coming up today saudi arabia's unemployment rate has reached record levels causing increased our chief correspondent caleb mop and give us the latest and we talk trade in terrace with alex behind all of it and author steve keen plus r.t. correspondent dan cowen fills us in on the economic progress made by greece and their economy and a snoop dogg's said last week we'll put the crypt back in crypto with technology writer morgan tech all that debt ahead but first we hit the headlines. the merger of mania continues yesterday was a particularly busy and big day for mergers as more than one hundred twenty billion dollars worth of deals were announced according to the market tracking firm deal logic we were ported on a couple of those wal-mart's bid to spin off u.k. grocery store locations and refocus on the fight with amazon for the indian market and the third try on a sprint t. mobile merger but there were many others and the numbers speak for themselves there have not been as many burgers since two thousand and seven and they won't be

stopping any time soon. among the big deals moving markets on monday was the agreement by marathon petroleum to buy oil refinery endeavor for twenty three point three billion dollars the prices notably payable in cash were shares under a formula values and devore stock roughly twenty percent twenty five percent over its closing price on friday according to a calculation by bloomberg news the acquisition of endeavor is the biggest deal ever in refining and would create the single largest refining company in the country marathon endeavor currently ranked as the second and fifth largest refining and indies respectively marathon c.e.o. a predicted eventual savings of as much as a billion dollars a year for increased efficiencies after the companies are integrated. and rising unemployment in saudi arabia is raising concerns as m.b.'s crown crown prince mohammed bin solomon is seeking to. overhaul the king to the heart of me here with

the latest is r t correspondent who joins us from new york thanks for being with us i was really surprised to learn that the unemployment rate in saudi arabia was almost thirteen percent last year just seems crazy and a big pretty big problem for m.b.a.'s what's the latest. well the kingdom of saudi arabia is having a little bit of an identity crisis right now because essentially sense way back in one thousand nine hundred thirty eight when oil was discovered in the arabian peninsula the house of saudi has had a pretty clear relationship with the rest of the world namely they've been kind of vassals overseeing the extraction of their natural resources and selling them on the global market other way the saudi economy is set up at senator around aramco which is their state run oil company that center essential functions as kind of a middleman for exxon mobil b.p. shell other western oil companies extract their oil and sell it on the international market and what's interesting is we're at the point where at this

point because of hydraulic fracking there's a huge amount of oil coming from the united states the domestic extraction is vastly expanded you've also got deep sea drilling which has expanded the amount of oil and you know for years we heard democrats and others talking about you know energy independence was a way to lead to the usa withdrawing from the middle east we wouldn't have to be so involved with these countries in that region while we're at the point where we have a great level of energy independence and saudi arabia just doesn't have the the dependency of western countries western countries are just are not as dependent on them as they once were and so because of that you've got the crown prince trying to restructure their economy and when you have an economy it's just purely centered around oil at this point as as the world is not just as just simply not as dependent on them any longer you have a lot of questions being raised now it's important to note that a lot of the saudis who are lost their jobs at this point those saudis who have

lost their jobs a lot of them are shia a lot of the among saudi citizens a lot of them are shia muslims and before the u.s. congress the way shia muslims are treated in saudi arabia has been described as the words religious apartheid a lot of times their rights to conduct routine religious services are violated and they have some long. standing grievances against the saudi government which is historically you know this is a sunni wahhabi government strong religious differences there now it's also important to point out that in saudi arabia they have over nine million guest workers these are workers from other parts of the world have come to saudi arabia and they they work in saudi arabia they send some money home but the way that these guest workers have been treated in saudi arabia has been widely condemned by groups like human rights watch and other international watchdogs the you know these guest workers they work for far far lower wages than saudi citizens do and the conditions that they work under a quite bad now the crown prince solomon is trying to change the way the economy is

