we're watching closely watching the hawks. yemen and the politics of denial and to see the trumping ministrations continued support of the saudi led war is morally indefensible and strategically counterproductive blaming iran for the humanitarian crisis in yemen only ensures more suffering it is time to end the senseless. later on. this is boom bust broadcasting around the world and covering the world of business and finance and the impact upon all of us i'm part chilton in washington belly of the beast most of times although not today we are sure glad you are on board thanks

for being with us coming up today after almost a year of since the trump tax cuts were approved by congress we asked the question a professor of economics of america is at university of massachusetts richard wolffe what good have they done for the u.s. economy it's certainly a reasonable question plus we take a look at the housing ghost of this year's past as new present numbers are out on housing and what the future may hold with kathy freshmeat of the real wealth network plus wells fargo is added again we'll talk about the bad boy bank and about the impact of decreased financial regulation upon consumers with bartlett nailer of public citizen all that directly ahead but first we had some headlines let's go. the fight over who will build and control global telecom infrastructure leads our global report today as the bt group says they will x. cooled components made by a while way of china from the core of five g. cellular network in the united kingdom bt says that they were still sore some

peripheral component such as antenna from wild way bt formerly known as british telecom revealed they began removing and replacing wall way components from their existing three g. and four g. networks in twenty sixteen the decision by bt seriously downgrades a relationship between bt and wa way that started back in two thousand and five and follows similar moves in australia and more recently as we've reported new zealand to it's. way for my role in building the core of their national five g. networks. and in other u.k. news growth in the key services sector is at its lowest point in twenty eight months the venerable purchasing managers index or p.m.i. tracked by i.h.s. market dropped fifty two fifty point four a low not seen sent to life twenty sixty in the month after u.k. voters opted to leave the european union at that time the p.m.i.

dipped below fifty the p.m.a. result also fell below consensus expectations making it even more unsettling analyst at i.h.s. markets extrapolated the p.m.i. and other data to predict quarterly growth for the u.k. get this just point one percent not one percent point one percent in the fourth quarter of this year and breck's that worries of course weighed on that index as up and down vote on the draft agreement on december eleventh quickly approaches. federal prosecutors in the united states have filed their first charges in the panama papers money laundering scandal u.s. attorney jeffrey berman unveiled charges of fraud and money laundering against four individuals including ramus all ins a lawyer an investment manager at disgraced panamanian law firm from seiko berman's office accused. of quote decades long criminal scheme journalist ken silverstein first reported the massive malfeasance at a law firm back in twenty fourteen and twenty sixteen

a massive trove of leaked masak for the sake of documents the so-called panama papers were published giving the scandal its names the u.s. charges following a related raid last week that we told you about of deutsche bank headquarters by german authorities investigating suspected laundering there. and there is a major update to another major corruption scandal in latin america this one centered on brazilian state oil company petro bust brazilian prosecutors have alleged in a news. conference that beginning of two thousand and nine major trading firm glencore trafalgar a and b. toll paid more than thirty million dollars in bribes to petro boss employees in exchange for cut rate prices on purchases of oil and oil derivatives prosecutors characterize trading firm executives knowledge of the corrupt arrangements as quote total and un equivocal.

we now take a take a long look rather at the u.s. tax cuts which were approved a year ago this month by the u.s. congress to help us out we are pleased to be joined by a professor of economics emeritus at the university of massachusetts amherst professor richard well professor welcome back we're so glad to have you thank you i'm glad to be here so you know the economy seem to be rolling quite well along early this year and and markets reflected a pretty positive attitude that said a lot of the benefits from the tax cuts went to buy dividends of buybacks and we have seen companies like general motors recently not reinvesting in manufacturing and the like what's your take on how these actual tax cuts have benefited the u.s. economy professor. well unfortunately those tax cuts were designed to be a big fat gift to corporations and the richest people amongst us and that's pretty much how it's played out suddenly businesses across america mostly the big ones but

