the employment policies institute sounds very innocuous a widely quoted economic research center pushing the notion that increasing the minimum wage would increase poverty and it's backed by the national restaurant association lead the polarization of issues in this country can be blamed on ideological front groups backed by massive lobbying efforts. and i think you hit the nail on the head there you know a lot of the political debates you see on television in the media are not much more than political theater propped up by characters who are saying what they're saying or pushing a certain policy because sometimes paying them then you don't know who they are they'll say oh this is. to help the democrats or to help the republicans but in many cases they're pushing a very narrow corporate interest without revealing who their true paymasters are how much of legislation would you say is written by lobbyist i remember doing an investigation into just california state legislature it was like i think sixty percent this is a couple of years ago i was just worried if you had any insight on the fe

with washington's interests in the country speaking at this point co-director of the center for economic and policy research mark weisbrot recently wrote an article in the guardian about what's happening on the ground he joins me now to break it down thanks so much for coming on mark thanks so can you give us a brief timeline of how these protests have gotten at this point well started out. just where they started from beginning to manning that the president resigned and of course he was elected in a democratic election in april and in december which was seen by the opposition in the international media as a referendum on the presidency just two months ago they had nationwide municipal elections and the government won by a much wider margin by ten percentage points so i think what happened was the opposition was facing two years without an election which is actually a long time event where they have a lot of elections and they figured that this was the time to go for it if they can get people in the streets destabilize the country you know maybe they can provoke some kind of regime. changed why did oppositi

sells america right absolutely thank you so much mark weisbrot co-director of the center for economic policy research appreciate it thank you that's our show you guys join me again tomorrow night the set all over again. in the future one show we go into sometimes done where we meet some of his sons innovators in the ninety's that. we find out how the big black queens for compazine and craft. pulled in the modern day planking but still money takes some smocks to the album said none here on r.g.p. please the future of. no cholesterol pianist depression. these efforts to work. to improve your life. are you see. form those that's. closing in on the heart says. yes i feel it when i close my eyes i see people in mosques because. you know sometimes i think in itself is a face covered by a mosque those people in both sides of the barricades we don't want. to be under way sometimes it feels as if all of ukraine is no most. rights. to the. lives. of the young girls. all for the future harder. between two and three hundred million guns united states so you can act like they're not here and keep kids away from t

my interview with him also we have american macro economist and co-founder of the center for economic and policy researchdean baker is live in studio today.

my interview with him also we have american macro economist and co-founder of the center for economic and policy research dean baker is live and in studio today we're talking to dean about the u.s. economy both past and present here won't want to miss a moment and it all starts right now. banking giant credit suisse is under investigation by the u.s. justice depart. for allegedly helping its rich clients paying their taxes now a senate investigative report released on tuesday claims that bankers at credit suisse used cloak and dagger tactics to help wealthy american clients stash billions of dollars in assets out of sight from the i.r.s. that is now senate investigators say the bank went so far as to open a special zurich airport branch listen it's in the airport and this is so that customers could fly in meet their private bankers and then quickly hit the slopes right after not too bad if you're one of those v.i.p.'s now according to the report the v.i.p.'s would use a secret elevator to be whisked to a private banking suite while bankers use peltry meeting rooms to avoid sending account statements or l

and director of international programs at the center of economic and policy research.hat elements of venezuela society, what do they want? >> fundamentally, where the youth, the students, this all basically started on early january when students were protesting for situations relating to their own safety, for their own security in the streets. things got out of hand right there with a level of expression until we arrived on the february 12th, which is the national day of the youth in venezuela. we celebrate that day for the independence movement, and it's every year that there is a celebration regarding that. your introduction set forth the scenario. the scareties in the interior of the country is much higher than in the city. then the over all level of violence in the country. last year between 25,000 to 27,000 homicide accounted according to official figures. the situation of insecurity in the country is significant. the context of these students where most of them present their demands and then repressions started to follow and repression generated another form of r