set up he's arguing that they can start having manufacturing he's also changed some of the laws he's being hailed as a reformer in the american media is allowing women to start attending wrestling matches and and drive cars things to that effect but it's also important to point out that saudi arabia is really the only country in the world that uses beheading as a method of execution and since the beginning of this year they've already had forty eight different public beheadings in saudi arabia so saudi arabia is at a point of transition the energy markets are changing the country is changing the legal structure is changing the crown prince has his vision he's waging what he calls a crackdown on corruption a lot of questions are being raised but it sure has big implications for the region saudi arabia doesn't exist in a vacuum it's a vital region they're very hostile to the islamic republic of iran so a lot of questions are being asked about saudi arabia and what's really going on and how things are changing that is a great fantastic cliff note we appreciate it r.t. correspondent and thanks for your time as always. the trump administration has

delayed a critical decision on whether to apply tariffs on imported metals to the european union and other allies president trump has kicked the can down the road for a month to make to before he makes that call prolonging uncertainty for many nations which produce steel and aluminum this is irritated some u.s. allies while causing problems for a number of american businesses here at home as we've discussed last week french president manual mccrone and then and then also german chancellor angela merkel were in washington depressed their case against tariffs impacting the european union directly to president trump for more on this we're joined by r.t. correspondent alex one hi live in toronto alex what's the latest. well you remember the day march twenty second when the world shook when donald trump said i am going to propose tariffs on everybody basically aluminum ten percent steel twenty five percent we know the true target was china but a lot of friends of america also were put on the list with includes of both nafta

countries mexico and canada as well as the e.u. and other nations around this world that are friendly to the state so now last night surprise for surprise in a most dramatic fashion as usual donald trump says you know what i'm going to as you said kick that can a little further may thirtieth is not going to be the end of exemptions of those tariffs because all those countries mentioned were exempt and now everybody was really really scared up or right before midnight when he said you know what hey we're going to give you another month of this because i get was that bad some countries reacted positively you look at argentina look at our strangely look at brazil even the trumpet ministration says you know what things are going to be good for them we're looking at new deals with them as for the e.u. they're a little bit angry about this because the whole fact is that the whole structure of how steel and aluminum is traded the world structure this is a good thing he's in for steel to be moving they don't like what's happening they have their very unhappy with this being pushed any further because it just pushes

a problem that they already have for another month with u.s. companies many are complaining the steel the materials they want aren't coming and they've gone up in price simply because there's not as much steel coming into the u.s. because of the tariffs and as for agricultural and the whole totally different side but they're being hit by china the one country that actually is the real deal when it comes to tariffs right now china is fighting back they said you know what american soybeans and also pork as well as other agricultural products we're going to hit back with tariffs and barbers in the states are being hurt by that alex stay with us we're going to head to london to steve case and the author of can we avoid another financial crisis steve thanks for being with us you know you've spoken in the past about the bluster between the. us in the e.u. and you've said you know if the u.s. was to do something stupid the the e.u. could also do stupid but it may be difficult for some maybe myself at times here to admit it but it seems like the president's tactic that if you want to call them that have maybe worked with north korea at least for the current time are they

going to work with the e.u. steve well i don't think that choosing the right instruments to begin with because . steel and aluminum are incredibly energy is intensive and you actually given the fact that america doesn't have those energy resources like canada has with adrià electric it's just in some ways foolish soget that if you actually wanted to bring manufacturing back onshore you would be looking at the incredibly high energy low relatively low technology areas of steel and aluminum if you're looking at bringing back integrated circuits so i think it is actually attacking the wrong end of the technology spectrum but that said what he's doing is making it very difficult to trans national corporations to manage global supply chains anymore and to some extent that might be pushing american corporations to think well we can't handle this costs are going to have a domestic supply china as well so it is doing it badly but what he's doing may be

