charles evans hughes was his secretary of state and most importantly, andrew mellon was his secretary of the treasury and mellon began what would become almost the ten-year reign and three presidents served under andrew mellon and that was probably a pretty good picture of the 1920s and he began systematically to lower taxes to propose to congress that they lower taxes and this policy of the reduced domestic spending in conjunction with lower taxes began to take hold. unemployment started to climb ultimately and declined to about 5% and during the period of the eight years of the harding-coolidge presidency and an astounding annual rate of annual rate per year at 4.5%. now unlike 40 years ago, anyone that reads history these days would agree that this was a good debate and the real question about the 1920s is it wasn't an idyllic period in the history in arcad arcadia, if you will, and was it the babylon that has been characterized as by so many historians and in addition to what schlessinger and evans wrote. william allen white and identified coolidge unforgettably and the pure tan i

cut the top tax rate for people like andrew mellon the multimillionaires and business owners from seventy three percent down to twenty five percent what followed was an enormous economic bubble that was mistaken for actual growth they even called it the coolidge prosperity in the mid one nine hundred twenty school which was the president right after hardy another republican but nine years after harding was elected as hoover came an economic bubble burst with a republican crash of one thousand nine hundred eighty nine so more business in government led to a great depression and then in one nine hundred eighty ronald reagan came along. and he. he would have likely used hartings same exact platform of more business and government less government business had it not been badly tarnished instead reagan put in place basically the same exact policies as already rolling back labor protections even singlehandedly breaking up the air traffic controllers union known as patco he pushed deregulation like harding did he gave nearly an identical tax cut to the richest already did he cut top top

go andrew mellon on us and send the stock market lower? if so, i would like to hear more about that. >> well, in the u.s. we're going to have to delever. and the bond market has basically eased for the fed. so if the fed did nothing, it really wouldn't matter. it's what the ecb's going to do next. the europe region is where we were a few years ago in terms of bank debt, potential bank runs and what it means for the countries. the ecb has no choice but to print. this is again buying time. either pain now or pain later. that's to me the bottom line. >> jack, i will get to you in just a second. i want to pick up on what you're saying about the potential for more qe for example from the ecb, peter. wouldn't that be a net-net negative? essentially it would just blow out their balance sheet. may in fact cause downgrades across the continent. >> why is that a negative? >> printing money right now is the only thing we have for the europeans and we're going to get it within the next month i believe either through the esm or another ltro or some for

mellon's money. >> pelley: can the prosecutor try again? >> reporter: they can, and we saw that in the roger clemens case. but they are stuck with andrew young. i don't think it's likely they will. >> pelley: erin, thanks very much. in another court today, the federal law that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman was struck down today by one woman and two men on a federal appeals panel. the court in boston said the 1996 defense of marriage act discriminates because it prevents same-sex couples from getting federal benefits that other couples enjoy. what happens now? nancy cordes is looking into that. >> reporter: today's decision was a victory for married same- sex couples who say they're entitled to the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples. the first u.s. circuit court of appeals said the 16-year-old defense of marriage act interferes with the rights of states to define marriage themselves. >> it's absolutely wonderful. we are so happy. >> reporter: betty joe green and jo ann whitehead of boston were two of 17 who sued the government to overturn the law. the couple met in college and have been together since 1

mellon is 101 years old, fred marin, he died unexpectedly. rielle hunter did not testify, elizabeth edwards, john edwards -- the only person who was really intimately involved in this was andrew young who is kind of the bag man. and i just think it's weird to expect the jury to convict when they're not hearing the full story. >> mark, how tough is it when you have a client who has done some, you know, shady behavior and trying to get the jury to separate what you may think of him personally from the charges? >> well, i think it makes a difference if you've got -- and i've argued this for year. it depends if your client is infamous or famous. john edwards was famous before he became infamous. you get some degree a presumption of innocence when you are somebody -- remember, this was at one time a golden boy out of that state. so i think there was, you know, joe had said, it was a polarized jury, it's a polarized state. i expect this case was lost in jury selection for the prosecution as most cases that high-profile cases are. i don't see how they can ever get over that in a case like this where at the end of the day, the prosecution's chief witness is somebody who took most of

it, you didn't have rachel "bunny" mellon testifying, you didn't have fred baron, you didn't have john edwards, you didn't have rielle hunter. all you had was andrew young. could you trust his word when he made so much money out of this? it was just a reasonable doubt case. that's what i really think it came down to. >> thank you, erin. >>> we go now to erica in london. helo. >> charlie, good morning, charlie, nice to see you this morning. the u.n. human rights commission is meeting in geneva today to discuss the growing crisis in syria. the commission is considering charging syria's government with crimes against humanity for last week's massacre in houla. as alex thompson reports from damascus, the government is trying to shift the blame. >> reporter: astonishment around the world that the syrian government here in damascus is blaming of the massacre at people were killed, most women and children, on what it calls armed militias armed with heavy weapons. that will be believed by almost nobody outside the syrian government itself and their supporters. i can say i myself have witnessed heavy weapons being used in houla, and those were in the hands