we want we will demand all sides here boom bust we won't be overly partisan or oppositional that happens all too often in our society we won't merely drink the tea have our own biases we've become too divided too polarized to the point we don't even listen to each other. and part of that is because many times people are innocently being fed mis misinformation lies lies even political propaganda some of the false hoods are fabricated from whole cloth they're designed to deceit and to deceive people others for political positioning with titillating tall tales that are ten amount to fraud so what boom bust even in this topsy turvy world will endeavor to look past the commotion and the confusion and provide a compelling and financial business stories that impact you your families and our businesses with that i welcome actually banks joining me for today's show let's get

right into it bar let's get right to it. more than twenty two people have been killed and four hundred fifty protesters arrested in iran as iranian president hassan rouhani might be reevaluating his economic policy is iran continues to face a major protests in response to the nation's economic woes a study conducted by the key complaints of citizens found that the majority of people had issues with unemployment weak purchasing power corruption a weak currency the reaal and an unequal distribution of wealth among iran's regions these issues have been part of a larger problem since the lifting of economic sanctions think sions on iran back in two thousand and sixteen the same sions were put in place due to wrong to nuclear proliferation programme many of the citizens were anticipating a major economic boom but so far non oil parts of the economy are still struggling even as president rouhani introduced austerity measures which has been viewed and

negatively by the public while the government has officially determine the unemployment rate to be around twelve point five percent many believe it to be much higher among iran's younger population the reaal has also grown a weaker. against the u.s. dollar sinking to forty two thousand nine hundred from just thirty six thousand a year ago foreign investment which could be a boon to iran's economy has been minimal and part due to u.s. president donald trump stance against iran. but going the most common that crypto currency has long been a go to favorite for criminals operating on the dark what now there's a new criminal court on the rise making it easier to commit online crimes they're called privacy queens or you're a new breed of crypto currency designed to be harder to track due to law enforcement mainly monitoring bitcoin this new digital currency has flown under the

radar for the last few months europol the european union's law enforcement agency is going to report three months ago citing that crypto currencies like mon nero and z. cash are quickly becoming popular in the digital black market money has become so popular that it has risen in the ranks to become the queen of choice for online criminals because but coins underlying technology makes a detailed record of all transactions. take it a step further by encrypting the user's ip address and that of generating a fake what minerals price has quadrupled in value shooting up from ninety one dollars in october of two thousand and seventeen to nearly three hundred fifty dollars currently. later that mark the one year anniversary of donald trump's inauguration as

president let's take a bird's eye view of the past year and then take a look at that at twenty eighteen joining us is veronica birkenstock a former member of the truck campaign finance committee and part of the trump transition team last year ms birkenstock thank you so much for joining us many of us had all lot of high hopes last year for what candidate trump a spouse did his goals yet i'm not sure he's completed all those things for a number of reasons but how do you view what the president's done in the last year given that he's had these republican majorities how do you grade the president first first year in office. i think president has done amazing job i mean this tax reform this it was this first piece of major legislation that's actually passed through the house and senate but there's still a lot of work to do we've had a four percent growth rate in our g.d.p. and the mandate for health insurance that they are has been now null and void so i am very optimistic about what's going to happen in two thousand and eight ten cannot wait to see what actually happens on january nineteenth and and moving his

agenda forward so let's talk just a little bit about tax reform because i like a lot of people and you i assume were really positive on what he talked about you know i wanted to give average folks a tax break and certainly have corporate folks to the guy that follows business and finance and they got that they they want from you know thirty five percent down to twenty one percent but on average folks you know it's not so sure that this is going to be a good deal millionaires and people making above half a million dollars a year are going to get a tax cut but the folks that are making an average i think the average there in texas is like fifty six thousand and change and it's just a little bit higher than the national average those folks may be at a few hundred dollars but at the end of the the years you know they're going to pay a few hundred bucks so how does that square with what he promised or is that just

the best you think he could get done. well i think i disagree with you on that i think more than eighty or eighty five percent of people are going to actually say a huge drastic cut in their taxes not only in their taxes but also in the average wage we have unemployment now the lowest it's been in seventeen years and so we are seeing wages increase and most people will say i'm pretty sure by the time the payroll checks around the table where people actually be able to visually see it and not just hear the pundits who are disagreeing us and this was just a millionaire's program because i don't believe in that actually believe that the majority of the american people will actually stay a tax decrease this year well that's a talking point and i hope you're i hope you're right that that's not according to the the congressional budget office and what they said if you make over a million dollars you're going to get a nine thousand dollars tax cut the last year but the first year two thousand and nineteen you'll get a sixty thousand dollar tax increase and if you make below sixty thousand between

fifty and seventy five thousand you get eight hundred dollars tax cut the first year and then the last year you actually pay one hundred thirty eight dollars so i just i mean we'll see i guess the the reasoning here is that you know if businesses do better they will pass it on there is some evidence that folks will be you know hiring more people and i guess we'll just will this bank on on that help out on some of the other things you're in texas there or how about the wall what do we give them a grade on the wall that was going to be built. the wall is not built but i can't wait for it to texas has suffered many many years where the illegal activity coming across the border especially some of our and neighboring towns and cities and counties there on the border so i'm hopeful that that was actually going to happen come january nineteenth when we pass a spending bill that there will be allocated dollars to build and taxes exist they're excited about in my district here in district on twenty six we are huge advocates of building the wall how we're going to pay for this thing i mean you

