and psychological warfare that's intended to convince people that they don't have any options the american system is designed to eliminate political opposition like some of the. you know dictatorships that we criticize that have rigged political systems in many ways the american system is also rigged but in ways that are not as straightforward jill stein will be on ballots although not in all states she was also telling me how hard it is for an independent candidate to get on those ballots in the u.s. that every state has its own intricate rules centrally designed to keep it a two party race as far as these big televised presidential debates there are organized by the democratic and republican parties through the commission on presidential debates so there's not much enthusiasm on part of that commission to lead a third party in but you would think the media that's somewhere between discussing the body language of the candidates the chemistry on stage the dresses of the wives that somewhere between all those things they would mention the arrest of a presidential candidate but no it's being comple

all states can you explain what is it in the system in the us that makes it so hard for a third party to break into those tool horse races exactly the american system is designed to eliminate political opposition like some of the you know dictatorships that we criticize that have rigged political systems in many ways the american system is also rigged but in ways that are not as straightforward so you have to actually see what it takes to get on the ballot if you're not already on as one of the big machine parties each state has. it's own set of rules which are very demanding very detailed and bureaucratic and require lots of signatures in order to get on the ballot so for the most part you need a lot of money many millions of dollars to buy your way onto the ballot basically by hiring signature gatherers and people to keep track of this is getting teams and the money is too powerful here in washington is there a way you see to go against money the power of money absolutely i mean the voters don't like this the voters repeatedly are calling for getting big money out of politics. in my home state in massachusetts we passed a law to get the bi

professor stephen zunes says the big business dependent bipartisan system offers no real choice for americans. we don't have a portion representation that we have so it's a winner take all system by state through the electoral college many people might be inclined to for example you know go for a left wing party or the green party similarly some conservatives are more libertarian bent might want to vote for the look carrying party that cetera that you print pretty much realistically anyway if the only choices are these two main parties combined effect nor to get elected especially the president you know you need to raise millions and millions of dollars and you have twenty two of course people who have that kind of money to certainly have their own agenda and want to impact the outcome in ways that will benefit themselves but we seem to be culturally stuck in this cycle every four years of voting for the lesser evil what will change when america picks its president i mean the muslim rage working the around ty's rope pushing china and russia as occupy anger spreads the two parties still dictat

system i don't much like the american system but i think that we have to be aware that cradle to grave health care for virtually any illness or plight that you any individual suffers from is simply not affordable or if we want to afford it then we're going to have to see enormous rises in tax chancellor george osborne's talking about cutting ten billion pounds from the welfare state all those kinds of measures hating the poorest and media in our society. i'm not persuaded by that argument toll really what we're saying with regard to the british well first strike since it was set up now looking back now best part of sixty years nearly since the beveridge report which the status of the founding principles is that we need a welfare safety net that is provides what beverage himself described as subsistence levels of support and only ideally for a temporary period of time what we've actually seen the quote for the welfare state is it's nearly impossible to imagine a person in british society who doesn't qualify for some sort of welfa

not only was the american financial system on the verge of collapse, so was the entire world hitting us into a tremendous depression, not recession, depression. that's where we were four years ago. we are not in great shape now but the idea of going back to

is collapsing, and insofar as the health of the american economic system does depend on cogent decisions made by the american political system, then investors should, um, in fact, lose some of the confidence they might have had. what is missing, though, from the analyses of friedman and others is an ability to connect the dots between our institutions and the constitution that created them. we are create -- we are treated to constant criticisms of our leaders, both those who currently inhabit public office and those who wish to. and, perhaps, their unwillingness to compromise with one another. what we do not adequately emphasize is that there may be nothing at all irrational about their behavior given the incentives created by the constitutional system as drafted in 1787 under assumptions of what the political order would look like in 1787 that were fundamentally shown to be wrong no later than 1800, but that we have not, in fact, really addressed since then. my view, for example, is that the late senator ted kennedy bears a genuine responsibility for elec

is collapsing, and insofar as the health of the american economic system does depend on cogent decisions made by the american political system, then investors should, um, in fact, lose some of the confidence they might have had. what is missing, though, from the analyses of friedman and others is an ability to connect the dots between our institutions and the constitution that created them. we are create -- we are treated to constant criticisms of our leaders, both those who currently inhabit public office and those who wish to. and, perhaps, their unwillingness to compromise with one another. what we do not adequately emphasize is that there may be nothing at all irrational about their behavior given the incentives created by the constitutional system as drafted in 1787 under assumptions of what the political order would look like in 1787 that were fundamentally shown to be wrong no later than 1800, but that we have not, in fact, really addressed since then. my view, for example, is that the late senator ted kennedy bears a genuine responsibility for elec

