notify me there right now karen on t.v. i'm about to feel well the news updates in about thirty minutes join is that. when you don't. see the teachers what did they could put in. to what they did not through only ten. let alone they. said. no servant is messy that. you speak french. then send them. busy.

with this manufactured sentenced to the public will. when the ruling closest to protect them so. when the flaming. lips be they will. ignore middle of the room stick. to the real news is. a mess guys are one for my guide to financial survival this is. a device used by professional scallywags to earn money. that's right these hedge funds are simply not accountable and we're just. totally destabilize the global economy you need to protect yourself and get in for a while because we. fundamentally the united states and russia are have been for

decades two scorpions in a bottle each capable of destroying the other but only at the price of being destroyed itself. putin said well these weapons will overcome u.s. missile defenses u.s. missile defenses were totally ineffective against russian forces already so they'll be more effective against russian forces. this is boom bust broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. on this day u.s. president ronald reagan unveiled his proposal for the strategic defense initiative or s.d.i. to be able to shoot down enemy missiles knighted states in that regard coming up on

today's program former pentagon official michael maloof is back to talk defense and we take a little time to time travel back to those days of s.d.i. and star wars and fast forward to what's going on now with space weapons plus r t correspondent dan cohen helps us to understand who the biggest defense contractors are and how much money they make plus economist and author steve king joins us from london to answer the important question can we avoid another financial crisis. machinery goliah caterpillar is closing a parts factory in waco texas which employed two hundred people the shutdown as part of a downsizing by the company which began in two thousand and fifteen and seeks to reduce employment by ten thousand workers thereby reducing capacity by ten percent next on the potential chopping block is a plant in la grange illinois which currently employs six hundred people a determination on that. plant will be made by the end of this year. that's coming

up in the u.s. and if you've been investing in crypto currencies plan on budgeting more time for preparing your return that's because the internal revenue service is finally catching up with crypto currencies and block jane technology and coming to claim unpaid taxes on crypto profits last november the i.r.s. issued a summons to the online exchange point base demanding all records for transactions in amounts greater than twenty thousand dollars between two thousand and thirteen and two thousand and fifteen court records indicate that the request wouldn't compass data for fourteen thousand users of the site coin base has nearly six million total users the information would be used by a newly created crypto task force at the i.r.s. as criminal investigation division the i.r.s. officially served notice back in two thousand and fourteen that they claim legal authority to tax crypto currency is that can be exchanged for real currencies.

prior to his run to the white house and during his candidacy donald trump criticize u.s. wars abroad called for troops to come home and attack saudi arabia's atrocious human rights record but as president trump has adopted an aggressive foreign policy and is to mulch of his first year in office has been a windfall for arms manufacturers the top global weapons manufacturers lockheed martin boeing be a systems raytheon and northrop grumman every quarter of record profits which they credit to president trump raytheon c.e.o. tom kennedy went so far as to brand trump the chief salesperson for u.s. defense as trump virtually sparred with north korean premier kim jong has it ministrations struck arms deals with south korea and he called on japan to buy u.s. made weapons but at the center of trump's foreign policy is his relationship with.

the arabian crown prince mohammed bin some mine during his first foreign trip in may twenty seventeen president trump and the saudi monarchy signed the largest arms deal in u.s. history worth one hundred ten billion dollars as a result stocks of lockheed martin raytheon and boeing reach all time highs that the all came as the saudi arabian led war in yemen has killed ten thousand people led to a massive cholera outbreak and put a million people on the brink of famine and what the u.n. called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world well congress tonight a recent resolution that would have forced the us to end its involvement in the saudi led war on yemen trump is expanding the relationship with saudi arabia while weapons manufacturers cash in and washington damn cohen reporting from boom bust. some of us recall the cold war between the soviet union and its satellites and the democratic nations of the western world primarily of course united states what i recall most was the increasingly heightened rhetoric and the weapons build up

expression of what was then the new frontier dubbed star wars after the original star wars movie from one thousand nine hundred seventy seven in real life back then star wars or what in the us was called the s.d.i. the strategic defense initiative saw the development of ultra advanced weapons systems which included lasers and particle beans that would shoot down the opposing sides nuclear missiles for younger folks and by i was younger then at the time it was a pretty unnerving period while star wars or s.d.i. slowed significantly after the end of the cold war when mikhail gorbachev became the leader of the soviet union recently there's been a lot of talk about north korea and their nuclear missile program and now with president russian president putin who gave a recent state of the nation speech where he discussed cruise missiles that could reach anywhere in the world it raises the question of what's going on and for. boom