know and i understand me look you've got a republican congress. i'm not sure why it hadn't been passed so far other than it's not that popular among all republicans many republicans particularly in the south but how we're going to pay for this i mean the entire time i was in government republicans have really been out there talking about the deficit and here with the tax bill we've got a one point five trillion dollars hole in the in the deficit and then with the the wall another one hundred billion dollars i guess is what some people are saying is sort of cost how we can actually pay for this thing. i think a lot of the cost savings actually a bailout when we actually see a reduction in what illegal immigrations actually cost in this country so when you look at the costs first is what we're going to be able to say once we actually can secure our borders i think that's where you'll see most of your savings i don't like to say private enterprise involved and securing our border hopefully that will be an option that's been on the table where private enterprise and actually bit and actually work toward securing our borders let me ask you just go to another minute

or so here because birkenstock but how about infrastructure i was in texas not too long ago and boy you need you need infrastructure improvement there just like the rest of the country it's one of the things that i also thought when candidate trump talked about it that we really needed to do it so far we've only seen six pages of talking points on it is it important in texas and do you think we're going to get that done this year. i absolutely think it will get done and it is definitely important not only to texas but many states and we had a lot of damage here in the hurricanes earlier in the year and lot of those cities are still recovering from those devastating storms and the flooding but we're also an emerging status far as new business is moving here to texas so that infrastructure is going to be critical when it comes to be able to expand in being able to absorb the increased traffic the increased need for homes and the increase a need for our bridges entertainment our water systems you know absolutely i hope

we get it done let me just ask you before we go we've got to get about got about sixty seconds what should is there anything out there that the president could have done better with this far as you're concerned anything it many mistakes were missteps he made. i mean there's always mistakes you can always go back and look at things you wish you had done better but i think he's done a very very good job considering while he was up against and and actually having to deal with the resistance and persistence and congress not being able to to move bills along fast enough but i think he's learned some of those lessons on how to negotiate obviously is probably the master of negotiation but they were going to see a lot of great wonderful things happen in two thousand and eighteen and i'm looking forward to seeing what happens in early january when the house and the senate come back together i know there is a meeting this weekend at camp david and i'm hoping and praying that mcconnell and ryan will get it right and start supporting our president and the his agenda forward not just for the well i just i just i also for the country yeah well i i hope you're right that some of the stuff good good you've done some of these

missteps the tweets and stuff to me just you know that's a learning curve that i hope it gets over but to i admire your optimism is birkenstock thank you very much and good luck with your race they are you thank you for joining us thank you have a blessed day thank you so much time now for a quick break but stick around because when we return we'll take a look at how the euro zone hit a record high in manufacturing plus in the wake of the tax reform bill officials and some high tech states are looking for ways to reduce the impact on their citizens who deductions for state and local income taxes will be care less the calls for his take on what might actually occur and as we go to the break here are the numbers at the closing bell.

it's the. cradle of jazz. the america is the america we are. told to suggest you are. a city of climatic telstra feed alligators on the loose of poverty and crime are used by the police to members of my family close my. street racing. piece of the night. new orleans. the best place in the world.

the new year is already a little bit happier for people who work for a living a variety of minimum wage increases took a back to yesterday and eighteen states as well as some cities many of the increases were passed by direct ballot initiatives as in arizona while some states including florida for example index their minimum wage to inflation many of the increases are part of a gradual increase is set to kick in over many years and to more booze for this year are in the pipeline for july and maryland and or get the current federal minimum wage is seven dollars and twenty five cents congress has not raised the minimum wage since two thousand and nine and failed to index its inflation it to inflation the inflation adjusted value of the minimum wage peak to in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight if it had kept pace with the increase in average wages it would be eleven dollars and sixty two cents according to the economic policy

institute a.b. i also found that if the minimum wage had kept pace with pride that productivity increases as a dead until nine hundred sixty eight it would be over one thousand dollars an hour today. meanwhile wages in some of the nation's most prosperous cities may finally be catching up with the tightening labor market but wall street journal reports that in cities including minneapolis and denver with unemployment under three percent wages are increasing and response minneapolis for example has an unemployment rate of just two point three percent and the labor department says private sector wages increase four percent year over year and the second quarter of twenty seven team the journal also reports that the basic trend of the wage increases at double the national average as also holding and cities including san who is a also in the end game want to bring all of this news as a report from the human resources management company paychecks the firm says their

small business jobs and excel point seventy eight percent for twenty seventeen overall the paycheck c.e.o. was reported as saying we still have moderate job growth wages are up just under three percent so we expect a lower job growth but so moderate and pretty straight for perhaps this news is the levering some a long delayed and sorely needed gains for working families in twenty team. manufacturing activity in the eurozone ended a strong twenty seventeen on a high note according to a survey of the region's purchasing executives published on tuesday and celebration in output new orders and employment all contributed to pushing the euro zone purchasing manager and x. to a record high but more on this our teaser david miller joins us now and happy new you guys good news for the european.