inten d.c. right here i'm barred chilton and coming up today we talk currencies and sovereign systems with david merkel of polish investments and ashley banks tells us how cars in germany are changing by law plus russia now holds more gold than china and has moved near the top of the list of nations with large gold reserves chris martenson explains why we do it all but first let's hit the headlines in his first testimony to congress federal reserve chair jay powell says his personal outlook for the u.s. economy has improved since december though powell said he would not want to prejudge the question of further interest rate increases most of the servers read his bullish comments as a signal that there will be perhaps three as many as four federal funds rate increases this year up from three discussed at the fed's the f o emcees meeting at the end of twenty seventeen powell was on worried about recent turmoil and stock

markets saying any risk to the broader economy were quote at most modest he did however note that cyber security is a major threat to economic stability more on that in the coming days. the supreme court has rejected the trumpet ministrations request for an immediate hearing on whether the president can end the obama era program that spares an estimated seven hundred thousand immigrants from the threat of deportation the trip administration argues that the creation of the program deferred action for childhood arrivals otherwise notice doc up was an unconstitutional use of presidential of forty two previous rulings imposed injunctions on the trumps administration actions to end dhaka and the justice department asked the supreme court for a rare action to bypass the appeals process the supreme court wanted nothing to do with it and rejected the administration's request this puts the dhaka dreamers an ape. place where they will not face deportation as previously thought on march

fifth. u.s. ship for united parcel service or u.p.s. is suing european union regulators for one point seven billion euros over two point one billion dollars over the denial of a merger with dutch delivery company in two thousand and thirteen u.p.s. abandon its seven billion dollar bid for t.n.t. express in the face of strong objections from the european commission and after three revisions aimed at addressing the commission's concerns rival federal express acquired t.n.t. in two thousand and sixteen for four point four billion euros now you p.s. is taking the commission to court in the e.u. in the wake of some rare court defeats for the regulator the european courts generally only look for legal errors and commission actions while u.s. regulators are only a few of their merger denials have been overturned. general electric has announced

it will overhaul its board by reducing the number of directors to twelve down from eighteen a year ago the changes that g.e. are happening as c.e.o. and chairman john flannery is planner planning majoring restructuring as we've reported before that could include breaking off some major divisions flannery has pledged to remove at least twenty billion dollars in assets from the company's balance sheet. a statement released from the weinstein group says that the bankruptcy is imminent following the collapse of talks with an investor group about selling the company harvey weinstein the co-founder and former fierce force in hollywood who last year fell from grace due to sexual misconduct spurred the demise of the once powerful company that he and his brother bob built the company's statement said quote while we recognize that this is an extremely unfortunate outcome for our employees our creditors and any victims the board has no choice the two brothers started their rise to the excess with the former company dream works

which was later sold to disney with the best picture winner of one nine hundred ninety eight shakespeare in love. and here to discuss money systems is david merchant all of it all off investments and the offer of the all of the blog david welcome back to boom bust you were here even before i was we we had several years ago so i'm glad you're back here thank you so yesterday we had on a guest that we've had several times and he's really a thought provoking fellow named jeffrey tucker and he posited in an opinion editorial that crypto currencies could mean the end of moneys it could change a currency is overall and i told him that you know three years ago i would have thought that was like nut bar factor eleven stuff but now even though i think it's far fetched. i want to give it a voice i want to talk about it so what do you explain first for our viewers what

are currencies what are you how to central banking systems work into that and then give me your take on crypto currency changing at all if you had currencies are called fia currencies because they're made on the say so of someone and usually it's the government with the central bank and the currency gets created as a result of two things one though they will be have cash in coin and then they will also have as a result of the banking system they will take in deposits and then the banks will use that to make loans and in the process credit is created and money is created so that is the traditional way that this is done now crypto currencies are an interesting thing. the question for crypto currencies in my opinion is how broadly can they be used right now they don't have a very broad usage outside of speculators and outside of sometimes illicit sources but i'll tell you the one thing that is that is not being taken into account yet on

that is fraud and when fraud comes up and when legal cases come up that's when crypto currencies are beginning to find oh wait the government does begin to horn in bit by bit because now say there's a divorce i read this today in an article somewhere on the web that somebody is now being forced to give up some of their bitcoins how is that going to happen well it can't be kept perfectly secret when the legal system comes into existence so i think crypto currency is are going to run into that wall and that's the history of currencies generally even even when you talk about things like a gold standard governments come in to regulate finest and wait and so and then governments come in to debase the currency to buy mixing lead in or tungsten or whatever so. it's impossible to keep the government out of currencies reminds me of there is another case divorce case actually in the news in illinois and in the the proceedings. the wife the spouse is seeking bank records from the

