brown here, china's belt and road initiative is a global infrastructure investment project involving nearly 70 nations worldwide with the intention of linking exporters to western markets. so what exactly is that you hoping to accomplish with a global gateway? and will it ever actually get off the ground? well, joining us now discuss our buck, chris, the i, and professor richard will host of economic update and author of the sick. this is the system when capitalism fails to save us from pandemic or itself. great to have you both talk about this that christy, i want to start with you that you seems to be taking a direct shot at china with a similar to the discussion that we've heard about the u. s. d coupling from china with the state of supply chains and decades of history. can western great nations really do that? i think i'll be near impossible to really the couple given the close trade relationship that europe currently enjoys the china. i mean, this isn't exactly new, this has been in the works with the youth since july earlier this year. it does,

however, highlight a greater assertiveness by the you. but in any case, it's going to be very difficult for you to couple from china, especially given that they are already weakened by the current of ours pandemic. and they're billions of dollars in debt and at risk of another economic slowdown. and specifically the you is seeing to move beyond this, you asia connectivity strategy, and as vowing to build this local cli connected, you, which would allow at the block to turn attention to africa and latin america, which are both key destinations for chinese investments right now. so as of now, there is no price tag for this new plan, but the council has called for a mix of public finance and private investments. and this will prove to be very difficult as the draft document is relatively weak on ways to encourage these companies to beef up investments and locations that the politicians consider strategic, but the business is being risky. and now once again, you have this private business is caught in the crosshairs of the agenda, the politician. because if you ask the businesses,

they don't really care where their materials, their supplies, and their goods come from, as long as the cheap reliable force would your china. and as a business owner, if you already spent 1000000 building out a trade link between your manufacturer and china and they have been a solid supplier for the last couple of decades, then all of that done in the government wants to build this author trade link with de africa, you build a whole new supply chain, there, source, a reliable manufacturer. there somehow and hope that they're just as good when there's absolutely nothing wrong with the 1st original one in china. it just doesn't make any sense to business owners, and i don't see businesses going for when this entire thing is a power struggle on the world state that has absolutely nothing to do with the private industry. yeah. is interesting how they don't really come out of the gate talking about just how much it's going to cost now per their roles when it comes to building a global gateway. how would that affect the nations that are already a part of the bolt and the initiative? is there a conflict of interest there? there are so many conflicts of interest going on here. it's kind of hard to get

your head around which one to talk about 1st and which one second greece, for example, has been savaged by germany throughout the whole period since the so called great recession of 2008. and part of greece's way of coping was to enter into more and more economic relationships with china. china now owned the port of periods. china has been helping greece. the greeks would never even the conservative greeks would never challenge or under cut. christy is right, that makes no sense at all. the chinese have been working at this for a long time. the chinese are the major player in the world economy right now. and so most of the countries in the world want to make sure that they are have access to are connected to china. they're not going to sacrifice that for a big if the relationship with europe,

especially because europe can get its own act together. brittany won't go with the rest of europe. spain doesn't go with france and germany on half a dozen issues. i mean, you're not, you're not making any logical sense. she's spinning the woman in the leadership role. she's spending an image and i hope, but there's not much substance for us to hold onto here. ok, so she got some big dreams and were just waiting to see if they actually play out. now christy, another part here is the fact that the commission president also proposed a ban on sales of products made using force and labor taking a direct shot at china over allegations. the chinese government has repeatedly denied. now this is a criticism we continue to hear from world leaders. so how is being responding to the latest claim? i mean, this is another big show, a political theater. it shows that the west is kind of taking a hard line approach to china. now that it's become an economic powerhouse,

