You find it in if youve got something that people left you well they did a bad job but you have to address it you cant just let things continue to get worse because the bills are getting bigger and bigger for our kids this is also the case in russia that you have a fiscal gap we measure that as one of the early studies weve done here at the Guidance Institute we measure the fiscal gap its not quite as big as a share of g. D. P. As it is in the u. S. But its quite substantial so it all unless you get on top of these problems. They get worse but you know very well that every time you want to get on top of major structural issues there are some you know temporary issues that come into play on some very clear focus and one such thing would be. The wrangle over at the budget that we saw in the amharic and senate i know that you. Long been chris. Of the american political system its partisanship the its bending habits and i think all of that wasnt display in that argument do you think the primary issue though was money or was Something Else lets say the political ambition i think both sides are trying to make political points up to up to a point they dont want to really shut down the the government and lay off all these people who are working for the government is a very big work force so i think the. The democrats were trying to make a point that were standing up for immigration and for people that are have come to our country were more humanitarian republicans are trying to push the point that you have to have secure borders it seems like there should be a good compromise but. You know both sides are at each others throats i mean trumps disposition is to fight as opposed to you know come to a compromise agreement but at the end i have to show that hes really in charge he has that need to say hes one what strikes me about this whole argument is the naked politics of it because both parties use the funding for polities policies that they it really upon to get concessions on the issues that they disagree so nobody argues that the military and the Public Servants have to be paid but everybody is ok with making their salaries subject to political bargaining do you the American People see this as fair game. No i think the i think the public is very unhappy about this this is exactly what they dont like about politicians that they you know theres a sensible middle ground and. You do have people in the Democratic Party that are pretty far to the left and people to the pretty far to the right in the Republican Party and those two wings of the parties have been. Very dominant in determining who gets into congress and who becomes president so you know you have somebody in office right now whos six whos. Really appealing to the extreme right and president obama was i think more of a centrist but he was also kind of left of center and people i polo see are pretty far to the left so we dont have most of the public be represented who are much more in the middle thats why i tried to run for president because i felt that neither. Candidate that was coming forth was really focused on the middle ground and. And doing and actually going to get anything accomplished in terms of real policy reform but you mention president obama as he also had hes own Government Shutdown and i think for a person who is not familiar with the american budgeting process its really difficult to understand why somebody who would. Sub the system in the way that would allow the government to leave paycheck to paycheck is that part of the of the checks and balances because here in russia we do have an issue of death too much power invested in the executive but it seems to me that this is perhaps the the negative sides of the excess of checks and balances yeah its not a good situation even you know the democrats have in the senate the ability to block legislation certain legislation with just forty percent of the senators and they have more than forty percent of the senators there are fifty eight percent for sorry about forty eight out of the hundred senators so they have a more than. Forty percent of block theres a rule in the senate that you can block certain kinds of rules laws with more than forty percent. Vote so you know how that law came into being is kind of a historical curiosity it wasnt in the its not in the constitution so you know i think both parties feel that they should if theyre out of power they should still have some power and maybe its you know a good thing but anyway the democrats are trying to exercise this ability to have some influence because otherwise theyre just sitting there bet you know just complaining for four years and then i mean exercising some influence at the expense of the military and the you know your park service as a setter i mean thats not they know its not a very you know its not a noble way out of the politics its not necessarily in their interest to try and use that power for any much so they stopped the government for a couple days but in the end they folded because if exactly what youre saying which is that this is not a good use of power its not productive to say hey the military in order to protect Illegal Immigrants are going to be speaking about the Illegal Immigrants or rather children her abroad illegally or state illegally in the United States were talking about eight. Hundred thousand people there at this point can the American Economy afford to lose them because i would assume that many of them would be entering the labor force and theyre speaking english why do you think trump doesnt see the practicality of making money over those of those people for the economy. I think he probably does see that taking children or people who grew up here has as children there was no fault of theirs that they were brought to the u. S. And then throwing them out eight hundred. Eight hundred thousand dollars youre referring to. That would be very unjust and unfair but we also have another ten or so million. Adult Illegal Immigrants who have been working in the u. S. For quite a while and the idea of x. Of deporting them is also something that really you know some people want to do that but many people in the u. S. And myself included say that if youre here you should you know you made it you got through the hurdles of getting into the country illegally or whatever. If youve been here and you dont have a criminal record and youre contributing to the country you should be allowed to stay and then we should secure the border so that we dont have this as an ongoing problem here making at moral or social argument here and now asking for an economic question because from what i understand the American Economy now experience is full employment if your child wants to give it an additional push you would need labor force in the country these people are here because they can make a Better Living and there are theyre contributing to the economy so yeah if they let if they were thrown out some americans would you know take their place and have a higher Living Standard but i think. I think the moral and economic arguments both tend to say lets leave them here lets and i think the democrats strategy would be better if they just said look this guys youre in charge you make the decisions and well discuss what you did if you want to throw out a million other Million People and cause all that human suffering and misery and thats a very human inhumane thing to do at this point. You know well talk about it in the next election so i think. You know theyre really pretty much in charge even the senate can block