husband so currencies have a lot different meaning than they used to when the courts are doing that but explain for our viewers the difference between you know a sovereign system and the way that things operate just in general with how banks and all your money right is in a sovereign system the cash in coin your pocket has the same principle is the same inside the bank as it is in your pocket. the banks can't lend against deposits any longer in the sovereign system whereas they can in the ordinary systems that exist in the world now and as a result. the banks cannot do what's called maturity transformation where when they take in your deposits they then make loans against it there are long that is what basically expands the economy in a wide number of ways but it also leads to the boom bust cycle because if all the sudden the the the assets turn bad whether their mortgages or whatever type of

loans that are made there are immediate there can be an immediate demand for cash and a run on the bank this can't happen is a sovereign money system basically all of the deposits are walled off into their own little separate subsidiary that's not part of the bankruptcy estate at the bank and so as a result now the bank instead of making money off of your deposits now will have to charge you because they now that they're doing a transactional service for you but they're making no money off it ok now i mean a lot of this is a theoretical not and i mean it in that it would ever happen it right or have it out there conversation but i'm glad we're we're having and i appreciate the boom bust reference because i would never program if we didn't have boom bust cycles indeed but explain to me and our viewers about what's going on over in the e.u. in switzerland they have the bold ged it's bold geld is it that they're trying to do and there's a german name for they're trying to do a sovereign system. right right explain that and is that have any possibility of

passing or is that sort of a pipe dream it's a pipe dream in my opinion because they tried to actually back the the swiss franc with with gold there was a proposal about three years ago to put a twenty percent gold back in and it failed fairly miserably this is even more out there in the sense that you'd be changing the entire plumbing of the of the financial system there now if you're going to make a radical monetary proposal for reform the time to do it is immediately after a crisis when everybody is sympathetic to it but when things are good then they're not going to do that now there are several reasons why i mean this this is never been tried and as a result if i were a swiss citizen i'd be saying i've got things good already why am i going to take change and there are some downsides you know you're going to have to pay for your checking account or transactional accounts you're going to have to bear with inflation. the central bank will no longer know exactly i mean that they would

develop it over time but they wouldn't know right out of the box how do we handle monetary policy and the swiss central bank would be given a lot of powers that they don't exact that they don't have now it would become a much more central bank oriented system which means it would be a more politically oriented system also finally if the government begins to rely on some of the senora that comes out of the system for its funding they would have a difficult time constraining inflation because if the government is relying on the profits of the central bank then it becomes a problem ok so all of that is sort of theoretical not going to happen you say in switzerland get it but interesting to note maybe this is a place where we come back and you know a year eighteen months and we look at this conversation that we explained it here to our viewers i have a question for you before we go given that what you say about the time to make changes after a crisis i was pretty involved as you might imagine indicted frank in writing those rules sixty five of them might buy outright but now we've got this effort to pull. back on regulation do you think that's going to be successful in general. i think

some of it's going to be successful i hope the ones particularly for banking are not successful because i thought that was the best of dodd frank this is stomach risk stuff yeah yeah because there were a lot of things that put in that made the banks have to hold more capital that meant that the banks had to match their assets and liabilities better and constrain the way that they do their lending now that of course cuts bank profits and that's why the banks pushed back for years the banks had returns on equity that were double that of the rest of the finance sector and why because they were able to lever up far more than they should have been. david thank you so much david of polish securities and you have a great blog to write thank you thank you for being with us sure appreciate it. we take a quick pause for the promotional cause but hang right here because when we return ashley banks tells us just how a new law will change the vehicles that are driven in germany plus we speak with chris martenson about why russia has become

a new leader in holding physical gold and here are the numbers at the closing bell all three major u.s. stock markets as well as oil and gold in negative territory today but all those red arrows were back in a minute. with gold make this manufacture come sentenced to public will. when the ruling class is protect themselves. with the famous merry go round the sun be the one percent. we can all middle of the room sick.

