a slight premium in yields on the bonds compared to current benchmark which suggests the status quo has shifted at least somewhat. and yesterday on probe we spoke about how trade tensions and other uncertainties led analysts to downgrade u.s. g.d.p. growth by one tenth of a percent well now the world economy appears to have some grim economic clouds on the horizon the world bank has announced it is slashing it forecasts for upcoming economic growth the world over citing both trade on certainty and some falling currencies the world bank has revised its estimated global growth rate by point one percent to just two point nine percent and twenty nineteen now for comparison guys the world bank had listed twenty eight teams of global economic growth rate at three percent but if we take a look back all the way to the one nine hundred sixty s. check this out we see world g.d.p. rates in the six percent raise the right range rising to six point six percent that's nine hundred sixty four then again in seventy three at six point five then

global growth flowed but check this out in the one nine hundred ninety s. four point five percent and eighty three four point six in eighty eight and even four point three in two thousand point four point four in two thousand and four and look there just see that large drop off there that's two thousand and seven when the global g.d.p. was four point two percent look up quickly after the great recession it jumped back in two thousand and ten to four point three percent i mean that's pretty amazing and in two thousand and seven it was three point one so by comparison here moving down to two point nine percent as the world bank suggests it may occur this year that not such a good thing historically and an interesting point to note in the report was the concern of slowing growth in some of the world's top economists such as the u.s. china and the european union citing falling production numbers in these areas we spoke about those recently the world bank economist who headed the forecast claimed when you. about the engines of the global economy they're all going to lose

momentum will keep this report in mind as we watched two not two thousand one thousand unfold. and last week we spoke about debt by nation and today we take a quick view of u.s. consumer debt and it g seven disposable income before talking about income inequality highlighted by those yellow vests protesters in france to do so we are pleased and honored to once again be joined by professor emeritus at university about just its amorous professor richard well professor great to see you again thank you bard led to be here so americans now more than ever they know more than ever consumer debt which takes in credit cards and personal and student loans is over four trillion bucks this year at the same time mortgage levels are nearly as high as they were before the housing crisis we're just talking about the great

recession with homeowners alling ten point three trillion bucks in the most recent data that's up by two point eight percent year over year these seem like pretty horrific numbers to me but you're the economist professor what do they mean to you . well they're pretty scary and i think you don't need to be an economist to know that if you have not learned the lesson of the last credit collapse the subprime mortgage collapse we used to call it back in two thousand and eight and nine you should because these numbers indicate that even if people learned the lesson the fact is that the incomes of most americans and this is true in other countries to simply did not go up over the last decade while the cost of leading a decent life getting your kids a college education if possible having a vacation once in a while cost more your income didn't go up and your solution even if you were

worried was to borrow more money and again the basic law of economics if your underlying income is not going up but your debt levels are it's only a matter of when not whether that you're going to hit crunch time and the economy is going to crack because people can't keep going they can't even service the debt they have and so they can't buy goods and services and then we have the crash it's a horrific feeling for some of us it's like being on a train rushing towards a stone wall everybody sees it but seems unable to take the steps to prevent the disaster it's almost like a death spiral and reminds me it's been a long time since you or i probably watch sesame street but you know you have all these things that look the same increasing housing increasing transportation increase health care but incomes not increasing which thing does not look like the

other and it's income as you say but i want to take a look at the wider world at least at the g seven countries professor in terms of disposable income if it were like the old school g eight which included russia russia would actually. to be at lowest in terms of disposable income but of the current g seven members we look at this chart actually canada and the u.k. state instance have more disposable income italy below us than in the middle of the pack germany the u.s. and japan and france i mean what do you make a these numb numbers of household debt. again i think they're frightening i think what we're seeing is the grudgingly more and more people are loading up with one or another kind of debt i think that behind many of the political events of our time is the anxiety of people who don't see the rising incomes but do see rising deaths and that's

a very depressing situation i think it lies in part behind the anger of the british people to vote against staying in europe which isn't going to solve their problem it's behind the anger of the american people voting for trump which is going to solve their problem and in france you see it with this yellow vest movement because they've made it crystal clear that the combination of weak income no future and rising debts is what brought brings them into the street i think you're seeing the building of a kind of pressure cooker in which debt is playing a very central role in galvanizing people's uneasiness about where their economies are taking that well let's move to that because you know when it does not just the u.s. and we've got some specific problems we've spoken about the u.s. but you know income inequality is a problem the world over and i just wonder if this circumstance with the yellow