something is necessary to dislodge the transnational corporation tactics of the last forty years it's very interesting you know steve i was wondering particularly with chancellor merkel when she was just a couple of blocks from where i'm sitting now at the white house on friday and talking to president trump about trade i wondered if maybe she was as concerned about the u.s. sanctions on russia that seem to have the potential of impacting you know german companies that do business i do you have any thoughts on that. well this is one of the dangers because europe's become moderately dependent upon particularly russian gas applause and hughton is far more ruthless and far more effective in choosing his tactics than trump if he decided that what was happening with the white germans was you know trying to maintain a relationship with america was jeopardizing his interests and he could easily

decide to cut the gas off i have terrible problems occur in the pipeline so i think it's a fairly dangerous going to be applying. you got to you've got to check is fly on one side of the atlantic and you have a chess player on the other side of europe yeah very interesting hey alex let me ask you do you think. that both the canadians and the mexican trade negotiators are are looking at this whole deal even though canada has been exempt from this deal with aluminum tariffs and taking pretty big notes. well you bet they are i mean this is a whole there's a big chip in the whole nafta negotiations trump was saying that from day one the is a part of it it's a part and parcel and as you can see nafta negotiations are being pushed right now things are moving faster it's a locomotive that seems it's not going to stop until it hits that wall that it needs and everything hopefully will be ok i'm maybe the wall analogy isn't that great but you know what i'm saying the but the fact the matter here is that both mexico and canada are listening canada is actually listening very attentively

because canada is behind closed doors to change some rules in this country to stop dumping of chinese steel so this is all tied to president trump's demands of president trump's tariffs that he's talking about that we've been exempt from nobody thought these tariffs would kick in last night at midnight or to or today it's just a fact but the whole fact of the matter is you know what a sigh of relief he's playing the game right at least when it comes to the nafta countries but as was mentioned you know there's a bigger picture here and when you're screwing around with supply chains around the world while your own country could be heard as well steve let me ask you and you alluded to this i think the last time we spoke that perhaps like alex said you know nobody really thought some of these were going to take place that perhaps this isn't even about european trade or japanese trade perhaps it's all about china and currency manipulation and that trade deficit and doing something that really is the president has not been accused of doing and that is building a coalition against china can you put

a finer point on it. i think it's a reasonably good interpretation because you see some of his backers basically play the thiel came out and said precisely that the short while ago it's all about china so in some ways this is a bit of shadow boxing with the with the europeans and the mexicans and the canadians but the real target is to get china to try to get it to rise rise the value of its currency to reflect its tried surplus and therefore juice it's tried surplus that seems to be as major if there is a tactic behind this and that my will be it but again if you stop giving targeting aluminum and steel those are two products that china is happy to let wind down it wants to go in the high tech direction so you know again i can see maybe there's a tactic behind that but maybe it's just bluster at the same time we thank you we thank you both steve in particular pretty in there we know it's late in london economist stephen king the author of can we avoid another financial crisis and r.t. correspondent alex mann hile

a bit thank you both for your time thank you. and we're going to squeeze in a quick break but stay with us because when we get back we'll look at the economic progress made by greece plus we'll put the crypt back into crypto with technology writer morgan peck and as we go to break here on the numbers that the closing bell oil bit coin and gold all down today to be right back. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy from day shouldn't let it be an arms race is often speak very dramatic development only mostly i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very

critical time to sit down and talk. pummelled is one of the most controversial products of our time it's a solid vegetable found that's very cheap. twenty seventeen production grew to sixty three million tons of rapid growth an international demand for cheap oil has led to the massive expansion plantations which is the destruction of the rainforest . given to these you alone more than ten million typed in as of unique rain forest has been destroyed and it's a process that just keeps going. welcome

back turning to the americas mexico's economy grew by two point four percent in the first quarter of the year the figure was the best in six quarters beating expectations and impressing market watchers with the resilience of the mexican economy and particularly in light of the dragging ongoing nafta renegotiations we were just speaking about a moment ago and on the nafta front mexican negotiators rejected a key trump administration demand on auto imports last week u.s. negotiators reportedly tabled an increase requirement in the percentage of parts made in high wage countries and within north america for cars to be tariff free to qualify forty percent of parts in a light vehicle or forty five percent of parts and trucks would have to be manufactured by workers paid at least sixteen dollars per hour additionally seventy five percent of all components of any vehicle would have to be made in north

