and alan greenspan very bullish. one year to the day bin laden is killed, president obama in afghanistan. we're going to bring you his address to the nation live. >>> and why don't these dopey occupy wall street protesters realize it's under president obama that the middle class has actually gotten poorer? they're chasing after the wrong demon. the "kudlow report" moments away. >>> i like to say there's always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to try to find it for you right here on "mad money." i'm jim cramer. see you tomorrow. huge show tonight. what do you have? >> all right, jimmy, great ism numbers jolt the market and alan greenspan, he's a bull. >>> good evening, everyone, this is the "kudlow report." in 30 minutes, live here on cnbc, president obama will address the nation from kabul, afghanistan after making a surprise visit to sign an agreement with the afghan government. one year to the day bin laden was killed. after the speech, retired four-star general mccaffrey and a marine veteran michael grim. >>

. >> earlier today, chairman greenspan in fact described what was a really global boom in housing, not just in the u.s. he said u.s. was somewhere in the middle. part of that boom there was this enormous appetite for higher-yielding, debt instruments. those higher yielding debt instruments came out of subprime cocktails that were sold around the world. they were derivatives, and, unfortunately, they became toxic, and they infected the banking system. have we figured out a way to prevent that from happening again? >> people are always going to want more. more yield with no more risk. you're not going to in the appetite for more yield with less risk. what you want to worry about, what you want to pay attention to our situations in which people are downplaying the downside risk. and reaching for yield, willing to take the extra base, undervalued the sq -- the extra risk, larger institutions come to mind, some large government sponsored enterprise in the united states come to mind. when they're making decisions on that basis, their choices about how much extra yield they want, willing to r

greenspan flatly refused to do that and later acknowledged that was an error in front of mr. waxman's academy and during 2004 and '05, some of us on this committee tried to re-legislate that. i do think there was a problem from the fed but not for causing a deflation in the economy or mess in general, it was refusing to use the specific tool they were given to stop the bad loans from being made. >> my time has expired. thank you. >> i thank the gentle woman. i now recognize mr. -- for five minutes. do you believe we need an entity that can be the entity that put the finger in the dike when something starts to happen? >> the answer is yes, in some regards, addresses miss maloney's question. under a single mandate, focused on the purchase power of the dollar, could the fed intervene? in times of mercy? the answer is yes. they would still be the lender of last resort and provide liquidity to those banks and still have liquidity problem but are solvent and ability to increase or decrease interest rates to tighten or loosen money supply. they would still in a single mandate have t

greenspan later acknowledged that was an error. in that period 2004 and 2005 some of us on this committee tried to prelegislate that. i do think there was a problem from the fed. it wasn't for not causing a deflation in the economy or less economic activity in general. it was refusing using a specific tool they were given to stop the bad loans from being made. >> my time has expired. thank you. >> i now recognize mr. luken meyer from missouri for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. congressman brady thank you for your efforts on the sound dollar act. i really like the things you have in there. do you believe we need the prl reserve as a lender of last resort? do we need an entity that puts the finger in the dike when something starts to happen? >> the answer is yes. your question in some regards addresses miss maloney's question. which is under a single mandate could the fed intervene in times of emergency. the answer is absolutely, yes. they would still be the lender of last resort. still provide liquidity to those banks fra

the simpson bowls plan. >>> you we have doesn't need any introduction, allen greenspan joining us. this question and answer period will be modrated. tom keen of course is the host of bloomberg surveillance. he is also the host of surveillance mid day on bloomberg television, the hardest working man at bloomberg. we appreciate it. the stage is yours. thank you for the time. we will have some time that end for questions from the audience. tom, take it away. >> let me start in the wonderful conversations we have had the last few days. let me quote from the bible here. page 483. i suspect it is likely that to restore policy sanity we will first have to trudge through economic and political mind fields before we act decisively. i'm looking to my right, chairman at capitol hill where there are many mind fields and it is corrosive, isn't it? >> i said that four years ago and i guess i could still say it today. there is something very unusual going on in the political system in the sense that it is quite correct that there is a huge divide between republicans and democrats. if you are look

