abilities i don't know if that is particularly well but so if you're told that here mr fireman or mr policeman or mrs police officer you know you don't have to contribute as much as you did last year because last year we were in an index fund and this year we're going to move to a hedge fund flashy hedge fund guy who flew here in a private jet he's obviously doing very well but he's promising you that his returns are going to be higher and therefore you don't have to give five hundred dollars a week towards your pension fund but you can retire in the same amount but only give three hundred a week so you have two hundred more in your pocket this week they can say yeah go with the private equity guys like people are stupid you know that movie that came out about the theft at one on during the subprime crisis and it documented the shortage of short right so here's like it's a documentary practically bunch of bankers got together and rob americans blind for billions of dollars and now people know me i cover finance right they come up to me the question asked me every single time someone comes up to me goes hey masher

you saw the movie the big short right. the message is true. like with a conspiratorial true yes true you're being robbed blind every day what you can do about it well nevertheless data shows that public pension funds are going even more and more into it i would do have to say the hedge funds and the private equity these alternative investments did do better only during one period which was the financial crisis two thousand and eight two thousand and nine because they have more shorts they can do the big shorts rather than the index fund so they do do better and a very little good that's better in that they lost money at all less accelerated rate than the overall market for a short period of time doing better best just being drowning slower so the gap the six hundred billion dollar gap comes from not only their fees but also their their performance the nation's pension fund returns have also been hit by fees hoax

study found that state pension funds paid on average fees totalling point five six percent of assets held to fund managers during the ten year period had the nation's collective pension fund managers invested in the sixty forty vanguard balance index fund for example which carries a point zero seven percent fee they would have saved one hundred fifty billion over ten years so the returns were five hundred billion dollars less just on their performance the pension fund performance investing by a private equity and hedge fund was fifty five hundred billion over the past ten years just based on stock picks versus an index fund and then another hundred fifty billion worse off based on the fees they paid for that worst performance to pensions the teachers in the firemen in the place because you're so stupid you're going to have to work another fifteen years ok no no no they want the tax payers that pay them so you have been forced to work because you refuse to responsibility for your actions of burning off all the are now doing no work in the ten years get

back on the on the on on the. the patrol car flatfoot know they're going to be subjected to ten more years of kaiser before it really going to work otoh shoot me go shoot don't shoot don't go to your page manager and get a real one prick and it. lives they might matter but they're going to be bankrupt all right we're going to take a break we'll be back right after this important break. is democratic socialism the future of the democratic party the future of america is moving to the left a winning strategy to take on donald trump's vision of conservative populism one thing is undeniable mainstream politics in both parties for under pressure to evolve and become more accounts.

eurocentric view has seen a lot of criticism lately. has eurocentrism no. idea that you know it's confronting so it's. welcome back to the kaiser report i'm max keyser time now to go to misfire sign of plan imposing a dot com let's welcome great being here now want a name one of the newly discovered planets planet ponzi if you could buy that you can have a planet named after you can it is it a star or star only a star all right and then i think in my real estate on the moon sure every thought about naming a star or some real estate on the moon after your book i think that certain

equities and certain bonds and certain real estate properties are priced as high as the moon yet tell us about it like a market looks like it's going higher and higher i mean what's happening it's all valuation if you can buy stock stocks back and pay yourself because illions you know borrow money from the fed for free or borrow money at zero interest rate zero interest rates and rebuy buyer shares back the shares go up and you get a gigantic bonus right so does that work it works until it doesn't so right you know like you saw netflix it recently had the earnings announcement and so the stock dropped sixty dollars in the second row you know that's a big problem if you have a big portfolio of something like that if you're prepared for that kind of wild ride volatility you know you buy a stock that has no free cash flow no earnings but the price keeps going up and so just for those who might not exactly let's just walk through it a little because it is interesting so i fear an executive at a company of options to buy that stock in the options are given to you for free and

