Charlie Rose

SirD  01/27/2011 10:34 AM Report

Did anyone notice Charlie falling asleep in the middle of questioning at minute 24:11? Very funny, he must have had a long night.

Ricardo_Amaral  01/27/2011 07:23 AM Report

I suggest that you watch these short videos and what Michael Hudson is saying about the US economy, and that the US dollar has reached the end of line.

Michael Hudson has a very good understanding of what is happening to the US economy and the US dollar – he has grasped what is at the core of US economic implosion and its decline into a black hole.

1) Will China's Yuan overtake US Dollar?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhmLGohgSMc&feature=player_embedded#

Michael Hudson

Professor of economics

University of Missouri

December 29, 2010

2) America is about to slide into third world status?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gub6PigiOBY&feature=related

3) US Black Debt Hole: 'We want you all bankrupt!'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P1fihT5B7o

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Ricardo_Amaral  01/27/2011 07:21 AM Report

I am showing the readers where the cracks are located on the dam wall, but there are $ 25 trillion US dollars which represents over 70 percent of the US dollars ever created, and they are flying around the world completely outside of the power and the influence of the US government including the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank.

When the dam wall finally breaks it will flood everything on its path. The US economic and financial system lost a lot of clout and prestige around the world, since the financial crisis of 2008. And since that time many countries have been taking action to distance themselves from the US dollar – and these are small actions by this country and that country, but when you take it as a whole then you start having a significant impact on the US dollar. The dam wall is full of cracks, but you don't know which crack it will be the one to finally cause the entire dam wall to collapse.

The trillions of US dollars that are flying around the world as any commodity that has a massive over supply of it – the smart money is going to get out of the US dollar before the herd realizes what is going on – and when the herd gets spooked, then we will have a stampede and the final US dollar meltdown.

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Ricardo_Amaral  01/27/2011 02:28 AM Report

January 26, 2011

Two friends of mine mentioned to me that they had seen the enclosed video, and that Jim Rogers and I were quoted on this video. About 220,000 people have seen this video so far in two locations on the net, and I am quoted on this video around the minute 40 into the video presentation.

Porter Stansberry Research - The End of America – December 14, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI-BIVWlc7A&NR=1&feature=fvwp

*****

"The Invention of Money" is a relevant presentation that shows how quickly a total collapse of the US dollar can materialize. It can happen at the speed of light.

I like to suggest that people should listen to this NPR radio program that explain the process that Brazil had to go through for people to start believing on Brazil’s currency. This program also explains the process that the Federal Reserve uses to create money from thin air.

The Invention of Money – January 7, 2011

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/rad...ention-of-money

Ben Bernanke could learn a lot from the Brazilian experience regarding what it takes to make people believe in the value of the country’s currency – trust it’s all the central bank has to justify the trust that people has in a certain country’s currency. If people stop trusting the central bank then that currency it’s in deep trouble.

How the Federal Reserve creates money from thin air: the Federal Reserve just click their mouse into a Bank’s account with the Federal Reserve and by changing the balance of that account money is created from nothing. (A complete explanation of the Federal Reserve magic act it is given at minute 35 of the above radio conversation on NPR)

The Federal Reserve magic of creating money from thin air just go as far as people continue trusting the Federal Reserve – and that trust can be lost at any time, and after that.

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Ricardo_Amaral  01/27/2011 02:10 AM Report

Barack Obama gave a nice speech last night, but in my opinion, it's too late on the game, because the United States has passed the point of no return.

The truth is the US economic system is becoming obsolete faster than most Americans realized, and Americans lost their vision of the future regarding the United States economy, and the smart money is investing in emerging markets around the world – that is where the future lies and new innovations and technologies will be created.

The United States is becoming irrelevant in foreign affairs very fast, and we can see the growing evidence of that trend in South America, the Middle East, Africa, and in Asia.

The US economic system is imploding one step at the time on a constant downward spiral – and this implosion it will be more evident in 2011 and 2012 when the states around the United States are forced to cut their budgets to the bone, and local governments will join on this budget cutting process reinforcing even further this US economic implosion.

The federal government also will be forced to make major budget reductions in the coming years putting even more pressure into the downward implosion spiral of the US economy on its trip towards the black hole.

