energy project and promote america's own economic interests are all of our reports from moscow. on tuesday the u.s. senate approved the national defense authorization act for next year it's a record $738000000000.00 military budget more than $700000000.00 has been allocated to contain russia among other things it's obliges the administration to impose sanctions on russia's north stream to stream gas pipelines and approves military aid to ukraine the white house opposes the construction of north stream to believing that the project will give russia leverage over the foreign policy of european countries plus it promotes its liquefied natural gas in the pipeline if completed would make europe even more dependent on russian energy would generate billions of dollars for putin billions of dollars that would follow on russian military aggression but even in the u.s. then to stand that the sanctions will not be able to stop north streams construction as it's already near completion germany is already preparing to tell

a true measures top officials slammed the bill. congress has indeed decided to impose sanctions we are against extraterritorial sanctions not all of those adopted yesterday but we also have the same problem with the sanctions against iran there's no other option left for us but to hold very decisive talks to sure that we are not accepting these sanctions we believe that is unacceptable as it is an attempt to influence the sovereign decisions of europe we are holding negotiations with the united states meanwhile the german parliament's committee chief on economy and energy told r.t. that the lane is ready to respond to any sanctions imposed by washington and the u.s. is unhappy that we are not buying their gas they want to boost their own trade and that's why they are imposing sanctions on companies involved in building the pipeline firstly american liquefied natural gas is obtained through fracking which makes it an acceptable for germany and secondly it is much more expensive than russian gas the natural gas we get from russia is high in demand and due to falling

production in europe demand has only increased so we plan to import more of it this is why north stream 2 is so important the construction of north stream 2 will be completed even if u.s. sanctions are imposed on project participants that was announced by kremlin spokesperson tony trip he noted that the u.s. actions violate international law are unfair competition and many expensive and uncompetitive products will be forced on europe's gas consumers moscow does not like such actions nor does berlin nor paris these sanctions are a direct violation of international law an example of unfair competition and an attempt to spread artificial u.s. dominance to european markets via the imposition of more expensive and uncompetitive products construction of north stream to began last year as of november 29th seen more than 80 percent of the pipeline was built its launch a shuttle for 2020 the 2 lines of north stream and north stream 2 from russia to

germany are currently being laid under the baltic sea total capacity is expected to be $55.00. 1000000000 cubic meters of gas to get some of europe's biggest energy funds are involved in construction of north stream to the pipeline will pass through territorial waters and economic zones of the russian federation finland sweden denmark and germany according to the russian side the north stream 2 construction project complies with international law and there is no legal basis for a suspension therefore it argues opponents of the project are using illegal tools that threaten the global economy has repeatedly stated that north stream too is an absolutely commercial and competitive project germany has also repeatedly said that north stream to is an economic project and does not threaten the energy security of europe ukraine opposes not strictly fearing it will lose revenue from russian gas transit but as with peace in noted earlier the construction of the gas pipeline does not imply a hold of transit on the russian gas through ukraine. and

on that note boom bridgeboro and i were joined by professor richard wolfe host of economic update to talk about these sanctions due to the north stream 2 project and recent opec cuts professor ward started the conversation by giving his take on the think sions richard let's be clear about what's happening here sanctions again as i said they're typically used at least that's what we're told right to deter bad behavior by governments that's clearly not what this is russia is not forcing germany to purchase natural gas and again germany is actively lobbying against this action by the u.s. and on top of all of that as broad pointed out this is part of a national defense bill what say you. well i think this is remarkable because it's a kind of tectonic shift a major shift the republican party and let's remember that what mr trump is the leader of now has traditionally been the against the government interfering in the

economy the government is not supposed to pick winners and losers. the government is not supposed to levy heavy taxes which is what our of so are there a kind of tax and yet here we see a government of republicans actively using government interference in this case particularly targeting a country that we're not at war with that is an ally of ours germany particularly targeting a particular company as if it had the right to do that let me make sure that your audience our audience understands in every major european newspaper this is seen as an aggressive act of economic warfare by the united states against germany and russia in this case against argentina and brazil a couple of weeks ago with those tariffs against the chinese as we all know this is

the united states no longer playing the role of the leader of a globalized interactive world where business is encouraged this is the united states hunkering down punishing everybody it feels like for reasons that are very hard to understand and looking for all the world as the role of state that is on doing the global economy in the whole poulos effort to once again gain some kind of control they imagine they once had this should concern americans because of the rabid kind of changing mentality of a state that has to protect itself all the time with these aggressive actions very dangerous yeah and just following up on that so you make a good point about republicans right so president trump talks about not being involved in all these conflicts around the world and yet he is sparking conflicts

