all that directly ahead but first we had some headlines go. major news in the energy sector leads our global report today as general electric has taken a big bite out of a fifteen billion dollars electrical equipment contract in iraq that had seemed set to go to european rival siemens a g. of germany under the contract g.e. will supply equipment sufficient to power the homes of three hundred thousand iraqis the truck of ministration diplomats meeting earlier with iraqi officials reportedly invoked the deaths of seven thousand u.s. soldiers as part of the iraq war which began in two thousand and three as an argument for giving the contract to a u.s. company by the way in two thousand and six the lancet medical journal published an estimate of six hundred fifty thousand iraqis whose lives were lost in that war the contract win is especially good news for g.e. because it shores up their ailing power business as their c.e.o. considers radical restructuring including selling off major g.e. divisions g.e.

stock shot up in trading earlier today by forty cents per share on the news. japan's fourth largest publicly traded company is visibly reconsidering the risk of business ties to saudi arabia after the alleged murder of journalist jim off the show get a saudi consulate and istanbul turkey more than two weeks ago whom busters will recall that softbank group previously unveiled a one hundred billion dollar investment vehicle they called the vision fund with forty five billion dollars of that total coming from saudi arabia just a week ago saudi crown prince mohammed bin solomon said the monarchy might invest another forty five billion in a second vision fun but now soft bank chief operating officer says the group is anxiously looking at what is happening in saudi arabia and there is no certainty about a second vision fund much less safe word as had previously been suggested by soft bank officials so. bank is also currently slated to build

a two hundred billion dollars solar plant in saudi arabia at least for now but soft bank isn't the only business reevaluating their business ties tooth the saudi kingdom here with more authority correspondent alex the hell of it you joins us from toronto alex we've seen a lot of people pull out of these so-called davos in the desert this financial conference taking place in riyadh saudi arabia due to the circumstances surrounding this trip because shogi there are some really big names here both people and businesses that have or were looking to have business and economic relations with saudi arabia even with billions of dollars at stake it looks like many people are picking principles above profits what do you make of it alex. well barred set to see that an alleged dismemberment of a journalist is what it takes for people to start focusing on what saudi arabia is doing in this world the famine and the genocide in yemen doesn't seem to be enough or we can even go back to nine eleven but it seems that maybe the governments

aren't looking at this hard enough but some companies are and they are pulling out of this conference which is very important to the future of saudi arabia and i'm going to give you a pretty long list here of companies that are pulling out and starting off with j.p. morgan you know one of that we're looking at the financial financial sector here in the states especially when you have some companies like black rock blackstone and that's huge blackstone just got a twenty billion dollar investment from the kingdom of saudi arabia last year so really if anybody's putting principle before the dollar it seems like companies like this are doing that now the list goes on we can talk about ford master card google all pulling exact out of this conference h.s.b.c. credit suisse standard chartered a b. and p. par about out of europe big banks they're all pulling out then we also have the head of the i.m.f. the head of the world bank as well as the head of the london stock exchange they're not going to be at the conference either in viacom against the c.e.o.'s of this

company are not going to be showing up there these are companies that could have made billions of dollars potentially from the saudi government either an investment or even opening or getting into that market in saudi arabia also in europe while one last company that i find notable would be ryan air we all heard about ireland's ryanair which is that discount airline they're not even going to be there so look at the companies it looks like the private sector is taking a stand here and until some answers or real answers are given these boys do not want to play ball with the saudi kingdom and alex one of the first and you and i spoke about this a little bit earlier is richard branson of virgin airlines and virgin hall of fame they've got a lot of virgin think but it may be there may be some retribution there's new news on that breaking today explain. to us well one point three billion dollars we're going to be invested by the saudi arabians in hyperloop project that is under the virgin auspices and richard branson said we don't need your money until this is corrected here's a quote from richard branson the basically breaks down his frame of thought well if

it's true that saudis killed and cut up a journalist in turkey then i don't think any business could do business with a country that behaves in this way we have suspended all our dealings with saudi arabia until and unless we have a very satisfying explanation now branson of virgin have also canceled two tours projects as well as two other projects that the saudis were supposed to invest and they're pulling out all of it but the saudis are saying and this is going back and forth we don't know really what's true at this point they're saying that these negotiations are ongoing that some reports other reports are saying well that the saudis that pulled out of it but you know when you break it all down the bigger picture seems that richard branson was the one who started this in the beginning he was not very happy with what's going on obviously the man has some kind of morals and that's even seen in his business and he's bringing that out he doesn't care about billions of dollars he is willing to step out of that just to see some justice maybe come into play and alex finally of all the people who are pulling out