republicans and democrats alike tell the american people that they have a stark choice before them in this election year is it really the case does america's two party system monopolize national politics and crowd out real discussion of political issues and does it really matter who is elected president in november. to cross-talk the us political system i'm joined by nicholas carle in sacramento he's a journalist and author of walk away from debt for a better future in washington we have bruce fein he is the founder of the lic field group and american freedom agenda and in frankfurt we crossed to christophe on marshall he is the u.s. bureau chief for spiegel all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want nicholas in sacramento you got up early as for the program so i'm going to go to you first ok i live abroad i've lived abroad for a long time and i've had to explain american politics to foreigners for over two decades it looks like american politics is trivial it's about character and it's not about substance the last debate told us that the last presidential debate how much substance is there in this election cy

well i don't agree it is true is that the american system of financing campaigns is totally strange for us and western europe as it is strange for us and as well i suppose far too big money is involved and i think also if there's too much money involved is this corrupting politics in a certain way but it is not true that these are subjects all the time as a written about it it's talked about in t.v. presidential candidates is scaling it are they discussing it no they're not. yeah ok are the only voice we're getting are you going to or is this which i heard i happen to live in the united states and i can tell you is that people are not all the time only paying attention what's to come to that so there's a much broader the debate in the united states in t.v. channels and newspapers almost every day you're going to want to hear. what impact does it have when the political parties agree that they like the status quo with campaign financing their way and there's no matter what the public says it doesn't matter what the probably about but you know why it i mean of course you can say is that t

the u.s. political system. live. and if you. live. ok but if i could go back to you i mean why isn't in this campaign another presidential campaigns we that the americans make in predicting this year don't talk about obama's use of drones incarceration the poverty levels a lot of these these are really serious problems in the united states and i don't see people debating it at a high level ok why is that why is that shut out of political discussion and everyone's talking about big bird yellow i think that's the frightening. thing that these major major issues of the rule of law unconstitutionality president being able to put american citizens on assassination list detentions and will indefinitely at guantanamo accusation or trial and he's got secret interpretations of the patriot act that enable him to sweep up all of our emails of all of our phone conversations and keep those ca's without any probable cause used surveillance drones and there's virtually no discussion as you you talk about about a fair playing field that are not the one percent that don't get all the government bailouts whether it's the green technologies that got huge moneys to go ban

culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity and bring them in the american system. the greatest failure we've had with regards to gun violence in some respects is what is known as fast and furious which was a program under this administration and how it worked exactly i think we don't know precisely but where thousands of automatic and a.k.- 47 type weapons were given to people that ultimately gave them to drug lords. they used those weapons against their own citizens and killed americans with them and this was a program of the government. for what purpose it was put in place, i can't imagine, but it's one of the great tragedies related to violence in our society which has occurred during this administration which i think the american people would like to understand fully. it's been investigated to a degree but the administration has -- has carried out executive privilege to prevent all the information from coming out. i'd like to understand who it was that did this, what the idea was behind it, why it led to the violence. thousands of guns going to mexican drug lo

it but erica when i hear the co-chair of the romney campaign saying obama doesn't understand the american system because he spent his early years in indonesia he's friends or others on the indonesian and but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand how to be an american and he's been warning that you know there's john sununu making a subjective opinion this is this is i was you know doesn't understand the tax code or the debt structure since we just had six trillion in new debt in less than four years ago as w. bush's tax cuts to two wars he put on that are going to put him absolutely it was the deficit was jump in here well listen you know do i think that racism is the new norm in the republican party no but do i see old norman started with richard nixon's southern strategy but i do but i will say do i think that we have seen the republicans say some extraordinarily stupid things this year absolutely i am coulter called the president a retard i mean are you kidding me i mean in in the entire time that george w. bush was president now one democratic analyst ever said anything like that about him

changes in the ways our culture works to bring people away from violence and bring them into the american system. the greatest failure we've had with regards to run violence is what is known as fast and furious. a program under this administration and how it worked exactly, i think we don't know precisely. but we're thousands of automatic and ak-47 type weapons were given to people that ultimately gave them to drug lords, they used those weapons against their own citizens and killed americans with them. this was a program for the government. for what purpose, i can't imagine. but it's one of the great tragedies related to violence in our society, which occurred during this administration, which the american people would like to understand fully. it's been investigated to a degree, but the administration has carried out executive privilege to prevent all of the information from coming out. i want to understand what led to this. thousands of guns going to mexican drug lords. >> governor, if i could, the question was about assault weapons that were once banned and are no longer banned. i know you s

the whole system is a corrupt prison system, that's what. let me tell you something. the 5% of the population of the world are americans. 25% of the incarcerated people are, and 50% of the lawyers are. 99.5% conviction rate. six to 12 times as many incarcerated people per capita as brynn, australia, france, jirm knee or japan. how do you explain that >> i don't think i have to. >> give it a try. before you accrues me of being a criminal, give it a try. >> you're just a gullible fool. you're a friggish, gullible british fool who takes seriously this ghastly american justice system that any sane english person knows is an outrage. >> this fits very oddly with your protestation that you're a roman catholic. don't you do pen tans? >>-day. and i believe in the punishment of crime as well as the confession of wrong dog. >> do you have not think that a man who has been found guilty by due process of law ought to be slightly penitant? >> if it is in fact due process. you see, jeremy, your problem is you have no idea how that system operates. and you should know something about that. >> you're the one who chose to locate his bu