also the medium and small ones had a gift money that thought they had to pay in taxes they wouldn't have to pay any more and they could do whatever else they wanted to and it turns out in part because the american economy is in such trouble and people don't have mary much to spend that they didn't spend the money contrary to what mr trump and the g.o.p. promised they didn't spend the money on hiring more workers on producing more output they did things like buy back stocks they did things like distribute greater dividends to their shareholders they did things like jacking up the already record high payment they give to top executives and if they hired a few more people which they did in the first half of two thousand and eighteen it was relatively modest and on the flip side of it put it this way they made the rich richer and everybody not so much and so the underlying inequality of this society

which is such a profound problem was not only not solved it actually got worse and so you see now less than a year later that the stock market is in major gyrations the anxiety about an imminent recession is now everywhere so this boost that it gave was small benefited mostly the folks at the top and leaves us one year later in as bad if not worse a situation as we were back then you know professor i'm so glad you mentioned inequality you've been kind enough to speak with us about that in the past and that's something we want to talk about all the time it's a ben exacerbated i do want to get your take on g.m. in particular i mean the. here's a company that needed a government bailout got a government bailout and some are saying look you know here the holidays are approaching and you're going to cut all these workers and shut down these plants in

canada and in the u.s. on the other hand you know you could argue that part of the problem with management and the resultant bailout was because they didn't make some tough decisions what's your take on g.m. . well i think we are always in a sense open to blackmail by corporations general motors at the height of the crisis and crash in two thousand and eight went to the government at that time and said you better bail us out because if you don't we are going to collapse and general motors is looked upon as a symbol of american capitalism and there will be panic around the world and what is happening if in addition to all the other downturn catastrophe knew the biggest car company in the country falls apart so the government basically felt it had no choice it gave them fifty billion five zero billion dollars over the years that came afterwards general motors only paid back forty billion so the taxpayers of

america are out a loss of ten billion dollars to this company it has meanwhile resumed its profitability paid out lots of dividends to shareholders and all the rest the thing that blew my mind as an economist was all of that money given to them without any conditions in other words you could have said ok we'll bail you out even if we don't like it but you have to commit not to cut your workforce not to damage the communities in states that depend on you and if you do then we're going to get some of that money back because that's not that's not your responsibility we didn't do that so now they're saying we're cutting all these jobs horrific christmas present for families and and communities across the midwest in the u.s. and canada and in a sense it's our own politicians having given them

a bailout without any conditions that leave them free to do this it's a statement about a system that isn't working you know every every time you talk i'm thinking of something else. reminds me of another bailout professor and we go back to right after the financial collapse when with the troubled asset relief program tarp which bailed out the banks we did the same darn thing then we didn't even have the guts and when i say we i mean congress in this regard didn't even have the guts to say you can't pay your executives your c.e.o.'s billions of billions of dollars while you're essentially being propped up by the u.s. taxpayers it just drives me nuts that we don't have the guts to do that sort of thing which you would think would be not partisan at all you think of the republican democrats would agree right yes and there's actually one more twist to this which may even blow your mind one step further the money that the government gave the banks which is in the trillions of dollars if you add up the investments

the loans the forgiveness of obligations part of that money was collected by the banks who used it in part to pay for the lobbyists to go back to congress to make sure that the regulations were few were weak etc in other words the banks used to bear out money to make sure they didn't have to make commitments in exchange for the bailout it's a story of the abuse of government by big business in this case banks that really exceeds even what we have come to expect it's us are cool with us and. grow circumstance let me ask you and this is sort of theoretical question professor before we go if you had to do it over again and you said look there is this one point five trillion dollars which we don't have of course but we're going to spend it on tax cuts we're just going to rejigger the thing and we're not going to go