on the economic front i mean this is really economic totalitarianism right where he essentially. same in this case it's about you know natural gas and energy but in other cases the case of japan he's trying to force them to buy their new f. 2 from military contractors that are american military contractors as you pointed out he's punishing argentina and brazil because they're competing on the soybean front it seems like every place there is economic competition this president is attempting to use his power as president and again the national defense bills to harm other countries economically and it seems like that is a very dangerous position to put the country in. very dangerous it's making us real enemies that video that went viral last week of the leaders of the european nato countries laughing at mr trump that's also a little sign but it's a sign of leaders in the rest of the world beginning to take seriously that the united states from being the leader that they followed being the leader of the free

world they like to call it that's over and it's not just mr trump it's not just even the republican party the democratic party is saying very little against all of this they're busy with russian interference in elections they're busy with impeachment but when this kind of aggressive transformation when the world looks to be threatened by the united states economically the democrats who ought to be an opposition are bizarrely quiet with a few exceptions and i think that makes the rest of the world worry that this kind of a shift runs deeper than mr trump and the republicans and that makes it even more dangerous for them and therefore for us and you're absolutely right because it does feel like the democrats are very quiet especially when we come into sanctions of another country and they're supposed to be right oh be completely against me not supposed

to be a complete guess but they tend to be completely against everything that trump says and that's what they do i want to make a little bit of a transition here to the oil markets now saudi aramco shares surged the maximum permitted 10 percent above their i.p.o. price this week the saudi government is hailing this as a bin to cation of its 2 trillion dollars valuation of the state oil company do you believe that this company is overvalued or is it really the world's most valuable company. well i think what you're seeing here is a speculation by the people buying into this company for the following reason saudi arabia is such. major player in the world oil market that you're now going to have people owning shares in a company whose decisions will affect the price of oil and therefore the price of these shares all the shareholders are going to want saudi arabia to manipulate the quantity of oil in the world in order to boost its price therefore the company's

shares and therefore validate their investment it's as if a company could print its own money and they're gambling that the saudi knows they have to do that otherwise people will sell that those shares they want to see the government taking the power it has to control the price and they're gambling that that's going to happen the rest of the world will have to see whether they tolerate that because the rest of the world if they act together can own do the power of saudi arabia over all oil will they do it the answer is what will happen to the people hurt by rising oil prices how powerful are they versus the saudis who are going to have every incentive now to jack up the price of oil and for the rest of us we will watch this game without being able to shape it except we'll have to pay the price of oil that is the result and we're short on time i think 30 seconds it's

got to be a quick answer here but you know opec is trying to do that richard they are trying to right now work a deal to slash production and lower those numbers but us in the tories up in fact we just got the new reports showing us imagery is actually much higher than had been thought is the u.s. that when a wrench into that opec or opec plus plan very quickly. i think the united states is like every other country there's a interests who want the price down interests who want the price of and that's the fight that they're having we all live with the consequences and have no real input on to this contest between contesting capitalist interests that's the raw truth of it. professor richard wolfe thank you so much for your time. for a quick break but hang in there because when we return or your bankruptcies are up and prices are moving what does the forecast look like for 2020 break it down plus we take a look at the state of the clean energy sector and where we'll go in the next year with tyson slocum from public citizen.

my name is sucking. on the media this is jack see what i don't see it's a. little bit over you know. when you know we've got to get down to cars and. move. you know. scoots and i use that down sixty's to make it a very easy you know food to meet school on fridays to people. who need clubs people who comes to clubs during his childhood he said it's the

life in music that. i see jazz because he makes me copy a love he dies because he makes me copy plane flew to fly. and when you go to church. because it's backed up my mother did not sit down. i doubt. in the united states presidential candidates to. future of the u.s. and the world. every week. student. was money.

today there are good terrorists and bad debt it's bad terrorists and those in yemen the united states deems to be a threat the good those who work in syria the cia and the u.s. military were engaged in covert actions really struck a world. where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up right away military funding an army that's why there's no. because there's always a small.