bust perspective on business and finance how much money is being spent on these sorts of things and which companies are profiting from the development of star wars type systems and here to discuss is probably the best person around in the world a former pentagon official michael maloof michael thank you so much for being with us let's time travel you were at the department of defense then when i was out talking about nuclear arms awareness week and things and it was a sort of an unnerving time but take our viewers who don't recall back to what was going on and then which were the companies that were involved in this strategic defense initiative at the time well it was at the beginning of the end of the soviet union and it and reagan and gorbachev are meeting at reykjavik and the proposal was made to that if there wasn't. some kind of a peace settlement of some kind that reagan was prepared to launch the strategic defense

initiative the whole concept was i mean he had the idea before hand he saw he was he was briefed a long time back that missiles were coming in they could track the missiles but there was no way to stop them so this strategic defense initiative idea became part and parcel of his of his new package for incoming missiles to set up an anti missile defense system as a consequence. that was offered as a as part partially a bluff if you will to cause the the economically ducange soviet union to have to put in more resources which they we knew they could not afford and that that's when gorbachev decided to do what he ultimately did and he could've competed and you know and but s. the concept of s.d.i. continued under reagan especially and it got my. defied over time it was really

a robust concept to have lasers shooting things out of the sky from from outer space but the technologies had not yet been developed and they needed to be developed and that would have been part and parcel of the research and development costs that would have gone into and we had the companies to do that are some many of our companies our major defense companies today were involved like lockheed like martin marietta united technologies are not exact knowledge east t.r. deborah. these these are the major major firms that have been and continue to be engaged in this now as part of the missile defense agency today that's what it's called now that i remember in the day it was the s.d.i. oh this day it was it was about then it became the ballistic missile defense agency office and then clinton changed that to missile defense agency and that

still exists today now that's what is being used to develop anti missile systems that's but it's a much more conventional approach of developing technologies that can go faster than the incoming as opposed to having something lingering in outer space with the original concept of brilliant pebbles was to have a series of drones spaced drones that could point lasers at missiles that were flying in space that could not things out for the first thought was to make a good sure that the time line right the first thing was it wasn't just the bluff was it i remember that it was you know both the soviet union and the u.s. had all these missiles and it was thought that you know if one shot that had a first strike that the other would shoot and that they're essentially be a policy they called mad mutually assured destruction and that was the unnerving part i talked about in the opening yes. so then they came up with s.d.i.

and this is going to save us will be able to shoot down the missiles if they come over but then the brilliant pebbles idea that you just had who is was that and that was as you say so that wasn't a missile shooting down a missile that was satellites that would shoot down missiles so things that were already up in space race that w. do you think. that was written in originated with reagan then and then in then it was george h.w. bush but he's the one who began to scale it back because the system realistically we don't really need that and and the technologies are way out there yet we can't really do it yet although there is a modifications that that that that's when the decision ultimately was made then to do something that came that was more from land based rather than lingering in space and as though these were super expensive technology to develop and in developed it well and your but your contention is that. mr gorbachev saw the enormous

capital that would have been needed to compete with the u.s. at that time and that essentially ended up shutting down the cold war to a large extent so let's fast forward michael to today and we see the north koreans were all about talking about what their weapons kasab capabilities are and president putin in his state of the nation address actually showed a video a sort of a striking video and said it could not be evaded that that that the video could be evaded the missile could be evaded so. where are we today how much money is the soviet union the u.s. spending on these things and are is the same sort of cast of characters with regard to defense contractors who are trying to pile on and make a buck out of these things and response to your last part yes defense contractors see the new golden age again because basically the policy has. been changed now to

back more to more strategic systems and were seen as a reason as in response to the north korean threat more development of missiles that can shoot down. the incoming missiles if if if we have that technology but it's it's what the it's like a bullet trying to hit a bullet in space however we do not have the technologies yet that can reach out to three hundred miles in space if you're going and the conclusion is you're going to knock something out and if you know it's. meant to do harm you've got to hit it on the on the in one of the booster in the boosters the booster otherwise it's up in space and you hit it and then it's you know because it's going to close the thing we have right now is ages and that only can go up to one hundred fifty miles that is what well that's that's the land base and ship based missile defense systems we've got those in japan and around the around north korea you know which shoot

down for example a north korean missile a missile but here's the problem north korea has exhibited something else for that i don't hear anybody talking about and that has to do with the ability to orbit satellites their ability to orbit a satellite and they've demonstrated this twice or stew up there right now and we have no idea what's on them the fact is that that satellite those satellites could become new miniaturized nuclear weapons orbiting the world and we and then on command they could be detonated anywhere and that is what i meant crazy nuts that is why some of us think that they're really angling at to have that capability i mean this is it's typical of what a poor less defensive country can do against a much larger and capable i mean the david goliath type of scenario.