tv Boom Bust RT March 29, 2018 3:30am-4:00am EDT
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ginty is a communications company we distribute content time warner is a media and entertainment company they create content and this is a classic vertical merger and it eliminates no competitor from any market in fact it increases competition particularly against the cable companies and hard to it is to disrupt the existing pay t.v. model that coming from eighteen t. c.e.o. randall stephenson a man who earned a whopping twenty eight point seven million dollars last year three hundred sixty six times the average salary of an eighteen thousand employee his opening remarks at the beginning of the time warner merger hearings back in two thousand and sixteen raised a lot of eyebrows on capitol hill and nothing for the d.o.j. to sue to block this so called vertical integration last november but just days ago lawyers for the department of justice and eighteen t. clashed in federal court in opening arguments for the mega merger this week justice
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department attorneys calling on competitor boss war inflicting dish network and sling t.v. who said the merger could not only drive up programming costs to some of the time warner network properties but that it would result in a new mega company monopolizing content and driving viewers away from dish among other concerns that is creating proprietary content that would otherwise be available to competitors if time warner remained in its current content creator and distributor role the very core of antitrust concerns they don't compete very hard and if you let these happen you're not up to fifty percent almost fifty percent of the eyeballs would be integrated you're going to see more and point it's not start to look like the crappy to the cable t.v. model that americans really. no choice monthly bills go up twice the rate of inflation and there's nothing you can do about it except give it up and we do love our television we get a democracy from it we get our sports from and we get our entertainment from it so
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it is a source of market power and it is a fundamental part of daily life. in our society dr mark cooper of the consumer federation of america has written extensively on this merger and has been an expert witness thousands of times on similar antitrust cases he says this type of mega merger could prove catastrophic for the consumer and a create a too big to fail scenario for the media industry you have to keep the pressure on those folks or they will raise your prices and restrict your choices when and on the networking talent drive they will clearly restrict your choices that's what they would like to do they want to charge their competitors more than want to slow their stuff down all that they've done in the last and years so for the average consumer this is about. how you're going to get your information services because t.v. is a locomotive that pulls a lot of the revenue through and the eyeballs and that's what it is about they want
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to have a so from your point of view the merger cock concentration and mergers network neutrality are the way the future will be defined so you need to pay attention to this don't be misled by these claims that vertical doesn't matter because everything in the digital age is in a certain sense virtue while speculation surrounding donald trump's role in this merger persists saying the president has a personal vendetta against c.n.n. a time warner property experts like dr cooper believe it's not a personal grudge that will stop this deal but rather judicial precedent from big mergers in the past that will ultimately make this vertical integration fall flat. and for more on this we are joined by our to correspondent you know what i want to follow up on the last thing you said you know work in government for a number of years and i would like to think that the career bureaucrats at the
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department of justice would be doing the right thing above and beyond politics i know some people in the audience may be snickering at that but what's your take do you think there's some influence by the president himself or is this really the career decision well i after speaking with so many experts about this particular case and the fact that this was brought up in two thousand and sixteen when president obama was still in office and it looked like it was going to be a no go back then and i just i think it just happened to coincide with the fact that trump does obviously have an ongoing media battle with c.n.n. and he calls them out constantly and c.n.n. being an eighteen thousand property. time warner property i think it's just bad timing and bad optics but the president has been been set up to tell us about the precedent what it what's what or what can we look for in the past well for example we could look back to the early two thousand to two thousand and one when the d.o.j. tried to break up microsoft because it was onerous of them getting every kind of
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internet property you could think of back then and as you know they're in everybody's computer microsoft is everywhere in everything and everyone has microsoft office so that shows proof right there and the proof isn't the problem for the d.o.j. the d.o.j. simply needs to prove that that time warner might charge you more might stop innovation might cause problems for other people they don't have to prove for a fact all of those would go against the antitrust laws that we have on the books for good reason or to correspondent manilla chant thank you for that thank you for that great packet appreciate it and here to dig into it david lohr of the details are professor lecture at american university margo's and conservative t.v. and radio host steve malzberg. margo let me start with you professor you know when you look at these things go on back in history manila just there spoke a moment ago about the microsoft soft deal but what is it they actually do have to
