ok gentlemen i'd like to go to jeffrey first i'm sure i'm sure both of you aware of the global commission on drug policy and it's pretty dismal report card after spending two point five trillion dollars in fighting what's called the war on drugs jeffrey just what went wrong would give me your priority list what was the what needs to be fixed first. well i think the first thing that went wrong was thinking of the whole policy issue as a war and particular war on drugs it doesn't makes that's a metaphor that doesn't make any sense drugs don't have guns drugs don't have tanks they can't fight back so war on drugs is just a non sequitur it's actually a war on people who want to consume drugs and once you think about it in those terms then it's obvious that a bunch of other bad things are going to happen we're going to spend a ton of money we're probably not going to dissuade that many people from wanting to consume drugs we're going to generate a huge black market and in black markets we have violence and corruption exactly as was documented in the lead into this discussion as we all know abo

ok jeffrey and i do go by feel a new team and i think one of the interesting things i found researching this program is that politicians play a very big role in this policy and you know when they are up for election everybody wants to be tough on crime tough on drugs tough on this tough on everything tough on terrorism you just name it tough on something and there's not really much of a real discussion at least in the united states about how to deal with this growing problem and specially coming from the south is this one of the bottlenecks that we have been having a more blunt discussion about how to deal with drug abuse and with the drug importation into the united states well i think that the politicians are for the most part in both sides of the aisle democrats republicans conservative liberal are not talking about this issue very much but i think they're reflecting the views of the voters in the united states and similarly elsewhere i agree with mr hutchinson that there is not currently the desire of a well from a significant majority or even the you know that large minority to leg

they will be completely against this without looking into new ideas more nuanced ideas with jeffrey's been bringing up and look at some of the expense experiments and policies that say in europe that they have tried that some people would say are success. well the politicians and i've been a forward i know congress they do reflect the the public will and so the public is not in a mood to change the current illegal status they don't want to move toward the criminalization politicians are open to greater different ideas for example the push toward drug treatment courts alternatives to incarceration that is not the criminalization bad it's alternatives to incarceration and recognizing that there's addiction problems whenever you look at the problems of violence in mexico it's a concern to everyone we want to be able to support the rebels should have a at they the importance of the rule of law colombia has been a success through strong leadership they've reduced the power of the cartels the the the terrorist organizations that fueled the drug trafficking there and so there are signs of su

well i do but first rock jeffrey first being very honest on this and defining the debate if you want to decrease violence or the powers the cartel you have to legalize everything and i don't think that's the debate that's going to win in america or across the globe when you look at our historical experience experience though in alaska alaska decriminalized marijuana in the seventy's they recall it criminalized it in the ninety's by a vote of the people because drug usage went up marijuana use usage went up and there was concern for parents with their teens and so that is a historical experience that you know. decriminalization did not work and it's a it's so i think that when you look at the cost of prohibition it's another dangerous product you want to put cocaine heroin increased methamphetamine use ecstasy use all out in the marketplace i don't think that's the solution for america jeffrey what about you know prevention because it seems like so much money is put into you know fighting this with using the military and we see that the mexicans are doing here i mean if we just put a

and south or not to change the fundamental point ok jeffrey a lot of the south of the border a lot of people would say the united states is far more concerned with security than with the consumption issue i mean should should that be balanced out a lot more because a lot of those guns i mean i don't know all the numbers because it's all illegal but the guns come from the north and they go to the south and that's where all this killing is happening. that's our nature the guns are right now coming substantially from the u.s. but it's silly to think the trying to prevent the guns from crossing the border to mexico or further south would make a huge difference to lots of countries that produce guns if we do more to interdict guns going south they'll just be more violence related to the illegal gun trade the fundamental fact is there's a huge demand for guns right now in mexico because of the violence because of the risk and so we're not going to change that with any policy toward guns the united states it's only by deescalating the war that we would have to have a significant difference t

that's the model that can be debated but jeffrey pointed out the fundamental question do you want to increase consumption. and whatever you whether it's tobacco or alcohol the legalization increases consumption historically now you've got to balance that with what happens on the other side of the ledger as jeffrey points out when it comes to tobacco they we've invested and norma's amounts of money and tobacco education we need to make sure that we do that in terms of the other illegal drugs cocaine methamphetamine we need to invest in that education but there was there is the black market on tobacco even because people want to evade the taxes they circumvent that and so we would be really negligent if we thought that we're going to reduce the black market or impact the cartels because they can engage in trafficking in black market methamphetamine ecstasy just like in pharmaceuticals today they're all regulated but but there's still a black market for it oxy cotton which is you know an opiate that's sold in a black market it is it is part of the criminal enterprise and it's totally re

