were. 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 the early ninety's and so on when a situation of ill rather similar to this. now this period 6 trillion because if you look at their wealth distribution the inequality mostly comes from super wealth . literally the top 110th of a percent are just super wealthy. not only is it extremely unjust in itself. inequality as really negative consequences on the side is awful. because the very

fact of inequality has a corrosive harmful effect ackerson. you open by talking about the american dream or the american dream as clear as mean delivered it will in poor you were card. ridge it was possible for a worker to get a decent job. in a corps of children to school. to a collapse. imagine yourself in an outside position looking for mars. what do you see.

in the united states where there are professed to like democracy. in a democracy public opinion is going to have some influence on policy. 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. democracy 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 which kind of forces the political parties into the pockets of major corporations. and this political power. clee 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 1776 he read the famous wealth of nations. he says in england the principle 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 greed is 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 called 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. right through american history there. it'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 the major concern of the society has to be to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.

and here 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 you 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 horror tradition goes back to the 1st 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 into. if absent 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 or settle for posed what we would nowadays call a welfare state and try to reduce inequality. so the same problem absent solutions one is reduce inequality will have this problem and the other is reduced democracy. if you look at the history of the united states it's a constant struggle between these 2 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 1906 for example were a period of significant democratization.

sectors of the focal asia that were usually passive apis it 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. we don't want to. women's rights. or think.

in terms of the. american history. or a. survival position of creation. criticize us. they are serious about law. and the vietnamese people black people and people concerned for other people. people in america. distribution of wealth. these are all symbolizing the fact. that cause great fear. of her.

had. anticipated the power of a should have but it didn't anticipate 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. i'm going to fulfill the repeated promises oh probably for the people come on you know we've all pots to. be a. pretty. much.

pretty good group. now you want to 1st. know how. long. all the. brothers see. the room light of and. my name is drawn more than i was sentenced to die in prison by the regime of my life. a case to grab some media attention and it's a shooting in

a 16 year old's 16 birthday party south side and the police tell a lot of pressure to. close the case. for the i think just bunk it's like i couldn't believe those. you know so some financial wrong for them to shoot in one piece with the stench of all of those shoes because i was standing right next to. me for is the son you got to keep in mind once you know you're 1617 years old so. this could lose money. and i was just wondering where the. whole food really. formerly this current tour got to go and flown out of control. over all the bad from.

the day or thinks. we dare to ask. when. there has been on a normal concentrated coordinated business offensive beginning in the seventy's to try to beat back the gallant tarion efforts that went right through the nixon years

you see it in many respects and over on the right you see it in things like the famous pell memorandum. sent to the chamber of commerce major business lobby but later supreme court justice powell warning them 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 the defense defending ourselves against an outside power. 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 1st. major report

of the a trilateral commission is concerned with this. called the crisis of democracy. trilateral commission is liberal internationalists there are 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 you can't deal with all these pressures so therefore they have to return to

a city and become the politicized. 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 interests they're the national interest kind of by definition so they're ok they're allowed the you know how flabby is said 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 a subdued. one

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 1970 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 2 crucial respects one to increase the role of financial institutions banks investment firms and so on insurance companies. but a 2007 break before the latest crash they had literally 40 percent of corporate

profits. far beyond anything in the past. back in the 1950 s. and as for many years before the united states economy was based largely on production. in the united states as any great manufacturing center in the world. financial institutions used to be a relatively small by. it is the economy and their task was to distribute unused as it likes bank savings to productive activity in a bank are one had on hand a reserve of money received from the owners and the monitor on the back of the cash reserve a bank can create granite wall behind the providing an. auditing money on banks

serve the community by making additional credit available for many purposes for a manufacturer to meet and own during my coming period to unlock and remodel her car and her money on a good reason why people are always needing more granting and i have immediately available. that's a contribution to the economy. regulatory system was established banks were regulated the commercial investment banks were separated to back for risk investment practices that could harm private people. there had been remember no financial crashes during the period of regulation by the 1970 s. that changed. the sort of getting the shoe to 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 a director of a major american corporation back in the fifty's in the sixty's was very likely to be an engineer to somebody who graduated from a place like mit and maybe industrial management more. recently the directorship in the top managerial positions are people who came out of business schools learned financial trickery of various kinds and so on. by the 1970 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 a complicated ways and it's very unclear that they're doing anything that's value to the economy. so that's one phenomena let's go financial ization of the economy. going along with that is the oh sure introduction. 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. spent particularly striking in the united states but happening worldwide it means that an american workers in competition with 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 again move but chattel can well again going back to the classics like adam smith. as he pointed out free circulation of labor is the foundation of any free trade system but workers are pretty much stuck the wealthy and 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 when he testified to congress he explained his success in running the economy as based on what he called greater worker insecurity. a typical restraint on compensation increases has been evident for a few years but as i outlined in some detail in testimony last month i believe that job insecurity has played the dominant role workers in security are going to be under control. they are not going to ask for say decent wages were a decent working conditions or the opportunity to free association meaning unionized. now for the masters of mankind that's fine they may show their profits but for the population it's devastating. for these 2 processes financial ization and offshoring are part of what led to the vicious cycle of concentration

of wealth concentration of power. one of the things that i started to realize is that the noise in my head as it me i started the practice of organizing my wife around what i wanted my life to be about even when it conflicted with my internal noids so you know i i wrote a book but in my head i'm not smart enough people like me to write books. but what i help myself to was the action and i started to notice that i could co-exist with that while still living a life that went beyond. mass

geysers financial survival guide liquid assets not those that you can convert in zigzags quite easily. to keep in mind no asked if i'm into a place of better watch guys or bored. in the troubled 19 seventies a group of killers rampage through parts of northern ireland that was coordinated loyalists attacks protecting only a population of tens of thousands were forced to flee their homes a mobile strike can put these attacks was a p.r. you see the police actually took part in the attacks so instead of preventing it they were active participants in the burning of coal streets in belfast at the time more than a 100 innocent civilians were murdered as the review can seniors and we found out more i was surprised about the extent and of the currents which the inclusion was involved in some of those cases the killers would later be named into the now and

we're getting i think it went to the very very top i think it is. the water where politicians you thought was going on and give the go ahead. much. of. the world is driven by shaped by the curse of those bred. in the dares thinks. we dare to ask.

what politicians do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president i'm sure. some want to be rich. but you'd like to be close to those like the 43 in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the waters of our. first sydney. all over. the. little.

slammed washington sanctions on russia's milstein to get spot. blind germany saying it's crossed the crucial line against its nato allies comes as berlin gives an angry reaction to the sanctions interference in domestic affairs. the us court rules that american spy agencies can collect data on citizens without a warrant if it's by accident. has been sentenced to 16 years in jail after stealing and burning in l. g.b.t. flag from a us church we debate whether this time 3 d. time fits the current. 16 years for offending probably one of the most privileged groups in america when it came to.