good politicians to do something to. put themselves on the lawn. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or somehow want to be brits. that's a good way to be for us that's what before us three in the morning can't be good that i'm interested always in the waters of my. question. in some american cities the police have built themselves cling to refutation of people who walk on the streets of the united states who are at risk from the very

people who are supposed to protect that were people in no manner of freedom least some of us in the us. you can see something happening and this is like i don't want to call the cops let that happen rather than call the cops in those young black men lose their lives chasing the with the same goes on the trigger you never know better safe than sorry i don't know that someone else is going to gun so. unfortunately around around here we end up playing our guns on the dance told from such preclusion this was true when i went to. the netherlands to the netherlands is seeking to change its image as a tax haven for foreign multinational companies wishing to avoid home country taxes

as a euro zone's fifth largest economy in the netherlands is home to roughly nine hundred such shell companies the effort to combat the continued filings is the net in the netherlands a loop oil used even by rock bands like the rolling stones and u two there will be added a royalty tax beginning in two thousand and twenty one the tax will be imposed upon shell businesses that pay royalties in another country with a lower tax rate or in a jurisdiction that the e.u. has deemed non-cooperative on tax the netherlands ireland and luxembourg are all seen as the e.u. the lowest of the low tax jurisdictions. sales of new single family homes fell in january by seven point eight percent according to figures released by the commerce department on monday that sharp drop follows a nearly identical drop in december four of the past six months have seen drops in the sales category there was a regional bias to the drop with the northeast and south seeing the largest

declines the west and midwest by contrast saw gains leaving some analysts to blame the unexpected decrease on harsh winter weather market watchers will be especially keen to watch whether the northeast continues to trend bearish as a trump tax cuts may discourage home purchases in high cost areas. and comcast the us cable giant that owns n.b.c. telemundo and universal pictures is looking to add another company to that list this week comcast offered to buy sky for more than thirty billion dollars sky which features news and television content is currently own did part by rupert murdoch's news corp the parent company of fox the move pits comcast against murdoch's and fox the move would be huge given that sky's business broadcast several premier league games premier soccer league games but ball they say throughout the u.k. will definitely be keeping an eye on this one of the next few weeks. a new forecast

by one of the largest car suppliers estimates that electric vehicle sales worldwide will increase at a greater rate than expected. just interrupted our programming that because the russian president vladimir putin has met with the austrian chances then i briefing the media in most teenagers for this meeting since. twenty seventeen that's missing the trade to a new movement between our two countries increased by forty percent. of russian in . in the russian economy. is increasing and have almost reached twenty three billion dollars and austrian investment in the russian economy are approaching five billion dollars an intergovernmental commission is working in its co-chairs it will meet in may on the sidelines of the economic forum of we expect.

australian business community to send its representatives and we expect that those people will be as active as as in the previous years austria is the customer a buyer of russian gas or a transit country. next year next year will be marking fifty years for russian gas being delivered to the russian market throughout the storm russia has contributed greatly to ensuring energy. into europe and this any of this coming anniversary proves russia's reliability as a supplier. of carbon fuels we need to know that the austrian investors have a being engaged in a number of large infrastructure energy projects we also discussed initiatives in

the area for developing transport and infrastructure premier li building every way from quarter to two. to vienna with the russian diameter of a real tracks the russian standard this has been on the table for a long time and i think now it's getting ahead away last week at a conference. involving. of large european really companies this project we see that broad support and we're working on a feasibility study and working working out the financing mechanisms that we. i believe that this railway track will enable us to link the european market and asian markets more efficient the and it's important for us because. it involves russia's transit potential we also separately discussed regional exchanges with the chancellor last year there were presentations in various regions of russia austrian

or soon culture there were these of moscow in vienna out of the government of russia across the r. screeching and austria to casey into all the. area in austria. and memorandum of the memoranda of. corp last year we had you tourism the year. you cross year of tourism and since you knew you were having across your music and cultural roots you were in it twenty nineteen were planning to have a year of youth exchange we supported the initiative for setting up the russian austrian. civil society foundation society endowments to promote contacts in areas of education culture entertainment and so on we also took into account our experience of sima cooperation with germany and france we touched upon

a number of regional and international issues in the second half of this year austria will assume chairmanship in the e.u. and therefore we discuss the prospects of the relations between russia and the e.u. and how important it is to maintain. full scale relations you know he has of both political relations and. trade we discussed the situation in ukraine and the crisis in ukraine mr course. mr cortes worked. activity in this area including when the austria was chair of the always seen twin. seventeen weeks we once again reiterated that there is no alternative to a peaceful settlement to peaceful solution we discussed the issues including syria and in emphasized the importance. for the international community to join forces in fighting terrorism with the united nations coordinating this effort and abiding by