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prove in order to say this is an i competitive well they're going to look at monopolistic conditions and one of the cases that i think is the most famous is dates back to the middle part of the twentieth century the paramount decision which looked at vertical integration it looked at production distribution exhibition being controlled and monopolized by one big hollywood studio so i have to chuckle when i hear eighty and eighty executives say this is vertical and consumers shouldn't be worried because this is a vertical deal vertical integration is what was at the heart of a one of the most famous monopoly cases from the twentieth century steve do you might have a different take on it what do you think. well we're not in the twentieth century anymore i think that this is ridiculous no usually it's the the republicans who are less interventionist when it comes to antitrust but donald trump campaigned on on
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stopping these kinds of things i think he has a strong belief i don't think it's personal toward c.n.n. he mentioned other mergers that he was unhappy with on the campaign trail but this is a classic vertical merger and the courts have been hasn't gone to court to stop one of those in over four decades now the obama administration gave their blessings to the comcast n.b.c. universal merger which went through with some limitations but they were behavioral limitations that you'd look at over the course of years what the d.o.j. wants to do is structural in nature and that means they want to either sell off direct t.v. or spin off the time warner programming but i got to tell yet we're in an age now where only twenty three percent of americans say that their first choice for getting videos information is t v there is options out there go toward netflix i tunes you tube which gets a billion hits a month a billion hours of viewing
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a month all on regulated sort of make believe or in the twentieth century to me a short sighted but professor you know lots of people don't have those options that steve talking about if you're in rural areas eccentric and sort of what you get is what you're stuck with if you want to get one particular channel you're going to have to get a whole package of stuff and so i know this gets into sort of a net neutrality issue i don't want to really want to go there but it also gets into the competition argument what's your take well that's at the foundation of antitrust policy whether or not you're talking about nine hundred forty eight or talking about two thousand and ten antitrust law is created to try to garner more competition whether that's an idea or whether that's another industries and certainly have huge segments of the united states that don't have broadband. broadband access but even for those customers who do have broadband access there's going to be real concerns that this merger is allowed to go through about what kind of content eighteen t.
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would allow its competitors to have from the time warner family which includes of course c.n.n. c.n.n. and t.b.s. so i think there are concerns for consumers in rural areas who rely on traditional broadcast television i think there are concerns for cable consumers and i think that there are concerns for those of us here in urban areas who rely on you tube and netflix and cable television not steve i am very much enjoying having you take this anti free market approach and i want to extend it just a little bit i imagine you don't agree with that take either. no i don't agree with that take at all you know we're talking about time warner's programming a c.n.n. and he and t. as if wow that that they're not even in the top hundred it's interesting today in court you had the eighty two lawyers arguing that this is not must have television hey c.n.n. isn't even in the top one hundred none of the time warner programming is in the top
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one hundred and you had the government trumps government who supposedly hate c.n.n. arguing oh no c.n.n. and those stations are must have and i go back to what the head of slaying and direct t.v. he testified the other day that it is must have programming and he expresses the a lot of the same fears that my counterpart here expresses but in two thousand and fourteen when they were in a contract squabble and those programs from k. from c.n.n. and time warner were all full of of dish he said then this is it must have nobody misses it we don't care and when asked if he was sincere then or if it was just a contract negotiation ploy he said no i was sincere so we're talking about c.n.n. as if everybody has to have it or they're going to walk around as ill informed chickens without heads professor you look at the stuff all the time we've only got about thirty seconds left can you tell us what you think look in your crystal ball what do you think's going to happen well what i think is going to happen is that contractually after june twenty first time warner can pull out of the deal h.b.o.
