thousand the u.s. retail giant mcgovern rewards announced that it was going out of business after one hundred and twenty eight years we used to affectionately call it monkey wards when i was a kid and as it turns out there's a reason for that there is actually a glass enclosed monkey cage at the wynn would mall in dallas texas in the early one nine hundred sixty s. and so people started calling it monkey wards there's your freaky fact for the day but since mcgovern rewards went out of business back in two thousand larger retailers have had a hard time change like payless food issues the limited radio shack have gone all gone under when radio shack went out of business one thousand doors were closed where does one buy a crystal radio these days online of course this year macy's j.c. penney and sirius all announced the closing of hundreds of stores after disappointing results from by actually last year's the two thousand and sixteen holiday shopping season sirius may not be the biggest ute us retailer standing but

they are arguably the most iconic their mail order catalog was once a fixture of american households in fact some facts some families even ordered their actual houses out of the catalogs they sold how this isn't catalogs for vaal things and then there are the hard numbers we continue to see a large number of retail bankruptcies registered by s. and p. global intelligence in fact in may of this year the number of such bankruptcies eighteen had already equaled all the bankruptcies for two thousand and sixteen plus retailers dillard's kohl's sears and macy's have all taken big falls on the fortune five hundred list why is this occurring well myriad reasons including but not limited to the bursting of the consumer credit bubble back in two thousand and eight that came with that crash of the housing market when people couldn't borrow against their equity anymore the rise of amman and amazon and other online shopping of course especially for clothes and the loss of middle class due to the stagnant

wages and the upward shift in wealth towards household that are more likely to spend on luxury goods and items you might get the local mall. still some retailers including costco t.j. maxx and home depot have really beaten the trends and as we've reported on this program this year is black friday and cyber monday both set records with cyber monday two thousand and seventeen entering the history books as the biggest shopping day ever this suggests that there is still ways for chump change to survive if they can leverage their brick and mortar presence with a really resoundingly retail strategy. not too long ago the u.s. men's soccer team was eliminated from competing in the twenty first fateful world cup leaving fans feeling anguished one sports economist says that loss could also

have some financial implications more about that we're joined now by the actor matheson professor of economics at holy cross victory he wrote on the blog of the sports economist at the u.s. not being in the world cup could mean money problems for russia which is the event's host next year how sell well so the united states isn't always known as a big soccer power however when it comes to the world cup u.s. soccer fans like to travel almost like no other country in the world in both south africa and brazil we had as many people come in from the united states to visit those countries as essentially any other country in the world. so you know sort of mentioned this but the u.s. is not exactly a quote soccer mad nation and a mess but american fans have traditionally made up a big portion of the fans that attend the world cup so why do you think that is. so it's at least in part due to the fact that we're just such

a big country right over three hundred million people in the country as a whole we're going to get a lot more tourists go into the world cup than maybe in iceland this year smallest country in the world cup with only three hundred thousand residents in the entire country so that's certainly one piece there and maybe another piece is the fact that our own domestic leagues major league soccer here in the u.s. maybe aren't the sort of things that inspire the u.s. fans is as much as in other countries so for example in germany the fans might go and travel around the world to see byron munich and maybe not as much to see the german national team here in the united states if you're going to travel around the world to watch you know one of your teams it's got to be the national team because you're not seeing d.c. united or the l.a. galaxy on the world stage as a club so do you think fans from other countries and particularly the ones that are quote soccer mad make up for the lost of the u.s.

tourists are almost certainly not right if you think about the sort of teams who are going to come from this region of the world instead of the united states that's going to be a coast to reka it's going to be a honduras it's going to have an amount of much much smaller countries in the united states certainly won't do anything to make up for the maybe fifty thousand u.s. soccer fans that might have normally been expected to go over to russia what about the businesses that try to profit from the world cup for example these an ounce to amping up point of sale terminals to accept digital payments made their phones or even smart watches during the event are they going to be hurt financially in the same way. well that's certainly a bit obviously also if your big advertiser who bought time already for world cup games here in the united states a certainly if your ship might be down some. and again the all of russia was counting on huge numbers of course from all around the world and of course those