america to be exempt from the tariffs the president of the mexican automotive industry association told the wall street journal that quote the u.s. proposal is like putting padlocks on padlocks meanwhile an adviser to leading mexican presidential candidate andres manuel lopez obrador has said he will honor and agreement on nafta renegotiation if one is reached before the election if he does win the election on july first lopez obrador is expected to appoint that same advisor graziella mark case as economy minister. u.s. heavy manufacturer john deere from goodall moline illinois is partnering with the jury and firm to lease as many as three hundred tractors to subsistence scale farmers to assist them in becoming commercial level cultivators john deere is partnering with alue viol a nigerian company that seeks to create a. on a means of scale for small farmers by providing them the kinds of high speed high

priced rather him puts that would be impossible for them to afford or finance on their own are you vile says that they will deliver the farming machinery for use by rice farmers working contiguous plots of land totaling as much as one hundred twenty thousand hectic ors and they billing the farmers to plow and harvest one acre for just one hundred dollars or run a tractor for as much as little as twenty minutes at a time according to financial times the times also reports that all you rile has been working for seven years of the niger delta where they hope to create sustainable economic support for militants who previously took up arms to resist abuses by foreign oil companies. in the u.s. economic and political news u.s. senator marco rubio from florida also the former presidential candidate went quote unquote off message as they say in washington on the trumpet ministrations tax policy rubio who famously mocked president trump for his physical dimensions during

the two thousand and sixteen presidential republican primary but later said he regretted it told the economist magazine the interview that quote there is no evidence whatsoever that the trump tax cuts are helping the working class rubio went on to say quote there is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy they are going to take the money they have invested in reinvest it in american workers in fact they bought back shares a few gave up bonus but there's no evidence whatsoever that the money has been massively poured back into the american worker to trump tracks cut bill which rubio voted for slash the top corporate tax tax rate from thirty five to twenty one percent and has been credited with assisting in boosting the u.s. economy. and greece has become the tories for being one of the weakest economies and all of the european union and over the past decade it has a big history a bail out well now greece may be turning a corner for a closer look at what we can expect in the origins of the greek economic situation

let's bring in our correspondent dan cowen dan thank you so much for being here this is a big deal for greece they've been sort of on the dole in the e.u. for a long time but what's changed well i mean this is the the end of these bailouts maybe around the corner but we've seen massive austerity measures implemented fourteen rounds to be exact and the cuts right exactly well yes and so these of basically government employees have lost their jobs pensions have been slashed decrease of the minimum wage increase the retirement age is all well taxes have been raised in two thousand and eleven unemployment in greece was sixteen point seven percent now in twenty eighteen it's twenty point nine percent so it really hasn't done a lot for working people and it's led to a massive. brain drain among young people who have left the country in search of better opportunity because the unemployment is worst for them they're there are

unemployed at forty percent the measures were accompanied by a massive private privatization program by the international monetary fund and the european commission greece was required to sell its assets in order to meet the conditions of the bailout ten port authorities for example were sold real estate assets most recently the only nicky port authority one of the largest was sold to a german multinational and at the same time we've seen massive for years since two thousand and eleven we've seen massive protests in greece rejecting the bailout and the sturdy measures in two thousand and fifteen there was a referendum in which sixty one percent of voters rejected the bailout and conditions of austerity and then the government turned around and agreed to the bailout anyway in a rather anti-democratic move dan thank you so much for that it's a great set ups of what's going on appreciate you focusing on it thank you much r.t. correspondent dan cohen. and