about two year old ago the center for economic and policy research did a study and looked specificallyiers to reentry and one of the things it talked about was with respect to the employment issue alone, that it really does hurt our nation when we are making it very difficult for the formally incarcerated to get jobs. it talked within the study about the fact that our ability to produce products, to insure that we have enough workers to do the jobs that are still available in this country, it's significantly decreased by the fact that we don't make opportunities available to the formally incarcerated to become a part of the workforce, so i want to just reiterate what desmond said. it goes against the self interests. country if we make it harder for these individuals who are indeed coming back in to the community to reintegrate and to actually become productive members of their communities. >> horace, from your perspective do people have to choose do they have dough side whether to be for victims' rights or whether to support reintegrating ex-cons. >> the reintegration of ex-cons is a c

please come back very soon that was macroeconomists dean baker co-founder of the center for economic and policy research time now for today's big deal. and big home sales are up and edward harrison knows about it and he's going to to talk. about it now we're going to be discussing january surge and home prices you know what has happened kind of on one hand mortgages applications they did mortgage applications that's what you do you fill out to buy a home they've been at their lowest levels in nearly two decades and this means not as many buyers are in the market heading into the spring season which is usually the busy time of year when it comes to buying homes so i got her start up asking new home sales are up but the more job creation seem to be weak what's been driving this recent recovery in home prices if this is the case in terms of buying a home in two thousand and thirteen things were looking up home prices were going up but actually the rate of growth has been declining in home prices recently and the interesting bit is we're talking here about new home prices new homes are only seven percent of

. >> from the center of economic policy research.olas maduro enjoys strong support across the region. >> argentina, brazil, uruguay, paraguay and venezuela put out a statement strongly supportive of the government, and individual companies like argentina, ecuador and others. most of the region sees it as it's described. it's another attempt to overthrow the government and the u.s. is funding the opposition and really wants to see this succeed. they see is in regional political terms. the united states has been fighting them for the past 16 years, and destabilising some and getting rid of a couple. that's how they see it, and what their main concern is. >> construction on the panama canal expansion resumed after a row over the costs. the work stopped two weeks ago because of a standoff between the panama canal authority and the spanish construction company. mexico surpassed japan as a supplier of cars to the united states. a honda plant opened accelerating the country to the secon second-largest car exploiter. mexico is set to be numb

dean baker is codirector for the center of economic and policy research and he joins us from washingtongood to have you back on the broadcast. where are we in the debt ceiling debate, headed for another train wreck> >> it is hard to imagine. the republicans have done this strategy a couple of times and it has not worked out politically in the sense that they have paid a big price. 20 11, they got a lot of concessions from president obama, put in place a sequester, reduce spending, they got back, but paid a price then and last fall they paid a huge political price. people overwhelmingly blamed republicans. i do not think they want to go there again. people are forgetting about that. >> what is the gop strategy this time around? is default being discussed? >> i sure have not heard that, maybe somewhere behind closed doors. they have nothing making an issue of this publicly. i would be very surprised if they were to suddenly raise big objections. i would think they do not want to make a big issue at this point. >> house speaker john boehner, where is he during all of this? during the parti

wage had kept pace with our economic productivity, they would already getting paid well over $10 an hour. >> a recent study from the center for economic and policy research says if the minimum wage were kept in line with productivity gains since 1968, it would now be more than double $11.72 an hour. in a shift, president obama also announced the new wage increase will no longer exclude workers with disabilities. advocates were initially told the executive order would not apply to disabled workers employed for a special program that pays them sub minimum wages. the decision prompted an outcry that apparently led the white house to reverse course. in his remarks on wednesday, obama said the principle of being paid a fair wage "applies to all of us." the senate has approved a measure that would lift the debt ceiling until march 2015. the vote came after enough house republicans joined with democrats to back hiking the debt limit without conditions, undermining the long-standing republican insistence on an offsetting amount of cuts to social spending. the senate measure passed on a partyline vote of 55 to 43. the nation's two largest cable providers have ann