then you can borrow money from the fed first actually fray and buy back your own stock and then the stock price goes up and therefore your option to buy and then you cash out those options into the public marketplace in are just printing money for yourself billions and billions and you've won the lottery mate yeah that's exactly right so the way that it works the simplistic way to explain this is you get your pay is based on the stock performance so if the stock goes up you make more money so you don't care if you cannibal. future earnings you don't care if you cannibalize or fire the employees with you know with to make you what you want to do is try to make that share price go up by any means and buying stock back is the most certain way to do it ok now there's one part of that equation let's look at it mark laws they borrow money from the fed for near zero now interest rates are creeping higher they're now at multi-year highs ten your eyes across the curve as it's called they're getting two percent three percent on various fixed income

instruments is this a secular move up in rates or another head fake it's a head fake and it we're not anywhere near normalisation normalization is about six percent and we're far far from that we'll never get there at low cut interest rates before we get even close to that because we're about to head into a recession if we're not in a recession now the other thing about you know that the share buybacks the biggest problem with that is you know what happens is that the stock prices keep going up up up and up but you know you're not going to have any kind of growth in terms of job creation or in terms of moving the company forward so basically it's going to atrophy and die and you'll have a lot of zombie companies that are being supported by these ultra low artificial interest rates corporate debt has never been higher there's never been more corporate debt issued now when people have to have. a resetting of like the loans for all the real estate and property that we have out there these resets are coming due in the next three years a lot of the corporate debt is rolling over i don't know who's going to buy it and

i don't think that there's an infinite demand for this paper and the high yield paper especially you seen a great. gap between where high yield paper is trading and regular paper and i think you're going to see people start to shun high yield which could be the beginning of the next crisis which what we're seeing in our emerging markets it could be the lynchpin you see in venezuela hyperinflation you see argentina defaulting on those fine hundred year bonds we. talked about and laughed and said anybody who buys there should be fired now they're going to the i.m.f. begging for money you know the whole davos thing was a total scam where the the person in charge of the let me jump in here said i if you talk a macro talk of global trump is now into his trade war is talking to china talking to russia so at the time walk us through how you see that playing out this trade war those tariffs a lot of people were you know shrieking that this would be horrible so far it doesn't not look horrible looks like a smart thing to do in some quarters or what your thoughts look you have

a lot of the globalists want one global government to rule everything and i'm not so sure that we're that far away from that right now i mean with what's going on with the european union i mean italy has four trillion dollars in debt that they can never repay and you've got a government that came in that said well what we're going to do is we're going to restructure that debt which that that's a signal that we're not going to pay that debt back if you look at target two are you look at the amount of withdrawals from the banking system in italy for the past three or four months it's alarmingly high so this indicates that first of all those banks in italy are insolvent they are stuffed to the gills with the worthless italian bonds that are backed by nothing but mario draggy or the european central bank's promises ok so. who's going to be left holding the bag this time cyprus is the the model for sanction deposit confiscations that's why the italians are pulling all their money out of the banks because they know that these bonds are going to default eventually and what's going to happen cyprus being

a bail in versus a bail. out would be like in two thousand and eight where the government prints trillions of dollars and gives it to the banks to bail them out of bail in is when depositors' get their money ripped out these organizations what happened in cyprus so you're saying you know it only takes it they say anything over one hundred thousand euros you have on deposit we're keeping so if you have any that playing out in italy i see that playing out everywhere i think eventually when the banks fail next time in the united states as well i think that people are at risk because the f.d.i.c which is a federal insurance deposit corporation only has a minute fraction of what they're supposed to have i mean they could never never ever if there was a systemic banking failure honor the obligations they have to insure all the depositors funds the i.r.s. recently got approval just within the last twenty four months to seize people's passports if they feel that they are in arrears on their taxes for as little as fifty thousand dollars and initially there was no action now in the last few months