host countries don't always have complete control over how many tourists are going to show up exactly for reasons like this of course we've got some other big soccer powers missing the netherlands italy also countries to travel fairly well with their teams and you're also missing countries like china which is again not a soccer med nation but certainly a place with lots of potential tourists that could have been flooding into russia with lots of money so it sounds like networks could probably be hurt by this too i know fox sports paid four hundred million dollars to obtain the english speaking rights in the u.s. is that a decision they're going to regret. i would say they certainly will regret it somewhat that being said united states is one of probably the few countries in the world where you could actually get away with your home team not being in the event and still having a lot of people show up so during the last during the last world cup in two thousand and fourteen the most watched game of the world cup here in the united

states was not actually any of the games that the united states was in but wasn't back the final itself which was the highest watched sporting event outside the n.f.l. in the entire united states a year the world cup is about six months away is there anything russia can do to prevent offset the projected loss in revenue your expect thing we might see. so pretty unlikely again there's just some things that are always out of your control and how and what teams show up and how well they do is is one that's completely up to serendipity for example in brazil brazil got very very lucky they had the same sort of stadium problems that many hosts of had huge cost overruns there but when it came to the actual term in itself they got the best possible outcome they got neighboring argentina made it all the way to the final and because of that as many as two hundred fifty thousand extra tourists showed up in brazil beyond what people would normally have expected because it was an easy last minute trip for people

from neighboring argentina to make so if you're russia what you're hoping for is well you were hoping for the united states and some of these other big countries to make it in the first place but we're also hoping for is maybe a deep run into the tournament by some some countries that could easily get their last minute so maybe hope for germany to make it all the way to the finals i want to switch gears now and ask you about the n.f.l. after nearly a year protests the league and the players coalition reach an agreement for the organization and its owners to provide one hundred million dollars in funding for social activism projects deemed important by the players what are your thoughts on how that arrangement could work out. well so obviously this has been something hugely been in the n.f.l. and of course the rest of the country. teams owners players don't want to be seen coming out on one side or the other of the political divide pretty easy way to

alienate half of your fans in a partisan nation like we've got today we definitely have seen this two years in a row of viewership being down in the n.f.l. doesn't make any difference for this year's t.v. contract since that's already inked on that deal but it certainly could make a lot of differences new deals come forward in the future. question is what can you do to try to tamp all this down at least one compromises is trying to get the players to be standing during the anthem and to acknowledge some of their problems by by donating to their choice of charities some people obviously have been critical of this is in that are you just redistributing n.f.l. charitable funds from one charity to another it's hardly a win for the players if you get money going into social justice organizations but being taking out of places like the cure for cancer. victor matheson professor of

economics at holy cross thanks so much for your time. well thank you for having me . teachers students in schools across the united states are speaking out against the g.o.p. tax plan after moody's downgraded its rating for higher education artie's david miller has the latest on the ratings and how students will adjust to higher costs and less deductions you have for public universities across the united states are facing financial uncertainty and this comes after moody's downgraded its financial outlook for higher education to a negative rating from a stable reading rating credit rating agency predicted that the growth of the industry's expenses will outpace revenue growth for the next twelve to eighteen months public universities empathetically will face numerous money woes because to federal financial aid programs or even funding growth it fails to keep up with

inflation but exaggerate higher educations problems moody said increase of two wish in revenue research funding and state contributions will remain subdued the agency says expect that the sector's expenses will rise by four percent but less than twenty percent of public four year institutions will see the revenue increase by more than three percent and more than half of private institutions will achieve growth of a least three percent and the g.o.p.'s tax bills could hurt college as private fund raising increase borrowing calls for private activity the bonds and depressed graduate student enrollment also at play are the federal immigration policies which could decrease international student enrollment and both the house of representatives and the senate have passed legislation in recent weeks that would overhaul the u.s. tax code the bills have been harshly criticized by higher education leaders geo. the plan would also prevent americans from deducting from taxable income the

interest paid on student loans benefit saves borrowers two hundred two dollars a year on average this is according to an american enterprise institute analysis of federal data and changes in financial aid programs and tax reform could work to further negatively impact in rome and to wish revenue growth donations and the cost of borrowing the g.o.p. plan would also repeal a provision tax payers to deduct up to four thousand dollars a year into question and living expenses and if they earn less then sixty five thousand dollars a year in adjusted gross income and critics of the bills that hardworking students would suffer as a result of many of the provisions and with the downgrade and ratings from movies a question is how will the united states continue to compete in terms of education and advancement in a global economy reporting for boom bust david miller r.t. america.

stay right there plenty more best of boom bust is on the way we'll be right back. a robot governments can be much more rational and lots more compassion to. all of human governments that. people will be more happy with the situation. with the. us running insisting that we do not in keeping them i am. i must.