The only reason the US economy has not had a total collapse like the Soviet Union as yet, it is because of all kinds of massive US government intervention into the US financial system, and also because of the special status that the US dollar enjoys – the privilege of being the main foreign exchange currency – But the rest of the world started realizing that the US government is completely out of touch with reality regarding the intrinsic value of the US dollar and the declining importance of the US economy in the coming years as a share of the total pie of the global economy.

In a nutshell: The reality of the new global economy in the 21st century is that it's operating under a completely obsolete international monetary system based on the US dollar – and a currency backed by nothing other than a computer screen that can create any digital bookkeeping entry and add to bank accounts any number followed by as many zeros they want. It doesn't matter if the Federal Reserve wants to create US$ 1 trillion or US$ 10 trillion – the only thing that is behind this money creation from nothing – this magic act – it's the current trust that people has around the world on the future of the US economy – and that trust can disappear in the blink of an eye.

But as soon as people realize that the US economic and financial system is imploding just like the Soviet Union – the final massive meltdown will materialize fast, and this time around Americans and the world in general it will not have the US government to serve as safety net, since the US government and the states around the country also it would be bankrupt and discredited.

It will be not just a meltdown of the US economic and financial system, it will the the collapse of the international monetary system into the biggest monetary crisis the world has ever seen.

If you are smart enough to connect the dots, then you can see the big picture, and you will be able to grasp what I am saying – the collapse is underway and the only thing the US government can do at this point is buy some time until when you least expect the day of reckoning arrives at the speed of light.

When the final implosion of the US economic and financial system arrives, probably it will happen faster than the final implosion of the Soviet Union system.

Regarding US defense spending and the US military adventures around the world – just look what happened to the Soviet Union military and its influence around the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that gives you a snap shot of what happens to the military of former superpowers.

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EyesOnYou  01/27/2011 01:19 AM Report

Side note:

Charlie your website is slow and difficult to navigate. Create a job. Hire someone to fix it.

EyesOnYou  01/27/2011 01:18 AM Report

Americans care about jobs, but they also care to hear the roadmap (I know it's a cursed word because of ME) to how we will manage what's seems to be our economic doom.

What industries are we targeting for exports that are supposed to save our arse?

How are you going to bring jobs back while continuing globalization without lowering American standard of living?

These are not issues that can be solved with slogans. We are not idiots, we want a DETAILED PLAN.

matthewjharris  01/26/2011 10:19 PM Report

Good discussion and panel members. Meacham, Gwen, and Hunt are tops in my view and the quality of comments/views was by far better than any other on TV last night.

blank  01/26/2011 09:52 PM Report

at first i was reluctant to watch this speech i thought it would be too long and boring but then once i did i got super hyped i thought it was completely on point and perfect speech i only blacked out and couldn't listen when he started talking about wars

i almost started crying like it's time to go make changes to life and to innovate if i'm doing well the people around me will be doing well

here is a video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RSjbtJHi_Q

i LOVE barack obama why must i SMOKE the CRACK! and i wasn't even initially trying to vote for him originally i was trying to vote for h i ll ar y

i understand the argument below is a valid one but it is incorrect because in general it's too hard to understand yet it is correct if you look at it by following another string within it positivity will create wonders in life

and bring happiness but debate is good i like REMant if three hundred people going to grad school and it doesn't help them but if one does something substantial in an environment where their ideas can turn into something real to help everybody is it worth it

use this space to come to terms with what you believe in and to help other people as is so and you will not regret it later in life which is the next moment from now

i didn't see Paul Ryan's rebuttal but they should have had this REMant speech be the official rebuttal summary as i recall george bush was the one who wanted to go to war to eliminate weapons if i had a gun i'd probably accidentally shoot myself in the head and not die what about those nights when i'm going crazy

what about this movie i just watched

http://www.hulu.com/watch/206459/exit-through-the-gift-shop

did the french guy not really make the art and just pretend he had because the other two had committed illegal activities including printing counterfeit money and passing it out

are their lives worthwhile did they accomplish anything valuable what about the paintings on the wall at the west bank what did they accomplish by doing that if anything

also i liked this woman from los angeles here on the interview the barack obama speech had me thinking it was completely on point (wars ?)