as we know it coin has been on a wild ride these last few months from highs in the twenty thousand dollar area to less than seven thousand just not recently i mean just a few months ago few weeks ago actually the king of crypto currency has settled around eighty nine hundred dollars mark right now and other kryptos a theory i'm light coin and even ripple have faced similar roller coaster rides when it comes to prices while we talk all the time about kryptos including the criticism of kryptos what we don't really talk about is what could bring a crypto currency point specifically to its knees and here to talk about her opinion that atauro let's destroy bitcoin talk about a controversial title is a top technology writer of morgan pact who has covered crypto since two thousand and eleven she's written for coin desk scientific american wired and many other publications and we're very pleased to have her join us and all the gloom busters

morgan thank you for being here last week we had named us llama trader for london on the program and the like and bitcoin to a religion he said that it was a religious index and trying to i think say that it was the thing that everybody was watching and maybe there's some truth to that but your op-ed in technology review and to be clear you aren't suggesting bitcoin gets knocked off you're just theorizing on ways that it could occur why did you write the piece. oh well first of all there are so many reasons that. looks like a religion both the community and the technology itself but. especially the mythology that's that's surrounding the birth of it you know the creator that nobody knows the identity of. but there is also a religious aspect to the way that people talk about. what it's good for i think that in many ways it's in the same way that people can look at scripture and find whatever they you know are going there seeking people people delving into big point

find the properties that they most want in it and that runs the gamut and it's brought a lot of different factions together and there's a dogma that's kind of sprung up around this world we're decentralization. and part of the reason that i wrote this article was because i wanted to look at i thought that using looking competitors is a good way to actually better define what the futures are. presents what its unique properties are and it's much better than just saying this is a decentralized currency why don't we look at how it could be competed with and that will show us what it actually has to offer well let's get to that you set it up beautifully so. which i recommend to people technology review is where you can find it but you give three example of how big coin could essentially be knocked off

and two of those i want to focus in on one you say there could be like a coin briefly describe that for us megan. that's an idea that's been around for a while actually there's someone named david on the fall to who does research at the st louis said and he's the first who really sort of brought attention to it the idea is what if what if a government started making its own digital currency. and there are lots of versions for how that could happen but the one that i sort of laid out. is a scenario where the u.s. let's say introduces a new denomination of the currency that's completely digital and slowly transitions towards that. they could then they could they could make it they could deal with your taxes that way they could make payments they could take things from your digital wallet extract resource centrally the. and it could be other central banks like imagine but you're talking about this example that the us federal reserve

could take over and talk about the other one that you spelled out which i thought was just super interesting like like a facebook point explain how that would work. we've actually seen versions of this in smaller social media social networks so we've seen telegram has already started its own currency called grams but the real question here is what happens when the huge social network brings that power in and creates uses it to create its own currency and suddenly what you see what you can imagine is that you'd have a huge boom of mass adoption and currencies are dependent on the network effect and big coin itself has done an incredible job. getting people to use it there are twenty three million wallets right now but you really have to measure that against facebook's two point two billion users worldwide and once you do that it kind of

puts it into perspective you know. the power the powers that are out there to compete with it i can't imagine how great it would be if you logged on to facebook and all the sudden you could start trading crypto there with all these hundreds of millions of people that is one way bitcoin could go down and other currencies too would have a big thing mr zuckerberg may be listening to you hope you'll come come back technology writer and crypto expert extraordinary morgan pak thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me. and before we go on a programming note next time we'll be talking with former consume about with a former member of the consumer financial protection bureau an official who is looking at what's been going on as mick mulvaney tries to actually kill the agency and plus the federal reserve meets on thursday and on the jobs numbers are released on friday danielle de martino booth will join us and that's it for this time thanks for watching i'm sure to catch boom bust on you tube you tube dot com slash boom

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not. an r.v. correspondent is caught up in tear gas during may day riots in paris police also fired water cannons after masked protesters torched cars. tonight i'm here to tell you one thing. israel's prime minister tries to convince the world that iran cannot be trusted just days before donald trump

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