us to compel change in terms of trade china's trade surplus with the us increased by seventeen percent reaching a record level of three hundred twenty three billion dollars as dr phil might say here in the u.s. how's that trade stuff working out for you mr president the answer is not to well of course the picture changes though when we pull back the frame for a broader view as the sum of chinese exports to all other nations fell by four percent year over year for the month of december of twenty eighteen that's the first negative monthly report for china exports since march of last year so time will tell if the trend continues but year over year for chinese exports to the u.s. the trade tariffs have not had a good impact for the united states. and turning to europe there are more signs of a slowdown in a number of nations including the euro zone's biggest economic power germany euro stats latest report list the largest your production decline in two years of five

point one percent for germany production across the euro zone in november of twenty eight team fell by one point seven percent from the october level among the larger pool of twenty eight members of the european union that same measure fell by one point three percent. watching other television networks in the us a viewer would not know it but in france the yellow best movement rallied for the ninth weekend in a row with more than eighty thousand protesters entering the streets of cost fans in paris police reacted with water cannons tear gas than one hundred fifty six arrests french police reportedly still hold more than two hundred protesters behind bars meanwhile french president emanuel mccrone continues to struggle to stimulate a sympathetic human reaction to the protests as he launches what he has billed as a national debate in reply to the movement with an open letter published today but on saturday mr mccrone stoked anger by blaming protestors of sheer laziness mr mccrone. told

a group of young workers quote the unrest our society is facing is partly due partly linked to the fact that too many of our fellow citizens think they can get something without making any effort we'll continue to follow the story of income inequality and catching up briefly with the partial government shutdown in the us the longest on record now in its twenty fourth day many of the offices that had remained open here in washington and around the country were closed today after a major weekend snow fall we told you last week about just some numbers that are not available during that shutdown that matter very much to farmers as part of the u.s. agriculture department global market reports but pulling back the shutdown will deprive market watchers including u.s. federal reserve of a broad range of key official economic figures from agencies including the u.s. commerce department for example core data sets on the retail housing markets that would have been released next week have been put into limbo while the announcement

of the most basic national figure the u.s. gross domestic product growth seems almost certain to be delayed by the ongoing debacle and some say if the circumstances are not fixed and soon the fed and others will be acting with only one eye open and continuing with the shutdown it's now impacting far more than eight hundred thousand government workers of the government contractors now it has the potential to impact us all and jeopardize homeland security and for those of you outside the u.s. you may not be spared here for the details as fred kaufman author of bet the farm how food stop being food fred welcome back i buy it how are you i couldn't be better although this is a really unfortunate circumstance and i know we're going to talk about stuff that's not so pleasant so let's start with the u.s. food and drug administration what's the impact of the folks being shut down there. this is a big problem bart to be blunt about it i mean what we're seeing is

a lack of inspections on our food supply let's just think for a second what that means every year in this country we see forty eight million cases of food borne illness one hundred twenty four thousand people end up in the hospital and three thousand people a year die from food borne illnesses so what we're really looking at a scale of one nine eleven style terrorist attack every year killing three thousand americans and now during this shutdown. the food is not being inspected what kind of food are we looking at specifically we're looking at infant formula we're looking at food fruits and vegetables we're looking at raw fish none of it is being looked at at this point and if it is being looked at what we're seeing is people not being paid routinely about one hundred and sixty inspections per week and they are being cut and they're not being paid for and it's going to be a problem going forward you know that we've got problems with the air traffic

controllers to you know they don't know if they're going to be paid and i want the people who are in the air to be thinking about nothing else other than met safety in the same with food inspections fred and that also goes for u.s.d.a. which of course is shut down i don't know if it's the packers and stockyards but how about inspections at u.s.d.a. for a. these guys once again are not being paid and we are not talking about high paid employees and somebody at the u.s.d.a. is typically making about thirty one thousand maybe the high and is fifty thousand as a meat or poultry or a lamb inspector i mean this is a storied agency in our country bart been around for more than one hundred years and now as we're moving forward with no end in sight perhaps the motto should be let's make america sick again let's make america polluted again because we are no longer being screened for the pathogens and the people who are supposed to be doing this aren't being paid and it's what we're playing with disaster i mean we're talking about a very large numbers of people being affected by pathogens and contamination and

possible feces and all sorts of really on the savory stuff we don't want to think about and. you know let's make dinner safe again absolutely and now i'm i'm going to toss out an acronym but i don't want to lose anybody here if this which is the animal plant health inspection service. at u.s.d.a. and at home land that they split and i'm familiar with these things travelers may notice what we call the beagle brigade those cute little dogs at the border sniffing your packages when you're coming coming in but they're more than just cute they're really important what about a spread. well these are the guys at customs if you're going in or out of the country of course you have to declare your plants you have to declare your animals and again these guys are not being paid they're by they're there they're now just by their own good well so for instance what we're seeing is in our new global economy and everything plants and animals moving around the world with great