. >> that happened during greenspan's days. >> we're talking the fed as it is today and its actions over the last four decades, truly. secondly -- >> but we're discussing it -- because i want to make sure you're answering the question on this point, if i could make it clear, what we're looking at now is the recovery, the actions that took place by bernanke and others in response and would have -- and you were saying the interest rates were too low, would keeping interest rates high to avoid inflation have been a sensible policy during the crisis when we were looking for recovery in 2008 and 2009? that's the time that we're looking at, how the dual mandate responded to the economic crisis, and i would argue that it was helpful. my question specifically -- >> i actually wanted to give you a yes to your answer. >> oh, really. >> during the financial crisis, even though the fed frankly helped fuel it, some of their actions they took during the financial crisis truly did calm those waters? stop there and look at the academic recovery since. in my view, pursuing the dual mandate, in some ways

as chairman greenspan said here, using the central bank's balance sheet is a very attractive end runround legislative constitutional processes for using public taxpayer funds. we can do a perfectly adequate job of pursuing our monetary policy goals without holding anything but u.s. treasury securities on our asset side. um, i think that, um, our lending authority is an anachronism, it's left over from 19th century central banking arrangements when the size of government debt was far smaller, and i think that's going to cause us trouble in the years ahead if we don't fix it. >> and what's the best way to go about fixing it, do you think? >> well, i've advocated we give serious consideration to tying our hands and limiting central banks' use of credit. make the use of public sector credit -- make credit allocation, which as chairman greenspan pointed out constitutes fiscal policy, no matter how you slice it -- make that subject to congressional appropriations policy. if congress wants to do that, make it separate from the central banks' function. >> and how realistic do you think that

set interest rate policy as if they do pretty amazing actually pretty amazing and i like that the greenspan contrarian indicator on this that we've actually proposed to burn eighty contrary an indicator so maybe it's just that ph d. to get the top spot at the fed contrary an indicator i like that but another thing that you took particular offense with with krigsman interview yesterday was him saying the reckless thing is to allow mass unemployment to continue krugman of course wants the fed to do more to help with unemployment you. to argue hey i can't do that in the first place the doormat mandate of the fed is mission impossible why . is this mission impossible you know look what can the fed do the fed can control and this is just an economic fundamentals the fed can control using the word control loosely most one thing at a time the fed can set short term interest rates but then it has no current control over one hundred three supply and we've seen that right now money supply is sort of under volcker volcker cited we want to control money supply the fed has no control over interest rates

as we know in the financial service committee, greenspan came to us many times and said trust them, they noam what they're doing. i guess we're still trying to figure out if we should trust them and apparently we shouldn't have have not have trusted them but we did. one of the biggest development during the crisis in 2008 was the realization how much of the impact could be felt from the collapse of the firms. until the problem arose, it seemed no one quite understood the level of interconnectedness that some of these firms had and everyone knows that our government took drastic action to limit the collapse of these institutions caused. obviously, no one wants to see the events of 2008 repeated in itself. in writing and passing the dodd-frank two years ago, i believe we created a sound framework. i state i believe we created a sound framework that would allow us to stay ahead of the curve with the systemic important institutions basically to make sure that we regulate them and also that we do a lot of the enforcement that needs to be done. it's not just regulating them, but how are we goi

chairman greenspan, i'm sure he'll give us his wisdom as well. but until the europeans find the political will to overcome those challenges, i think it's a chronic problem in which we go to the brink every 90 days, and we have some half-hearted, half-baked measure to take us back from the brink. >> and i would just add to that, and as i said on bloomberg air many times, i'm confident that the euro survives. whether or not the euro has the current 17 members or 15 or if it has more but with different -- so the membership of the euro may change, and that can occur either through expulsion or resignation, but i think the euro survives. >> euro survives, it's just a different country club. maybe it's the north country club -- >> it could well be a different country club. >> eight of the 17 countries are in recession, 11 of the countries in are recession. the ecb apparently thought they bought some time with the ltro in december and february, and all we saw was spanish and italian banks leveraging their own sovereign debt which means the relationship

greenspan flatly refuse to do, later acknowledged that wasn't there in front of mr. waxman's committee. it in that period, 2004 and five, some of us on this committee, myself, mr. watts, mr. miller, try to re- legislate that. so yeah, i do think there's a problem from the fed but it wasn't for not causing a deflation or less economic activity in general but it was refusing a specific tool they're doing to stop the bad loans from been made. >> my time has expired. thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. i now recognize mr. luetkemeyer from missouri for his five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. congressman brady, thank you for your efforts on this sound dollar act. i really like some the things that you have been there, and it just kind of curious, do you believe that we need the federal reserve as a lender of last resort? do we need and linda like that, some indie that can be the entity that puts the fates -- the finger in a bike when something starts to happen? >> yes. your question in some regards addresses ms. maloney's question. which is under a single mandate, f

