during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was and most of my family were unemployed working class there wasn't it was bed you know much worse objectively than today but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. there was a real sense of hopefulness there isn't today. inequality is really unprecedented i'm sure that total inequality it's like the worst periods in american history. but if you're a find it more closely inequality comes from the extreme wealth in a tiny sector of the population fraction of one percent. there were periods like the gilded age in the twenty's and the early ninety's and

so on when a situation developed by the similar to this. now this period six trillion because if you look at their wealth distribution inequality mostly comes from super wealth . literally the top one tenth of a percent are just super wealthy. not only is it extremely unjust in itself. inequality as highly negative consequences on the so is. because the very fact of inequality has a corrosive harmful effect markers. you open by talking about the american dream or the american dream is closed and deluded it will infuriate you were kurds. ridge it was possible for a worker to get a decent job. at

a core of children who are school. collapse. imagine yourself in an outside position looking for mars. what do you see. in the united states when there are professed to like democracy.

in a democracy public opinion is going to have some influence on poesy. and then the government carries out actions determined by the population and that's what democracy means. it's important to understand that privileged and powerful sectors have never liked democracy and for very good reasons. to not proceed puts power into the hands of the general population and takes it away from them. as kind of the principle of concentration of wealth and power.

concentration of wealth yields concentration of power particularly so as the cost of elections skyrockets it which kind of forces the political parties into the pockets of major corporations. and this political power. translates into legislation that increases the concentration of wealth so fiscal policy like tax policy deregulation. rules of corporate governance a whole variety of measures political measures designed to increase the concentration of wealth and power which in turn to yield more political power to do the same thing. and that's what we've been seeing. so we have this kind of vicious cycle in progress.

you know actually it is so traditional that it was described by adam smith in seventeen seventy six he read the famous wealth of nations. he says in england the principal architects of policy are the people on the society in his day merchants and manufacturers. and they make sure that their own interests are very well cared for however grievous the impact on the people of england there are others. now it's not a merger of manufacturers it's financial institutions and multinational corporations the people who adam smith told the masters of mankind and they're following the vile maxim all for selves and nothing for anyone else. they're just going to pursue policies that benefit them and harm everyone else. and

in the absence of a general popular reaction that's pretty much what you'd expect. be right through american history there's been an ongoing clash between. pressure for more freedom and democracy coming from below and the efforts that elite control and domination coming from above. because back to the founding of the country. james madison the main framer who was as much of a believer in democracy is anybody in the world that they nevertheless felt that the united states' system should be designed and indeed was his initiative was designed so that power should be in the hands of the wealthy. because the wealthier

there are more responsible set of men and therefore the structure of the formal constitutional system placed most power in the hands of the senate or the senate was not elected in those days it was selected from the wealthy men as madison put it had sympathy for property owners in their right. to read the debates at the constitutional convention. madison says the major concern of the society has to be to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. and hear argument suppose everyone had to vote freely as they will the majority of the poor get together and they would organize to take away the property of the rich and he said that would obviously be unjust so he can't have that so therefore the constitutional system has to be set up to prevent democracy.

which is of some interest that this debate has a hurried tradition goes back to the first major book on political systems aristotle's politics. he says of all of them the best is democracy and at any point said exactly the flaws that medicine put out. if athens were a democracy for free men the poor would get together and take away the property the rich. well the same dilemma they had opposite solutions aristotle proposed what we would nowadays call a welfare state to try to reduce inequality. so the same problem that solutions one is reduce inequality will have this problem and

the other is reduced muckers. if you look at the history of the united states it's a constant struggle between these two tendencies democratising tendency that's mostly coming from the population pressure from below and you get these constant battle going on periods or gratian periods of progress in one thousand nine hundred six for example were a period of significant democratization. sectors of the fabulous sure that were usually passive and the city became organized active story pressing their demand. and

they became more and more involved in decision making and their wisdom and so on. they just changed consciousness in ways. minority rights. really don't want. did. women's rates. force it to say. in terms of the. american as. i said. seeking to provide a position to creation i'm sorry did i was criticized as. dissent they are serious about law. and the vietnamese people wrong wrong black people and what people

can turn for other people one day we must ask the question. of millions of people in america when you begin. to reason of. the system of distribution of wealth to question our research. american society these are all symbolizing say. that caused great fear. anticipated the. earth should have but it didn't then to speak the power of the reaction to the civilizing effects of the sixty's did not anticipate the strength of the reaction to it. the backlash.

when the whole make its manufacture consent instance of public wealth. when the running plus is protect them. when the financial merry go round be the one percent of. the time we can all middle of the room see. the real news. or recent report from the u.k.'s foreign office highlights in detail the persecution of christians around the world in the middle east the cradle of christianity christians face extinction why is it deemed politically incorrect in

the west foundational religious. zealots who follow a period of sort of the whole world to see whether it's just pushed bloody. well to the minute that it was my job of. losing is its ability. to get enough of that all you want to go to the brim not only that it's an. unknown but well it was pretty good way to lose a. lot of what you still do which could go i would only be done long ago but i come . here to your room your money you don't need to storm the lead here so my look come from. june the curator coconspirators.

most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to stand the news business you just need as the right questions and demand the right answer. question. in twenty forty you know bloody revolution to include the demonstrations going from being relatively peaceful political protests to be creasing the violent revolution is always spontaneous or is it you know lawyer i mean your list put video through me in the new bill is that i new school in the middle of the former ukrainian president recalls the events of twenty fourteen. of

those who took part in this to do over five billion dollars to assist ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic. south has to say on his attorney when they get cornered on the will of the. view which if they was unable if they gave it to you they got usually the best of all no people you see opposed to it's been made it's yet what's good. and. that's the time to get. if you have to if that's their finish if you're not that you give .

