sincerely, adrienne rich. >> adrienne rich, reading on "democracy now!"ter she wrote to the actress jane alexander, who was in the head of the national endowment for the arts, rejecting the 1997 national medal for the arts. alice walker, your final thoughts on adrienne rich? >> i think the better demonstrates that integrity she had that i so admired. and i think her legacy for all of us is to continue to believe in the power of art, especially the power of poetry, and to keep moving and not to be dissuaded, not to be discouraged, but to take heart from a woman who lived for 82 years giving her very best, growing at of every shell that society attempted to force her into to become this really amazing figure of inspiration and hope and love. >> alice walker, thank you for being with us, pulitzer prize- winning author and activist, frances goldin, agent and friend of adrienne rich. we will post her letter to you on democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democ

rich is right. it means less resources for the private sector. >> bill, fewer government yobs is that good for the private sector. >> i have sad news for rich and steve. when you fire thousands of fire firefighters and highway workers, you don't get a burst of economic activity. they stop buying thingings . if we want to shnk government do it two percent for 20 years. not all tomorrow. >> and emac. sometimes you have to rip the band aid off. >> i love rick's analogy discussing that the president can't take credit for the commempt roosters taking credit for the sun coming up. and the federal government. >> you critize him for going down. >> we are watch dogs for all presidents. either side of the aisle. but the issue is 145,000 workers were added to the government. you could spend it on tax breaks for the private sector to create jobs. >> federal government is not shrinking, it is the local anditate governments that are doing the cutting back. >> you know what, there is no direct correlation between

they are just wealthy and rich for being rich sake. this is going on in our country since the beginning of the counselry. hame thon and jackson and the speculators in 19cents and pol fissions that want to get the highest paid educators are basketball coaches. >> we did. we do our homework and we did look it up . it is teachers and administrators and >> second the irresponsibility that you guys are putting forward has to do with the fact. people are mad and angry and outraged at folks that ruin the economy and very irresponsible with your money and that is bankers right now. it is not the poor -- >> and really? >> no. we hate people and angry at people who don't like to be responsible for the entire country. >> gloria are we -- >> that's what is going on. in the end of the day. >> the (talking all at once.) >> it is all about taking risk. it is because of what the educators. (talking all at once.) (talking all at once.) >> just like bankers, the educators said they were responsible with their money and making smart investment which incl

but angry at how some people got rich. oh absolutely and you take the bank of america c.e.o. prime when this guy got a seven time he was compensation was resultingly six hundred percent at the same time while bank of america was being investigated for fraud they paid a massive settlement to the american government for a quarter for these guys were committing fraud and here's the best part there you went down fifty percent now i work as a cashier register and my register came up short fifty percent i would lose my job at bank of america the c.e.o. gets a six hundred percent bonus and the average person doesn't understand that it just makes them really angry and they deserve to be angry so now there seems to be this sentiment that those that are responsible for the financial meltdown are not being held accountable and that probably has to go hand in hand with the fact that this survey two thirds of the of americans are now unhappy with the current economic model but it's a model that's been around for a long time so why are

the rich don't oppress me. the rich don't oppress he today. i don't mind if the rich are not -- they don't oppress me one bit. i don't have envy towards them. i like their nice houses and i like what they do in philanthropy. but it hasn't changed my life. and the idea would be you can only begin to make this case against the wealthy in a legitimate way, if you can show what the wealthy is doing is harming the country. they're not harming the country. what's happening in the distribution of income may be unfortunate but the rich are not harming this country. >> i just like to offer up with last comment which is the choice here is not between north korea and ayn rand's paradise and no one on the progressive side has talked about sort of confiscating the wealth of the rich. what the argument -- >> in the tax rates. >> i'm sorry? >> clinton era tax rates. that's what obama proposed. >> 15 and 25% capital gains, 35 or -- 35 or, you know, 41% top rate on the income tax. so, you know, this is about -- and if you look at our own history, we have succe

when we rich have lower taxes, we spend more and the poor benefit in the form of tips. here's how it works. let's say i'm a hedge fund guy and i take home $27 million. earned every penny. now, if my taxes... are low, when i go out to eat i throw the waitress a couple of bucks. i'm happy; she's paid to seem happy. (laughter) but if president obama changes my marginal tax rate, instead of $27 million, maybe i'm bringing home only $25 million. and if that happens the first thing that me, cavuto and charlie gasparino are going to do is punish the waitress! we can't afford the $13 now. hell, we might have to dine and dash. so thanks to president obama the waitress can't make a living and has to turn to a life of prostitution. incidentally, prostitution, great tips. (laughter) now we have got... i say to help america, to bring this this economy back, to help the working poor we've got to do just the opposite. let's cut rich people's taxes completely because if we do it logically follows that doing so will make us rich people so generous that working folks can earn their entir