alacrity and with all sorts of pathogens we see an outbreak of let's say swine flu this happens quite often it happens in poland right now where twenty thousand pigs must be killed so this is a once again we are playing with fire. people like scott gottlieb who's the head of the f.d.a. now need to really be called out we have to say mr gottlieb dr gottlieb what is being inspected what is not being inspected what can we be confident about and what not what can americans eat and what can't we eat his background gottlieb's background is in venture capital so maybe he doesn't really care so much about the average american and what they're eating and he needs to be held accountable to a fred we've just got a little bit of time but obviously when agencies aren't open they're not dealing with business and this is having an economic and business impact a talk about that just briefly would you look at it like an initial public offering

if they can't get their paperwork bart what we're seeing now for instance my favorite example is our kids will be here every month about one hundred petitions for new labeling for our kids in the beer is goes forward and they cannot get approval so really what we're seeing are small businesses being stopped the economy being being slowed and just a general increase of pathogens and possibility for illness and sickness and it's it's got that we've got to have an end to it i don't think people realize what the ultimate ramifications are of a government shutdown of this size so far the numbers are that it's impacting the g.d.p. in a negative point one percent built one one tenth of a percent but since we don't get the g.d.p. numbers at least we may not get them we may not know that anyway fred we appreciate you being with us even though it's on this dire circumstance fred kaufman author of bet the farm thank you fred thank you bart.

and turning to the global sweat shop sector yes we say there's a sweat shop sector garment workers in bangladesh working to supply familiar clothing stores and brands are on strike and in the streets for a second week of action against low wages you may recall back in twenty twelve one hundred seventeen garment factory workers were killed in a fire and two hundred were injured making it the deadliest fire in the nation's history the current protest has persisted after workers and some labor leaders rejected a government brokered deal for an increase of as little as twenty five cents per month bangladesh's industrial police a force designated to repress workers in sweat shop zones fatally shot one protester last week. and across the globe the latest teachers' strike in the u.s. has kicked off united teachers los angeles declared a strike on behalf of thirty three thousand educators demanding lower class sizes

less standardized testing livable wages and equitable funding pushing their message with the hash tag ultra strong. and sticking in california the drama around troubled california utility pacific gas and electric or p.g. and e. may be about to end and what one reporter and i agree is the first climate change induced bankruptcy p.g. and e. stock price fell by half in early trading today after the company confirmed plans to file for chapter eleven bankruptcy protections p.g. and e. stock was already low after a long slide following last year's wildfires that campfire now ranks as the deadliest and most costly in california sister with p.g. and e. bracing for an estimated thirty billion dollars in liabilities after the company's concealed it was likely that sparks from p.g. and e. equipment kicked off the mass of the massive fires on hillsides ravaged by drought meanwhile the company's c.e.o. guy show williams has resigned and has been replaced by the former executive vice

president john simon. and time now for a quick break but hang here because when we return live voice steve wallace bergen alex mahela bitch join us as u.s. air carriers are about to report earnings we'll get ahead of those announcements and ask if the companies will take off be in a holding pattern for yelling may day this year plus there's a new survey out about how people feel about their personal economic future this year i'll tell you about that as we go to break here the numbers at the closing bell we'll be back in a flash. reflect

there's someone else moving inside of me or controlling my body. the byproduct. the drug the the cause like severe depression. because it will we need him into a zombie it's crazy. you know we don't have to do anything it's not our fault you know she's crazy and all that. to fears traumatic things to get rid of. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to get us to the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy to for him to let it be an arms race in his own often spearing dramatic development only mostly i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time time to sit down and talk. to. them leave to get up off the ground serve begins a. game face on the sounds of an mit grown man mislead essentially. wish to do away from the officer. the obvious or did they come to lunch for the web

in one smith's and then when it happened on tree swung as i didn't i never saw any contact with. any kind of back to where they were so the answers back here there again fifteen feet apart at this point and that's when the officer has gone into. manufacture consent to public wealth. when the ruling classes project. the. middle of the room six. million real musicians.