there's a couple notable staying in secretary of state u.s. secretary of state mike pump ale was there with the crown prince yesterday sort of at least the pictures all look like he was yucking it up i couldn't find any that looked like they were serious quite frankly but stephen menuhin the treasury secretary for the u.s. is still slighted to go there and that seems somewhat controversial anything changed on that score alex pompei it was all smiles and it looks like minutiae ready to dive in there as well there's a couple of companies also that are sticking to this so it's going to simmons' out of germany as well as france's e.d.f. now think about it though both these companies are heavily are either in the energy sector or heavily involved in the energy sector so that all ties into saudi arabia and we're talking about the modernization this. step forward that saudi arabia wants to take these companies would be tied closely into that so that's what we're seeing here now controversial how can it not be controversial the last reports we're seeing is a fifteen people team coming and we know that the turkish government has released

some passport photos and names of the people that are involved in this and this includes a very high ranking security member in the king's personal reactions to the prince of security detail the royal guard and there's pictures out there of that person so this is a scary situation one of those situations that at this point is not going to go away alex and i want to ask you this question because i can't believe i'm even articulating it but you know some i've read are maybe now concerned or wondering whether or not the u.s. president himself is somewhat covering this up that's for another time our to correspondent alex my high limit thank you alex thank you. and the u.s. securities and exchange commission has ruled against some very big names and stocks the new york stock exchange and nasdaq all five f.c.c. commissioners voted in the first action of its kind to deny two major u.s. based doctors changes requests for permission to increase their most lucrative

market that's data fees and doing so the f.c.c. cited for now at least with system a that's the securities industry and financial markets association which is the most prominent stakeholder opposing the increased one f.c.c. commissioner robert jackson who is a good guy called the denial a victory for ordinaries investors y n s y n a a new york stock exchange but first a denounce the decision. and we now consider some ways to diversify or question your investments as some are preparing for what may already be here and some views of mind a bear market to do so we are joined by brian livingston the author of muscular portfolios brian welcome first of all you're a dot com entrepreneur and journalist and and don't manage anybody's accounts i want to get that out of the way you're not making money from people trading people's money except for you want them to manage their own money that's a pretty noble cause why is that such a key thing for you brian and welcome it's nice to be here people have thousands

and thousands of dollars sometimes in there for a one k. plans are there ira plans are there other savings plans but people don't have training and how to protect their money from going down fifty percent or more the next time the s. and p. five hundred crashes. and you and i spoke earlier about you know what approach inevitably you know in this in a down market whenever that happens maybe now maybe a year from now who knows but you suggested a real diversification what do you suggest as the best way for investors to diversify brian. now we have low cost index funds and it's been shown that you can make more money invest in a basket of index funds than by picking individual stocks now if you have at least three different index funds and you combine them in a particular way that we show on our website muscular portfolios dot com you can protect yourself and never go down more than ten twenty percent even when the s.

and p. five hundred is crashing fifty percent or more now when we talk about these funds you know in the u.s. we call them e.t.f. exchange traded funds but globally they have different names we have a global viewership what is the global viewers around the world should be looking toward with these sorts of fund types of funds bryan you can get low cost funds that track any market and you'll get ninety nine percent of the return from that market whether it's developed country stocks or emerging countries stocks or bonds or commodities or real estate the fidelity international for example has offices and twenty two countries outside of the united states the vanguard group has offices in one thousand countries outside of the united states you can take the book muscular but follows to them and say i want to invest this way you tell me which are the lowest cost funds in my country and they'll have to tell you and you know we see all these advertisements on television not here because we're not pushed by any of those folks but that talk about you know for ninety nine trade

successor how do investors keep costs low when they're looking to put their money to good use brian. it's very important to use a bargain brokerage firm you can get trades for four dollars each way or even zero from some brokerage firms that are offering commission free index funds so keeping those costs low is the way that you make your financial savings grow brian thank you so much very helpful we wish you luck with muscular portfolios brian livingston everybody thank you so much brian. nice to be here. and tying up a legal loose end a federal judge has given final approval to that settlement we've told you about before between this curious and exchange commission and tesla motor company the legal wrangling began with tesla c.e.o. elon musk effort being to temporarily mislead short sellers by tweeting that he would take the company private at four hundred twenty dollars per share tesla and

mr musk each pay twenty million dollars of a fine and mr musk will be banned as company chairman for three years more challenging may be the requirement that the company monitor mr must communications including his twitter account and more favorable news today regarding tesla they have secured land in shanghai for a previously announced gigafactory three to begin manufacturing test for cars in china within two years tesla management has signaled us try to trade tensions spurred an acceleration of the projects. and it's time now for a quick break way to hang here because when we return leaders have just been meeting with british prime minister theresa may regarding brecht's at the ceo's drug market were poured which joins with with the latest developments and molly barrows a contributor on american lawyer joins us to tell us the tale about how the biggest selling drug in the world will become less expensive all over europe as a patent expires others outside of the e.u.

