playing out and if you think that this depression will get so bad that the american government will stop at nothing to prevent the economy from bottoming out as americans agree to forfeit whatever liberties they have left for the promise of ever more security history shows that on the down side of a big asset bubble the credit bubble the government. gets more aggressive and they start looking for ways to bounce their own books off the backs of the producers and i think we're in a period where that hasn't really begun yet. that's what makes people fearful that's why people are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the next thing the next the next moment where they can jump back in and begin deploying their capital and making money again i know again the one of the things we spoke with before is having read they reckon i know that you have a very human very humble theme to the work of theirs and you never want to say this will happen and this will not happen would be your guest your best guess if you just play it out theoretically in terms of how this will develop and the time frame do you have a general idea yeah i think t

the same rate as the economy as oil hole. if you do then prices overall will remain stable. the fall in prices was a consequence of the success in the american economy. the economy was growing faster than the money supply so prices were falling. farmers were disadvantaged by this. their spokesman william jennings bryan claimed the way to alleviate their distress was to expand the money supply. this made perfectly good economic and financial sense but it seemed to those people who were creditors that it was a kind of theft because it devalued the dollar and meant that what they were owed was worth less than it had been the day before. the preferred method of evaluation for the populist was the real modernization of silver. their campaign slogan was free silver. what brian and the populists wanted to do was severed the connection between the american money system and gold. the problem as they saw it and they were right was there was not enough gold to go around. if we could expand the money supply by adding silver which constitutionally was part of the american money supply from the beginning but it fell lot of circulation, then the debt burde

the same rate as the economy as a whole. and if you do, then prices overall will remain stable. the fall in prices was, in certain respects, a consequence of the success of the american economy. that is, the economy was growing faster than the money supply. and so prices were falling. farmers were disadvantaged by this. and farmers, their spokesman -- william jennings bryan -- claimed that the way to alleviate their distress was to expand the money supply. and this made perfectly good economic and financial sense. but it seemed to those people who were creditors that it was a kind of theft. because to devalue the dollar meant that their debt, what they were owed, was worst less than it had been the day before. .. >> farmers were going to vote to and the owners voted for another the owners would oppose them. they would vote for mckinley and the preservation of the gold standard. the wild card in this particular campaign was the new industrial working class. those that work for the capitalist who share the standard of living which way would they go? all sorts of devices is a and shenanigans were employed to get the urban workers to side with the farmers or the capital

it means, barack obama's own message to the american people for what he means as some sense of fairness in what he calls it in the state of the american economywe'll have more from washington later on but for the moment back to you. >> kathy, thank you. you're watching "news day" on the bbc, live from singapore and london. inside the yemen, new concerns about the growing include of al qaeda. >> and two worlds in china. the country is racing towards the future but at what cost. >> when is greatness achieved? is it when you win your first tournament? or when you go toe to toe with a legend? and you achieve a lifetime dream. or when you inspire others? maybe it's when you're always asking yourself what's next? >> the conquerer rises. flowing with quiet energy. as heady a rose as the exotic. makes us all wonder and indulge. be free. be involved. be alive. live a story worth retelling. be where you want to be. destinations worldwide. >> the president of the united states. >> president obama delivers his annual state of the union address on january 24. he'll use it to outline his policies for the american economy and to per swace anxious voters ahe

to explain how to operate the global economy well then that's not necessarily true because piracy is a concept is understood was the driving force for example of the american economy the term yankee comes from a version of the dutch word for pirate or thief because when america was started they stole so much intellectual property from europeans the entire internet google for example is driven by piracy they use other people's work and they organize it in a search algorithm and they create a multi hundred billion dollar enterprise so stealing theft and piracy are all in the eye of the beholder and that's part of this ongoing sopa pipa discussion but what this gentleman is suggesting is that the underlying mathematical models need to be improved which indicates or hints at the fact that economics and finance can be somehow predictable but as steve keener shown and others when you bring predictability into the into the arena with you you're no longer talking about economics and finance you're talking about hard sciences like physics or chemistry which is not the same as economics you're guaranteed to draw bogus conclusions and to prove. then look at what the

this reality and it differs dramatically from the fantasy that a lot of people harbor about the american economy and that the economy as expected to be that the main focus for tonight president obama will get his state of the union speech and jobs a part of that and the bigger picture right now is the disappearing middle class which some attribute to the fact that these jobs are going overseas and i mean if these jobs are gone what then is the alternative to bring back the jobs back the middle class well. doesn't understand that the reason the jobs are leaving is because politicians like him have pursued policies that have chased them out and you know this might be called the state of the union address but believe me he's not going to speak at all about the true state of this union this is all politics are brought obama is trying to get votes he's trying to win reelection so he's going to paint a rosy scenario. you know he's going to talk about what a gigantic mess he inherited and if it wasn't for him things would be so much worse and that now things are getting better the only truthful stateme