and i mean that was draft that can i don't wish to read you jeffrey so let jeffrey speak and then we'll go back out to daniel go ahead jeffrey. the i.m.f. cannot dictate to the u.s. you go look back and look at what they are and have said about housing prices five six years ago but it doesn't matter that's not going to have any effect. there are having an effect in europe now it of course which is a brand new thing or new for the last thirty years but let's talk about the last thirty years among the developing countries it is a miracle in history that asians and some other developing countries have gone from poverty to wealth in the last thirty years and i think that's part of a world trade so some like i said free trade multilateral institutions of which the i.m.f. is a part it's completely a loser it's almost comical to say let's look at some country that the i.m.f. was heavily involved in ok not the u.s. because they're not heavily involved some country where they are exercising influence and look for a miracle of growth down m.f. is like a doctor you know of course you see doctors a

ok jeffrey i mean would you agree with that i mean one of the interesting things is is that you know i think all of us when we study in the soviet union is that the communist party being all powerful very very powerful security forces a very powerful army the plotters had all the tools they needed to pull it off but it was an utter utter failure how do you account for that i mean it wasn't because they lacked resources. no it wasn't i would say the absolutely decisive factor was that the generals were reluctant to fire on peaceful civilians they'd been through that experience in georgia a couple of years previously and got into serious trouble they wanted to be absolutely certain that if they did fire on civilians the order to do so was legal definitely legal whereas now we had two powers confronting each other the soviet union in the person of the emergency committee and russia and the person of yeltsin with gorbachev somewhere in between so the generals didn't know how to react archie what do you think about that i mean. you know when you look at got a bunch of for me at the moment

the ceo of general electric, jeffrey immelt was appointed by mr. obama to chair, to chair the president's council on jobs and competitiveness. as vice president biden might say a big f.ing deal. now we find out that g.e. is launching a joint venture with china worth $2 billion to build jet airliners which will compete against boeing. and other american companies. g.e. says it's quote all in on the deal. proud of it. g.e. executive lorain is quoted as saying we don't sell bananas. we can't afford to take a decade off. unquote. with all due respect, you know what you could do with your bananas, g.e. that company is helping the chinese compete against america while its boss heads up the president's council on competitiveness. insane? i believe so. and that's the memo. now, for the top story tonight, new gallup poll saying a number of republican challengers might defeat president obama in 2012. among register the voters mitt romney gets 48%. the president 46%. governor rick perry ties the president 47%, to 47%. ron paul very competitive. ron paul 45%,

joined by martin henican hong kong he's an associate director at the tike group in cambridge we have jeffrey frankel he's a professor of capital formation and growth at the harvard kennedy school and in new york we cross to joe weisenthal he is a deputy editor at the business insider all right gentlemen this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime you want but first let's have a quick look at america's debt mess. going broke going for broke wanting self get asked a lesser fourteen point three trillion dollar debt ceiling is lifted by meade me on the line the course of the u.s. is on a federal budget so how do original money lives public debt at more than fourteen point two trillion dollars and rising by four wheel dollars that a massive iou to the next generation forty three cents for every dollar we spend this year we borrowed against the future of our children the compromise avoided a u.s. government shutdown with agreement on the largest single spending cut in u.s. history but thirty eight billion dollars is small change against the slice of the debt and last month the wall with

absolutely there even this debate here i mean this historian jeffrey i think they're totally getting carried away in these idle ideological give baits and arguing with words by the totally ignoring what actually the numbers tell us and because we're also talking your god the rating would be a rating downgrade on the united states on the way to being potential bankruptcy and also just want to say not all the rating agencies are stuck in this type of thinking and giving the u.s. a aaa but actually the chinese rating agency. has downgraded in november last year united states plus it is a negative outlook and i just want to give you a quote because he also does gave me one from the chairman of the dugong global rating agency and he is saying the western rating agencies are politicized and highly highly ideological they do not have here to object to stand as the u.s. is insolvent and faces bankruptcy as a pure debtor nation but the rating agencies still give it a high rating of ranking so again you know this debate about being about a few a billion dollars heading there is totally irrelev