mark wise broad co-director of the center for economic and policy research for us and now to some other international news in brief according to the day officials the tip off that led to finding parcel bombs on cargo planes came from a repentant al qaeda member x. one ton i'm obeyed detainee five feet handed himself into saudi authorities two weeks ago the parcels were placed with cargo with one parcels used in dubai and the other intercepted in britain u.s. officials have named a saudi bomb maker as the key suspect in the attempt to send the explosives from yemen to the u.s. . tropical storm tomas is heading towards haiti threatening over a million people still living in refugee camps following january's devastating earthquake earlier five people were killed when tomas swept through the ribbon with one hundred fifty kilometer per hour winds forecasters say the storm that's been downgraded from a hurricane is set to gain strength and hit the island at the weekend authorities in haiti are urging people to move to higher ground and have been distributing emergency shelter materials. two p

where all this leaves us is dean baker he's the coordinator of the washington based center for economic and policy research mr baker evening to you well the g. twenty is often accused there's a bit of a lot of talk but little action and think that's exactly what you're saying this time around isn't it. well it's clear there's a lot of disagreements and i was so the currency issue is front and center there so you have the united states trying to push on some countries obviously most importantly china to raise the value of their currency and pursuing a policy at the fed the quantitative easing which other things equal certainly is going to be a factor lowering the value of the dollar and. most if not everyone else i'm happy in that picture and of course just look at overall picture here between the g twenty taking very different rescue approaches only the u.s. is spending is where the recession while europe's taken the other approach slashing and spending no matter how popular that turns out we recall just what how this we can love that could this widen the division do you think. well i have been to believe

promises to tackle poverty and put gender equality as her number one priority now for more on this we can now talk to mark weiss. from the center for economic and policy research thank you very much for joining us mark now rousseff is expected to continue her outgoing pretty saucers left leaning policies now which is more important the fact that she's the country's first female president or that she's got big shoes to fill well i think the. shoes to fill are the more important thing well the growth important. thing is going to be going forward the economic. i think that's how she that's really why she was elected brazil had done enormously better in the last eight years under the bush. than he had in the previous eight years under phone on though in reeky cardoso who is of the same party as you all ran against still more so the economy grew. by per person about twenty three percent. during the early years is only as compared to just three and a half percent previously and that made a big difference in especially i think be increasing the minimum wage which was very large sixty five percent increase after adjusting for inflation that helped tens of millions of

endowment for democracy who served as the secretary of venezuela's national human rights commission... mark weisbrot, an economist and co-director of the center for economic and policy research. he co-wrote oliver stone's documentary about hugo chavez, "south of the border." and roger noriega, former assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs. he currently coordinates the american enterprise institute's program on latin america. the topic this week: "venezuela--how do you solve a problem like hugo?" this is "ideas in action." >> funding for "ideas in action" is provided by "investor's business daily." every stock market cycle is led by america's never-ending stream of innovative new companies and inventions. "investor's business daily" helps investors find these new leaders as they emerge. more information is available at investors.com. >> nearly 10% of the u.s.' oil is supplied by venezuela, yet its president, hugo chavez, has been a thorn in the side of both the obama and bush administrations. he increased government control of industries from oil to travel, seizing millions of dollars of assets from american companies like hilton and exxon. his self-procl

host: we are joined by arthur an economist dean baker, co- director of the center for econom and policy research. as we continue our conversation on cutting the debt and deficit and u.s. fiscal policy. mr. baker, the debt commission, as you well know, the two chairmen proposed some things to cut the debt and deficit. here are some of the specifics they propose. raising the gas tax, retirement age, cutting defense spending, cutting the federal work force, eliminating the mortgage deduction, eliminating earmarked, and reducing social security benefits. you have already written an article in "the new republic." here is the headline -- "deep-6 the deficit commission report." guest: we go through these piece by piece. but my main objection is this is a little peculiar. we have an economic crisis that has nothing to do with the debt and the deficit, the crisis is due to the fact that there was an $8 trillion housing bubble that collapsed. the bubble was driving the economy through the last recovery. when it collapsed, we lost almost $1.20 trillion in annual demand. $600 billion and construction demand