i mean you when you. who are new. when you don't need you to go should start with. oh. yes yes to. showcase they. don't need. to do from a jewish when you want. to do everything just to discuss but the custos throne room just over young. this is the last edition of cross talk for the year and we're doing something different we also questions from you our viewers.

on wednesday the federal reserve decided to raise interest rates for the third time this year policymakers pointed to a few reasons behind their decision like lower unemployment higher household spending and bigger investments by businesses to get her insight on that we're joined now by danielle de martino booth president of money strong l.l.c. and author of fed up and insiders take on why the federal reserve is bad for america danielle this decision was widely expected to happen but there's still work to fed presidents that voted against raising rates was the right decision made on wednesday. well i think the fed is still playing

a very aggressive game of catch up if i had my druthers we would be a two percent right now and call it a day we're certainly not there and evans and cash cari are tory asli dovish cash couriers dissented every time the fed has raised interest rates. according to him they should still be down at point six two five percent somewhere in that area which is just ridiculous it's the same thing as being at the zero down and it's what has fomented so much financial instability but beyond that we don't really have to worry about them because they rotate off after yesterday when we know that jerome powell is probably going to continue on the same path of his predecessor but new york fed president bill dudley is leaving next year and president trump still hasn't nominated a vice chair for the fed's board so do you think that could maybe throw a wrench into what everyone is expecting for the fed in the next year look this is a full blown regime change it is anybody's guess i was i was intrigued

yesterday the president of the united states managed to have a press conference in the middle of janet yellen press conference i found that to be extraordinary but you know what we really didn't need to pay attention to her last press conference because anything can change going forward because the cast of characters is almost completely different than what it used to be well during the press conference eon finally answered some questions on crypto currency calling big corn an unstable source of value that doesn't constitute legal tender but she then added that the fed had been doing research on creating their own digital currencies even though she emphasized there is no plan to do so at least not right now so i'm curious what are your thoughts on that. well so you're talking about fed corn and i'm kind of aligned with jay powell and randy quarrels who's new to the federal reserve board and their take on a federal reserve electronic currency that the time is premature but because

countries like china and japan and russia and venezuela we know that they've they've taken steps to implement their own which means the united states is going to have to have its own electronic currency as well as a matter of national security that being said i would certainly side with again corals and powell and their view is that if we do have a fed currency of some kind the transactions themselves would have to be i'm not a miss as opposed to using fed coin as a means by which to monitor the purchases of the purchases of u.s. households well as you just alluded to central banks around the world have a lot of differing opinions on bitcoin for example india has totally banned it over concerns about money laundering and other financial crimes but in the u.k. bank of england governor mark carney said cryptocurrency could be part of a potential revolution in finance so what do you think the biggest concerns about

bitcoin are at the fed. well i think the fed should rightly be concerned about anything that's basically gained fifteen hundred percent in short order and surpasses the size of the tulip mania of sixteen thirty any time any time anything goes parabolic i think that is the central banker you have to have that on your radar screen because it's simply a reflection of a speculative mania. that being said the block chain technology itself i think will indeed revolutionize finance in the years to come the backbone of block chain if you will which is eventually going to be quantum technology really has not been mastered and rolled out yet but i think that scientists and bankers alike have their eyes set on crypto currencies as being a massive part of the future of finance and of transactions as we know it i want

to ask you about tax reform now for a second do you think wednesday's decision could have any sort of role in or impact on tax cuts and jobs act that the g.o.p. is trying to pass. well look i'm not so sure that i would give politicians that much credit that they're paying so close attention to to to interest rates not to be disparaging at all but i will say the if the fed continues on their expected have in twenty eighteen and that would be three or more interest rate hikes by what we saw from the dot plot that at some point congress is certainly going to start waking up because the borrowing costs of the country are going to go through the roof and the c.b.s. projections might not come to pass in terms of what this tax plan is going to cost us right well aside from the cryptocurrency craze or taxes what other domestic issues and concerns do you think that the fed will have to really focus on moving

forward into the next few years. well there's a lot of tension right now for fed policymakers scuse me there are differing. signs coming out of the economic data itself it looks like the unemployment rate is going to breach four percent to the downside and in fact the fed has incorporated that into their forecast that by the end of next year we'll have a three point something percent unemployment rate for the first time since the dot com mania of the late one nine hundred ninety s. pipeline pressures are building the producer price index came out of a six year high and yet the household sector as we know continues to show signs of balance sheet stress so these are very conflicting situations for policymakers at the fed to have to contend with the question is will they or will they only pay attention to signs that inflation is building and over