from thirty five to twenty one we're going to make sure the middle income folks pay less or we had a big infrastructure bill help our crumbling roads bridges and infrastructure what would you have preferred to be none of the above. no i would have preferred of course that the tax cut be given to the people who deserved it let's be honest amongst ourselves we have for thirty years had an economy becoming more and more unequal the rich have taken the big bulk of all the gray gain and growth in our economy for thirty years and the mass of people have had a harder and harder time getting by thirty years ago we didn't have to borrow up to here to have our kid go to college we didn't have to load up on levels of debt for our credit cards we can't sustain anymore etc so what we needed was help for the middle and the lower half of our country the majority of our people that's who should have gotten the tax cut not the corporations who been doing better in the

last thirty years than they've ever done before and the benefit of it would have been if you give the tax cut to middle and lower income these are the people because they have to who immediately suspended who buy goods and services and that would have led corporations to hire more people and to give more incomes to the people they have it would have had much more of the effect that trump in the g.o.p. promised but they'd never showed up because they gave the money to the folks who are already rich and are not going to be spending that much more of it so i would have changed dramatically that way and i also when the spending came i would have been spending money where again the need it is we have ecological needs that are urgent for this planet we have rebuilding the infrastructure we have lots of important work to be done lots of people who need a good job doing it and that's what we should have done if we had had human beings

as our priority rather than the profit of a few absolutely we can't thank you enough particular time to be with us professor thank you so much take care my pleasure thank you. and time now for a quick break but hang here because when we return we'll take a look at the housing ghost of this year's past and the present as new housing numbers are out and what the future may hold with kathy fat of the real worth wealth network plus bartlett naylor a public citizen joins us to consider bad boy bank wells fargo which is at it again and the impact of decreased financial regulation upon consumers as we go to break the new york stock exchange and nasdaq were officially closed today for an official day of mourning for former u.s. president george herbert walker bush he was one of the better presidents in my lifetime and while i disagreed with a lot he did he was a strong defender of people with disabilities and of the environment he got all in with members of the opposite party and even if you disagree he was not disagreeable

he will be missed. with little make goods manufactured and sentenced to the public will. when the ruling classes protect themselves. with the financial merry go round listen to the one percent. we can all middle of the room sick. room believe. it as if protestors are trance are saying their purchasing power has diminished because all this money printing that's going on and you mention they can't tell a fact that money printing enrich the people on average in paris and shows little

is a in paris and those people who are working and doing blue collar jobs their person carry. eroded and they. party and pamela anderson figured out that this is a structurally violent system that they need to address with a quid pro quo violence or violence. the way to the united states is dangerous for most of the illegal immigrants. there's a lot of sympathy i want to. enter and i won the last post on this but many of them look for refuge in the so-called sentry sides of the draft used to share information about undocumented migrants with federal authorities. banned. and that next time i get i'm in a lot of class and i want to. watch as they all choose to stay in the country with

donald trump in the one. about the. struggles of many couples. who were trying to put. both of you up as a pua the hope of. welcome back a memorandum of cooperation with the international monetary fund has been approved by cabinet ministers in ukraine the decision on wednesday advances a credit package worth more than seventeen billion dollars that were first approved from the i.m.f. side back in april two thousand and fourteen now the i.m.f. is expected to consider dispersing as much as one point five billion dollars in additional credit to ukraine at a board meeting on december tenth the news comes as increased conflicts emerge

between ukraine and russia. and alphabet corp the famous parent company of google says they will begin testing a drone delivery. system in finland next year alphabet drone delivery subsidiary when will starts mall in helsinki reportedly aiming to master delivery of packages weighing less than one point five kilograms the experiment follows a similar trial in australia. and we now take a look at housing from a past present and future perspective to do so we are pleased to be joined again by cathy fact is the co-founder of coat c.e.o. of the real work network kathy thank you for being with us i really appreciate it thank you so let's start with looking at where housing has been this year it's been sort of a wild ride and bring us up to date not this week but just before this week let's go back and take a look what's happened. well this could be the year twenty eighteen that would be described as conflicting agendas and what i mean by that is we have