best protesters in france is really a life. movement that might be beginning you know it started with just a couple of the issues now it really seems to have emerged professor into more income inequality overall and do you think as that those figures and that have been the have nots and one thing doesn't seem like the other as those concern you to exacerbate or gifty more of this do you think the more of these protests more of these concerns by average folks who have just are sort of mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. i'm convinced that you are already seeing it there have been yellow vests in belgium there has been a sizeable yellow vest movement in the netherlands it is already major new across europe but i don't think it's going to stop not only because it's already some evidence of it i think that there is a combination of building anger and rage from below and the level of being out of

touch with it at the top that promises more trouble let me give you one illustration this morning in france mr maher craw the president named a woman minister who would run the debate that he's called for over the issues raised by the yellow vest movement mostly issues about the mass of the french people not having enough money to live a decent life the newspapers in france this morning published the income that would be earned by the minister who would lead this discussion a woman who by the way has already resigned her income was to be in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand u.s. dollars the equivalent ok that is so crazy that is so insulting to the mass of the french people. that it will stimulate more yellow vests it's so outrageous it kind of boggles the mind but it suggests the inability of those

sitting at the top to even understand the most basic reality motivating those at the bottom and that's a sign of a lot of trouble coming down the pike professor before we go and ask you one other question i apologize a sort of comes out of left field i know you're not a political analyst but you're just as good as anybody else if not better so you think about like catalona you think about bricks that you think about donald trump in the u.s. and i wonder if these movements political movements if you will where people have just said we've had enough are they do you think a reflection also of this inequality gap or do you think there's something different. no on the unconvinced it's the inequality gap look here's the way i make sense of it dealing with the inequality gap puts you right up against the capitalist economic system that we live with it is very scary especially after half a century of cold war to sit through think let alone act around the notion that the

economic system you've accepted and lived with is what has to change what maybe even has to go because of the inequality so people look for something else that they can change in the hope they believe but in the honest hope that maybe if we get if we're british and we get out of europe or maybe if we're american and we don't let refugees and immigrants from central america in or if we're in hungary and we don't lead desperate people from syria in that change we'll deal with what up sending us it won't it'll take a few years before that's clear to people but i think these are what we call displacement of an economic problem inequality our economic system but there are still enough people scared of dealing with that issue that they look for something else they can change in the kind of almost mystical hope that getting

out of europe or blocking the border or something like that will get them back to some sort of economic equilibrium it won't we've been there we've done that it's too little and it's too late we've got to deal with the economic problem because in the end that's the problem that we have to solve what we're going to continue to talk about it we so much appreciate your assistance in that regard professor richard well thank you professor appreciate it. thank you i'm glad to do it. time now for a quick break but hang in here because when we return aren't you bruce or sly a tab under tells us how some nations are keeping iranian oil flowing as u.s. tries to keep a heavy hand on iranian sanctions and later john grace of investors advantage joins us to l. why is trading in this unusual market atmosphere and the resulting volatility as we go to break here the numbers at the closing bell we'll be back in

a while. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy to let it be an arms race is on offense here in 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. the most important moments are when the principals the minister or the president actually ask your opinion when that happens you are on your own.

to you actually. have to say what you think. u.s. veterans who come back from war often tell those same stories. we're going after the people who were killing civilians they were not interested in the wellbeing of their own soldiers either they're already several generations of them so i just got this memo from the surgery to bed. it says we're got back and destroy the government and seven countries in five years americans pay for the walls with them money others with lives if we were willing to go into harm's way and willing to risk being killed for a war surely we can risk some discomfort for an easy nice piece.

seemed wrong. why don't we all just all. me all get to shape out these days become educated and in detroit equal to trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart when she's to look for common ground. welcome back to the united states is increasing pressure for regime change in venezuela with new economic sanctions on the eve of the inauguration of president

nick president nicolas maduro for his first full term as president today u.s. treasury secretary steve admonition accuse seven venezuelan officials of bribing officials at the nation's treasury department in an effort to allow illicit currency exchanges the u.s. treasury named twenty three companies as part of this scheme and subject to the new sanctions u.s. treasury statement notably said sanctions could be lifted on targets who act to quote get this restored democratic order making the sanctions purpose of regime change clear last week the so-called lima group or lima group rather of canada and twelve south american nations impose their own sanctions on venezuela lima group member mexico notably denounced the sanctions as as interventionist. and moving north to the gulf of mexico oil giant british petroleum b.p. has discovered you're not going to believe this one billion barrels of oil near existing oil fields the discovery was made at the british company's atlantis field