to thirty four year olds surveyed by the pew research center in december of two thousand and eleven said they had postponed having a baby because of economic conditions so how much is the economy to blame here. well i think the economy plays a big role in the you know even though there's been an overall sort of upturn in the u.s. economy since the crisis you still see very high unemployment or under-employment among the youth population so it's not surprising when you particularly interesting those groups that they're uncertain about their futures and obviously the child is is a major long term commitment sure well let's take a look at the other side of this because some people say that it has more to do or at least equally to do with more education and higher rates of contraception or use of contraception and that people have even pointed specifically to shows like m.t.v.'s sixteen and pregnant or teen mom is there any evidence to support that that is indeed a contributing. well in terms of the take the less point that there is sort of evidence in the kind of the developing world that media plays a big role in people sort of identifying w

about schwartz writes economics in "the new york times." the pew research centerout a pull talking about how people described themselves when it comes to classes. in 2011, 50% described themselves as middle-class. 44% in compared to the 2014. considering themselves and the lower class was 27%, as opposed to 2014 at 40%. changes you are seeing when it comes to those in the middle class. what are we seeing and what can you tell us? guest: how people define themselves by class varies. it depends on education and the part of the country. in new york what passes as middle class would be upper-middle-class elsewhere. at is the data collected by the government. the median family income in america is $60,000. that is including both a husband and a wife. whether or not both are working -- $60,000 is the median. i sort of use that as a rough yardstick of what is middle-class. what is clear is that middle class people are under tremendous economics rests because salaries -- economic stress because salaries are not going up. costs are not stagnating. anybody can apply to coll

dean baker from the center for economic policy -- economic and policy research and our own steve liesman. it's great to see all of you. jeff, first to you. how does this report square with what you're seeing firsthand? >> i think it's probably a tale of three cities, if you will, or three job markets. if you're a professional, college degree, you're loving this. cozy and warm, it's 3% unemployment and really full employment for you. on the other hand, if you're not college educated, not even high school educated, you're closer to 10% unemployment, very different circumstance, and if you're part of this economic -- long-term structural unemployed, you have been in the cold so long you're kind of numb -- >> all those figures did get a little better. >> it did and shrank that number. >> is this one of those reports where the headline really doesn't tell the whole story? >> i think that's right. and i think there is a little bit of weather in this report and there's a little bit of weakness in this report. and i think both of those things are true. you did have strong growth in the third and

researcher at the rand corporation. where he directs the rand center for the study of ageing. also a professor at the party rand graduate school in santa monica, california. his research focuses on economics of retirement, social security and social welfare systems and other topics related to the ageing. congressman moore who has served in the house of representatives for 12 years. first elected in 1998 congressman moore served on the budget and financial services committees. in 2010 he announced he would not seek re-election. prior to his time in office congressman moore served in the u.s. army, u.s. army reserve, was an assistant attorney general for the state of kansas, johnson county district attorney as well as private practice lawyer. in february of 2012 he and his wife announced that congressman moore had been diagnosed with alzheimer's disease. mr. seth rogan a stand up comedian, actor, producer, screen writer, voice actor, originally from vancouver, british columbia. moved to los angeles to pursue acting in the late 1990s. since that time he's acted in and co-written movies and done voice over work for animated films. he raises awareness for alzheimer's disease as a celebrity cha

the latest pew research center poll suggests 6 % of the population could vote for the opposition bjp if the election was held today. the governor has blamed the economic turmoil on the u.s. and the nation's selfish fiscal policies. we'll know more when we get the latest gdp figure tomorrow. >>> in south africa ripples being felt this side of the atlantic from ongoing mining strikes that have halted production and escalated into violent protests. the rand is being pushed close to record lows despite the central bank raising rates and elections in may seem to be contentious with new parties adding to the new anc's challenges. >>> broadwin, i think it's incredible what he said about the u.s. monetary impact of the dollar, not actually the domestic issues requesting goin country. tell us what he had to say. >> reporter: absolutely, thanks very much, julia. taking you a step back in the context of the interview we spoke to president jacob zuma tonight. it's important he starts engaininging with stake holders ahead of the election on the 7th of may. the anc is starting to lose votes. opinion polls are indicating that there could be getting less than 0% of t