the political equivalent of a crime story, a mystery. how is it that our economy stopped working for the broad majority of americans? how did our political and financial class shift the benefits of the economy to the very top, while saddling us with greater debt and tearing new holes in the safety net? in other words, how did politics create a winner-take-all economy? well, it didn't happen by accident. this was an inside job, politically engineered by wall street and washington working hand-in-hand, sticky fingers with sticky fingers, to turn the legend of robin hood on its head -- giving to the rich and taking from everybody else. it's all on the record. the richest of the rich was citigroup, at one time the world's largest financial institution. when the 2008 meltdown hit, the bank cut more than 50,000 jobs, and taxpayers shelled out more than $45 billion to save it. so how are citigroup executives doing these days? nicely, thank you. last year, its ceo, vikram pandit, took home almost $2 million in salary, almost $4 million in deferred stock. stock options that may be worth as much as $6.5 million, and a $16 mill

by 2007 40% of all the profits in the american economy were coming from finance companies. 40%. historically it was 15%. so the financialization means that as we attracted more and more resources and capital, and we made speculation easier and easier, and we funded it with almost free overnight money, managed and manipulated by the fed, that's how the economy got financialized. but that is a casino. casinos -- they're, you know, places for people to go if they want to speculate and wager. but they're not part of a healthy, constructive economy. >> what do you mean by the free money that banks are using overnight? >> well, by that we mean when the fed, the federal reserve sets the so-called "federal funds rate" at ten basis points, where it is today, that more or less guarantees banks can go into the fed window, the discount window, and borrow at ten basis points. and then you take that money and you buy a government bond that is yielding 2% or 3%. or buy some corporate bonds that are yielding 5%. or if you want to really get aggressive, buy some australian dollars that have been

you know, profitability across the american economy is very, very high. profits are higher than the pre-crisis peak. if you look at investment as a measure of confidence, private investment and equipment and software is up more than 30% since the trough in the first half of '09. exports are up 23%. there's broad-based strength in energy in agriculture, in manufacturing. not just high-tech manufacturing, heavy manufacturing. he was at a siemen's plant in north carolina this week which is building steam and gas turbines and generators for export. and they're doing that because they see in the basic fundamentals the productivity in the united states, even with all of our challenges, pretty compelling, competitive advantage relative to where else they produce. so i think if you look at the basic health of the american business sector, it's much stronger than i think anybody would have thought at the peak of our crisis and stronger than many of us hoped. >> while business profitability is up, productivity is up, unemployment still remains a huge challenge. and

are out of work. >> the rebirth of the american auto industry, on its knees with incalculable cost to the economy and the american psyche. they were among the rest. saved by the $60 billion in taxpayer bailout. >> a new lease on life, we have to do whatever it takes to keep this plant open. >> it went away for a while. >> you're getting less in real terms? >> because of the economy, people are willing to do more work for less money. >> we are very grateful to have a job here. >> the old division of america as a haven of social ability will have not been shaken. the americans have been hurting. and the question is when and if that pain is going to stop. in ohio, times have rarely been tougher. four years ago, the local economy fell off a cliff. an extra 25,000 families have been blighted by unemployment. >> you have a 2 point lead. >> the davis family watched the and just shoot hoops. they have had their troubles. they all worked in the motor industry ha, a plan that wasn't saved by the bailout. >> there is a big disparity between what i believe is the rich and the poor in this country. the manufa

are out of work. >> the rebirth of the american auto industry, on its knees with incalculable cost to the economy and the american psyche. they were among the rest. saved by the $60 billion in taxpayer bailout. >> a new lease on life, we have to do whatever it takes to keep this plant open. >> it went away for a while. >> you're getting less in real terms? >> because of the economy, people are willing to do more work for less money. >> we are very grateful to have a job here. >> the old division of america as a haven of social ability will have not been shaken. the americans have been hurting. and the question is when and if that pain is going to stop. in ohio, times have rarely been tougher. four years ago, the local economy fell off a cliff. an extra 25,000 families have been blighted by unemployment. >> you have a 2 point lead. >> the davis family watched the and just shoot hoops. they have had their troubles. they all worked in the motor industry ha, a plan that wasn't saved by the bailout. >> there is a big disparity between what i believe is the rich and the poor in this country. the manufa