just south of louisiana in the gulf of mexico b.p. as a tribute is fine to its new investments in what they call next generation technology b.p. is the biggest footprint in the gulf of mexico of all energy companies and say they'll be spending more than a billion dollars to ramp up production from those oil fields estimates show b.p. could boost production to around four hundred thousand barrels of oil in each day within the next decade currently the british oil giant creates around three hundred thousand barrels. a fifty percent increase over the past five years b.p. stock has been rising over the past several days and trading at the new york stock exchange and so i notice will bump up following the announcement. and india has signed an agreement with iran to pay for crude oil it imports from the persian gulf rupees a memorandum of understanding was signed following the u.s. allowing india and seven other nations to avoid u.s. sanctions and continue purchasing a really well despite sanctions being imposed on the islamic state on november

fifth for more on the story here's our two producers. are just three months ago india had yet to work out a payment system for continuing to purchase iranian crude oil but now india has decided to ditch the u.s. dollar completely and exporting oil from iran and instead settling transaction in indian rupees india the world's third biggest oil importer after china and the united states imported more than sixty five billion dollars worth of crude oil in twenty eighteen now that's close to eight percent of the world's oil supply india which is the second biggest purchaser of iranian oil after china was exporting around five hundred sixty thousand barrels of oil per day from iran before the final round of sanctions went into effect in november last year but now it's exporting almost half of that from iran india gets more than eighty percent of its oil from imports the top five countries who export to india being saudi arabia

almost twenty percent iraq a battle over sixteen percent and iran who meets about ten percent of india's total oil needs now the other the other charge here they're going to put up it shows that eight countries who received the waivers before this sank before the sentence actually went into effect and as you see china was exploiting around six hundred fifty thousand barrels of oil per day india being. about five hundred sixty thousand now after the sanctions actually went into effect these countries are exporting half that amount china being about three hundred fifty thousand and india three hundred thousand so exports out of iran are actually now being cut in half so now iran is getting very creative in ways to receive payment and to keep their oil business steady now over the past few months of record temperatures power outages and water shortage along with a fifty percent rise in food prices has triggered scattered protests throughout

iran so iran is now offering trade partners like india more attractive ways for payment is almost becoming the amazon prime for oil purchases by offering free shipment faster delivery and now taking payments in national currencies in return iran has agreed to use the same funds receiving from india to pay for critical items like food grains medicine and medical surprise other countries like russia china and turkey have also all agreed to use national currencies with iran so right now bartering is iran's best hope to bypass sanctions and export its oil while getting these critical food items and medical supplies into the country. those were fantastic charts i love seeing those as a great way to really demonstrate it with a visual in addition to which they could fly to injure.

and volatility in markets has been ramping up at many investors are wondering what to do former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan one for cover but is that the correct prescription for these markets here with his take is john grace of investors advantage corporation who joins us from our l.a. studios hey john thanks for being with us happy new year to you. happy new year barr good to be back so first of all before we get to the volatility although it's all related right the federal open markets committee meetings minutes were just up from their december meeting not long ago i'm not sure if you had a chance to look at them but any idea what they say i've got a few little stuff but you learn anything well they're trying to be as upbeat as possible they certainly don't want to get credit for upsetting anyone's apple cart and as you know though we saw that they had ramped up with four point five trillion dollars worth of quantitative easing money now they're ramping down with

quantitative tightening taking fifty million dollars off the balance sheets every single month so stay tuned here so i was looking at just a couple of the stories are sort of hot off the press john one was that powell in the meeting notes said you know that the fed can't afford to be patient about future rate hikes and some other notes there that the fed funds rate of course that's the interest rate there that are charged for the banks and overnight lending of course and other money market rates could possibly become somewhat volatile as times in times as banks and financial markets adjust to lower levels of reserve balances which brings us to the point of volatility i don't think it's probably just run for the hills run for cover as fed former fed chair greenspan said what do you think investors should do john. well buckle up because i'm calling it the velocity of volatility that's what we're going to see i think much of this year and

certainly we don't notice it when it's upward volatility like twenty seventeen where no matter where you threw your dart of money it finished the year in positive territory eighty two thousand eight hundred was certainly a lot more difficult i think two thousand one thousand is going to be increasingly difficult because we could very well end up in a very negative year for this calendar year as we did two thousand and eighteen so how do investors hedge their risk should they be going into some certain sectors should buying gold today buying cryptocurrency is what do you think. i think the first thing they should do is look back if you just look at your portfolio or ask your current advisor or you're doing it yourself how did your account hold up from september twentieth that was the year high to the year low right christmassy and the markets were off about twenty percent that's a good way to evaluate how did my account do if you want further information most people did not see and do not know how their portfolios performed in two thousand