where we went from twenty five percent on the very rich to over ninety percent of the very rich and in both cases what happened was an increase in employment an increase in g.d.p. but more recently bill clinton raised taxes three percent newt gingrich stood on the floor of the house of representatives and said if this passes there will be a great depression like no one has ever seen before it'll be the end of the american economy instead we've got a balanced budget out of it for three years in a row which newt gingrich and which every single republican house voted against a balanced budget for three years in a row and we decreased the american debt so again why shouldn't we say to wealthy people and you know obama wants to say you know only over a quarter million dollars this guy is saying over only over two million dollars a year you get a lot of paid over three percent yet a lot more going on back i think you had some give and take i think you had some cuts coming out of clinton and you had more wheeling and dealing going on back then and with the the welfare reform and things like t

no one knows rich people. we don't tell people we are rich because they would tax us to death. in the 50s it is like, woo-hoo i'm rich. now i think i am the only one that fraternizeks with the commoners. once once you take care of the squirrel problem in the apartment. >> he called the tree a penthouse. isn't that cute? he is way up there. it is called gavin's clubhouse, and it says no girls allowed and the s is backwards. >> it is a little penthouse. >> and the skirl is his only friend. >>> from the rich to the rush. critics whale and sponsors bail. advertisers are abandoning limbaugh over insults. it was aimed at reproductive rights activist sandra flook. nine sponsors have split including aol and all state. over the weekend rush issued a statement uh apologizing and then he addressed the stir. >> this was the mistake i made. in fighting them on this issue last week i became like them. i descended to their level when i used two those words to describe sandra flook. i apologize for using those two words to describe her. i do not think she is either of those two words. >> you a

there are more rich people voting.ow, the fact there are so many more rich people voting in michigan and ohio primaries may be that is great news about michigan and ohio, right, maybe because ohio and michigan are a lot richer as states than they used to be? maybe? not really. this is the change since the last primary in terms of person income, ohio and michigan residences have stayed relatively the same over the past few years. even in a bad economy or static economy, you do have some rich people and what rich people there are in these states are motivated. they have found their candidate. mitt romney is inspiring a tiny minority of americans to stand up for their rights and their guy. rich people are moved to come out and vote for one of their own. what is most incredible, though, is that this is not just an ohio and michigan phenomenon. this holds true as an iron-clad rule for the entire primary process. for the entire election. for all states. 23 states have voted in the republican republicprimaries, t poll data in

they're all rich people.reverend ike, a black minister who used to preach up here in new york, used to say, "if you curse the rich, you'll never be one." >> look at the people out here! you think they're out here just hanging out? i mean, that blows my mind that you came out here and you said, well, people out here, you know, they have something against wealthy people, you know, wealthy people should be allowed to be wealthy people, because while we're wealthy people we'll throw money out and sprinkle them all and make people's lives better. it's not happening. wealthy companies are not making the common person's lives better. they're taking their money, they're moving it abroad, they're doing different things. what's that got to do with anything? >> you've got a nice camera, you've got clothes, you're blessed. >> i just told you that i'm not one of the ones -- >> i can't be so pessimistic about things. >> i'm being realistic. i live in a very nice house, my family's blessed. so i'm not going to pretend that,

because the rich are the ones that make all the campaign deletions to political campaigns so what do you end up with it's a gay american congress the senate allowed tax subsidies for profitable oil companies to be renewed at the same time the republicans in the house for passing a budget that shifts the entire burden for the collapse on the shoulders of the working class while giving worker tax cuts to the which yet again is our politicians are going to keep punishing working class people in pain or into the rich they should not be surprised when the public has lost better faith in their ability to govern now clearly just say people are are angry angry epithets down by an interesting thing i found out the census bureau report came out recently that shows income inequality is the biggest problem in states that typically lead republican and that's the party that talks about income inequality and that ironic . oh no it's done entirely on purpose and when you pass a tax code that over proportionately gives an extra benefits to the rich and shift the burden onto the regular working class

and next to lois is rich goldberg with the department of justice. i know you've done a lot of work in this area concerning prosecution. why don't you talk about one of the steeples you've seen and worked on and talk about how you did the investigation and what you found. >> sure. typically the business opportunity firms we investigate is the sale of vending machines, coffee machines, internet kiosks, dvd kiosks, something that can be placed in a retail outlet and the locations are promised by the firm as well. these are supposed to be high-traffic, high-profit locations where the buyer of the machine is going to earn a large profit. if he c frequently they'll tell buyers they'll make their money back within a year or so. they'll send them to references who claim falsely that they own a successful opportunity. frequently they are the cousins or brothers or other salespeople who are posing as real customers but in reality are getting paid to lie to prospective buyers. cu customers will be referred to locators who will promise these high-traffic, high-