romney, can beat obama, but it really will be a thumbs up-thumbs down judgment on the state of the american economy in the last four, three, four weeks before the november election. which is very sad, actually, because there are some big issues here on the table, some very important reasons to have this election and for it just to be -- for it to be determined by something that frankly the president can't do, the president is not in charge of the economy, in fact, one of the beauties of a free economy system is no one is in charge, no one person. >> on that bombshell, p.j., the no one is in charge bombshell, i have to leave it there. thank you very much. >>> today, newt gingrich picked up a palin endorsement, but not the top palin. sarah palin has herself yet to endorse a candidate. two of newt gingrich's top supporters are his daughters, kat kathy cushman and lubbers. >> thank you for having us on. >> i appreciate you being on. it's about time we had you on. we had the huntsman daughters on. are they your rivals in this race? >> not at all. we're all having a good time. i ran into them today. they

they were supposed to take ideas for after the war to run the american economy. roosevelt picked this up and in his state of the union speech in 1944, he talked about the economic bill of rights. the economic bill of rights -- and i quote from parts of it include the right to a useful and remunerative job. and the right of every family to a decent home. the right to a good education, the right to good medical care. these become new rights which roosevelt described as the new economic bill of rights. sometimes he called it the second bill of rights. and they roll off the tongue so nicely, don't they? right to a decent home. don't we all want decent homes. the right to a good education. the right to a useful and remunerative job. roosevelt issued these and these become the plan for after world war ii, when the war is over, then these rights can be given for. now, if you think about it, if anita has a right to a useful and remunerative job, then someone here has an obligation to provide that job. if i have a right to a decent home, taxpayers have an obligation to pro

of mortgage fraud and the subprime crisis building up like an enormous zit on the face of the american economy that popped in two thousand and seven and polluted white poss into into the faces of three hundred million americans and they're trying to desperately clean that off their face or like obama how come you don't help us and obama's out there. four. well bill black says that these charges are exceptionally severe the fact that obama has no response rebutting this grave charge against his administration's integrity sounds loud but not proud in fact he's doubled down max because here's the next headline new chief of staff former hedge fund exec at citi group made money off mortgage defaults so citigroup of course is basically another government sponsored entity it out read it as a private company listed on the public markets but it's always been backed by the u.s. government essentially but from two thousand and six to two thousand and eight jack lew obama's new chief of staff was chief operating officer citibank's alternative investments division who made billions on john paulson betting

the american economy continued to grow after 1945. and so you could say that the top of the mountain got taller. but the slopes of the mountain got taller faster. so by the early 1970s, america probably had something on the order of a third of world gdp. and it would continue to decline. and it's down to around a quarter to a fifth of world gdp now. so under these circumstances it's quite unrealistic to expect that the dollar will continue to have the sway that it had 60 years ago. now, this doesn't mean that the united states will be knocked from its perch immediately and entirely. there is no single currency that is a viable alternative to the dollar, at least not at the moment. much more likely will be some sort of market basket of currencies or the individual sovereign wealth funds and people who have large foreign currency holdings will simply diversify they will hold dollars and euros and yuan. it's more or less inevitable if you ask me. there are 300 million people in the united states. there's 7 billion people in the world. and

figures improving, threat of double digit recession receding, europe is a basket case but the american economyppear to be stabilizing, is that what you think? >> absolutely. i started saying that in august when it was in the tank and saying it all along and now it's gaining momentum. however, to look at this recovery in some other context, we have 200,000 jobs that had a huge celebration after 7 million people have lost their jobs. in ronald reagan's recovery, we were getting 900,000 to a million a month. piers, here's what's zboeg going to be the irony of this campaign. david axelrod and the president out there saying, yes, i spent a trillion dollars but if i didn't spend a trillion, we'd be at 11 or 12% unemployment. >> is that true? >> i don't think so, because they spent it in a different way. let me go on with that. now, you have the republicans forced come this summer to say, yes, we have 3% growth, and, yes, we're getting economic jobs back, we could be doing five times better if you let us get in there and deregulate, the flip argument trying to prove the negative. >> isn't the problem

the american economy is slow. the euro zone has stalled. china and india are slowing down.nd for oil worldwide is low. so why is oil trading at $113 a barrel? more than twice the price it was trading at five years ago when the global economy was booming. what in the world is going on? there's a school of thought that suggests the global economy is doing better than we think. china and the u.s. are proving resilient to europe's problems, and traders are expecting renewed demand in the world's two top economies. another school of thought argues we're in the midst of a bubble. speculators have been driving up the price of oil and eventually it will crash. now, i think that the economic fundamentals really can't justify oil prices at their current levels. the real driver of high oil is nott the stuff you find in the business section of the newspaper. the demand for oil in india or china. it's on the front pages, global politics. you see, traders worry about risk, and the biggest risk to oil supplies is the threat of war in the persian gulf. meanwhile, in nigeria mass protests a