and eight so would be really good to go back to see how negative that portfolio got in two thousand and eight because if it turned very negative in many did it suggest to me that you're poised to have the same experience with the markets off another fifty fifty fifty seven percent for the year so that would be the first thing number to look for additional ways to diversify outside of cash bonds and stocks that could have held up better and otoh to again zero eight zero nine you want to evaluate how you could prepare your portfolio enjoyed the upside but you want to be prepared for the downside and finally bart i would say you want to add active management strategies to the equation in addition to increase to first vacation what that looks like is moving out of risk assets in two thousand and eight for example if you're worried about a decline into cash or money markets and then back in risk assets bonds or stocks whatever they might be in your portfolio full. in two thousand and nine to minimize the downside down to downside to dissipate in

a way and enjoying all of the upside participation in two thousand and nine let me ask you about sectors john you know last year not many sectors did well health care was one that did well of course texted super well in two thousand and seventeen they started off with a bang in eighteen and amazon and netflix been doing pretty well as since christmas actually but i mean what do you think the sectors are if people are looking at maybe like an exchange traded fund into a particular sector health care industrials what do you think health care is going to continue to do as well as it possibly can let's just understand that what happens in a downturn is all stocks get painted with the same brush right so there may be a significant decline all over the place last year there were very few areas that were up most were down across the board and that's one of things you want to look at is just what kind of depth is going on as opposed to just looking at the indexes which can be very misleading moving forward i wouldn't be surprised seeing as the

emerging markets in europe kind of led into a downturn if you will and we're all in line so we're not exempt it may be that though that the emerging markets and europe may be the areas that lead us out of this particular downturn as opposed to the u.s. of a which most of us have the majority of our assets hey john give me just a really quick answer to this do you think there's a possibility of any longer term i mean couple of month rally or do you think we're probably going down real quick if you might. well keep your eye on twenty six hundred and you could be seeing upside from here and it might be a good one maybe you'll get to three thousand on the s. and p. i'm suggesting that we be more prepared for a twenty percent loss as we saw quickly in two thousand and eighteen and then it may be more significantly down with a loss of forty percent so that's what we're saying savvy investors are worried more about market losses the than they enjoy gains yeah and those are not great numbers of twenty percent except you and i know in those fed notes also they talk about potential recession in twenty eight twenty anyway we'll keep an eye on it we

appreciate your help in doing so john grace of investors advantage corp thank you john great to see you again. my pleasure bart. and that's it for this time thank you for being on board we're sure glad to have you catch boom bust on directv channel three twenty one or as always dish network channel two a day or streaming twenty four seventh's on pluto t.v. the free t.v. app of course channel one thirty two or as always you can hit us at youtube dot com slash boom bust our to see out. of. this prison for a single purpose. they have a super. training very young. they months of intensive school.

raps. and they save lives. nobody could see coming that false confessions would be that profile in the spot place the phone book of virtues if you look at any interrogation out there bill c. is threat promise threat promise threat lie a lie a lie the process of the turkish was designed to put people in just that frame of mind make the most comfortable make them want to get out and don't take no for an answer don't accept their denials she said therefore would. say i stayed there i would be home by that time the next day there's a culture on accountability and police officers know that they can engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with all their cry.

with this manufacture come sentenced to the public will. when the ruling. plus is to protect them so. when the crime is clear in your own lives only the one percent. we can all middle of the room sick. room clean real new. cortez is in the house she's literally in the house she's in the house she's in the house of representatives and as you point out the camera can't take it off her and this is the old donald trump trick where the media cannot resist focusing on trump they gave him billions of dollars worth of free advertising and he became president of the state. when they came back from

iraq. oh marijuana her was cocaine methamphetamine see anything that's altering trying to get us out. that bad mines using the chemical that would be so. i want to be drinking and drinking just killing myself. all links don't drink to get drunk alcoholics drink to feel normal. that's why it's this way drug addicts to. shop while still for the near. star cool under which these guys are going through to it it just means to. need to be hoped pushed on by the v.a.'s are as drugs for those you need to be built. they really shouldn't be looked at like numbers they should be looked at like people if they go to a veteran center for health issues be considered as someone who really needs

attention. the pentagon denies allegations of u.s. allies abusing detainees in yemen saying there's no independent credible information the claims were first made by journalists and human rights groups also ahead. until this is day it is the day to do it for you to

see just.