hike the economy into recession which is what the difference between the two year yield and the ten year yield flattening as it has is communicating loud and clear bianca danielle de martino booth president of money strong l.l.c. and author of fed up and insiders take on why the federal reserve is bad for america thanks so much for your time as always. thank you appreciate it. tara back in april of two thousand and fifteen michael tang and tina lam bought a residential street in san francisco for ninety thousand dollars they made their purchase at an auction after residents with homes on the street hadn't paid a fourteen dollar a year tax bill in decades once that the neighborhood learned of what happened led to a lot of drama by the time they heard that chang and lamb planned on charging them

to park on the street some residents hired attorneys and even a p.r. firm to fight the sale it turns out they put up a pretty good fight because i'm to say city supervisors voted seven to four to overturn the purchase the tank said he had a feeling that was coming telling reporters i don't get the sense that they're very keen on backing the state law and the tax collector on this. we probably spend more time per minute on the air than other programs discussing digital currencies and the block chain these topics are so new and so all valving it looked to be changing the financial system in a really fundamental fashion that what we're talking about taking place really needs to be covered plus it's fun but uncertainty about what's going on and what's going to take place around the corner remains despite our best efforts to try and see the future will bitcoin be around for decades is there another digital currency

among the hundreds that might be better for the longer term given the positive global economy there is money looking to be poised whether it's in resort places like central pay or monaco or big city financial centers like shanghai hong kong new york or london who knows what will happen with digital currencies or the blocking so in my third and last offer of financial post three for the year here's the question i posed to an audience at hong kong's been tech week not too long ago . china russia centra pay mr diamond president putin they've had their say money six a place to play so many ways to go today what's to gain from block chain what values might we soon attain will they replicate again and again will it be all growth with no pain will it revolutionize payment systems so many we can't even list them have some governments already sealed the fates of i c

o o's are our regulators saying just won't take it slow or maybe just because it's you oh do you really want to be in this big virtual show the one with potential for serious dough there's a few things these regulators would like to know maybe get a cut of the cash flow there must be something that you oh i see oh and regulators sometimes sound like fools but they can make markets crawl so just how should they fashion rules what are the appropriate oversight tools do they just say no and draw a line or they tax the volume or close the digital minds how much should bad actors be fined and then again should they do hard time and what about the existing coins and tokens some are hot they're really smoke and others well they're just jokes and there is one we can rest our hopes in. doesn't vesting and pot coin make one mellow or make one's legs shake like jello is the bit coin bang wagon something we should join or could investors get a kick in the growing will ripple triple should we stash that will mean there'll be

a hero woolsey crash crash what about light coin waves or ether ami's then neither maybe neither perhaps will be some new something with transparency we can all see through tied to the tangible you know something true and short investors don't get the screw could it be based upon something real something we can all touch and feel that might be ideal less risk with pretty great appeal it could be something to have to search subject to misuse or abuse something widely honored news and daily commerce that will hold a lot of promise so before big vendors consider flight the digital currency have a white knight is that out there now or just out of sight lots of questions loom who the heck is going to get it right. thanks for watching be sure to catch boom bust on you tube at youtube dot com slash boom bust r.t. see you next time.

comes you call russia no one is ever no one has ever heard of a country never even heard about most cool.

little cold snow or. bridge to come in the studio to even. yao's knows. he spoke. into. the so the for. the city of luxury

and free but also an alarming number of people living in the streets. the simple fact in l.a. is there's just not enough shelter even if people on the streets right now decided to come in there's no where to come in and it's been a struggle. this man from his own response to the problem and construct dozens of tiny homes for people in need of shelter when you have nothing in order to go. you know having something like this may as well be a castle to the earth or to use except such solution tiny house on a city parking space is not a solution your craft or someone want to touring the site otherwise it will be a free for all there are a better alternative to envy homelessness crisis. palestinians

declare another day of rage in response to president of trans recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital they have exclusive first stage of the clashes in the west bank and gaza it's still a think it's uprising quite tense and we can certainly smell tear gas in the way. that. kidnapped and sold for two thousand dollars at an islamic state slave market we speak to a fifteen year old girl who managed to escape from terrorist activity. and facebook and twitter face the banks and if they fail to help a british parliamentary probe into alleged russian interference in the break that.