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and c.n.n. are having banner years as this time warner's film division off the success of films like wonder woman and i have to wonder if time warner wants to be a part of this deal maybe they're seeing their profitability increase since the two thousand and sixteen deal was announced so when i look at my crystal ball i have to wonder even if the d.o.j. approves that maybe time warner thinks that it can get a little bit more money on the marketplace from another buyer we'll see what happens professional lecturer margot suskind american university conservative t.v. and radio host steve malzberg thank you to us both time now. a quick break but stay around because when we return daniele de martino booth helps us take a look at the euro zone the european central bank and what the u.s. federal reserve may be doing on interest rates plus turn each other spills the beans on the economics of global coffee as we go to break here the numbers at the closing bell another rough day for it starts with lots of ups and downs in the last hour of trading we'll be right back.
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max geysers financial survival guide the liquid assets of those that you can burn in zigzags quite easily. to keep in mind no assets are made to a place of. record. how does it feel to be a share of the greatest job in the world it's as close to being a king as any job there is what business model helps to run a prison now we do or don't like nobody over the place and i don't no one comes in anymore we don't have to serve them anymore it's cost effective that's what they want to do that knowing they don't give a damn if you do the chores or not there are actually paying us to put it back into the louisiana incarceration rate is twice as high as the u.s.n.
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breach what she could is behind such success. then what bargain that he will back away. or yours will pull you out of the. mouth and say i'm going to bed and i didn't if it was but the good is it that's the . house home. on a couch in spain. if it were done or done much you'd be come up with a good. on you know about the irony of them have the gum and the money on his i'm. not bad with the internet but on november bit of i say i give them their identity like about anonymous and that i'll be all means has it and is about.
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the most expensive fish in the world each one is selling for the tens of thousands of euros it continues to grow its entire life if it was thirty years old you might have a two ton fish out there and yet they don't get that big today because we're way to good catching them. it's only when themself a much larger mission was once there that was much more widely distributed we have politicians that are in office for a few years they have to get reelected everything is very very short term our system is not suited and is not cleared for long term survival and that's why we have the catastrophes only have. when lawmakers manufacture consensus instead of public wealth. when the ruling classes project themselves. with the financial merry go
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round of lives and we the one percent. tell you to ignore middle of the room signals. to leave the room i mean really means really the world. welcome back drug company glaxo smith kline or s.k. has paid thirteen billion dollars to know vargas to buy out a joint venture in consumer health products g s k's new c.e.o. hailed the deal saying it would boost earnings and reduce uncertainty on future
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capital management decisions that's because the original deal stipulated novartis could make g k g s k buyout their stake at any time now having bought out novartis g s k can move ahead novartis c.e.o. also said that he welcomed an opportunity to quote divest in non core assets at attractive price the venture still sell the venture sells health products under brands including excedrin theraflu and sense a done. and increasingly unpredictable work hours in service and retail industries have made making a living and having a life difficult for many workers but a new study finds that giving workers stable schedules with set hours is not just fair and humane it can be good for business and good for the company in this case the gap the clothier researchers looked at a dozen gap stores in san francisco and chicago and found that sales were seven percent higher at the stores that were encouraged to give workers consistent
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schedules one of the study's authors joan williams told the new york times quote we basically held up a mirror to capitalism self-image of efficiency and showed that misaligned incentives that are deserve disserving both workers and the company alike retail sales dropped in the united kingdom in march due to heavy snow which stymied retail deliveries and kept people at home combined with stagnated household incomes and weak consumer confidence according to the concept aeration of british industry and while telecom firms witness record internet traffic. thick online retail purchases also slowed sharply. and the european union is preparing to address what will be a budget gap when the u.k. leaves the e.u. next year the u.k. is currently the second biggest net budget contributor to the e.u. one measure being considered is to tap into the european central bank's profit to fill the void specifically the e.u.