. >> narrator: the chairman of the fed, alan greenspan, sided with the banks. >> alan greenspan was coming from a very libertarian tradition. keep your hands off everything. the markets will sort themselves out. and if there's a problem, then we'll clean up afterwards. and now that really was the way the federal reserve operated under s leadership for almost 20 years. >> narrator: on capitol hill, supporters of bank deregulation made urgent, stark pleas. >> the future of america's dominance as the financial center of the world is at stake. >> narrator: before them was legislation to lift limits on how banks could do business. >> ..if we didn't pass this bill, we could find london or frankfurt or shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world. >> this bill is going to make america more competitive on the world market and that's important... >> narrator: and legislation to prevent oversight of credit derivatives. >> ...on high-paying jobs, not just on wall street in new york city, but it affects every business in america and it benefits every consumer in america. and we do it by repeal

rubin and summers, along with federal reserve chairman alan greenspan, became superstars of the financial world. >> you had this infamous, now, time magazine cover with bob rubin, larry summers and alan greenspan, called "the committee to save the world." and that just sums up the attitude of the times perfectly. >> by the end of the clinton administration, the folks in the treasury-- geithner, summers, rubin-- felt like there was an established playbook for dealing with a financial crisis. the first thing you had to do was come in and flood the banks with money, so that they would keep lending, as difficult as that was to do politically. >> narrator: it was an approach geithner took with bear stearns-- spending lots of money to respond to a financial crisis. but treasury secretary henry paulson thought geithner's strategy might send a dangerous message. he started publicly reminding wall street of one of the most basic tenets of the free market: moral hazard. >> i'm as aware as anyone is of moral hazard. i am also aware of... >> moral hazard poses the question: if you bail somebody out o

our special guest, alan greenspan joins us at 7:00 a.m. box." >> coming up, we swing into summer will golf coach butch harmon. now he faces his toughest challenge, joe kernen. we talk about the golf business and get a quick lesson in just a bit. right when you see them, they're yours, it's like, ah, it's part of me. it's me again. now that i'm retiring they all have plans for me. i'm excited. uh, nope. just, uh, checking out my ad. nice. but, y'know, with every door direct mail from the postal service, you'll find the customers that matter most: the ones in your neighborhood. print it yourself or find a local partner. and postage is under 15 cents. i wish i would have known that cause i really don't think i chose the best location. it's not so bad... i mean you got a deal... right? [ bird cries ] go online to reach every home, every address, every time with every door direct mail. this is the first car that i've been totally in love with in every way, shape, and form. it's my dream vehicle. on a day to day basis, i am not using gas. my rou

the chairman of the federal reserve alan greenspan was worried we pay down our entire national debt and then have to buy interest in private enterprise. that would ab terrible thing. it was a result of policies. tax cuts, wars unpaid for. it was an economic collapse in which deficits and debt automatically increased because of a falloff in economic activity on which taxes are paid. that is the underlying reality. there is no inexorable growth of government right now except that results from health care cost increases. so if you want to deal with deficits and debt, you need to get our taxes up to a level that we've prospered with for a long time. and you need to figure out a way to slow the growth of health care. the rest of government now is not growing. >> you've highlighted a problem, given solutions, one is expanding electorate. how do you expand it? what's the point? >> we're worried at this point we have politics driven by the activist extreme bases, ones who turn out for primaries and tend to dominate in political election. political consultants make a lot of money trying to excit

a back to the greenspan commission and suggest that is we solve the problem by simply pouring funds from the oesi trust fund into the d.i. trust fund and that simply robs peter to pay paul in my opinion and does not involve any of the structural problems. one cause of the rapid expansion of di. costs is some researches have point to stems from 1984 reforms to d. i have screening that red to rapid growth in the share of recipients suffering from back pain and mental illness. two researchers affiliated with the national burrow written that the d.i. screening procedure but in place by congress hinges to a significant extent on an applicant's employ ability, not just personal health, causing the program to function much like a long-term unemployment insurance program for the unemployable, unquote. of course, anyone that is eligible and has a bona fide disability is entitled to d.i. benefits but d.i. benefits paid to anyone not truly disabled takes resources away from those that are truly disabled. i have i think my time is up. can i ask these two questions. i have two questions related to th

