem here is though that you have smaller and bigger corporations so something like a bank for example the pay discrepancy is a little bit different you're not going to see so many people complaining let's say a c.e.o. of a company that has thousands of workers that make a lot less than c.e.o. so again this is they're saying that if there's a billet for

a company to step back and say well we might not want to go through this but they'll have to explain to the government why they don't want to be a part of this program. i don't how my candidate be influenced by lots happening across the atlantic. well canada we've had a few issues that i know that we've talked about this in the past for example sears here in canada you know as many companies do their downsizing or even closing went sears laid off employees without severance you know what the the the executives were laid off without severance so they were given money and the oath a boss retention vote a bonus postmedia which is the company that owns national poll of polls which is a huge newspaper here in canada same type of thing you know you're seeing executives making hundreds of thousands of dollars while these employees are getting booted out with you know being laid off bombarded that's the one we talked about many times thirty two million dollars they wanted to give a bonus to their executives and that was pulled back rather quickly after a public outcry but these are all things that make the canadian government look at

this and say you know what maybe we should be tightening our rights restrictions or making a restrictions a little bit better here in canada when it comes to the performance of companies in this country that are doing things like this we know that eighty percent of companies are voluntarily playing a similar game here in canada as what's happening in the u.k. but then again they're still not their feet are not held to the fire it's not the exact same rules and there really is no new penalty in the end like there might be in the u.k. in coming days months or years alex while that's joining us from toronto thank you so much for that thank you. kipling once wrote that words are of course the most powerful drugs used by mankind with words or drugs and twitter is definitely the big supplier especially with some new changes it's testing twitter is letting a small test group of over three hundred thirty million users test a two hundred eighty character limit why well seo jack dorsey says that the one hundred forty character limit was unnecessary he actually tweeted his statement

using two hundred eighty characters of course social media responded with a laugh and a few critiques one journalist actually took doris's original tweet. and edited it down into something very badly written but kept it just under one thirty nine characters if you happen to be a president who loves to go on twitter now you'll have twice the amount of time of characters to try and get your point across if you can thanks for watching be sure to catch us on direct t.v. if you miss us on direct t.v. catch boom bust on you tube youtube dot com slash the last r.t. thanks for watching next time.

the kurdish language has many proverbs one of them being cited frequently better accounts of ones own than i jointly own. some of the iraqi kurds to being their own shepherd. this is the kaiser report coming from the aspen nexus concert with a lot of. i can feel it is so warm up there still fantastic so glorious so sunny so mountain like and you know what i got to thinking of the people i really miss and none more so than jamie diamond who came twenty years but it's about he came walking into walls

he came tumbling in public and proven himself to be an idiot savant but without the support. in america a college degree requires a gray. deal. paying a decade's long debt. studying so hard it requires trust. going through humiliation to enter society. and paci dead sometimes quite literally. wants other true colors of universities in the us. the struggle.

in the fifth grade school doesn't. exclusive video from syria's dear it's all our correspondent takes you to the heart of the decisive battle for the country's future amid claims that some forces are exploiting the gains plus. in catalonia protests of pressure mounts on the government for trying to quash sunday's independence referendum while the region's president turns on the egg you . capitalizing on the korea crisis the japanese prime minister moved for a snap election as his handling of the situation sees his ratings and saw we look at the stakes in shinzo.