a trump administration that stimulating the economy and we have the federal reserve raising rates to slow things down we have the administration trying to create jobs but we have low unemployment and a surplus of job openings at least in the construction industry so what does this all mean and how has it affected housing there were so many questions at the beginning of the year how would the tax cuts affect the housing market and the way it seems to have sifted out is that is very very good if you are an investor there are incredible tax breaks however many homeowners if you're if you're buying your primary residence the it's not as good certainly not in the higher priced markets the tax deductions were cut and along with interest rates rising we're seeing a slowdown now of just over the last three months in the housing market nationwide well i want to talk about something you just touched on there briefly and that's the higher markets so we move sort of from the past two to the present and high end

home builder toll brothers out and they've reported a deep dip a thirteen percent in new home orders in their fiscal year fourth quarter there's been decreased demand in general and housing as you were talking about but these new numbers show even more high and the whole building will slow i mean what do you make of the high end stuff in particular is that just because of those tax disincentives you're talking about. well i want to go back to what you said and say it's not that the demand isn't there the demand is certainly there and who wouldn't want to live in a nice home or a luxury home it's the ability and and the marketplace for that one of the big things that we've seen this year is a pullback from chinese buyers there the chinese government is really discouraging investment in and u.s. property are really outside china in general so with that pullback we know that chinese buyers really like high end properties so and so they're for the most part out so who's they're buying in their place we've seen prices go up because material

costs have gone up labor costs have gone up because there's a low supply of workers we have the tariffs increasing materials interest rates going up so it is getting harder and harder for the average american to buy a new home and that's why we are seeing a slowdown also in the multifamily sector there was an oversupply of multifamily built in dallas seattle we're starting to see rents decrease and so again we'll see a slowdown in and building multifamily and the big metro areas and why are we seeing sort of the slowdown overall i mean is that interest rates we're probably going to have another one coming up next week of the slowing economy early what and by the way did this happen with the taper to trim back at twenty thirty. yeah it's amazing how many people don't understand that when the fed is raising rates there's one reason for that it's to slow the economy down and the federal reserve usually gets what it once it's been raising rates consistently probably will do it again

next month and and that is in my opinion the very reason that we've seen a housing slowdown however it's important to remember that home prices are still increasing they're still up five six percent from last year it's just slowing down in the pace of sales and the pace of increases we're not in any kind of recessionary situation in the housing market and i have no fear really of that happy. because people who have bought homes and the last ten years they had to qualify for those loans they had to put down down payments and and they had low interest rates and they have equity because home prices have gone up so i don't see anybody walking away from their homes but we just might not see the price gains in the quick pace of sales that we saw over the last decade well i'm going to take that as your prognosis for the future kathy hopeful and optimistic with some data to back it up kathy phadke of the real wealth network thanks cappie happy holidays to you thank you thank you.

and bad boy bank wells fargo is at it again the bank revealed in a filing with the u.s. securities and exchange commission that a computer glitch has impacted more than five hundred customers which were for close to a point and lost their homes due to the bank's air wells fargo's one of the largest lenders in the u.s. here to discuss and take a look at the impact of financial regulation upon consumers is our friend bartlett nailer the financial policy advocate at public citizen thank you so much for being here bartlett thanks for having me so let's first talk about you know and i hate call in wells fargo bad boy bank but they like the bad gift that keeps on giving they never seem to get over this hurdle what do you make of the recent news they've also said they're going to layoff like thirty different district managers i guess district managers look at like fifteen or so banks back to that original sin that

is the horrible sales practices they had signing customers up for bogus things that they didn't ask for and what do you make of all this well certainly the list is endless as you say some eight hundred people have been evicted from their homes through foreclosures because of a computer glitch i mean there have been computer glitches it seems a little suspicious that the glitches always seem to favor wells fargo and harm the consumer and before that there's the whistleblower. who was fired for blowing the whistle on some of this before that when there was selling car insurance to people who already had car insurance and then as you say in two thousand and sixteen the two million fake accounts they thought and they laid off five thousand people for for making these fake accounts and then after a year they realized it was more like three and a half million accounts so the problems are almost endless public citizen and we believe that very critically this demonstrates that this bank is too big to manage we know that they're too big to fail we've bailed them out we know that they're too