they've said they've seized or canceled almost three hundred fifty thousand american passports so is the i.r.s. now it would be similar to what you're saying they're simply seizing people's assets that the debts are there as you point out the debts and never been higher the interest on the debt is now climbing all the accounting tricks been burnt out plan a ponzi and so now they're just outright taking stealing grabbing assaulting folks there's a couple things here like i say in my book don't take my word for anything i have in here ok i walk you through the numbers and i use the government's own data so by my by my calculations and by others calculations our debt the united states is probably somewhere around. two hundred fifty trillion dollars. off balance sheet all this it no not just not at all no not off balance sheet items not including off balance sheet items where i'm talking about social security medicare medicaid and a host of other entitlement programs that the government is legally but i'm not

included in their official in the twenty trillion or twenty one trillion that we have a lot of they don't include that's like saying what are your liabilities and you tell me what your liabilities and your assets are and you exclude the five million dollar mortgage you have on a property that's worth close of all the liabilities it's called legally binding obligations hundreds something two hundred fifty trillion probably which is almost what three times or four times global g.d.p. so i mean this is a joy norma's amount so this is why interest rates if they go above four percent makes it technically impossible for the treasury to service the amount of debt that they have that's why i'm concerned about the rollover of corporate debt and high yield to coming due in the next two to three years ok so our plan policy they drill now are a plan they drill for money by going debt and they gel negatively into negative interest rates that's arrest the drilling that goes on plan a ponzi right which is another form of wealth confiscation rights i've asked three forms of confiscation

we've identified the last few minutes number one would be this i.r.s. money grab number two bell ends by banks taking the positive cash number three negative interest rate correct so that there's a whole array of institutionalized money grabbing techniques that are now being rolled out globally and people of course are being disenfranchised as as you know san francisco is down need deep in human feces right because of the economy is gone bifurcated to the point dysfunctional utterly and so is there any end to the drilling down into the plan a ponzi money grab by the corrupt government and banks well you know look if you see what's going on the most glaringly obvious problem we have is the. diversion that we've got to for d.s. divert deflect deceive and deny they've got this whole thing with trump going on in the media. it's russia russia russia everything is russia russia russia there is no

evidence there's nothing and what they do is just put this on the airwaves they don't tell everybody about the dire financial circumstances across the globe right now and we're about to fall off the end of the precipice and of course like they've done with everything else they'll blame that all it's going to be the pump be dumpy trumpy you know they pump the markets up people all the smart money is dumping all the equities at these prices and they're going to blame trump so pump you don't be trumpy is the place where buzzword of the day sounds good t. shirt and blue collar ponzi humpty dumpty tromping there you go i mean let me ask you a quick like thirty thousand feet looking down at the numbers does this or does it not make sense trump said in recently that he is concerned about funding made particularly with germany involved in nato and while they simultaneously a are selling are getting gas from russia right the money is going to

nato directly to russia but the purpose ostensibly for nato is to defend these european countries from russia that's the purpose of supposedly is ak and a correct assessment i mean you're a money manager you're in big business finance well is that make sense tell us about it here's what i think about that look nato was a really good thing after post world war two when there were a lot of cold war tensions going on in the one nine hundred fifty s. one nine hundred sixty s. how much is the world changed since then and really you can push a button and the world do you really need to the military industrial complex is pulling all the strings in washington there is a deep state we've established that so this is what happens these guys want war war is big business look at boeing shares look at lockheed martin shares look at all those military industrial complex scares they've gone they've skyrocketed so these guys want to keep themselves in like flynn so all right so in other words the nato is out. lived its purpose and i think it's got to be modernized and i remain and i

know i don't because resources you know i don't think america should be picking up ninety one percent of the tab especially with germany like laughing at it so you know germany's going to pick up some of the tab the other countries need to pick up some of the tavern mean that's only right i mean do you want your taxes to go to pick up your number i mean my thought is this that with trump in south korea and pulling troops out of south korea there's fifty eight thousand troops and germany that's part of nato and the whole mideast fandango right and he mentioned during a recent press conference after the summit that putin tromp we're deep into the israeli middle east equation so the trump looks on americans balance sheet you mention are he's debt is fifty cents of every tax dollar going to the pentagon and he says you know what i can cut that in half if i simply pull out of germany pull out of south korea and finally solve the middle east and banco i'm going to save one point five trillion dollars in