but it still has less of a hard line than that of the us. because if you know the commission president did not, indirectly call out china, and rather just as a reference showing that it knows not to make an enemy out of china when their economy is still so vulnerable. so it was more so for theatrical for show that, oh, it cares about these issues and it's making a point when really you're just kind of basic making a passing reference. and this proposed ban has, that has been talked about for many, many, many months. but there's been absolutely no action and also it would be extremely difficult to actually confirm and then enforce the span, given how difficult it is to trace the force of the cotton supply chain and china in response to all of this, they just reject the complaints of abuse is saying that they are attempts to destabilize sheen junk out of bias and political purposes. and professor wolfe, i wanna go back to something chris actually mentioned earlier in the, in the her 1st answer. there's also a lot of talk about connectivity project with africa. do you see this is an attempt

for the you to gain influence in the region? if china has been doing that for years? yeah, i think this is a strange wake up call that they are kind of giving themselves. there's a fundamental problem in africa, namely that the europeans, savage to that continent. i mean the exploitation, the colonialism for decades, if not centuries, depending on what part of africa you're talking about. that was all done by europeans and the africans. don't forget all of this. the chinese have no history of colonialism in africa. they came in and offered an alternative. your opinions didn't compete for decades, as christine, quite whitely said. and so these relationships have been built up. and again, why would an african country that is beginning to develop with its relationships

with china? suddenly we're off go back to its former colonial masters who can't get their own act together and risk anything. it's not going to happen. it's definitely an interesting scenario. and i think christie, you put it very well when you said this is a lot of theatrics. of course, we have to remember, this is the blocks the state of the union address. they're really laying out proposals and grandiose ideas and helps to gain support for all of that. but we will see what happens. and if china respond in the coming days, boom bus, christie, i and professor rich will. thank you so much. thank you. thing in the region, the completion of the north through 2 pipeline comes as europe is facing a shortage of natural gas. that is sent prices skyrocketing by more than 35 percent in the last month alone. natural gas prices have already doubled this year, and experts are warning they could have a 13 year hy, this winter, as a lack of supply needs rising demand. to put that in the context,

washington storage of natural gas is 7.6 percent below the 5 year average. but europe storage is 16 percent below the 5 year average hitting a record low for the month of september. all of this putting the pressure on germany to move as quickly as possible to certify the word stream to pipeline, and hopes that the increased flow of natural gas from russia will come before temperatures drop and prices rise even more. so joining us now discussing david mckelvey and the ceo of macaroni financial group. now david, it's no secret that we're seeing problems with supply all around here. but how big are the warning signs when it comes to the current natural gas shortage? and what could it mean for europe in the us? in europe, they've prepared for a healthy transition to more energy creation from natural gas in north stream through is obviously critical. commodity prices are on the rise and that reinforces

their resolve to complete the project and have it fully operational and that's gonna happen soon. so in the us, we don't have a very coherent energy strategy. sure, we want to reduce our carbon footprint, but no, and it's thoughtfully engaged in how to put it all together, whether it's a partial solution for nuclear energy. we're even wavering with natural gas as we migrate away from coal. although it's cleaner, it's still fossil. so the current zeitgeist sees a world of renewables as the only solution instead of a reasonable part of the solution. so natural gas remains in a more, i think it is a critical piece in a more realistic energy strategy as cheap. it's relatively clean, it's abundant. it's reliable, so if we're concerned about energy costs, certainly here in the united states and downstream from that consumer price inflation. think of this, this is how we structure our policies. the federal energy regulatory commission is hiring advisors to look at how we can assign environmental justice issues to

existing oil companies and gas pipeline companies. so we're talking about a new, fresh around the taxes for the social, for the social cost of carbon. the bottom line is we're talking about increasing costs here arbitrarily. i can say that the increase in costs passed on to consumers is ultimately going to be very ironic of the social and political cost for us politicians. they will ultimately bear the brunt of an energy always. oh, go ahead. i'm sorry. yeah, but that's, that's, i think that's as close as we come to, to a real concept of justice is politicians getting a taste? well, i was going to say the energy always becomes a big political issue here in the united states for sure. i want to go back to jeremy for just a minute because they now have 4 months to certify the nordstrom to pipelines. do you see them rushing to do so in our supply concerns likely to outweigh, political concern? yes, sir, vacation's going to come quickly, you know, you've got abundant supply that eases the consumers, energy costs and any consumer budgetary concern. so i think what you're looking at

