we're. back in. the headlines here on altie the president says his region will declare independence from spain within days despite madrid rejecting sunday's referendum as illegal it comes as hundreds of thousands rally against the police violence witnessed injuring of the votes. dozens of guns are found in the hotel room in the house of the man who killed fifty eight people just a music festival in las vegas as america's deadliest modern shooting news the debates on gun control in the u.s. . and the new u.s.

ambassador to russia is sworn in at the trial and by president putin during a period of high tension between the two nations. you can head over to altie dot com for the full stories we'll be back with the news in about an hour in the meantime the kaiser report talks russia sanctions on the latest developments in the cryptocurrency space. oh max charger this is the kaiser report you know things out on this show it was just a few months ago that he had stephen baldwin on our show talking about shows that we could do we came up with this idea for an american pilgrimage sure enough stacy shot a two minute video on our phone when we were in new york we sent it over to the network they said this sounds great they gave it to big green light and then dash came

around and said yeah we'd love to sponsor that after we talked about looking to get a trip to sponsor the great american program which i stepped up raised a bunch of money and now we're in the desert we're in arizona we're shooting the great american photo michel employee it'll be on air before too long but that's what happens on the carson reports days you things happen things happen we are on the road this is in arizona in the desert we love that that's suspicious mountain behind us this is apache territory the original inhabitants of the area before as we all know what happened to them but i want to it's an interesting spot to be in suspicious minds because we're in this weird kind of cold war war everything is crazy here we have to admit that it's pretty crazy here it's hard to watch but there was an interesting story that happened in the past week while we've been on the road that i want to cover this. in terms of the wider implications to

financial and market wars going on since two thousand and eight two thousand and seven since the financial crisis because this is a story about. what the u.n. considers when you impose sanctions on any country they consider that prewar essentially that there will be a hot war that once you apply sanctions it may take decades as in the case of say cuba which is never we haven't had a hot war against them for a while but in terms of the sanctions against russia you and reported last week or the week before about the consequences of that and it's pretty interesting because sputnik news and our website did report on it and no other news in the world did i found it interesting because the headline is exclusive news economic sanctions against russia. the first comprehensive study of anti russia sanctions show they hit e.u.

much more than russia so the report was written by algeria's interests just harry who is a un special rapporteur of the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures so they have a. a section of the u.n. called it the negative impacts of the unilateral. corrective course of measures because they consider it an act of war essentially right and you know as we reported on our show because we actually were in moscow talking to people who were affected by the sanctions local restaurant tours yes they have very quickly adapted you know the thing about this twenty first century world we see it all over the world adoption is vast because technology is is so pervasive and so powerful that we had entrepreneur spring up like lilies or daisies after a rainstorm just coming out and starting new businesses they started new food businesses agriculture business went to mess tick not so much importation from abroad and the net impact of that was zero we reported on that but suspicious minds

. to allow that fact to get over the transom of the box of the television screen there is a fact i'm giving it to you but suspicious minds of chorus don't accept facts and more and all of us to be spun within some greater conspiracy theory and the great conspiracy theory then is russia and not even a thinking cockade by the masters of conspiracy theories are no competing with these conspiracy theories coming right out of the federal government in washington so back to this u.n. report because you mention agriculture and they do talk about that we spoke to a guest called benares he's. an europe so he's you know he reports on european affairs and his specialty is russia and he told you about that siberian count on bear of course you were a bit offended by that oxymoron you can't have camel bear from some area russians are very resourceful people but chemical like on the one place fronts and they also

talk about why there actually has been no impact essentially on russia is because of the central bank and we talked to jim rickards and we also talked to constantine gird yeah of abouts. the central bank of russia's response to the sanctions and member what they did is they let the ruble float that caused the ruble to collapse by something sixty seven percent immediately that helped and this is what the u.n. says now because the u.n. reports on this they're being attacked in the media in the west by the way but nobody is actually talking about the contents of it so they say that the total cost of the sanctions and this is again what our guests have said like we've looked for gas i mean of course you could have turned into b.b.c. news night they had guests on every single night saying that there would be regime change that there would be collapse that there would be zero the country would default even though there was no external debt and they were looking for current you know about the payments crisis they were looking for all these sort of things