it's kinda like if you're going to spend all that money to go into space you might as well spend the little bit extra to carry out the scientific experiments while doing so just the knowledge that somebody flew into space and landed on the moon also creates a great feeling of satisfaction in my life for me it's a tremendous concept

it makes me happy

i wanna go see the hubble 3D imax i hope it's still in theaters

REMant  01/26/2011 02:45 PM Report

As in recent years, this was not so much a statement of the union, as of its politics. It met the criteria specified in the Constitution - "He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient" - only in outline, and I might add this is presumably a republic, the form of government the Constitution guarantees to the states, not a democracy, as the president said a few times, and which is not found in that document, nor obviously a representative form. There is no need for this favorite little Democratic sound bite. Nor for engaging in historical revisionism.

Obama began by paraphrasing his recent Tucson speech for the benefit, I guess, of the media audience. Perhaps he found it misinterpreted. He stressed here setting a good example, but he told his Democratic colleagues they would now have to cooperate or not move forward.

He next lauded the program of monetary expansion and govt deficit spending that he has for the past two years, and that has its roots in the designs of John Law, whose schemes for developing Scotland ruined France in the Mississippi Bubble. The stock mkt, i.e., mainly the Dow avg of mostly bank stocks, as the president said has come roaring back, but due to another sizable dose of easy Fed money that has given them the opportunity to once again offer dividends at the expense of the holders of dollars, because there's no guarantee it will be paid back in real economic improvement, and never has been. It is making new bubbles, just like Law's. There was also incidentally no mention made of the continuing decline in house prices in the face of this, nor what he proposes to do with Fan & Fred, and the mortgage pipeline which fueled so much American grandiosity, and which, as senator, paid him so handsomely for support.

In fact, he bolstered his economic argument by praise of American exceptionalism, repeated several times, and fell just shy of demonizing a former Communist enemy, declaring, in effect, that they were the object of a new competition ala the cold war. President Hu remarked just a few days ago it was not a zero-sum game; President Obama last night said it was. Averring "it's not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research," and launching into a list of examples of government sponsorship, he called on the nation to double its exports, go to an electric car moon by 2015. The problem with this analogy is that the moon race, which Ike had tried to avoid and called "nuts," was, for all its NASA propaganda and trumpeted technical offshoots, a huge waste of money, and Sputnik, which prompted it, hardly a technological breakthrough or indicative of any superiority, and they knew it. It was all a farce, a political farce and particularly a Democratic farce. I think all the scientists and historians agree about this. I doubt, too, that the government programs passed in its wake, which began Federal student financial support in higher education, were called for, or all that smart. It created a boom in college real estate, but contributed to the runaway inflation of the '70s. Implied was that we had somehow lost our way during the Republican '50s with its sound money and common sense. I never saw any advantage in my advanced placement science when I got to college in those years, tho I did take out a defense education loan. I nevertheless worked two jobs throughout and was in ROTC. The hula hoops aside, it was in the '60s that our decline began, not our nation reborn, and while I don't disagree that more emphasis on productivity is called for, that was, in fact, Adam Smith's argument. It is a fact that historically mercantilism has comprised the same elements, prominent among them the sort of spending and money creation we are seeing now.*

Obama, similarly, called for "a chance to succeed" for every child, and after the now centuries-old chastisement of familial ineptitude, praised his admin's program of educational innovation and college financial support. But if the return to education were actually that valuable, it would pay for itself. It hasn't, and hasn't for many years, and that points not to its unavailability, but to its quality, tho he did add that bad teaching should not be excused. A recent assessment of undergraduates (http://chronicle.com/article/New-Book-Lays-Failure-to-Learn/125983/) found they learned little and academics was not stressed, which is hardly news to anyone who has been around campuses lately.

The president proclaimed he wants to keep American-educated foreigners here. That will go over well with the foreign govts which send them (and foot the bill). But it is also additional proof he does not believe in free trade.

He defended last year's health care legislation, against its critics and after enumerating its alleged virtues, he put the onus, except for the paperwork burden placed on small business, on the GOP to fix it, the same strategy he used last spring.