a smart politicians in germany in particular saying there's going to be a bonus to our constituents. and i would say that the, the only political concerns to worry about at least this is what they have been. and past months came from the u. s. and other countries who are involved in, in supplying energy to, to europe. so when you look at north stream to there's no doubt this shift europe, farther outside of, of us spheres of influence and closer to a russian sphere of influence. and i think you already know this, but you know, in march, anthony blinking was threatening germany with sanctions over this pipeline where they kind of resolve the differences. and that was done by july. and now e. oh, you have left is a small amount of domestic opposition in germany, but i think nor stream is a part of a long term energy security project in europe. and people know it's been in motion

long enough. we're now with the, with, with the finish line and view certification will come quickly and certainly be interesting to see that play out even with the u. s. threatening sanctions against one of its closest allies. and yet the pipeline is still going right along. now while we have you on, i want to talk about what's going on in the oil market. we've heard that opec is now forecasting global demand for oil. we'll return to pre pan demik levels by next year. this, even as a cartel has pulled back on expectations for the final quarter of this year. so do you see top producers trusting that production? and are they going to be able to keep up with demand if it is correct? yeah, there's no problem keeping up demand even pre panoramic levels. you have opechi of the u. s. you have around the number of countries that would love to bring more supply the market. the commentary has hinged on vaccination targets being realized in the divan surging, which i think one of the things that that neglect is the israeli findings that vaccinations are not

a one and done 6. as soon as you're done with one cycle boosters are required as the efficacy of the initial shots decline rapidly after a 6 to 8 month period. so that may be an opportunity for me to a pfizer, but it is a public policy problem. and there's some vaccine projections that are still assuming we're working on a stable base of recipients and building off of that. i think that's basically what opec has been saying. your question is on supply. global producers have ample slack to meet demand. if there is a surprise on the upside in terms of, you know, successful again, successful vaccine delivery demand is where i would spend a little bit more time. we had indications back in july of slowing chinese imports . we should not assume that the through 10 to 11000000 barrels a day has a home. if chinese financial markets take a hit, i think we're close to the credit concerns in china are in the early stages and a total unwind of housing bubble in china. could negatively impact the economy and crude imports to the tune of we would estimate $3.00 to $4000000.00 barrels

a day. opec should pay equal attention to chinese financial virginity as it does vaccination rates. the great rhino is in the chinese credit markets. i will continue keep an eye on that and i'll certainly be interesting to see where demand goes from here. david mckelvey, macaroni financial, thank you so much for your insight. thank you. have a great day and time now for a quick break, but when we come back, a trove of new documents shows. facebook allegedly exercised unfair exemptions for syllabus. the most powerful users straight have we sort through the claims and discuss as we can break here. the number that the ah

ah, i join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guess in the world, the politic sport business. i'm show business. i'll see you then. me . in the 19 twenties and thirties, several 100 african americans moved to the soviet union. and many of their descendants still lived in russia. law. never to be truthful. nice things. issue back home. black americans suffered from racism and a complete lack of prospects. you said, you reckon up a month real, be losing, shall one, buy elsis will provide you the truth danger. so they decided to leave everything

behind and start a new life in a country about which they knew almost nothing at all. some of the african americans who went to soldiers union in the 930 found great success. it always seems to me and now almost a 100 years later, history is repeating itself. my great grandfather, george time, went to russia on probably the worst time to go anywhere. why not mean? what if i come here? i me the civic leg around the world. expedition. by 1000 miles round the clock exhibit the dead calm. miss wilson in michigan as every country close

by with the crew. gavin's food and warner harbor to go to check those for sure. the blue little thing is good. already wrote down the rear almost no food. no. what about that? i'm not sure somebody stuck in the coven, your living like the theme of own, but in the 21st century. ah ah, is your media a reflection of reality?

