as we mentioned a little bit earlier america's ambassador to the un reveal about donald trump plans to stop funding a u.n. agency that's giving aid to palestinian refugees shortly after a violent the u.s. leader himself suggested cutting donations to the palestinian administration well in a tweet he claims that the spike giving them hundreds of millions of dollars a year they show no appreciation or respect to the u.s. also suggested cutting aid because according to him the palestinians are not willing to talk peace with israel however that's something the palestinian administration does not agree with the president's office is that true islam is not for sale and that they are backing away from that but stressed they should be based on international law now last year the palestinian authority received around three hundred million dollars in aid from the us quite a sum but that pales in comparison to the three billion dollars that israel

received from washington in any case though mr barghouti from the palestinian national initiative sees palestine doesn't need foreign aid to sustain itself. the worst thing in his statement. was his declaration that he's taking off. from the people of negotiations he's deciding whom you like you're really what is it and one and he still wants us to come to the table which is empty the man been officially from the money that is coming to palestinian authority is israel you might be surprised about that but most of that money goes to funding security cooperation with israel and israel is in need for that security cooperation not palestinians we are not dependent on foreign is as a matter of fact the total amount of money that is coming from europe from the states and from other countries is no more than sixteen percent of the budget of the palestinian authority while the public palestinians are being with their taxes

it is four percent of the cost of the palestinian authority in my opinion. that money is not is not going to affect us seriously so he can take a. well iran palestine north korea all have been on the sharp end of donald trump's twitter i personally as the us president continues to pioneer his own unique brand of social media diplomacy and this evolution off explains concern is growing that his online invective could have serious real world consequences. christmas the new year even the seasonal holidays haven't put the brakes on trump's twitter train in twenty eight seen pakistan got its first. united states has foolishly given pakistan moving thirty three billion dollars in aid over the last fifteen years and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit thinking of our leaders as food they give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in afghanistan with little help no more

no love lost their trumps administration has been walloping pakistan for months but it's not like anything in particular happened on monday to trigger the backlash. but to say this tweet got islam about an age would be an understatement three ministers including the prime minister the army the navy and air force chiefs all converged for an emergency security meeting following trump's post the u.s. ambassador was summoned for an explanation as protesters burned american flags in the streets then it was the turn of iran one of the biggest thorns in donald trump's side. iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the bammer administration the great iranian people have been repressed for many years they are hungry for food and for freedom along with human rights the wealth of iran is being looted time for change the islamic republic has been erupting in rallies and briards as people have been swarming the streets both

against and in support of the government people died the tweet hasn't gone unnoticed in iran urging against the violence president rouhani denied to trump the right to sympathize with the nation well when done with the middle east trump couldn't help but pay the classic twitter tribute to his one and only rocket man. sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have an impact on north korea soldiers are dangerously fleeing to south korea rocket man now wants to talk to south korea for the first time perhaps that's good news perhaps not we will see well apparently this was donald trump's knee jerk reaction to south korea offering to hold high level talks with the north after pyongyang suggested the countries should meet to discuss the next olympics it's not government policy it's the. ravings of a person who speaks before thinking or tweets before thinking in

a one way or hope that the people on the receiving end of these things would take them with a grain of salt because. you know trump may. they say those things but he can't act on them because he's got a whole bureaucracy behind him that doesn't agree with them so. it's very destabilizing in and i think it's undermining us ability to negotiate solutions to problems so whatever policy don't trump is concocting stirring trouble on twitter is something that is going to stay done up. coming up to a quarter of an hour into the program after the break we're joined by former u.s. congressman ron paul who examined trump's economic record after almost a year in a state with our interest.