a year right i mean and lose what i'm not going to lose anything the real problem max and nobody's focusing on this and people eventually pick up on it but china owns washington and china is the military threat china is the threat china is the threat to america russia's g.d.p. is under two trillion dollars or around two trillion dollars china is the biggest competitor from a military perspective in from a trade perspective the u.s. as that's what the focus on washington should be but china's not an idealogue i mean there it's all about cutting deals are not like you know. chairman mao anymore it's about making bucks i don't think china can be trusted at all and i think that there is a huge problem with china's economic data and the way that they've pumped up their economy with printed money we got to cut off their mitts thanks so much for being on the kaiser report thanks for having me and that's about it for this decision of the cause report was made last geysers say sam i think it's firesign plan of policy . that's why we all are going to catch us on twitter it's kaiser report until next

time. most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to stand down the news business is just the dance the right questions and demand the right answer. questions. camera. roughly once they showed some of the. future uncool videos with the broken string that's. down more on

string i don't rightly don't t.v. . come on welcome to worlds apart western europe has long been the birthplace of both the most dangerous and the most enlightened ideas that almost burned the planet alive with the two world wars and came up with the european union as a prevention strategy against the third is the euro centric way the only strategy of saving the world from a new disaster or is it perhaps the surest way of bringing it about well to discuss that i'm now joined by collapse and collide is director of the center for

international studies at oxford university professor nicholas it is it's an honor talking to you thank you very much for your time thank you now i know that for much of your khadem a career you've been focusing on how people collectively negotiate dire differences and you see the european union preachment much within that framework not only as an experiment and governance but also an experiment in settling and negotiating differences among the peoples as we're recording this conversation john clarke ian carried the president of the european commission and the quintessential european bureaucrat is supposed to be meeting with donald trump in many ways a remarkable american leader how do you think they are likely to. receipt well i think we can are great that it's not going to be an easy conversation will it indeed you encourage goes to washington in the name of still twenty eight countries the u.k. still part of this story and. is bringing with him on

content a message of multilateralism the idea that we are still a world governed by rules and institutions that well the u.s. may have some issues with trade deficit with the e.u. in general with germany in particular about their car exports but that all of this can be discussed in a kind of civilized a way in the context of now bilateral dispute resolution or in the context of multilateral. discussions in the w t o and should we do this and of course he's going to face a president which i don't need to tell you doesn't really agree with this way of doing things and where with a book coming to all this with a belief that institutions are not just kind of ineffective but they're very often bad for which he calls america first so how are those two going to talk to one another what do we think well and i think this is actually

a very interesting question to ponder because as you said these two represent two very different archetypes of governance the new york european the way reach is based on law it's all very simple deliberations slow motion decision making and the what i would call the old american way you know get it done and get it done very quickly and it's not that donald trump doesn't respect institutions i'm not sure about that but i think he definitely has a certain disregard for for the dialogue for the sake of dialogue i think he may believe that the european union is using it to its advantage to keep the benefits. as much as you may dislike him i'm sure that that is the case for most european intellectuals do you think your of can learn anything from donald trump well first of all i don't think international politics is about liking our not liking it's about asking whether parties countries and their leaders or groups inside countries

. have learned and know how to pursue their interests which is what it's all about in a way that's enlightened for them meaning that it's in a way which also considers interest in the long run indeed that's what the us did when you talk about the old american way the old american way depends what you call but it has to do also with the end of world war two where the us created the bretton woods institution and very much as a benign and had him on sometimes sacrifice its interest in the short run to pursue its interest and more general global interest in the longer run so in this sense i would say that. the question for me is whether trump is pursuing even his own country's interests in the appropriate way it's not about whether i like him or not whether i'd like him to babysit my children that's not the point and indeed i don't think donald trump you say well it's not necessarily that he dislikes institution