in a world transformed? what will make you feel safer? type relation or community? ah, you're going the right way. where are you being that somewhere which direction? what is truth? what is faith? in the world corrupted, you need to defend the join us in the depths or remain in the shallows. ah ah, and i make no, certainly no borders and the blind number please. as emerge. we don't have authority, we don't,

the whole world needs to take action and be ready. not a joke. people are judge. 2 governors crisis we can do better, we should be better. everyone is contributing each in their own way, but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever. the challenge is paid for the response has been massive. so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we need together in the welcome back. and new blockbuster report from the wall street journal seems to prove facebook has established a secret tier of the elite, the users who are exempt from moderation policies. this,

despite the fact that the company publicly state it rules its rules, apply to all will joining us now to break it all down the book, but cover investigative journalists, ben swan. hey ben. i know you're shocked about this story that fits really group of users is not that small of a group, correct? yeah, about 5800000 superstars out there. celebrities and well known personalities with sensually, are given kind of a ability to operate within facebook system that the rest of us, mere mortals are not allowed to have look at, you know, 5800000 people. obviously a lot of people. but when you're talking about, you know, a user ship over a 1000000000 people on facebook, now you're talking about a percentage of people. it's very small. but here's, here's the main story. so there's this program, essentially that was created by facebook called cross check or x check is how it looks when you read it. but it's called cross check. essentially, it was set up as a way of kind of protecting against, you know, celebrities utilizing information or saying things in and being attacked wrongfully

right. and what it's turned into now is basically a white list, where if you are a celebrity who gets onto this list, or a well known person who gets on this list, you're free to essentially do whatever you want. you can say whatever you want, all the terms of service and the rules and, and the heavy moderation. that all the rest of us have to undergo every single time or on facebook does not apply to these groups of people who essentially, as i said, are able to kind of operate without any checks and balances. ok, so there's 5800000 people on this one list. well, what about the other list that we all seem to be on? where every single thing we do gets flagged and taken down. i mean, gosh, maybe maybe we'll get the report on that one. but on a much more serious, know, one of the examples in the report dealt with soccer start name or and noun images he posted of a woman who claimed he had raped her. so did this cross check program allow that to happen because of his sort of celebrity status? yeah, absolutely. did essentially name or was able to post these, these images and

a video of a woman. and as you said, the woman said that she had been raked by him. he says that he was being extorted by this woman. right? but here's the thing is under normal policies under the normal algorithms that govern facebook, the fact that these images were nude would have immediately flagged it, and it would've been pulled down as being inappropriate content. but also this would fall under what's referred to as revenge for that kind of content is not allowed on facebook. and yet for over a day, these image stayed up and according to facebook itself, they believe up to 56000000 people. yeah, 56000000 people view these images had sent this woman messages in some cases, attacking her or threatening her. and so it was allowed to stay up. but again, this just kind of shows the fact that or underscores the fact that certain people, if you're on this list, the algorithms don't come out and get you right. that the fact checkers don't get you. and so all of the systems that have been set up to flag content that's considered unacceptable under facebook's rules, does not apply to this group of people. but i think this is the big question. i'm

not sure that there's an answer to it, but if the report said anything about why, why certain celebrities, how it's select which celebrities which high profile people could go on this list. and more importantly, why they would say that they need that little benefit of the doubt from the cross check system. well, essentially, i don't think it's an algorithm that even flags them in fact that the program continues to grow and continue to add people to it. but it's actual physical employees that facebook who add people to this list and it really comes down to how well known you are or kind of protecting. so athletes, or on their comedians are on there. believe it or not guys, even some celebrity animals are on their right. famous cats and pugs that have their own facebook channels. yes. even they are on this white list for being allowed to do what they want. and again, i think the idea here is that facebook says the program was originally started for a different reason. it was to protect means these people, when they will come out and say something from having to for facebook,