there has been under norma's concentrated coordinated business offensive beginning in the seventy's to try to beat back the golan tarion efforts that went right through the nixon years and you see it in many respects and over in the right you see it in things like the famous pell memorandum. sent to the chamber of commerce major business. later supreme court justice powell warning that business is losing control over the society. and something has to be done to counter these forces course we put it in terms of defense defending ourselves against outside powers.

but if you look at it it's a call for business to use its control over resources to carry out a major offensive to beat back this democratizing wave. over on the liberal side something exactly similar the first. major report of the a trilateral commission is concerned with this. called the crisis of democracy. trilateral commission is liberal internationalists in their flavors indicated by the fact that they pretty much staff the corridor ministration. they were also told that democratizing tendencies of the sixty's and so we have to react to it. they were concerned that there was an excess of democracy developing.

previously passive and obedient parts of the population or sometimes called the special interests who were beginning to organize and try to enter the political arena and they said that imposes too much pressure on the state can't deal with all these pressures so therefore they have to return to passive that they become the politicised. and they were particularly concerned with what was happening to young people the young people are going to free and independent. in the way they put it there's a failure on the part of the schools the universities churches the institutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young there for it is not mine. if you look at their study there's one interest they never mention private business

and that makes sense they're not special interest they're the national interest kind of by definition so they're ok they're allowed to you know have flabby as by campaign staff the executive make decisions that's fine but it's the rest the special interests the general population who have to be subdued. when that's the specter it's the kind of ideological level of the backlash but the major backlash which was unparalleled this. was just redesigning the economy. since the one nine hundred seventy is there's been a concerted effort on the part of the masters of mankind the owners of the society

to shift the economy in two crucial respects one to increase the role of financial institutions banks investment firms and so on insurance companies. but a two thousand and seven break before the latest crash they had literally forty percent of corporate profits. far beyond anything in the past. back in the one nine hundred fifty s. and as for many years before the united states economy was based largely on production. in the united states as the great manufacturing center of the world. financial institutions used to be a relatively small part of the economy and their task was to distribute unused

assets like a bank savings to productive activity buying our way to. money. on the back of the reserve bank. to be highly providing an. outing money. to the community by making. money for a manufacturer or on going. to an. arm and a money on a on why people are always needing more and i have a mean. that's a contribution to the economy. regulatory system was established banks were regulated the commercial investment banks were separated cut back for risk in this practices that could harm private people. there had been remember no financial crashes during the period of regulation by the one nine hundred seventy s.

that changed. the sort of getting that huge increase in the flows of speculative capital just astronomically increased an enormous changes in the financial sector from traditional banks to risky investments. complex financial instruments money manipulations and so on increasingly the business of the country isn't production at least not here. the primary business here is business. you can even see it in the choice of directors so the director of a major american corporation back in the fifty's and sixty's was very likely to be an engineer as somebody who graduated from a place like mit maybe industrial management more recently the directorship in the

top managerial positions or people who came out of business schools learned financial trickery of various kinds and so on. by the one nine hundred seventy s. say general electric can make more profit playing games with money than you could by producing in the united states. you have to remember that general electric is substantially a financial institution today it makes half its profits just by moving money around in complicated ways and it's very unclear that they're doing anything that it's value to the economy. so that's one phenomena let's go financial ization of the economy. going along with that is the oil sure into production.

the trade system was reconstructed with a very explicit design of putting working people in competition with one another all over the world. and what it's led to is a reduction in the share of income on the part of working people. it's been particularly striking in the united states but happening worldwide it means that in american workers in competition with a super exploited worker in china. meanwhile highly paid professionals are protected they're not placed in competition with the rest of the world far from it and of course a capitalist free to move a workers are free to move labor can't move but capital can well again going back to the classics like adam smith as he pointed out the free circulation of labor is

the foundation of any free trade system but workers are pretty much stuck the wealthy in the privileged are protected so you get obvious consequences and they're recognized in fact praised. policy is designed to increase in security. alan greenspan and when he testified to conquers he explained his success in running the economy as based on what he called greater worker insecurity. a typical restraint. compensation increases has been evident for a few years but those around learned to some detailed interest from only last month i believe their job insecurity has played the dominant role workers and secured are going to be under control. they're not going to ask for say decent wages were

a decent working conditions or the opportunity to free association meaning unionized . no for the masters of mankind that's trying to make sure their profits but for the population it's devastating. to these two processes financial ization i'm sure are part of what led to the vicious cycle of concentration of wealth concentration of power. after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next hope the ball different clubs on one hand it is logical to say i go home fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted a new challenge and a fresh perspective i'm used to surprising and i saw why not if you think.

i'm going to talk about football not the moral thing to think i was going to go. by the way ways of that slide here. it's a church air con i'm a there is to cater for the worlds that unless that exist in america south if i go into a big bank and bank of america citi bank was fargo bank and i say i want to borrow hundred thousand dollars and i why it's our three zero percent interest rate on that and then i want the cause of that hundred thousand dollars that your bank and i want you to pay me five percent and i want to therefore collect all that. i get attacks for can i do that now but it back i do that. this is this is a stick up from the water bottle phone in the stomach of the fish the brand is part of the coca-cola company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that let's tell consumers there are the bad ones there the litterbugs are

throwing this away industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. there plastic. special projects funding me. on the new vest that is the end of it for the teeth of fun no mountains of waste only grow. i .

know. you're. human rights activists attempt to block france's later this arms shipment just saudi arabia those concerns grow the realities using the weapons against yemeni civil unions. why do we continue to support countries that exhibit disrespect for international behavior and why do we continue to fuel the war i have no problems with saying that these weapons are made to kill. on the program the us president decides he wants his.