see similar benefits mali will tell us what to expect as we go to break the s. and p. was down again in trading for much of today making it the eighth intraday down day of the last ten trading sessions and here are the numbers at the closing bell already arrows everything is down across our big board today back in a flash. when gold make its manufacture consent to step into public wealth. when the running closest to protect themselves. with the financial merry go round lifts only the one percent of. the time we can

all middle of the room six. million real new. fracking gave americans a lot of new job opportunities i needed to come up here to make some money i could make twenty five thousand dollars as a teacher or i could make fifty thousand dollars a year truck so i chose to drive truck people rush to a small town in north dakota was an unemployment rate of zero percent like gold rush is very very similar to a gold rush but this beautiful story ended with pollution and devastation a lot of people have left here i don't know too many people here and just slowed down so much they lost their jobs got laid off and the american dream is changing that's not what it used to be. and it's a tough reality and you'll. need to know more of the.

total. over ninety we didn't know. oh you ought to go to zero zero zero move for your. welcome back a familiar u.s. retailers attempting to get serious about upgrading itself to compete in what we

are tempted to call the amazon era of the sector wal-mart c.e.o. doug mcmillan told his company's annual investors' meeting yesterday quote i want to challenge your thinking of wal-mart mr mcmillan told investors that the effort will include adoption of biometrics robots and software tools that many associate now with amazon warehouses wal-mart has predicted their online sales will increase thirty five percent by the company's fiscal year two thousand and twenty and expects as part the in part of that the increased online revenue to come from a partnership with advance auto parts to sell hard parts and related items on the internet analysts say wal-mart's purchase of online retailer jet in two thousand and sixteen will also be a key tool for wal-mart and leveraging a greater online market share from amazon. and speaking of the big day amazon the richest person in human history amazon's chief executive jeff bezos is trolling rival google for declining to renew a contract to develop u.s.

weapons applications for artificial intelligence when asked about google's choice mr bezos said of amazon's business with the defense department quote we are going to continue to support the dio d. and i think we should he further said quote if big tech companies are going to turn their back on the defenseman department this country is going to be in big trouble amazon is now bidding for a ten billion dollar contract to build the u.s. jet i cloud computing project that google declined to pursue after employees raised ethical questions amazon's web service unit won a six hundred million dollars. cloud computing contract from the us central intelligence agency in twenty thirteen as recently as two thousand and sixteen amazon was estimated to have captured a forty four percent market share in cloud computing.

and the rough and rocky road to brecht's that we've been on and watching has been pretty bumpy to say the least just this past weekend the negotiators were having a nice to smooth out details ahead of a summit today related primarily to issues surrounding the irish border issue and yesterday e.u. bret's a commissioner michelle bond yeah a brief foreign minister is on the newest plan to now add another year to the brics a transition period so instead of all the brics it transitions happening and being completed by march of next year it wouldn't occur until march of two thousand and twenty the meeting concluded not long ago so we turn to our breakfast expert the c.e.o. mark henry ford which fresh off of speaking with you told me a little bit ago the british embassy so give us the latest i mean they were at the dinner meeting so not too long ago they finished what's up yes they did thank you for having me back they just finished that dinner actually interesting i thought it was rather sort of an indication of the relationship because to make gave the address outside the ante room because she actually wasn't invited to the data but

there were the twenty seven countries she spoke somewhat between fifteen and thirty minutes and the president actually if they european union and tony johnny said that he thought that it was very positive that he thought that that was the will to achieve something but their bottom line is the news is there's no news there's nothing different that came out of it than we already know so i know you work with what is it the british business council or on the british the board of the british or american businesses british or american business association so i mean how do businesses prepare in this environment where things are so in flux or what are they talking about at the at this order. well i think it's for global companies very different than it is for the small businesses of a global companies of course they spend millions on consultants and lawyers an analyst to prepare there's been a huge supply chain concern and that's been a result of the companies backing themselves up so they have been stockpiling and making sure that the supply chain stays in place small businesses are the ones that

are really actually suffering and there's this sort of incisions in terms of lack of preparation and actually lack of concern because there's not much they can do about it they're actually just going to basically wait and see so small businesses in the u.k. they employ about ninety nine percent of the population is this huge small business country and small businesses are just waiting and seeing and hillary finally i mean what is the next sort of mile marker the next shoe to drop what do you expect going forward here in the near future yes they're going to be extending actually what came out of that was one thing or the pre dinner. speech was that the next thing will happen will be the deadline has been extended another year and there was talk that came out of it that it might be extended for even longer so we're talking about beyond the the deadline probably act more like twenty one months and when do you think that might be determined whether or not they go i mean a lot of these things it's the same in politics and legislative they go right up to