big to jail we set none of the senior executives but they're also too big to manage they literally can't keep their noses clean it's such a shame because and before all this happened years ago i used to give a speech that involved the importance of the banking system in particular wells fargo that helped build the towns along the railroad going west except where they are part of the important fabric of the united states but they've just gone down the wrong track as it were and it don't seem to be stopping let's expand the conversation bartlett to talk about financial regulation in general and what's happened in the past year we've talked before about the consumer financial protection bureau about the machinations there about the volcker rule and about the decrease in capital requirements when you look back and say you know to all the boom busters this is where we are today after a year of really trying to chip away at financial regulations where are we were it's really been

a bad year for consumers and for the average american the regulators are playing a dangerous game of django where they're removing blocks from from the architecture which is our financial system they are weakening the volcker rule prohibitions on gambling they are reducing capital requirements the basic safeguard they're about to replace one demolition expert at the consumer financial protection agency with another kathleen cranage of the senate. is set to vote as early as tomorrow revealingly or tellingly she is likely to win absolutely no democratic votes in a sort of not one not one in a quote about last week which is sort of a symbol she got through that cloture vote fifty to forty nine for the boom busters a cloture vote allows you to go forward to actually it's essentially a motion to proceed that that so they go forward but then you say no democrats will will support yes i don't think there will be and before that of course we have the so-called crêpe a bill the major legislation signed by trying to roll back regulations especially

on mid-size banks those with just under two hundred fifty billion dollars that's twenty five of the thirty five largest banks in the united states two hundred fifty billion dollars is not chump change it's real money that would have been the biggest bank in america about a decade and a half ago course now we've got through all these mergers some happening during the financial crisis we have two trillion dollar banks j.p. morgan back america citigroup and wells fargo unbelievable just real quick bartlett do you see any sort of governor on what's going forward with the democrats in control the house starting in january well the surprise is while trump one of the wall progressives got their wallets called democratic control of the house and the incoming chair of the house financial services committee maxine waters a proven progressive champion of the consumer is likely to hold the valuable hearings to bring oversight about what's happening and of course i don't think anything is going to happen the rollback regulation coming through congress because she and the democrats in the senate i'm sorry in the house simply will not let that

happen or i wouldn't do the financial policy advocate a public citizen you know i said it would just pass thanksgiving here in the u.s. and i say it all the time thank you for the work that you do but this is really important work thank you so much for doing it and thank you for sharing with us thank you. and that's it for this time thanks for being with us you can catch boom bust on direct t.v. channel three twenty one dish network channel two a day or streaming twenty four seven. on pluto t.v. that the free t.v.'s channel one thirty two ers always hit us up at you tube dot com slash boom bust party so long for now. yemen and the politics of denial and deceit the trumping ministrations continued

support of the saudi led war is morally indefensible and strategically counterproductive blaming iran for the humanitarian crisis in yemen only insurer's more suffering this time to end the senseless conflict. when a loved one is murder it's natural to seek the death penalty for the murderer i would prefer it be in the death penalty just because i think that's the fair thing the right thing research shows that for every nine executions one convict is found innocent the idea that we were executing innocent people was terrifying is just no way to present in that we're even many victims' families want the death penalty to be abolished the reason we have to keep the death penalty here is because that's what murder victims' families what that's going to give them peace that's going to give them justice and we come in saying. not quite enough we've been through this

this isn't the way. the maternity town the slums go in and you may never get out some sort of the most of. my teenage gang rules here because they're one of the few moves then none of the mind of those who are listening but. maybe will be. told will come out. minus a murder. and now it's looking for the yeah when i knew you. and melanie might not be in the food.