because gold is periodic album number seventy nine is unique attributes that make it great for money. with not more in the back you mean has got forty years of history to it as evolved through all these technologies it's a unique protocol and it's like gold it is attracting a huge amount of capital for for the for this achievement and you can't say that you can simply go out there and create another one there are competitors of course just like there are competing species on planet earth for energy and survival but there's only one the apex predator that is at the moment before he dies from all

the dark. welcome back with his first year in office drawing to a close the u.s. president has been talking up his economic record in typical trump style. he can now make miracle created more than two million jobs unemployment is under seventeen you know the stock market is at an all time high fantastic for the economy our economy has already surged to three percent growth unemployment is at a seventeen year low littering the american economy and our economy is doing well. but one man who does not share president trump's optimism is former u.s. congressman ron paul and he joins us live now from texas always a pleasure to have you on the program so what do you make of trump's record why in

your view is it not perhaps as positive as the figures seem to suggest his supporters would say the stock market's going up jobs are being created is that not worthy of praise. well it is because we're all true there's partial truths there are things that are a little bit better if you're in the stock market wealthy person here doing quite well but what we're forgetting here when we listen to this rhetoric of all this optimism is that there's a large segment of our population as have been a difficult time we have two types of society here the lower fifty percent in the top ten or fifteen percent and the economy is doing well for the wealthy but not for the for the poor and where there is prosperity and more jobs it depends on debt yes an individual can feel very good if they have a line of credit to the bank but eventually that line of credit runs out we in this

country benefit because we have the reserve currency of the world we can run up a lot of debt and we can spend a lot of money and even with that we've had a great deal of difficulty is last eight years trying to get out of the recession and i quite frankly don't believe you are really out of that recession but believe me we have a lot more debt itself limiting and i think before this year is out the amount of debt that we have is going to be a great great burden because interest rates are creeping up and all of a sudden that's going to make our budgetary problems very difficult to handle further than in an interview recently saying that the system is coming apart very direct language what did you actually mean by that because there are those who would disagree with you saying that you know the impending economic meltdown is always coming but the system just keeps going on does it not. yes that is true you know in austrian economics which i follow which is quite

a bit different from keynesian economics or social see konami it teaches that you can see the direction of the economy and predict you know bubbles in it but you can't predict timing we do know that if you have a central bank and they have credibility and that they can print money and seem to stimulate things we know that there is a bubble coming and i see everything we do is a big bubble and all those q.e. s. that we have dealt with in these last eight years of just created a huge bubble and everything is in excess whether it's our military budget our overseas engagements whether it's the welfare state and that bubble will come to an end but austrian economics say you may know the direction of the country but you don't know whether it's going to be tomorrow or next year there will be some event that will pop up and the fragility of the economy will all of a sudden become apparent and there'll be a rush to the ex's and this has to be reversed we will have to pay for our extravagance the type of break up as you say would be like the selfie

experience what kind of comparison did you make and why. well the way i see this is in economic terms and my understanding is that it was in that our military build up in the united states that brought the soviet system down what happened was the soviets were working with a system that we we as freedom people and free markets so it is totally on viable socialism and fascism and communism is not viable and eventually you know it can be held together with force but eventually it ends and keynesianism in deficit financing in the federal reserves and and welfare is a. miller militarism it's not viable so i say where it's coming to an end and although i have said it's going to be we're going to have a sudden cataclysmic and which is sort of what happened to the soviet system it's not going to be identical and i pointed out that it was different the there was

sort of a session movement in some of those countries left the soviet system and our states are probably going to break up but i do sincerely believe that we will no longer be able to afford our empire around the world so our our empire that we have out there although we don't claim ownership to it it's a lot of money and a lot of influence and we so with weapons and we use sanctions to hold our empire together i think that's coming to an end so can the economy be turned around do you think or is it just going to come to a dire end as you say. well i always wish that you could work through the system and that's why i went in the congress but i never had. an allusion to think oh they're going to listen to me and i'll get some help there and we will be smart and we will quit printing the money and balance the budget and bring our troops home now i never expected that this is not going to happen no i think the turnaround will come and i'm optimistic on the long run because there are more