you know, the rich must pay their fair share. you hear back from us that it doesn't make sense when you're trying to create jobs to attack job creators. whereas i agree with that, that's not the point that i'm going to make. the point that i'm -- we need to solve this thing. we've got this deficit problem. we've got to solve this. or we will be like grease. i know that's been oversaid, but it is absolutely true. grease's problems and europe's problems have bought us a little time. we actually have a little more time to solve this problem than we tid probably a year ago. in the end we've got to solve it. and we shouldn't solve it defin one year. because that will have shocked the economy to a degree that won't be effective. but if we fix it over five or ten and we have the trajectory, we'll be in good shape. and those are the things that i think we have to do. in this amendment, in this tax the rich argument, it's not helpful and it's not productive. i want to explain why. first of all, it's not that much money. in the grand schem

we surely should raise our desire anybody except the very rich i think we should very fortunate rich when you look at the facts it is really about buffett wanting to be taxed more or is this about crony capitalism and his place in the pecking order we'll talk about what we can learn from it what it symbolizes and who this may affect meanwhile the eurozone has boosted its rescue funds finance ministers agreed to increase their fiscal bailout system by forty percent to seven hundred billion euro and we ask if there is a way to benefit from reading the hallways of central planners is ben bernanke for example a contrarian indicator will discuss meanwhile this week new case schiller numbers told us us howling not so good at least in the sense that average home price drop back to levels last seen in two thousand and three but is housing actually way worse i could that be a good thing let's get to today's capital account. so we've heard billionaire investor warren buffett saying the rich should be taxed more that he should be taxed more he's made that case very publicly and with much fanfar

fast forward to today to two thousand and nine two thousand and ten the super rich the top one tenth of one percent so a twenty one percent increase in their income it was a decrease back after the great depression and the ninety percent of the bottom ninety percent of us last actually four tenths of one percent the rich got richer the poor got poorer in today's recovery compared to roosevelt's the future doesn't look all that promising the only way to fix our own april economic recovery is for congress to start looking out for the middle class instead of what vice president joe biden last week called the privileged class the congress refuses to act and has its lowest approval rating ever recorded his eleven percent and team of political scientists might have figured out why professors keith pool and howard rosenthal examined the votes taken by the house of representatives during during this congress and compared to previous congresses all the way back to eight hundred seventy nine the founding of our republic and what they found is that this house of representatives that's the green

is been an economic recovery since basically since two thousand and eight benefiting just the very rich now after the great depression the exact opposite was true one day after the stock market crash in one nine hundred twenty nine everybody thought oh it's only going to influence rich people our children thirty one hundred twenty nine year times wrote yesterday's market crash was one which largely affected rich man institutions and investment trusts and others who participate in the stock market on a broad intelligent scale president hoover didn't bail these guys out and you know it got pretty bad roosevelt and he didn't bail anybody out in fact his policies were to definitely not bail out the middle class who was in wretched problems roosevelt did not consider continue the favorable economic policies that have been established before him by harding coolidge and hoover for the bank stores and for the guys in wall street and so they didn't get any rate you know as profits he did just the opposite with new regulations for example glass steagall roosevelt focused on the middle class with

well, rich bernstein says, no. we found a dollar. >> yeah. rich things the u.s.efit greatly over the next several years. rich joins us right now along with meg mcclellan. she's head of u.s. fixed income. meg, good to see you. thanking for joining us. what kind of a move are you expecting? >> well, in the short term, i'm not a good short-term trader. i have no idea. but think over the next three, five, seven years we will see the dollar meaningfully appreciate. pretty much reversing what we've seen in the past decade or so. >> really. >> >> why? i think -- currency, everything is relative. in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. i think people have grossly underestimated the problems around the world. that's good for the dollar. i think that's good for them. >> what do you think? i know your message is don't fight the fed or the fed is very clear. they're going to keep rates low. that would suggest a lower dollar, but what about rich's argument? >> certainly. i think in the near term, do you see better numbers out of the u.s. you see concerns around ch