seem wrong. all. get to shape out. and. equals betrayal. when some find themselves worlds apart. chance to look for common ground. and welcome back to minor correction on that p.g. and e. story i told you about they conceded it was likely that sparks from their equipment kicked off those massive fires there's no evidence that they actually concealed the information i misspoke and we continue with airline mishap cathay pacific the hong kong based airline is reeling to start the week after the first class blunder of

literally this week and cathay mistakenly sold first class seats on a flight from portugal to hong kong for the same price as coach that may not seem like a big deal but here is a little chart to shelby outshot just big deal it was look at that mistake the typical price for a first class seat on this flight the sixteen thousand dollars and they were sold for a typical coach fare of just more than fifteen hundred dollars talk about a deal you know this isn't the first time cathay has had an issue like this as earlier this month the airline accidently sold flights from vietnam to north america for as little as six hundred seventy five dollars while cathay admits these price labels were their fault they are allowing people to who bought the tickets to keep them at the price they paid. and more strange news from the sky the world's longest aircraft has gotten a green light for commercial production the air lander ten built by hybrid air vehicles in england is prepping to have its commercial model in the skies within

the next few years after approval from u.k. regulators the aircraft which measures three hundred feet in length is a hybrid of blimp and plane and is being billed as a form of luxury travel i think kinda burge the crass rollout has seen several setbacks in the past few years including a crash during a test flight back in two thousand and sixteen we'll continue to follow developments on this. and sticking in the air there were more air travelers than ever in twenty eighteen four point five billion passengers that's up two hundred million from two thousand and seventeen one might think air care is should be doing fine well not so much us airlines like behind the broader market last year is the new york stock exchange is airline index arca dropped twenty one percent year over year as opposed to the standard and poor's five hundred which dropped just seven percent as u.s. air carriers are about to report earnings we get ahead of those announcement and ask the question are they going to take off be in a holding pattern or yelling may day this year flyboys steve malzberg announcement

join us now a steve first of all explain this arca index a little bit to us yeah well. has fifteen major airlines both the u.s. and international in them in it and as you mentioned down twenty one percent compared to the s. and p. down seven percent i mean that's that's a huge drop last year so far this year it's up just marginally and basically you know it it represents the feeling of investors on a broad scale when it comes to the airline industry and what's spoking a lot of them especially right now as we await the earning season kicking off tomorrow is the government shutdown which affects to some extent the t.s.a. and the f.a.a. they hear reports of t.s.a. agents calling in sick and cetera and also fuel prices which are have dropped but and you might think that's a good thing but sometimes it's not because the investors fear increased flights more competition leading to lower fares and also companies may purchase the fuel at

the wrong time and not be able to capitalize when they deal in the futures market and get get you know a loss take a loss instead of taking advantage of the lower prices when it comes to fuel so that that that's why the index was down as much as it was there's a lack of confidence right now in the airline industry and let's get to a couple of specifics i'm a big fan of american airlines alex but boy their stock has not looked good for the for the last year what's up with american and how we think they're going to be doing. now let's bring up a chart right away so we can see what those numbers look like and about a year ago this stock was sitting at fifty eight dollars today we're looking at under thirty two dollars and we're sitting around thirty one seventy to seventy five today so we see a big drop happened within the past year i mean that's evident but also just in the past few days last thursday we saw eleven percent drop in the stock it bounced back

up to close on a four percent drop so this is all happening in one day a lot of it has to do with numbers coming out and predictions etc that we see from from airlines so when we're talking airlines we're talking about total revenue per available seat mile forecast and for the fourth quarter what american was saying in the past was like we're looking for fourth quarter between one point five to three point five percent growth in this respect it's sitting by a hair at about one point five that's what they're saying now so that is growth which you'd think would look good but it's not the type of growth that a lot of people anticipated now that means the bottom line really a the predictions they're going to the earnings and that's really the whole thing that's why you see the stock up but there is an upside as one thing that steve was saying a gas prices are fuel prices for planes when you look at fuel prices well it looks like it could have gone in favor in this respect low prices so that offsets any

type of empty seats that may have happened in the planes that were going up in the air at the same time performance should improve in two thousand and nineteen a lot of good things coming up the pipe for a in the next couple of years but in particular two thousand one thousand dallas fort worth airport they are going to expand international flights from the from there i should say expand flights not international flights throughout the states from that airport so on that means more business for american airlines and that's always a good thing absolutely let's get to it through a couple others quickly steve how about delta they have been doing too well lately there. yeah delta is going to be the first to report tomorrow morning before the bell so they're going to see it kick it all off for the airlines and you're right they've been talking about lowering expectations as a result today delta was downgraded by bank of america merrill lynch the stock just just under two percent drop today as a result of that news downgraded from buy to neutral and there's several reasons