bankruptcy filings by the us energy producers through mid august of $29000.00 have nearly matched the total for the whole of 2018 as oil prices remain under pressure this slowing oil industry says heavily on the u.s. economy as a boom and shale added about 10 percent of growth to the u.s. economy in the last 5 years now the shell's factor has just started generating cash flow but many small to mid-size shell firms are already pulling back on production targets amid weak price productions and now banks have also begun trimming back credit lines for american shell producers further undercutting the industry that has been struggling to regain investor confidence for the 1st time since 2016 producer surveys expect to see declines at least 15 producers have already filed for bankruptcy this year and market values across the industry have plunged an average of 21 percent many producers are now struggling under huge debt load accumulated earlier other issues have played the industry as well many have turned

to lower quality sites and others have began drilling wells too close together was . in a lot of overall performance industry surveys show that a handful of large companies are on the edge of bankruptcy as there is about $15000000000.00 of outing debt at risk and investors remain dubious that further opec cuts can boost prices we were recently joined by david mcilvaine a c.e.o. of mcelhaney financial group to discuss the rash of bankruptcies in the oil sectors we started the interview by asking who along the supply chain is feeling this the most. service companies are dealing with the toughest times right now i think they've got the most acute pain you've got over capacity and there's just not the jobs that they are used to doing so they still have to service debt and that's a tough thing to do if you've taken a lot of dad in your business slows down that's why they're in the crocs they're in the midst of some tough times so a lot of these majors who try to insulate themselves from a downturn they've expanded their wealth a refinery networks in order to control costs and sustain periods of low prices but

it's kind of a catch $22.00 is it not that in expanding they've also kind of over leveraged and now carry huge amounts of debt so how can their vertical integration help them and can they whether 2020. we're not very concerned with the majors and obviously you have in absolute terms large amounts of debt but if you look at their capitalization to debt ratios they're actually right in line with other non oil type companies so i think again you've got to go down the food chain to see where the real weakness is and where the likelihood of greater consolidation would be and also where you might see further bankruptcies so the pressure is not on the majors and you can see this across the share prices if you're looking at a a c. drill or a neighbors or a trans ocean these are places where the pressure has been more acute so back to the earlier question yes it's the service companies it's also your offshore guys it is also some of your drillers as well one of our the e.m.p. guys a lot of these oil plays haven't really materialized the way that we expected in

the projections a lot of them have claimed that the drilling sites have not resulted in. what they expected to gain and a lot of them have been over leverage and over expanded in terms of just gaining market share and in the permian basin but those players have not really materialized at all because these shell players have been underwhelming to say the least. 2018 was sort of rampant speculation in the permian basin that's where you saw kind of a an over bidding of a lot of asset prices and already you're seeing you know groups like chevron this last week writing off $1011000000000.00 and i think we'll see more of that as 2020 . fold so yeah i think the overpaying in the permian is now hurting as some of your oil companies but where you do see i think positive mergers and acquisitions you're seeing things in alaska you're seeing things in in the eagle ford you're seeing things much more broadly distributed in 2019 the core on track for between $85100000000000.00 and mergers and acquisitions so the real i guess i

think where you overpaid significantly was where there was a lot of speculative energy in the permian last year in the year before so as you said that we can probably expect to see a way of a murderous among the smaller players right now in the permian basin and some of the other shale regions so who are some of the right acquisition targets and who's portfolios what they fit into. that's a good question it's a good question i think time will tell as we get into 2020 coming back to what you're saying in terms of financing i think one of the key things that is happening here at the end of the year our base loan redetermination zx and as you see these loan rates redetermined that's where you're seeing a lot of pressure is is folks who thought they had x. amount of production it's not going to be that much production is not as strong as as you mentioned kristie and so that's where all of a sudden we're beginning to see a squeeze and where the opportunity lies on the acquisition side is really where

the pressure is borne as we come through the 4th quarter that the irony is not only do we have a tightening in. bank credit but we also have the loose in central bank credit probably in well not quite world history but if you have to go back to the 4th quarter of 2007 to see the amount of free flow of capital and cheapness of capital in the capital markets and that's particularly relevant to the oil market because you're finding hedge funds and private equity funds find workarounds it's no longer a liquidity from the banking industry but they're even finding access to liquidity in the repo market if you can believe that yeah let's shift just a little bit sticking with commodities but over to gold it's obviously done a very well this year but it really it cannot hold a torch to palladium the best for me in precious metal $29000.00 that's up more than 40 percent this year it's primarily used for automobile catalytic converters right and if so is that what's behind the rally why is it doing so well in 21 thing . but i think you're looking at speculative mania i mean it's

a little bit like looking at nikkei stocks 2530 years ago or even bitcoin just a few years ago did it justify those high levels maybe in the fullness of time will see that it did but at the fundamentals driving the market don't support these levels you're looking at speculative mania in part because you had a significant curtailment of auto production so whether it's china the largest market in the world or in europe in the u.s. we see the same kind of declining trends in terms of auto sales so how do you get to 1900 to get to 2000 and you get that that you get there on a speculative manic basis so that's what i think you see there and justifiable above about 13501400 it's just momentum at this point how to traders miss it if you care about fundamentals you would have missed it because this is nothing but momentum so you're better bet in terms of value at this point gold silver as you mentioned 2015 percent 10 percent in the case of silver these are much better values on a relative an absolute basis as well it's not like it's something that's with an