the by international law i would like to think mr chancellor for this comprehensive and very helpful negotiation and i'm sure that they will assist us in promoting cooperation between our countries think you. are so dominant here. is it in there using digital. we stuff like to thank you know the bottom of my heart of. these very successful talks and first and foremost to go to thank you have. you know how many long in russia. also in relation to being in such a high level we have very deep history of communication with. exchanging experience in many of its mission. also all to actually so we have a very high level of cooperation and. american amika faire some to a couple of quite difficult years so we started to raise our trade again now we

have a twenty five percent rise in the tourist flow from russia to austria. delivering else also. our trade has you. talked about the relations between russia and the e.u. here we play an active part. starting from was july will be a presiding over the. challenge so on. and learn as we do what we can actually. facilitate the one of you has a point of the e.u. mad can use them as part of the same time. downed. for the positions which are common among the e.u. members but we are looking for ways to alleviate the tensions between the russia the e.u. first and foremost. i seized the opportunity to express our expectations we

have regarding the statehood and international law. of. the. shift thank you you are discussing our bilateral relations between the russian the e.u. we also out upon the crises in the eastern ukraine and dark in syria but certainly here russia the main. responsibility you've got in syria we must do all of the in our power to put an end to that whole situation and tragedy of the people to address their plight. i am truly happy. to finally have the opportunity. the one of which was presented by approving the un resolution. because that is the

kind of contribution which can help to alleviate some of the tragedy which makes people with serious software we need to reconsider the. groups in syria. as regards ukraine as mr putin said last year i had the honor to preside. we always see and. i went to the eastern ukraine on the hour of. our common goal is to ensure that the cease fire in eastern ukraine a whole and it is also. good to see that the. monitoring group leaders are working and successfully and now either because their road towards the solution is quite long and we still have many things to do. pandering to for implementation and still see that there are. steps to boost that

except. when australia is ready to contribute as much as we can. sure enough the last piece of the eastern part of ukraine i would like to thank you for this wonderful. day in moscow we want to. talk we had. an energy and economy of russia also met with the head of the. e.u. delegation from russia thank you for the talks we had today and i hope it will continue. we do agree or develop will not know will take two questions need you from both russian in the media will start from our guest if. so i think. we could. ask you to put as regards. austria supports the idea of standing on the

e.u. peacekeepers so why is russia is still refusing to have the un peacekeepers working on the border between russia and ukraine as we've said just . as you know. russia was it was russia's initiative for sitting at the u.n. . in the south east of ukraine it was russia. initially. it was initially proposed by. the president of ukraine and. all. could do was support publicly supported. a resolution to this but then later later it was your opposed to extending this mission. to the entire territory even though initially we were speaking of ensuring the safety and security of observers the dividing line of the deal the line of separation of the fighting for

the fighting parties and actually initially ukraine proposed arming. the observers in order to provide security we agreed but they always seem to refuse saying the fact that its observer don't have the expertise he always see that they have the expertise nor are the people who would be fit for that and also there were concerns that as soon as you see. weapons that they will be targeted by militants from both sides for or against you. then saw there was an and there was balls over to place a un mission nearby as a way of securing securing we see observers. so we agreed to that race and then mr poroshenko went on and said we budget the o.e.c.d.

observers the also visit the border between russia and ukraine i said yes he said then why shouldn't he be there and i said yes indeed you are probably right these should be there as well when they accompany the server isn't always serious there for there is for providing there. so we do that but that also was not enough it turned out for now they say they want there to be able to move around everywhere so essentially this is about putting this into a territory under international control is russia. in the hear of that or against that at the very least we are not against that but you should discuss that with those unrecognized republics breakaway republics why don't you go and talk to them but nobody talks to them nobody wants to talk to them can you tell me is there an example in international practice when somebody would be trying to resolve

a conflict without engaging one of the warring parties. there are no examples like that but unfortunately the government in kiev now does not want a direct dialogue with the gives over those. knowledge to and recognizes that territory's even though that is a part of the minsk agreements so we need to make practical steps the initial steps of implementing examine and then think of further steps and that today we need to ensure the security of always see observers in the in the area and we let's do that but for some reason they don't want to do that they're not willing that is weird but we are willing to work in it with all the interesting parties. for the big question. russian it works you. know when you know when to go as the economy scores of wouldn't it and it has to do with economic cooperation between russia and austria. because you would also in your opinion what are the prospects for that kind of cooperation.