principle of government by alan greenspan that is also over the weekend more than two hundred thousand jobless americans were cut from crucial unemployment benefits . california florida illinois bunch of other states that hit the formula and in the last budget reconciliation deal with. the republicans the democrats came up with the republicans said they didn't want an employee benefits to continue out ninety nine weeks they only wanted to be seventy actually they wanted to be fifty three weeks the compromise was seventy nine weeks so thanks to this new republican law four hundred thousand americans are about to lose their unemployment two hundred thousand did last weekend meanwhile c.e.o. of j.p. morgan chase jamie diamond said something interesting this weekend on the value of the democratic party leaders of the of. your democrat still i would call myself a barely democrat this point doesn't mean i don't have their values i want jobs i want a more equal society i don't mind paying higher taxes i don't mind lifting up or you know i do think we're brother's keeper so diamond says he has

apparently this guy from long term capital management who you recall blew up the economy back when greenspan was the federal reserve chairman and they actually to lower interest rates to bail out these yacht owners in connecticut so granny's around the world got less that month so that these yacht owners in connecticut could you know be bailed out of the losing position he was involved so now they got rid of the crud on their trading desk in london being replaced with this guy these are he's a known financial services go to the post office you see his face on the wall that's who they're recruiting from known financial journalists oh yeah they like i said this drug this devil's breath drug from colombia people totally forget they become zombies they don't remember a single thing of what they all the mistakes they made how they came to have no belongings left in their home the fact is they handed it over to the drug pusher but they have no recollection of it so how do we keep on hiring the same people who blew up almost blew up the world economy that was the first time we almost blew up due to

netherlands prince charles tony blair gordon brown john edwards timothy geitner george soros alan greenspan colin powell bill clinton ben bernanke bill gates madeleine albright paul wolfowitz richard holbrooke james wolfensohn of the world bank peter mansbridge of c.d.c. had their recent editor of huffington post canada mortimer zuckerman publisher of and why daily news and admin clarke c.e.o. and president of t.d. bank henry kissinger and david rockefeller are involved as the honorary members of the building steering committee which is responsible for selectively carefully selecting the attendees every year some of called the builder group a harmless think tank or just a discussion group but those have been following it for years so there is something much more sinister at the root of the claim the group gets together to plan policy for a new world order global domination of the subjugation of the rest of humanity according to a recent poll that drudge over fifty percent of the pollsters agreed that the builder hosts the real power master elites of the world unfortunately you won't hear mu

view of the federal reserve and ben bernanke is monetary policy that has been a continuation of the greenspan monetary policy the inflationary monetary policy that is still in the savings of retired people in the poor people who have tried to save their money and they see themselves not able to keep up with the cost of the rising cost of goods this is now a standard republican talking point to criticize the federal reserve and to take a look at the monetary policy it's no longer just about tax cuts it's now about what's the problem with our money why is it losing value why is that why. travel overseas all of a sudden i can't get the same string theory that i used to ten years ago so i think the republican party is changing in our direction it's coming through the lens of monetary policy and from there it's going to be a short stair step into things like civil liberties and foreign policy as well and those are the themes the common thread that we see coming from ron paul timidly is that this is a big victory for ron paul and his supporters what it what does it mean for his campaign this victor

impose away from deposit banks and it was circumvented in the knesset convention starting with alan greenspan with the a city solomon merger and so on and sort of what you're calling for do you think any of these regulations won't stop this kind of fifth democrat from continuing at a bank like j.p. morgan. well glass steagall would go on awfully long way to do it it would be certainly better than what we have no the banking system since two years it wasn't until people started gaming it that we ran into problems a little the talk about kind of the risks that are that's going on here because while jamie dimon says that hey this is just one bad trade this is just a lot of big mistakes made and this one specific london whale trade there's this whole question about the risk and the cia office because there's this kind of sketchy thing we don't know a lot of details but what we do know is that they changed the way that they evaluated risk in two thousand and twelve at the same time that they were presumably taking more risk and taking more complicated risks and then jamie dimon comes out and he an