and that didn't happen now the u.n. looked at it and they found that there it cost one hundred fifty five billion in total about fifty five billion of it was to russia but they couldn't distinguish what it whether it was how much the sanctions versus the collapse in oil price had caused that the hundred billion was to european small businesses german businesses and small farmers what's going on speaking of small farmer oh my goodness george washington well you know this is especially especially troubling as a phone call other of america. is here with us george to oversee. oh there he is is surveying all that is his is dominion this united states of america thanks to george two very wisely after two terms of office stepped down and had a peaceful transfer of power while unlike those british people you mention the b.b.c. and of course they've got

a huge current deficit they were unable to absorb the truth they voted for something called bridget another even in worse shape because they simply can't deal with facts anymore so again so why they went back why the un looked at it so this is. the u.n. again it's not anybody but the u.n. it's united nations and they get some things wrong for us they got many things wrong throughout history but here they're just looking at the data and trying to determine what the impact was the biggest negative impact they found in russia of course is exactly what happened with sanctions and iraq sanctions and cuba sanctions and north korea is of those living under the poverty line some of the most vulnerable population groups the seven to sixteen year old age group women of working age and pensioners are reported to have been most affected so a negative impacts hit the most vulnerable as they always do and that's one of the arguments always from the you know the people that are genuine left will always

argue against sanctions because of that whereas michelle obama on this one women getting slammed nothing main economic players but it's sexist sanctions because it hurts women in the vulnerable most in america the same didn't bother of mine this kind of sexism and therefore also used quite embarrassing for anyone who would support a more nuanced approach and so here there they go into the reasons why the impact of economic sanctions on the enjoyment of human rights this is words from the u.n. was not more severe in the country seem related to the following facts and these are important for anybody operating within our economic or financial system whether you're an individual who gets cut off from the banking system on banks whether you're an individual who has now had their data hacked by equifax the lessons learned drawn from these points that the u.n. points out about how a nation survives economic sanctions and attack how any individual could do the

same the same sovereign principles apply so the government applied very effectively a counter-cyclical policy by letting the ruble float and by increasing the share of the state sector to substitute for the sanction imposed ban on foreign funds. for the corporate sector beyond thirty days by reducing considerably the rate of inflation through conservative management of the economy and by ex post compensation of inflation losses incurred by pensioners remember constantine and economist who's now a professor in california said exactly that he said they're using very conservative economic policies and it will work he got attacked by that if you look at the comments people were like you know your kremlin bought or something like that to him but the un is saying yes now three years later we can say for a fact that that worked did was the right thing take the pain now. you'll recover quicker the same principle a lot of people many of our guests said should have been applied to the u.s. economy when we were financially attacked by the banks in two thousand and seven

two thousand and eight well i mean those countries and his debt like the u.s. always going to attack on trees that are virtually no debt like russia i think that's the basis of so well ok actually the u.n. article the u.n. study does start out saying that this is the first time you can on mic sanctions have been applied against an integrated developed economy in a globalized world that it's usually against countries that are like cuba or syria or north korea that aren't part of the globalized world so this is why they were also quite interested in studying what happened and and what the impact was they said that the diversification of the economy away from oil was given new impetus so that was good in that it lead to long term growth and that was something that was needed they had to be pushed into it well so i can jump in there you know what terms you visited moscow and talked to folks over there that was always a number one concern the curse of oil because if prices go up and you get lazy and not diversify because you are making huge gains on the oil then when the price went down you know you're in panic mode and you need to pump more oil to get over the