the dead going to try to get people to move is that what you expect november or december why november december we probably should know and i would not be surprised if this went instead of march of one thousand to march of twenty and maybe beyond the reporter to c.e.o.'s dr mark in an expert on brooks thank you hilary actually being here thank you about well. there is major regulatory news out of china as officials have imposed a record fine equivalent to one point three billion dollars billion with a b on a biotech company they say sold flawed vaccines and attempted to cover it up china's national drug administration's say the company. chung chang shen lifesciences botched the manufacture of five hundred thousand doses of a vaccine against the feria tetanus and whooping cough last august the regulator also barred the company's chairwoman and fourteen executives from working in vaccine production the disclosure of a major flaw in

a vaccine often given to children is likely to inflame public opinion in a country where many families only have one child but regulators specifically attributed the fine to the company's alleged efforts to deceive regulators about a flawed rabies vaccine the massive fine seems designed to reassure chinese consumers of the government's resolve to protect public health in the wake of several product safety scandals. europeans who take the world's biggest selling drug who marrow will soon have the option of buying cheaper versions of the medication but that's not going to happen anytime soon in the united states here to explain why it's legal journalist molly barrows a contributor on america's lawyer molly it's good to see you again to spend a few weeks why are the cheaper versions of you mary being rolled out in europe. well it's a key patent actually expired this week part so that's going to make the market open for what's called bio similar drugs to come on the market these are pretty

much identical to the drugs that are already like a human or bio similar as what they called and they're pretty much near copies of the drug they're going to be launched at a lower price how much lower we don't know exactly but it's going to be ten to twenty five percent of what it costs now and some of the bigger drug markets in europe now you're talking about a blockbuster drug this is the most popular drug in the world if you will for billion annually in sales in europe and it's the second biggest market in fact the united states and bio similar versions are going to be available rolling out they believe starting this week in europe it's expected to say that england's national health service nearly two million dollars a year so this is a big deal good for europe they're going to get these cheaper versions of what is an extremely popular and pretty expensive drug well they're doing four billion dollars now they're available to do these bio similar drugs molly i'm curious about what are the legal differences in patents for who marry in europe versus the united states what we know about that. yes well it's definitely

a drastic difference in europe it's a much more legal friendly environment to challenge a patent so even though in the patent the main patent for humira expired in the united states last year there are one hundred patents still attached to this particular drug in the united states from the pharmaceutical manufacturer the company that makes this drug ads so they in fact have filed two lawsuits to prevent other companies from bringing bio similar products of versions of this drug to the market and the main reason they say is because you know they haven't yet recoup their costs for manufacturing and development and this is only fair but the problem is it gives them a monopoly and so just like it's going to save europe millions of dollars it could save the united states billions as well i mean you're talking about a drug that's going to make eighteen billion for abdi by the year twenty twenty two is what they're saying in the united states so they are in no rush to remove these patents and in fact the soonest a bio similar generic version of humira could be available the united states is not

until two thousand and twenty three you know mali we have seen over the years in the states where the drug prices are so darn high in the u.s. that a lot of people want consumers who need them simply can't afford them and and what they've done because we've such we have such a fatally flawed system here in the united states they've gone to other places they've gone famously i guess to to canada for cheaper drugs and i know a lot of people it's not been as prevalent in the last decade or so but would go to mexico to buy drugs where you either need not much of a subscript prescription rather but you can go in and have a five minute visit with a doctor and get a prescription so i'm curious about whether or not. others. are and other drugs in the futures may have may be cheaper in places like canada

mexico or other places around the world and i know just let me preface by saying you know these are difficult laws to look at all over the world so i know you have looked all over but what do we know about lower cost drugs throughout the world. i tell you it's interesting the when i started to glance into patents in the pharmaceutical industry it is one of their biggest ways that they control the drug market worldwide i mean it is tied to legislation connected to the world health organization and speaking of countries where you can get those generic versions of drugs talking about india india has what's called a patent barrier they've they've removed the patent barriers if you will so that has enabled them to be able to create a lot of generic drugs that otherwise they wouldn't be able to if they were inking deals with big pharmaceutical companies to let them produce or manufacture within their country so they end up being able to produce a lot of these themselves and in fact they have so many that they're able to give it to other countries but it's interesting because india is trying to make some trade deals right now with the european union and it's going to include changes to

their patent system so again these patents are how these pharmaceutical companies really control the price and you know the united states one of the biggest industrialized nations in the country we should be able to provide these medications to our consumers but you know our legal system is more friendly to the corporations and not to consumers eloquently said and we appreciate your a little view around the world with all our global viewers that's important stuff molly barrows legal journalist and a contributor for america's lawyer thanks so much molly great to see you. good to see things are changed and that's it for this time thanks for being with us you can catch boom bust on youtube dot com slash boom bust r.t. so long for now.

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