now, paul volcker left the chairmanship in 1987 and he was replaced by alan greenspan, who again held the position for almost 19 years, from 87. one of his important accomplishments of his tenure was achieving greater economic stability. greater economic stability and impressive growth and standards of living in the united states. so in fact there were so much improvement in the stability of the economy that the period has come to be known as the great moderation as opposed to the great stagflation of the seventies or the great depression of the 30s. this was a very real and striking phenomenon, the great moderation. the rst picture here shows you the variability of real gdp growth, so the graph covers the period from 1950 all the way up essentially to the present. the line just shows you quarterly growth rates in gdp so a sharp line, a sharp peak shows an increase in gdp growth, a negative decline shows a fall in gdp growth and these are quarterly numbers. you can see the ounce ines, periods of growth followed by periods of slower growth. the yellow bar is one standard deviation band

stow the idea, alan greenspan tried it. remember in 1996, he called it three years before the tech bubble. he eventually changed his mind at the exact moment by the end of the tech bubble. i would certainly bet on him ahead on the rest of him and i wouldn't bet a nickel on him getting it right the next time. >> john: so the market sorts it out? >> first the market does sort it out. markets are not perfect. they make errors. they are far better than committees of bureaucracy. second i think if government stopped monkeying with markets we would have lot fewer problems. >> john: this week i went on a book tour, "no, they can't," 31 things in 20 days. that was nasty. i was struck by the people that came to the events and people wanted to have their pictures taken with my sign which i carried around the country were entrepreneurs. they tried to start businesses and were infuriated by their experience with regulators, regulators that say, yes, we can make life better. i say no, they can't. to most americans, regulations are abstr

include queen beatrix of the netherlands prince charles george prince charles george soros and alan greenspan henry kissinger and david rockefeller are integral involved as members of the building burg steering committee which is responsible for carefully crafting who'll be attending the meetings every year some of called the builder group a harmless think tank or just a discussion group but people have been following it for years so there is something much more sinister at the root they claim that the group gets together to plan a world policy for a new world order of global domination at the subjugation of the rest of humanity unfortunately most of you won't hear much of a peep about the group's doings or even the existence of it on the corporate media this could be because the media moguls that have attended are sworn to secrecy check out what rockefeller's said about the media coverage of building berg and his memoirs multi-billionaire david rockefeller said quote some even believe we're part of a secret cobol working against the best interests of the united states characterizing my famil

even alan greenspan said he was fundamentally wrong in his faith of the market.ht now when we have an example of the biggest bank in the entire united states banking system basically making this kind of sloppy errors of judgment, how can you--how can you think that the market is going to take care of it? you need regulation, responsible regulation. every market needs it. >> eliot: you knowness the other point and i mentioned this in a prior conversation a couple of moments ago. these losses are in a relatively stable market. this is not a choppy market or a difficult market to trade in if you're a sophisticated trader. to lose $2 billion in this market you got to be really really bad. >> it's even worse. in the mid-april there were rumors circulated on wall street and i even heard them and i'm in california, about this rogue trading unit under the supervision of jamie dimon. he proud in big hedge fund supervisors. is jamie dimon was asked about it and this was mid-april. he said they're making a tempest out of tea pot. there is no problem here whatsoever. look if

, about alan greenspan and dumped on business schools and made it sound they didn't feel like businesslk about that and their newest investments. >> we all want to know what does warren buffet invest in did you get a sense of that? what maybe we should invest in? >> well, breaking news, remember when the herd is running away from something that is when he goes toward it because it is cheaper he said this weekend he will be buying more news parents and i mean during the washington -- newspapers and i mean, during the washington correspondents dinner, jimmy kimmel asked what is black, white and red all over, newspapers. he owns the buffalo news he said local newspapers have real value compared to earning versus price he will be buying those which i thought was so interesting, he also said what he wouldn't be buying, he said he would stay away from long term u.s. treasury i know a lot of your viewers might be in treasury because they are scared and think it is safe he says stay away. >>> you asked about predictions for the economy will we finally see a major turn around and i see that he

stow the idea, alan greenspan tried it. remember in 1996, he called it three years before the tech bubble. he eventually changed his mind at the exact moment by the end of the tech bubble. i would certainly bet on him ahead on the rest of him and i wouldn't bet a nickel on him getting it right the next time. >> john: so the market sorts it out? >> first the market does sort it out. markets are not perfect. they make errors. they are far better than committees of bureaucracy. second i think if government stopped monkeying with markets we would have lot fewer problems. >> john: this week i went on a book tour, "no, they can't," 31 things in 20 days. that was nasty. i was struck by the people that came to the events and people wanted to have their pictures taken with my sign which i carried around the country were entrepreneurs. they tried to start businesses and were infuriated by their experience with regulators, regulators that say, yes, we can make life better. i say no, they can't. to most americans, regulations are abstr