panic mode so the diversification of the russian economy never came but these sanctions forced diversification so thank you very much to sanctions so they say import substitution which would be. you mentioned the siberian cam and bear they also said that policy was quickly introduced to pivot to asia that helped out and in terms of the oil sector they also refined that they say that there was an emphasis on research was increased returning to an earlier stage when and many sectors including space technology the russian federation was at the forefront as should be noted that according to russian officials cooperation with the united states in advanced space technology was maintained including for the supply of engines for space craft despite the ban on the export of advanced drilling technology by the united states this enabled the russian federation to enhance its oil production in the arctic by developing its own capacities for horizontal drilling i.e. fracking and its production of shale oil for which i have previously relied on foreign partners so again they close on saying that one hundred billion was mostly

due to like losses for danish farmers or farmers or french farmers or german industry and that this is. maybe something that should be reconsidered because it's hurting european partners perhaps more right the fans got hurt more by these sanctions and i mean i don't think that the u.s. should be competing with russia in the fracking business i think the u.s. should focus on renewables and really lead the world in renewables because of fracking industry i think is a legacy technology that we should try to move away from but the u.s. seems to be balances lock horns in the energy past with the issues of oil and glamourous fighting each other politically economically and again if you go to a gunfight with a knife which seems to be the case with the us against russia in the oil business like i do well that's old fashioned it's going out and i'm saying it is like i said you know in terms of electric cars for example a big story out of little tiny britain was dice and ice is coming out with a revolutionary new electric car who knows you might come up with something so

unique like you revolutionize the hand dryer or well you know wake up and realize the cryptocurrency blocks and revolution as we've been saying for many years on this show. i'll follow and i once again will be leading the economic engine of growth and russia i can safely say is all due to the show while we have to go to the second half after this break and tonto what i just said because a lot of it i just made up. in the u.s. a child can choose a school with his as teachers we don't. recruit we'll sisters if the cadet is interested in going in the military but we don't

recruit ourselves. the pentagon is funding a program to boost interest in the military among teenagers a chance to step up to an apollo so that comfortable with yourself. you can't go wrong with the woods or it's a great stepping stone for whatever career you want to do but some veterans are willing to tell enthusiastic children a little more they ask me call of duty is a very popular first year video game. it's play and that's because the military like call of duty to turn off call of duty oh yeah or you can turn off the war and lot of these kids just don't hear. the darker side does the pentagon allow them to be told or does it just need more recruits. the people of catalonia went to the polls seeking independence the spanish state reacted with force against peaceful voters still again the question arises what is the e.u.'s

commitment to democracy and who is allowed to terminate. welcome back to the kaiser report. herbert max kaiser is not here i have hijacked the set and i'm here with eric for he's of shapeshifters thanks for having me on you and your surprise i thought you thought max is going to hear i've never know what you're butyl be but i'm happy to see either of you so you were on kaiser report years ago talking about shapeshifting for those who missed that episode and maybe some out there who missed it what a shapeshifts and how much as a grown in those years yes that interview was in early twenty fifteen and ship it was just a year and a half old at that point now we're three and a half years old three years old chip is basically a digital asset exchange so it's a way for individuals to convert one block it into another like bitcoin into

a theorem or dash into light coin anything that exists on the block chain as an asset or a token of can support we don't convert any kind of money we don't convert any and we feel toilet papers like the federal reserve notes or the euro so just watch it assets so the fact that you don't convert into fiat's does that mean that there's less regulations on you was that for regulatory reasons or was that because you actually believe in just dealing in digital currencies you want to on bank yourself so yes two reasons one is i think the future will be one in which few currency starts to go away it will be out competed in the marketplace by a block based technologies. so i want to build something that would be big in the future not not building it for what currently exists but what will exist in the future and. the financial regulations tend to be oriented around money

dollars and euros and so by avoiding touching any of that stuff we avoided a lot of the regulations. in most jurisdictions however the f.c.c. has just come down with a statement on initial clean offerings and any exchanges offering the tokens you have any tokens on the ship ship with a lot of tokens on shapeshifter we don't have any securities this is a shift yeah so you were already planning ahead for that you were if you know we're smart enough to figure some of these are securities yeah why i've had i had my own run in with the s.e.c. many years ago so i i'm always very much aware of you know them trying to impose their will on people and. anyone who follows the token world knows that some some tokens are very much securities the promise profits are dividends or voting rights or things like that many other tokens are definitely not securities like the theory of itself or be queen and there's a lot of stuff in the gray area and the f.c.c.