Even if you accept that the country must look to itself, it is no proof that it must, or should be, done as Law and Keynes, et al, believed, by deficit spending and printing money. But the president suggested that instead of fundamental budget reforms, annual domestic spending merely be frozen for the next five years, as if he did, and did not mention the part played by monetary expansion over the past half-century in the loss of American jobs and the decline of the middle class. However, he acknowledged the need to look at entitlements, presumably meaning postponing the age at which they vest, and perhaps the amount they pay, tho without he said reducing benefits, in a maneuver that recalls the tale of the loaves and fishes. And he loudly declared he would veto all earmarks, now that it's a fact-of-life. He once again bemoaned the Bush tax cuts, tho it is rather the inheritance provision that is the problem with that legislation, however he said he was ready to support the fundamental tax reform recommended by the Erskine-Bowles commission, seconded by no less than Mark Zandi, who likened tax expenditures to earmarks, and to remove loopholes from, and lower corporate tax rates. And like the last dozen presidents, at least, he promised to end bureaucratic redundancies and Byzantine regulations, by creating a new Department of Salmon (just kidding).

In foreign policy he lauded keeping our commitments - laudable granted there was any reason to commit ourselves to them in the first place - but it is no sign that the world is safer, or more peaceful, and much recently to indicate that, because of our economic policies, it is worse. And, indeed, he renewed the commitment to the war on terrorism, but no mention was made of drugs, except for seniors.

After the usual paean to our men and women in uniform, he defended gays in the military by suggesting they were being discriminated against "because of who they love," but it is rather whom they solicit. We had reasonable relations about homosexuality when I was young and nobody except they, themselves, knew about it. It would have been better to have kept it that way. The military tho needs the manpower, and the Democrats, the votes.

The president made much throughout of reinventing ourselves, and appears to me to have tried to take his own advice. Of course, tho the Post transformed it into the Second Coming, it is perhaps more correctly the Third. Still, it has a great deal in common with last year's version. It is still a far cry from blood, toil, tears and sweat. But if this speech was not exactly what it should have been, it did have the virtue of not subjecting its auditors to the usual laundry list of legislation. That will be left to the budget, which is more what I presume the Founders had in mind. I was very glad to see the circus atmosphere and grandstanding largely absent, for which I commend not only the delivery, but also whoever came up with the seating. The whole has worn far too much of the aspect of monarchy in recent years, and it would have been inappropriate in the best of times, certainly in this. It seems tho to have left the pundits flat-footed, relying on their cheat sheets, memories of presidents past, and talking of politics rather than substance. Perhaps that was the intent. The observation here that Obama is starting to explore the possibilities in his divorce from Nancy, was I thought good, and similar to what I wrote here in Nov and a few times in the last two years. This tho should not detract from an appreciation of his basic stance.

Rep Paul Ryan in his rebuttal pointed out that in line with the president's remark concerning its inconsequence, he has increased the budget for domestic agencies 25 percent, 84 including supposed one time spending, while the health care legislation has so far proved an additional burden. He said the Republicans would be guided by the "need to reclaim our American system of limited government, low taxes, reasonable regulations and sound money, which has blessed us with unprecedented prosperity. And...has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed."

It is a restatement of the classical, free market position of Smith, Hume, Thornton, et al (plus Keynes, himself, before, after losing all his money in the Crash, he got religion). It has a long history. The difference is at bottom that mercantilists, or as they like to be called now, progressives, are permissive, and opposed reason, but refuse to see the alternative is passion, while classicals tho distrusting passion, accept it as part of life, but call for rationality and responsibility. The latter was a philosophy of enlightened self-interest, not either without the other, the former utopian yet solipsitic. In economics the mercantilists rejected gold, but acted as if their paper were bullion, while the classicals accepted gold yet saw that productivity not possession was the basis of value and hence took saving seriously. This is the same difference we have seen in questions of disarmament. One side wants to eliminate weapons, but is willing to go to war to do it, while the other accepts their necessity, but hopes not to use them.

*Follow the twists and turns of this in economic historian Thomas Humphrey's career summing Mercantilists and Classicals: Insights from Doctrinal History at http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/annual_report/1998/pdf/article.pdf or http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_quarterly/1999/spring/pdf/humphrey.pdf