. >> dylan, you may recall that is pretty much what alan greenspan said at a fed meeting. do you remember that? >> yeah. i do. >> this is just much too complicated. you know what is not too complicated for the american people and for the average united states senator? small and medium-sized businesses need affordable loans so we can invest in our economy, expand, and create jobs. that's not too complicated. what is complicated is what led us into this horrendous recession we're in right now. trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars in some enormously complicated procedures. i think we have to make the system a lot less complicated. get money into main street. help our business community create jobs, put people to work. >> i think you obviously speak beyond all political identities when you say that, senator. i certainly, in the past three years, and road shows and writing a book, i have yet to meet a person in this country who doesn't agree with what you said. i appreciate your continued efforts in leadership to represent those values at the highest levels of power

alan greenspan says he should be considering spending.ding. >> i do. >> one thing that can be hard to figure out given there's been many republicans who have signed the pledge is it is just then a negotiating position? you mention it behind closed doors. there have been to varying degrees willingness on the side of republicans to raise taxes above where they are now in part of a large deficit deal. if it's overblown, what should people take of the fact that so many republicans have signed it? >> i'm not sure. i don't think indiana, grover had any bearing in indiana. most of it was about repealing the affordable care act, not about taxes. it was about not spending money that we didn't have on things we don't absolutely need. what i would say is the reason we're stuck on senator isn't grover. the reason we're stuck on center is we haven't heard from the administration what they're willing to give in terms of entitlement reform, saving medicare, saving social security and what can we do to reform the tax code so the revenues to the governmen

greenspan will do what they believe is in the best interest of everything. those who push this legislation, repealing glass-steagall thinking they would act responsibly, it makes my blood boil. that was a baby step. there needs to be much more done. >> what do we need to do? we knew what to do but we didn't do it. >> jaime dimon says we'll take corrective action. they have varnished us that believe in real corrective action as being radical. the three steps we should take that wall street would consider radical. number one, restore the glass-steagall act. you can't do banking and securities all in the same pot. number two, ban naked default. number three, get rid of too big to fail. if you're too big, then break them up. we did that with standard oil under 30 separate companies. if you're too big to fail, you're too big. they're not much bigger than they were when they nearly collapsed this country's economy. >> the risk is much greater now because they're bigger and able to take greater risks at this point. is this the tip of the iceburg? >> this is not jus

what do you see and alan greenspan always talks about where we're seeing it. >> we're seeing it moren international markets. probably 2 to 4% wage inflation. in terms of the commodities, when you look at the 140 to $150 million in commodities, this is off a selling base of 5.5 billion. probably half of that and other flas stick bottles that we will use. you're seeing it across a number of products, and across the range of products that we buy. >> do you think this is a result of all of the easy money out there? >> i'm sorry. could you repeat the question there? >> is this a result of all of the easy money out there? everybody is talking about the implicatio implications and we will have an inflation problem. so do you think it's a direct result of the easy money out there? >> i don't think it is. when you see demand in the pricing in all of the markets, it's more about global demand and what the developing markets are doing in terms of demand that is creating that pressure on the inflation that we're seeing in resins, for example, and other commodities. >> and we know that asia has a

alan greenspan joining. this is moderated by my colleague tom kean. tom is the host of "bloomberg surveillance." a closeso the host of surveillance midday." thank you for this. the stage is yours. thank you for the time. we will have some time for questions from our audience. take it away. >> let me starts in the wonderful conversations we have had. let me quote from the bible. page 483. i suspect it is likely to restore policy sanity, we will first have to trudge their economic and political minefield before we act decisively. there are many fields. it is corrosive. >> i said that four years ago. i guess i can still say that. there is something very unusual going on in the political system. it is quite correct. there is a huge divide between republicans and democrats. if you are looking for the caucuses they are all basically single distributions with nothing in the middle. it struck me that this is probably unusual. i went back and looked at the data. it is not. the data enables you to construct the voting records of individuals who have voted. it g