people like myself who are trying to promote the ideas of liberty and sound economic policy so no i think the big crash will come first and then it will be up for grabs i do think that we who believe in less government and the free market system we have a crack at it and we definitely will have to have monetary reform because it's very precarious right now and that's why you see the dollar getting weak kid weaker and other countries are talking about an alternative currency that is not easy to do but there's talk of that and i think eventually it will come about because i think the dollar will fail thank you very much for your time and thoughts this hour always good to have you in the program ron paul former u.s. congressman and presidential candidate thank you elections thank you very much. well after north korea's kim jong should a new year's day nuclear warning to washington the u.s. president saying his nuclear button is bigger and better. the entire u.s. mainland is within the range of our nuclear strike and the button is always on the

table in my office space you clearly know that this is certainly not a threat but rather a reality when someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that i too have a nuclear bomb but it's a much bigger and more powerful woman his and my but this is certainly not anything to joke about but i think the situation despite the confrontational rhetoric has been step ally's somewhat there's a recognition that there is a stalemate rex tillerson a few weeks ago did indicate the possibility of negotiations even without preconditions donal's from probably believe that this kind of talk remains popular with his right wing supporters certainly donald from at this state does not believe that he is ready to make the first small so perhaps a tool careers may make the first move. well kim jong un has now reopened

a cross border communications link with south korea in what's being seen as a significant diplomatic breakthrough but the standoff between the u.s. and north korea looks set to continue in twenty eight dean after what's already been twelve months of personal attacks and vicious threats from both sides. here of strategic patience. with the north korean regime has failed. the korea best not make any more threats to the united states. they will be met with fire as a fury. the u.s. neglects the international community's will establish peace on the korean peninsula behave like children fighting each other in kindergartens and nobody can stop them . and we can't have been

out there shooting rockets all over the place we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea. rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself no one of them prompt himself is on a suicide mission ed and i know you didn't change and i guess. how do you get a plot on you know we need the pools we need dialogue. is a sick puppy. a lot is old news for now this is our senior national it's you again in thirty five minutes time but more programs right ahead and it will. join me every thursday on the alex salmond chill and i'll be speaking to us from

the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. los angeles the city of luxury and fame 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 nowhere to come in it's been a struggle. and this man found his own response to the problem and constructed 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 but do the authorities accept such solution. on

city parking space is not a solution. someone wanted touring the site otherwise it'll be a free for all and is there a better alternative to end the homelessness crisis. this is boom bust broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. i'm bart chilton and i'm not just filling in this time i'm actually in over the years i've been a guest on myriad television program then radio program i was a guest with ed schultz on his show radio and t.v. and when the news with ed schultz began here at r.t. america i was pleased to join him on occasion and last year i had the good fortune

to meet lindsay france the former host of this show boom bust and enjoyed being her guest so thanks to lindsey france and especially thanks to ed schultz and to the experience an expert management here in america really pleased to host the program and now i get to question more and i can't think of a more important time in my life to be doing so there's more social economic and political turbulence and tumble even a little trouble than i've ever seen in my life my pledges to keep boom bust fun entertaining and lively but to ensure that we do what i've tried to do throughout my career and to let folks in on what's going on not just in washington and other capitals around the world but on wall street and in global financial centers the intersection between the washington's and wall street to the world have never impacted main street an average folks so heavily i've always had strong opinions on many matters but 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 cos 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 to cheer on the nuclear proliferation program 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 determined 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 in 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 where you're a new breed of crypto currency designed to be harder to track due to law enforcement mainly monitoring bit of 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 users 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 at twenty eighteen joining us is veronica birkenstock a former member of the campaign finance committee and part of the trump transition team last here ms birkenstocks thank you so much for joining us many of us had all the 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 his 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 you i assume were really positive on what he talked about you know i wanted to give average folks a tax break and certainly of 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 have seen 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 say 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 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 are how about the wall where we give them a grade on the wall that was going to be built. the walls not built but i can't wait for today about texas has suffered many many years with 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 actually pass a spending bill that there will be allocated dollars to build in 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 particular 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 dollar 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 we actually see a reduction in what illegal immigrations actually cost in this country so when you look at that call spurs 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 put on the table where private enterprise and actually bit and actually work toward securing our borders let me ask you to disco 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 pollute lee 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.