has not done anything to clarify where it draws the line all they've done is basically point to one of those very clearly security tokens the dow took and which was. hasn't been around for over a year and they said that was the security so that was the surprise to anyone and shape shift didn't have securities on the site before and you know we review it a little more closely now after that as you see letter but i don't think it'll change much of what we're doing what is your impression of the overall market started as kind of a trickle and now it's like a deluge of ice you know it's i can't figure one out from the other yeah so it's a it's a total bubble right now it's an absolute speculative bubble but that doesn't mean that the fundamental mechanism of raising money through a token offering is illegitimate i think it's a great way for projects either you know nonprofits or organizations or protocols or for profit companies to raise lots of money often without dilution so that's

that's great and i think people are so excited about this new means of financing that they get a little crazy and. that's ok clear out of the the bubble will pop and people will start to be a little more careful with which projects the invest in but it's a very valid model and i think it's going to change how finance works all over the world there certainly seems to be a lot of pent up demand by those who are not considered sophisticated qualified investors you have to have a couple hundred thousand more or two million in the bank or something and you have to invest in the yeah so the s.c.c. in the united states takes a strange position in which only wealthy people are allowed to invest only they are smart enough only they are smart enough and it's extremely paternalistic and i would say highly unethical to legally prevent certain sectors of society from investing especially when you're protecting the rich people and only giving them the ability to invest in the earliest start ups i think that's horrendous however

early start ups have a high failure rate yeah they're worse one must expect that you if you buy fifty tokens for example thirty of them might just disappear but the other yeah most new companies most new projects most new ideas and most new tokens are going to fail and not be worth anything that's ok that's that's how experimentation works but to preclude everyone from true from making those decisions for themselves as adults i think is is the an ethical part they don't mind them buying lottery tickets and yeah chances of losing on the lottery are way higher right it's the state governments will it will sell lottery tickets in which you will definitely lose and which are catered to the very poorest people in the world or not in the world but in the us they're allowed to buy lottery tickets and lose all their money doing that but they're not allowed to invest in a new start up that's crazy and hopefully that is one of the hypocrisy crypto

technology will help reveal so there are so many tokens so many new companies there is a lot of attention now and all across the mainstream media when we first talked to you even in twenty fifteen. hardly anybody in the mainstream media was talking about decline or anything in the crypto space that everybody has it is more attention is pulling in a lot more people in terms of the bubble aspect could you like and some of this too like the dot com bubble there were a lot of every company put dot com after their name in order to increase their valuation and maxes in the dot com industry back at that point and the more you are losing the more valuable you are because you're spending rate was high and therefore you must be taken up in volume. so do you see that sort of situation that a lot of what we see right now will be like sort of quaint historical momentos of those tokens or those companies that existed yeah i think some of the pros in the future people will look back and go i can't believe that project raised one hundred million dollars or million dollars. but that's that's fine you know i think as much

as you can spend time with people telling them how important is technology is and how much it changes the fundamental structure of finance they won't listen or care until they own somin the price starts rising and they will care and then they will watch and they will learn so the fact that there are these bubbles that happen in this cryptocurrency industry i think actually pulls a lot of people in and gets them interested for for better or worse because it seems like for some people the only reason that they care is when the prices going up yeah but also the on the other side is as soon as you engage in currency in crypto currency or blotching then you start to understand it like it would have been like for exist in the dot com era sense where i was comparing it to that like had you just bought dot com stocks and never got on the internet never sent an email didn't know what the internet was when you were just buying things to go up but here at the actual process of participating you get to understand the

