albert einstein is often credited with defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result this is essentially the argument behind the trumpet ministrations deal of the century aimed at putting an end to the israeli palestinian conflict. is the american president indeed insane or a genius for breaking with decades of fruitless mediation. and the united states presidential candidates debate the future of the us and the world. max kaiser and stacy herbert dig into the burning questions of this election cycle oneself every week wealth tax student debt trade wars corporate money universal basic income and more catch up with what's front running

this sunday exclusively on r.t. . 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 history find it more closely the 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 developed by the similar to this. now this period 6 trillion because if you look at their wealth distribution 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 highly negative consequences on the so it 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 classman dillard it will infuriate you were card. get rich 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 the 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 here argument suppose everyone had to vote freely and say well 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 horrid tradition goes back to the 1st major book on political systems aristotle's politics. is. 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 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 monikers. 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 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 activism and so on. they just changed consciousness in ways.

'd minority rights. we don't want. women's rights. 4th. in terms of the. american as. they say boring of my own safety to provide opposition to aggression i'm sorry did i was criticized as . serious about lawn on the provider of the vietnamese people black people and people concerned for other people 1. 1000000 poor people in america when you make. a reasonable. system of distribution of wealth to question our research.

these are all symbolizing say. that cause great fear. anticipated the power of should it but it didn't anticipate the power of the reaction to the civilizing effects of the sixty's i did not anticipate the strength of the reaction to it. the backlash.

so. plenty. plenty. plenty. plenty. play. live. plymouth . oh. please.

liz. liz claiborne. least. politically. and very well can see you watching us in such. my uncle or the kids think compensated on oil tonight i didn't. even know who did they think. it's not. going to.

get. me home nor move on which i did. then showed up to move this guy who on the same income who are going to be out in so just as up when i last. saw i thought there's not so much of a thing as i was it is a time. you left. there has been under a normal us 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 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 defense defending ourselves against an outside power. if you look at it it's a call for business to use its control. 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. goal the crisis of democracy. lateral 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 2 knocker see 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 a city and become the politicized. and they were particularly concerned with what

was happening to young people the young people get into 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 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 how flabby is 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 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 is this 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. behind providing an. outing money. to the community by making. money for

a manufacturer or ongoing. are going to money out of why people are always needing more cramming 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 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 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 a 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 and 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 1970 s. say general electric can make more profit playing games with money than you could buy 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 sort of 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.

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 workers aren't 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 as i outlined in some detailed in testimony last month i believe our job insecurity has played the dominant role workers in 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 unions. now for the masters of mankind that's fine they make their profits but for the population it's devastating. for these 2 processes financial ization i'm sure are part of what led to the vicious cycle of concentration of

wealth concentration of power. what politicians do use and. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected . so when you want to be president. or some want to be. it's a going to be press it's like i'm a 43 in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the why isn't the how. question of. trade and investment to become magic spells to come to economic development. most people think about trade they think about goods and services being a stand between countries and the investment chopped or a trade agreement is about something very different but when investment leads to

toxic manufacturing that destroys sacred sites old ruins the environment. that means that if local communities that are being poisoned if they object if they do anything that. the company feels this interrupt in their office they can be certain . multinationals are taking on the whole nations philip morris is trying to i guess d.s. to stop your advice from implementing new tobacco regulations aimed at cutting domestic smoking rates a french company sued egypt because egypt raise its minimum wage democratic choice over trump corporate law joins us as we try to find out for the 2. is later just almost 6.

and there is no no don't you know you not. can if you had a way out all of them ok if there. was not minimised the data it would lay about how they have laid the advocate was. that to be. the one that having. people. give the night. what the how do we. need the whole goal before. let out on a year or so and i think. after

47 years the united kingdom marks and historic day cutting ties with the e.u. as brics it officially comes into effect the road ahead for britain is still unclear. the u.s. democrats are not getting you what is the stand in the donald trump and control it means a final vote on the president's time in the oval office is expected next week. and france pledges to send its naval forces to across across the mediterranean to cyprus as a maritime dispute breaks out between nato allies over gas exploration.