July 14 - The Winner and Loser of the Financial World Cup; A $7 Billion Slap on the Bankster's Wrist; The World's Most Expensive Weapons System Grounded Again

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an economic analysis of the winner and loser of the World Cup from Robert Kuttner, the co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect where he has an article that is also at The Huffington Post “The World Financial Cup” which argues Germany represents everything that is wrong with the world financial system while Argentina, the Greece of South America, is the epic case of countries whose economies are screwed by policies championed by Germany and the United States.

Part 2

Then we look into the $7 billion mortgage settlement with Citigroup that ends a Justice Department investigation into Citigroup’s packaging and selling of mortgage securities that Citigroup sold in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Jennifer Taub, a professor at the Vermont Law School and author of the new book “Other People’s Houses: How Decades of Bailouts, Captive Regulators, and Toxic Bankers Made Home Mortgages a Thrilling Business”, joins us to discuss the Citigroup settlement and the division amongst critics of Wall Street in Congress over Senator Elizabeth Warren’s negotiations on mortgage reform that would revive the controversial Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae model of private profit at public expense which progressives argue should be scrapped altogether or made fully public.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the latest embarrassments with the most expensive weapons system in history, a gold-plated turkey that will cost the taxpayer more that it would to rescue every American who lost their home in the 2008 crash or provide every homeless person in America with a $600,000 home. Pierre Sprey, a veteran hi-tech defense weapons and system designer who was the primary designer of the F-16 fighter and A-10 ground attack jet, joins us to discuss the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that has been grounded again and is a no-show at marketing events abroad because the engine on the overweight and underpowered aircraft catches fire, a problem for an aircraft made of flammable composite material.