system is in first entry it's like getting your email or equivalent to getting online getting a browser yeah and so of all the new people that are getting involved because the prices are rising. so portion of them will just leave when the prices fall again but another portion will actually realize that this is changing the world and they will stay involved and they will start contributing to the projects and you know they will be part of this growing ecosystem so it goes back to this girl at this conference up in aspen i talked to this woman and she has a crypto company now and she said you know it was i ran into you a max i groucho club two years ago and max mentioned cryptocurrency s. and i didn't know what it was and i he she had sent him a few emails and he was trying to explain it and i still didn't understand it so i just started using it and i learned that now she is a crypto currency company and yeah it's flying around the world yeah and it's one of those things like a bicycle right like you could read a textbook on a bicycle and not know how to ride one you wouldn't understand it but once you do it and you go through that learning process then you get it your brain understands

that new system how it works and you can use it comfortable without much work after after the initial start up so more and more people are getting comfortable with crypto and this is what helps some delay because eventually displace currencies around the world so you know you and i have been so many conferences back to two thousand and eleven it's amazing to watch the progress of the sort of people that come the early twenty eleven twenty twelve it's almost exclusively you know code writers cryptographers and arco capitalist libertarians and it's amazing to see that. all these like politicians and you know bankers showing up at these conferences some people in the audience here have been asking questions isn't a bad sign that bankers are getting involved what do you say to that yeah good question so i've always been of the opinion that as because grows it will pull in the entire world into its orbit and that means everyone that means the people that

pay banks and that means the banks themselves the banks are starting to experiment with the technology they'll learn how to use it some of them will go extinct because they won't adopt and others were. adapt and get stronger and that's all that's all fine i'm not anti bank i'm anti fraudulent money and so to the extent that banks start using crypto assets i think that's a you know that's much better for humanity now we were just talking about the fact that once you participate might be the price going up that you want to get in on the bubble but by just participating you learn so much mind blowing technology. you mention bankers and fraud jamie dimon c.e.o. of j.p. morgan biggest bank in america called it a fraud but i found it interesting that he is saying this after involvement in a block chain consortium with these other banks so do you think he like these he could've seen exactly what it is by the process of engaging in boxing he understood

exactly how much j.p. morgan stands to lose and it's in his he's incentivized to try to trash it yeah and i think he's trashing bitcoin as if means of currency as an as an alternative to feel i think he understands that block chains have certain technical value too to j.p. morgan chase or any other company but he thinks because specifically as a as an alternative to feel is a fraud which is which is very funny considering the company he works for and how many fraud lawsuits that they've dealt with in the billions of dollars in front of this wall here so i don't know i mean he's he's not going to have a favorable opinion of a technology that makes him redundant yes now one thing about bitcoin in the early days there was a lot of competition between miners and developers and core and big cash and all these other currencies but there was always this notion is that a store of value or is it

a payment system what do you think is so far who is winning that debate which which side is winning that debate in terms of is it a store of value or is it a means of exchange i think it's a false dichotomy and i think because it is best if it is both things i'm not sure that that has a door of value would ever happen without it also being useful for a means of payment and vice versa they are they're not mutually exclusive because there's a great store of value and it's you know going up a billion percent against the dollar and the other for yacht. and it's a great payment system i can send a million dollars to someone in charge. you know without anyone getting in the way of that transaction so it is both and it should be both and anyone who's trying to categorize it as one thing or another i think doesn't understand it very well. that's a good point and thanks for being on the press report thank you stacy well that's going to do it for this episode of the guys report with me and max kaiser and our guest eric where he is if you want to get in touch tweet us a prize report by hal. here's

what people have been saying about rejected and i was actually just pull along. the only show i go out of my way to lunch you know is that really packed a punch oh yeah it is the john oliver of r t america is doing the same we are apparently better than that i see people you've never heard of. jack tonight president of the world bank so. many seriously you sent us an e-mail.