rich and all that money will eventually you know if we make a lot of yachts it's going to put a lot of people to work well except that we don't make it so much in the united states anymore if we make all bunch of jet airplane while they're doing that in brazil noni canada but just kind of ignore all that stuff i guess that's that's really the idea the reality is that a nation running on trickle down economics produces nothing more than a nation little peons and beyond that as a pretty simple concept that's ignored at fox and that's that in the richest planet the nation on the planet twenty million children shouldn't be hungry and by feeding them we actually stimulate the economy which will help us get out of this recession a recession the republicans in an election year with a democrat the white house very much want to keep going and keep americans and pain up until november that's the reality of what's going on so we all have to begins her take talking about talking back to the millionaires and billionaires propaganda outlets from limbaugh to fox so-called news and get to work on t

the rich are the problem. who believes that the rich are the reason we have got an economic mess? he does or he wants people to believe it. it is offensive. it is outrageous. and i don't relish the thought of four more years of this. >> greta: is he in your mind a bad guy or is it different ideology? [ laughter ] one and the same. what do you mean by bad guy. in it could be a little loaded. >> greta: i guess i mean an intentional motive to hurt the country versus his ideology is one that the whey to achieve ideals is different values. >> this is the question. we are living under a number of assumptions about obama that have been presented to us by elites of both parties. one of the i will luke illusioa is brilliant. smarter than anybody in the room. we have never had a politician like this in our midst we are told in 2007 and 2008. the world was going love us again, going to lower the sea levels. i mean ridiculous stuff. so the question is, is he just dumb? does he really believe this economic stuff? does he really believe that taking capital money out of the private sector and tr

nominations and they have been several times in the past except rich areas of defense such as robert mcnamara and just recently paul wolfowitz as well as most of our major banks are represented from j.p. morgan chase goldman sachs and bank of america ex presidents of those banks have all been heads of the world bank so the idea of nominating somebody who actually has a history of working on the ground and countries like rwanda and haiti to actually deliver primary care to poor people instead of a history in banking and finance or making war is actually a substantial step forward it's a huge step forward and i don't think most americans realize why or what the world bank you know they think of it as maybe some kind of super for regular money supply or something it's got nothing to do with the world bank was created to do some very egalitarian very. very high minded things you talked about the idea and if you look on the world bank's website it says you know united and poverty or something along those lines it gives loans to developing countries around the world it's supposed to be wor

the rich! of course! now, that's not all. get a load of this irony.s out the guy says i don't want to lull you knew a kneeling of complacency and put you in a hammock. get a load of this quote. with his father's passing young paul collected social security benefits until age 18, which he put away for college. now wait a minute. i thought that money was outrageous and was going to make you weak and lazy. turns out paul ryan took social security when he was young and he paid for his college with it. so when it goes to you when it's a government program that goes to you that's fantastic. when it helps poor people and other people, no, no, that's no good. burn the bridge behind you and take the money and give it to the rich. this plan is atrocious and its designed by the republican people who take the money to finance their campaigns. the very very rich and their corporations. we'll go to michael hirsh. he wrote this piece for the national journal and the atlantic. you have a slightly different theory than me. michael, talk about that. >> i think this is

to apologize for being rich. i don't have to apologize for being rich and none of the policies i'm advocating are to my benefit. he couldn't say that. >> ted kennedy would be an excellent of somebody's who's wealthy but everything he tried to do was to help the less fortunate. not just to line his pockets. it is possible for romney, as a wealthy person, to do good if he chose to do that or say that. >> yeah. we see the attitude expressed by warren buffett and others. when you start to poll the super rich, there isn't this massive resistance to paying a couple points more at the top end of the tax structure. >> right. i think goldman sachs is not afraid of the government because they know they are the government. they have had the top positions in the last three or four administrations either the secretary of treasury goes to them or they send their guy over. the guy at goldman sachs announced yesterday as the new head of pr was clinton's last press secretary and he was the press secretary -- >> this the treasury.

a lot of people when they look at you, they know you john rich as part of a duo, big and rich.here's one song that everybody thinks of, too. >> which one is that? >> i think it's "save a horse." ♪ save a horse ride a cowboy you got to say sit-tay. we redefined the word city. new york sit-tay. >> we remember you from kicking it around on "celebrity apprentice." you ended up winning the whole thing last year. >> i know. i got to tell you, it was one of the craziest things i ever did. really tough. at the end of the day we raised $1.4 million for the kids at st. jude's children's hospital. huge deal. >> when you hit on a show like this, you have obviously your country base and a lot of fans. then go on "celebrity apprentice" and you get a whole nother audience. now you have another project that's knocking on your door. if you like music shows, this sounds like a winner. >> there are so many music shows out there, some great ones. this show kind of came across my desk and i went, i would watch that show. it is basically the 180 of like an "american idol" or something like that wher