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is looking to use fifty six billion euros over seven years from e.c.b. profits garnered from the combined revenues of the nineteen e.u. member central banks discussions began today in brussels and here to discuss this and other things related to central banks is our favorite guest on the topic danielle de martino boothby author of fed up why the federal reserve is bad for america she's also the c.e.o. and founder of money strong danielle welcome back so with the u.k. leaving the e.u. there is this big gap to fill and it seems one hot remedy being discussed today in brussels is to use the revenues from the e.c.b. explain what's going on and why they're doing it. well look this second biggest contributor to the coffers is no longer contributing bart so that's clearly a mathematical issue to deal with but the so-called frugal for that would be. some of the northern european countries that are much more prudent with their own budgeting have something to be sad about this cash rate that they're contemplating
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which would obviously be a quick but not so elegant way to plug the hole so it's a very politically charged direction for the e.c.b. to take and that's even as we've begun to see signs of slowing in the economy yeah and you know how you would work out a formula for which of the nineteen central banks in the eurozone would pay would be difficult to imagine talk about politics but you know one thing that people might find danielle is that central banks making enough money that they could loan an amount the u.s. u.k. provides to currently support the e.u. but that all social banks are pretty good for for lack of a better moniker business that their businesses after all explain that i mean they all make money and they all make a lot of money how does that work well it depends on the use of the verb make bart i mean you're talking about printing money here so it really does stretch the definition and i think that's what's got the more prudent members up in arms right
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now because what you're talking about doing is moving money around but when it comes to quote unquote making it that's not truly what they're talking about implementing a plastics tax which is another thing that they're discussing in brussels that's a whole different story that is truly a revenue generator but what they're discussing bart i would not technically define as making money and what do we think's going to happen at that with the e c b for the rest of the year going into beginning of next year they're going to they're going to wind down and start raising rates at some point. well i think that's the plan listen we recently had an e.c.v. board member out on the wires he made a speech and he said that inflation was coming around to where the e.c.b. wanted for it to be and that wage gains were going to be following soon thereafter and that september was a reasonable time for the e.c.b. to pull the plug on its quantitative easing program but again if you consider the citibank economic surprise index that recently hit
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a two year low overnight we had some more disappointing data come out on confidence in europe so you have to wonder if mario draghi is shaking in his italian loafers right now at the prospect of a slowing economy at the same time that the hawks on the e.c.b. really are getting serious about making sure that the e.c.b. steps back from it spent from from expanding its balance sheet to keep an eye on it real quick then you know what about what you expect in the u.s. with from the from the federal see another rate hike coming up at the next meeting what is it in june. well the next press conference would be in june i'd be shocked to see a rate hike come out of the main meeting on the other hand jay powell did say that he was he was pondering every single f.m.c. meeting being live which which would actually make may a possibility i think that jay powell who founded the industrials group when he was at carlisle i think he's going to be paying pretty close attention to these
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earnings reports that are going to be coming out in these coming weeks we've already heard from companies like general mills that input costs that raw material costs are eating their margins alive i think that jay powell is going to pay attention to these cues coming out of the earnings season unlike his predecessors and he's going to be on the hunt for inflation and he's going to get more signs that inflation is bubbling up a tad even as growth is slowing bart i think you know that that's called stagflation and it is a nasty critter we haven't seen since the seventy's danielle de martino both the author of. we thank you so much for your time as always. and most people can't start their day without a nice cup of hot coffee but have you ever wondered where it comes from or what companies have the biggest share of the markets for the answers to these questions and much more let's hand it over to our to correspondent trinity each office coffee
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is the immediate go to for millions of people all around the world many people can even function without that morning cup of joe in fact more than four hundred million cups of coffee are consumed each day. so we're spilling the beans about how profitable the coffee industry really is. for most of us coffee is the first thing we think about when we wake up in the morning it wakes us up it gives us center g. and it helps us get through those long drawn out week days because he has proven to play an instrumental role in the economy as well around seventy countries currently produce coffee with most of the supply coming from the developing countries of brazil vietnam colombia indonesia and ethiopia in two thousand and fourteen brazil produced a staggering two point seven million metric tons of coffee that's more than thirty percent of the world's production there are some three hundred thousand plantations that are spread over more than ten thousand square miles of the brazilian landscape