basically being bashed for limiting their content. right? so if you are a famous person and facebook limits your content and you complain about it on another social media to your tens of millions of followers, it's a p r nightmare. so facebook created the system basically to not get backlash from the followers of these groups and instead have as given the card launch to do what they want, leave it to facebook to come up with a protected class for celebrity animals. my goodness. now of course, a lot of this outrage over this program is that it, tracy celebrities, in a very different way than it does the general public. would you say that? that's fair criticism. oh, i think it's absolute fair criticism. i think it's absolutely what they've done. what facebook has done is they've, they've created 2 classes of people, but i think more and more without getting off track here more and more in our society. people feel that that's what's happened, right. there's an ever growing, powerful group of people who run everything and they decide was acceptable and what is not. and then there's the rest of us, right. and so i think more and more we're seeing that in society. and i think

facebook as echoing back in the way they have structured the system, a small group of elite people who are hand selected and the rules don't apply to them, but they imply and are enforced heavily on everybody else. well, and it seems like that's something we've talked about with censorship throughout social media in generally that these companies are picking winners and losers. and this one, they're really picking the winters who have one in a lot of aspects of society. and then the rest are the losers. boom bus spend, swan thank you so much. thank you. and finally, the co founder of apples as he plans to get into the private space business. but his goals are very different from the likes of jeff pay those. and you on must, instead, steve wozniak is launching privateer space, where the mission is to keep space safe and accessible to all human kind. so what is this company all about? well, for now, the official website is still in stealth mode, but report, they're describing it as a satellite company focused on monitoring and cleaning up objects in space. the

time is just right, as the number of active and defunct satellites around the earth has more than doubled to nearly 8000 in the last decade. with estimate finding there could be around 100000 satellites by 2030. for now, we're still waiting to see what privateer space plans for its future, and that's a good old was can do it again in the world of innovation. well, it seems like as we look at all of the billionaires who have been involved in space, i don't believe was in that 1000000000 or club by any means. but the fact is that it's nice to see somebody who is trying to take a step to better space, clean up space a little bit when, especially when we're seeing more and more space mission. absolutely, all the vanity license, base tourism and getting into it you got to have somebody is looking out for the environment. well, it's not the same as it used to be where they're leaving so much up there every launch. now, you know, of course we see the boosters come back down to earth. so this is i have to clean up that and that's it for this time. you can catch boom bus on demand onto the

portable tv app available on smartphones and tablets, google play and the apple app store. if i search affordable tv, where it will see the can also be downloaded on samsung smart tv using roku devices or simply check it out at portable dot tv. well see you next. me. ah. when i was the wrong one, all rule just don't hold any rules yet to fill out the same because the after an engagement equals the trail, when so many find themselves will depart. we choose to look for common ground in in the 1920s infinity of several 100 african americans moved to the soviet union. and many

of their descendants still lived in russia. law numbers to be transferred. nice things was that richard lum, duck back home. black americans suffered from racism and a complete lack of prospects. you reckon up a month real. be losing, shall. one, buy else is provide you with the truth and danger. so they decided to leave everything behind and start a new life in a country about which they knew almost nothing at all. some of the african americans who went to soldiers union in the 1930 found great success to go home. and now almost a 100 years later, history is repeating itself. my great grandfather, george time, went to russia on probably the worst time to go anywhere. why not mean?

what if i come here? ah, i have often said transparency for the powerful receipt for the last bit cares about privacy. what people care about is power. tony innocence has become a symbol of the battles of brevity. information is power. that's what's going on, or a huge struggle with governments and corporations want to keep information secret and others who democratic rights should be pushed forward. and people have a right to know when they're going to do. watch how to help shift the conversation around transparency. see what that battle has done to him. i feel like julian like coming to we are in a conflict situation with the largest and most powerful employer in such

a situation. it's remarkable. it's about the the, the, the, the, the british prime minister barak chosen can result a much anticipated shake of his cabinet with the biggest change saying dominic rub shifted from his job for insect retreat. natural gas prices all time record in europe increasing by almost 20 percent compared to tuesday, talking fees of a winter energy crisis. the us think we should say that it has no idea who was killed and try to try to get this done last month. you know, full assess.