for it they also cut the target price from sixty two dollars a share to fifty one dollars a share there's predicting between two dollars twenty five and a dollar thirty profit earnings per share when they announce tomorrow and that's going to be a disappointment on the third quarter you had income which was up thirteen percent revenues were up eight percent but they didn't do they had a disappointing month of december especially and one of the things they point to are those fuel prices they say they got burned no pun intended there they got burned with fuel and they purchased at the wrong time and that that hurt them and hurt their overall of the bottom line so you're right delta downgraded and by the way when they downgraded them the bank of america merrill lynch said the catalyst for economic growth is not really the same as some of the other airlines are right now although they praise them as an industry leader but right now they're going

through some problems when you say they got burned what they what you're talking about is hedging their risk in futures on things like a jet fuel and one of those companies that famously did that back in two thousand and thirteen alex was southwest and last week we spoke a about the death of herb kelleher and the founder of southwest airlines and i read some interesting history about how he did it which began all the way back in one thousand sixty seven on a cocktail napkin and he wanted folks to fly inexpensively in texas he was held off for four years in the courts by the big. airlines at the time but in one thousand nine hundred seventy one with just four boeing seven thirty seven's they took off and then and after deregulation in seventy eight they expanded and his monetarism bring sort of top notch air service to the masses and he did so well they went public we may have this chart back in seventy nine and after years of flat earnings they started to make some progress in the ninety's and then

a twenty fourteen boy look at that they really ramped up earnings and alex how them being doing these last few years and especially in light of all these variables we've been talking about that are impacting airlines impacting airlines it looks like southwest is the good guys in the skies aren't immune either sixty six bucks if we look at a time about that this time last year that was a share now we're looking at around forty nine dollars but it seems like they're holding on to one thing that's principal look they're doing a good job at said doing what they set out to do and those are you know healthy work environment for their workers playing fair the customer service i mean these are one of those few airlines that are up in the air right now where you can still have two bags and without getting charged for them and they've been playing this really good game but they've been doing for a long time look there's just a week ago at the beginning of this year you were getting tickets for as low as sixty seven dollars one way so that's a huge thing also. comes you know as i mentioned all the perks what we call

bringing a bag on board it is a perk bottom line but also that for them a good thing is that they're opening up a new line possibly very soon within the next month or so maybe even sooner to hawaii and again more business is good for business thank you we're out of time we'll have to get to united a other time they did they did better than expected we hope they will come back when they have those earnings reports coming out party correspondent alex mahela veteran conservative t.v. and radio commentator and flyboys steve malzberg thank you guys. thank you. and as we prepare for landing ourselves. there's a new survey out today which finds that most americans are now pessimistic about their economic futures in fact according to banknote dot com roughly fifty five percent don't see any personal economic improvement this year as compared to last year take a look at these numbers forty four percent said they won't improve and twelve percent say things will get worse another forty four percent say they expect things

to get better and by the by the way those who think things will get worse forty nine percent nearly half blame wait for it politicians the survey also found that amongst the lenni goals their top priority is finding a higher paying job and gen x. ers and baby boomers want to increase their retirement savings. and that's it for this time thanks for joining us you can catch boombox on directv channel three twenty one dish network gentle two eighty or streaming twenty four seven on pluto t.v. the free t.v. app show one thirty two or as always you can hit us up at youtube dot com slash boom bust r.t. so long for now. when i came back from iraq oh mary was on her was cocaine methamphetamine so anything that's altering trying to get us out of.

that bad mindset using the chemical that would be self medicating. i want to be drinking and drinking just killing myself. out the whole links don't drink to get drunk alcoholics drink to feel normal. that's why alcoholics this way drug addicts do what they do shop also for the next. star cool under which these guys are going through to it it just means to. need to be helped and good pushed on by the v.a.'s are as drugs go and stuff they need to be helped. and they just 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 and. in

a world of big part of the law and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the door on the bats and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for them. for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. as your health care executive or bank your costly getting a gift from a fellow governor millions hundreds of millions trillions of dollars if you're not part of that cobol you are the one paying for it yes and that's why there's a lot of social unrest that's the yellow vest movement in france and around the world it's the global insurrection against banker occupation is coming soon american twenty one thousand so get your yellow vests and your torch and let's party on t.v. because it's all about the rebel.

you know provision of my by going to i want to. get. your for your hideaway lost his boss because. we don't have any of those in person but the pressure on us. has been. so nice as you know but it was you know. you know just i mean what it i'm already but it was. i mean we're going to. give it up as well i must really feel for you to get us on the scene with us but those were the. people are going to respond on one of this part of. this where this part of this i'm with. my buddy and we've got a bomb i just got that already yes it will be in the thought of getting up there with you you seem to i mean think it. just got to go you.

when the history books are written people one look at the decision. these. theories amazed efforts to convince m.p.'s tobacco deal i met with the regime in

the u.k. parliament a big vote on her edu divorce deal is happening today.