emerging technology catalytic converters it's like are they going to exist in 20 years they've been any amount of any financial thanks so much for your insight. thank you ben thank you christie. a recent u.s. spending bill fell way short of what wind and solar developers had hoped for under the bill when companies will get just one more year to land a subsidy and solar companies lost out on the bid to extend another key tax credit as the industries are still in their early stages they were hoping for significant credits to help get the sector off the ground we were previously joined by tyson slocum director of public citizens energy program to discuss the state of clean energy and we started the conversation by discussing what was missing from this new legislation it was a compromise right the democrats who have been very progressive on clean energy and climate change issues or only control the house of representatives the republicans which have largely been hostile to

a lot of these climate change and clean energy initiatives control the senate an obviously the white house so treasury secretary steve menuhin who was the lead negotiator from the white house on the spending and tax bill made very clear that they were going to limit or eliminate solar and electric vehicle credits and so democrats in the house understanding that they had to compromise on some things in order to get some of their other priorities through signed off on this deal so not everyone got what they needed but i think given the circumstances given the fact that trump is in the white house this isn't a bad deal for clean energy advocates right now looks like the clean energy sector as a whole in the u.s. is actually lagging many many other developed countries and not assignment and not developed countries even developing countries such as china china is now leading the entire new energy sector antenna solar power in terms of wind power so we just had the u.s. is actually losing out on innovation and furthering the technology now it definitely hurts that we're lacking leadership in the white house on issues like

climate change and clean energy policy we saw that in the recent madrid climate change. conference where the united states was blocking a lot of progressive action that's why a lot of the positive activity on clean energy in the united states has been at the state level rather than at the federal level states like california new york washington maine new jersey massachusetts or all passing you know 100 percent clean energy bills and so a lot of the policies to try and promote that are going on at the state level however as you accurately point out you really need federal action in order to see this sort of sweeping comprehensive policy that we need and right now the federal government just isn't in a leadership position and why why do you think it is that the renewable energy sector has not played out here in the u.s. i mean when you look at countries like sweden and costa rica they're pretty much almost entirely carbon neutral at this point i think you alluded to it before that

part of it seems to be political there does seem to be interest from the american public in moving in this direction is it just politicians that hold us back at this point i think so polls always show very strong support for investments in clean energy there was just a poll that came out this week that showed most homeowners want to have solar panels on their roof and sometimes it's regulations or politics that inhibit that and so i think you know as long as donald trump is in the white house the united states isn't going to be in a position to lead on some of these climate change issues now granted it is a little easier for smaller countries like sweden. to go carbon neutral you mean sweden has a population of $10000000.00 and we're seeing in some states like california there are times when 70 percent of the electricity at certain hours is all renewable on the california grid and so we have seen success stories at the municipal and state

level we just need to bridge that to the federal level in the united states doesn't slocum of public citizens energy program thank you so much for your time. that's there by this time you can catch boom bust on directv channel 321 dish network out to 80. 7 uncommitted t.v. the free t.v. ad or as always if you have us up at youtube dot com slash boom bust our t.v. or see about your next time. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy for him to let it be an arms race movies on off and 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. burgers soo hard to go wrong lotto then some. money in the draw more than i was for the imprisoned by the regime of my life. take a stick grab some media attention i mean it's a shooting in a 16 year olds to 16 birthday parties. so i think the police tell a lot of pressure to. close the case. for you. just it's like i couldn't believe those. you know so so far they are all more than the sure don't want to speak with the search and all of the shooters because i was standing right next to. me before i was the son you got to

keep in mind 101617 years old so. blue monday night just one day to spare the. former. now the truth. is this is a stick. phone in the stomach of a 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 litter bugs are trying this way industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has promised to reuse the plastic.

when you. funding me. on the. phone now the mountains of waste only grow. lights and stacey are continuing on our american tour and as you can see behind me we are in rio de janeiro oh my god so beautiful so much going on this is a country can transition. lose lose with us.

000000. syrian government forces push deeper into ad libbed dislodging ok about foreigners from villages in the south of the rebel controlled. plus a punishing polluters the french government introduces a new tax on s.u.v.s and trucks and its battle to reduce carbon emissions. and research shows u.k. weapons sales to the saudi led coalition in yemen have spiked dramatically in the last 5 years despite britain being signed up to the arms trade treaty.