you witness as well as i did his coming to the u.k. and devising. terrorism may our prime minister to sue the european union indeed he said many times he doesn't think that you should continue to exist he doesn't like that well you know it really depends on the point of view because you can make an argument that he actually trust the institution of courts and he believes that judges will be able to make the best judgment i mean coming from russia you know what people mostly distrust our court system that is actually you know kind of you know a side of respect but nevertheless you mentioned he's slogan america first and i think in order to discuss it in. in a serious detail we really really have to contend the issue of nationalism and what strikes me about nationalism is that for many in europe it is quite clearly a pejorative term and we all understand why it is a bridge or a deterrent but for many. you know in other parts of the world in the united states

even more so in russia it is actually a positive term do you think people in europe and the leadership in europe actually understand that not everybody shares dire conception of nationalism and their fears of what it represents first of all i mean you're absolutely right. as you remarked about russia that it's not because we value institutions and conversations and peaceful resolution of disputes that i would be arguing that institutions always do the right thing i mean institutions are led by very fallible people men most of the time if women were in charge and you think it would go better and you know so institutions can have failed ideologies they can be problematic and indeed the problem that russians are struggling with and americans and many around the world is a fear that people have that institutions supranational institutions this taking away

what they value their sense of place control as we say in the country where i live that's why briggs it is also all about taking back control and so if you're suggesting to me that it's a very universal trait to want to take back control to feel that your life that you are part of a polity of politics that is closer to you and not somewhere out there i'm with you i agree and maybe you and i could have a whole conversation about semantics so we could say well yes but nationalism is that you often use as a term to denote the pathological or problematic aspect of national identity to have an. national identity to be proud of it to want to build democracy and solidarity within a space that's not global is a good thing i agree with you the question that you and i have to ask we have to ask it to the russians we have to ask it to the europeans we have to ask everywhere

in the world is when is it that people start turning this proud in who they are in their collective into a tool of exclusion into a tool of aggressive intervention in other people's affair indeed into it to where you don't respect the national identity of the other side so it's a very complex story and you're absolutely right to imply that the european union right now is struggling in trying to balance its people's yearning for this sense of control and the sense that we need to do things together in this crazy dangerous worth world of ours so it's a balance and when you ask me about european elites you know there is every kind of politically means there are those that are very blindly surprised nationalists wanting to forget all about national identity there are those who are very nationalist and populists there are those in between there are all sorts of shades of colors in europe as in russia and as in everywhere well yes and no because i

think the main difference in how the european union and russia for example approach the issue of national is for many in europe nationalism is almost the root of all evil as they certainly blame aggressive nationalism for the carnage of the world war two and what they kind of miss is that for the country like russia national is was the saving grace this is what carried us through those terrible years back in the late thirty's and early forty's this is what sustained us as a country so the for us nationalism is not something that ruined half of the continent it's something that allowed us to actually perseverance in the face of that aggressive force and what i wanted to ask. and i think when i listen to trump at least i think what he's trying to. wade in the best way he can is you know something about dr kind of nationalism sustaining nationalists rather than nationalism that six to destroy everybody else don't you think that when people in

europe are so frightened by either putin tromp or people of that sort don't you think that they're actually not so much fearing the danger that those personalities represent as much as they fear that side's within europe the fear of europe itself clearly you're absolutely right to say that troubles or or rather challenges always start at home so stop pointing to the other look in your own backyard to see what your challenges are and indeed in our european backyard i'm not sure i agree with you when you imply that you know when europeans are looking at russia they kind of forget what we know as europeans to russia to what you call russia russian nationalism and i'd rather call you know russian courage russian pride i would call it patriots is but it ultimately based on the very strong national feeling yes

absolutely so we know we all you and me and others want to use the term patrick ism to say that's the positive the the fighting for the right cause you know dimension of nationalism so you like me and i think many people in russia will make this distinction between the kind of national attachment that leads you to defend values to defend values against nazism to defend values against all sorts of of problems in the world also to be sunday there with one another to help one another i mean all of these elements of patch risen and national identity are very important the question is when you want to give a lot of. support to trump. i see where you're coming from you're saying in a way you know the americans and us in russia we share this understanding we're not like these naive kind of. europeans.