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coffee continues to be the driving force behind the economic development of the country and while vietnam is still relatively new to the international copy trade the country has quickly become one of the largest producers second to brazil and since the one nine hundred ninety s. coffee production has increased every year by twenty to thirty percent in two thousand and fourteen the country produced one point six five million metric tons of coffee while colombia produced six hundred ninety six thousand metric tons in two thousand and fourteen followed by indonesia with four hundred eleven thousand metric tons and ethiopia with the production of three hundred ninety thousand metric tons and as the popularity for the drink continues to grow so do the coffee chains according to reports tim horton's coffee house takes first place as the largest coffee chain in the world with an annual turnover of more than three point two billion dollars originally opening its first store in one nine hundred sixty four the coffee house has grown to have more than four thousand chains worldwide
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with more than one hundred thousand employees but coffee is much more than just the popular beverage it turns out that coffee impacts communities all across the country in many different ways from generating tax dollars to creating jobs from the supermarket to the dairy farm because you have to remember with coffee comes all the treatments something the children melt or coffee. creamer then you need to have coffee cups filters and the packaging and the list goes on and on according to the national coffee association the total economic impact of the coffee industry in the u.s. was more than two hundred twenty five billion dollars while coffee related to economic activity comprises approximately one point six percent of the total u.s. gross domestic product consumers spent over seventy four billion dollars on the drink in two thousand and fifteen the industry is responsible for more than one point six million jobs in the u.s. and it generates nearly twenty eight billion dollars in taxes. according to the national coffee association coffee is the most consume beverage in the united
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states. even more than tap water reporting a new york trinity child as our. and before we go sticking with coffee hundreds of years ago alcohol was actually consumed in part because water was potentially dirty and unhealthy to drink but with the advent of coffee particularly in europe sobriety and highly focused and high energy work began to spur greater productivity today businesses are meeting taking taking places all over the world in coffee shops there's one problem though with the complicated menus for coffee some people have what i can called barista phobia under my definition barista phobia is a classic anxiety disorder related to the fear of incorrectly ordering a coffee based bad beverage it can be triggered by many situations or stimuli including a large menu choice or even somebody with a merino wool stocking cap on left unaddressed barista topi breached the phobia can
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lead to particularly problematic panic attacks aside from barista phobia coffee and business and coffee and boom bust go together at least for me that's it for this time thanks for watching catch boom bust on you tube you tube dot com slash boom bust r t c n x time. how does it feel to be a sheriff the greatest job in the world it's as close to being a king as any job there is what business model helps to run a prison now we do this do or don't like is there nobody you know is the case and i don't no one comes anymore we don't have to search for minimal work is cost effective that's what they want to do that knowing they don't give a damn if you do the chores or not they're vastly paying us to put it back and look at the louisiana incarceration rate is twice as high as the u.s.n.
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preach what secret is behind such success. russia has gone from the highs of photos zero zero sum to the sun. those of grief over the camera of a tragedy to them to launch just expulsion of russian diplomats from the west and putin's links to them is off to a rocky start how will he react. to. them what brought them to that he will go back i'll go on. board will pull you out of the. mouth and then what about and i didn't do it will always be good is it also. helps home. on a profit. and. keep it or don't or don't let you people
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come up to the group. come on down your mouth and get about the holonomy of an abbott that damage them on the numbers i'm. not bad with the intent of but oh november that i say i give them that i don't know what about on it. being the size it again is about. that's what i'm really sure. about though something that's going to actually look like they're absolutely brutal .
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headlines when i see international amid escalating tensions with russia the u.k. adopts a new national security strategy ranking moscow alongside is the most terrorism on its list of main threats. and with many countries joining britain in expelling russian diplomats over the souls of. m.p.'s in neighboring island voicing their opposition to doublings decision to take part in the action we gauge reaction in the irish capital. i think it's a needless threats to our sovereignty i've served look for the proof and i haven't heard any i think it's. a neutral country and it's gonna be on it's just it's totally amazing the what they're doing tens of thousands of syrians have joined a silent march an owner of a motor holocaust.
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