things a little bit but the democrats but not much politically its not going to work to keep the Government Shutdown its just not a Strong Enough lever to try and get the republicans to do what you may and economically rational having. Covered tom for a while i think it always comes down to a money issue for him whether it is lets say the middle east or any other. Policy issue as far as you know has anyone done any asked him that so far or how much money it would cost to the American Economy if you deport all all those people well its probably about five percent of the workforce were talking about. A million Illegal Immigrants if you threw them all out of the country. Yeah it would have a big impact in the short run over time the growth rate of the economy would probably come back to work or otherwise i think its you know id like to say its. That the economic argument would carry sway with him but hes looking at people that are not his same color you have to realize this person is racist at a very deep level so for him hed say well probably take the cost of throwing out a lot of a Million People that dont look like me and dont sound like me and come from places that he things are miserable bicycles a cafe have to take a very short break now but well be back in just a few moments stay tuned. There was a pretty good. Remove last. Word so well move on we dont think we will all soon will but you know one of the atmosphere up in the bush is that so. Thank you. Thank you to the. Scouts. You but you could still be a g. T. T. Easy to reason you get. The secret of the English Speaking you could either call you up and you tell us what you did to miss told me my suspicion i was. Going to walk sold you on the idea that dropping bombs brings peace to the Chicken Hawks forcing you to fight the battles that will. Produce talks try to tell you that because of the public lets put it. Well the modern advertising telling you on the cool enough and lets buy their products led. The all the hawks that we along with our audience will watch the law. Manufacture consent to public will. When the ruling class is to protect themselves. With the flaming. Lips and be the wimps and. We can all middle of the room sit. In the. Room. Welcome back to worlds apart with Laurence Kotlikoff a professor of economics at Boston University professor kotlikoff we were discussing the. Difficulty with funding just before the break and trial for his part accused the democrats of trying to steal the limelight from his much vaunted tax bill and i get it from your writing that toms bragging about how good the tax bill is is not entirely unfounded correct me if im wrong but your calculations show that it is likely to expand the economy and real wages by about five percent over time there are lots of people who are very critical of that bill of what do you like about it well i think to begin with we should realize that it didnt start with its not even clear the trump understands the bill or the economics underlying it the bill actually was kind of half a democratic proposal to have a republican proposal in the sense that says that the business tax part was partly designed by a democrat leading. Academic economists but anyway over time this. Good tax reform proposal which was initially called the better way plan evolved into the tax cut and jobs act which i give it about a b. Minus as a professor for tax reform its not something that is was not back for trump thats not better for his this administration but its. Anyway what its going to do is increase the incentive for companies to invest in the u. S. For American Companies not to leave the u. S. And i think thats going to lead to more capital staying in the u. S. And coming into the u. S. And higher real wages and we were kind of high relative to other countries with respect to our incentives to invest in the u. S. So thats good the the personal tax reforms are basically kind of revenue neutral and make some sense there are some. Decision here to go after states taxpayers in states that didnt vote for trump blue states as opposed to red states so thats pretty mean and nasty and may undermine Public Education the way it was set up. But the. The basic story is this is a you know quasi i. D. s and some i decent reform its going to help the economy but it doesnt. Produce an arson lation so we actually have a were simulating this tax reform in what we call the global gaidar model a model we developed here the guider institute with russian economists and directing this team over the last three years so the russian erosion simulation model if you like was used to help pass this refinery you know given the current political context and im not sure that russian experience ease would be paid what would be there might have a chance in the washing that its solid economics and its based on modeling methodology was developed in the u. S. And myself and i hope we do long be labeled as some sort of malicious interference but this all started before trump was even on the radar you also pointed out that the bill would not address the projected explosion in the American Government debt relative to g. D. P. From seventy seven percent now to one hundred fifty percent in two thousand and fifty and i think youre partially explain to our where would that come from but can you elaborate a little bit more on that so we have you know the true debt which we call the fiscal gap because it incorporates all the off the books liabilities for example paying for my Social Security benefits im now sixty seven all these collecting starting at seventy well thats a true obligation of the federal governments not recorded as official debt but its its has to be paid same with my Health Care Benefits from the government so unless you start dealing with these this problem the country is going to fall off the cliff fiscally speaking and were were bankrupt given our current policy or current policies a path to bankruptcy sky high tax rates to an economy thats are going to grow and i think you see signs of this in so far as its very hard to fund many things in our government like basic research there are cutbacks because the country. Hes already understanding that the politicians at the governments broke that it cant. And so we need to really a major tax increase we didnt need a policy thats revenue neutral which is what i. Think we have based on the simulations weve done with the global gaidar model we needed something would significantly raise revenues and we also need to cut spending so we need to have reforms that fix. In the spending reforms have to come through fixing our Pension System fixing our health care says system so everybodys covered but we dont go broke i think Everybody Knows about the American Government debt and yet lots of foreigners are eagerly investing into American Securities and bonds doesnt that mean that at the end of the day whatever are the obligations of the American Government the its economic commitments they will be bankrolled by a by the foreigners because everybody has a stake in not letting them merican economy go bankrupt well i think i think through the market the traders out there that are setting the Interest Rate on long Term Government bonds which is really what youre referring to which is that if things were so bad why would we be able to borrow at such a low long term rate i think those traders dont. Either that i dont think they understand all the off the book liabilities or they do understand those liabilities they understand were bankrupt but they think the other traders dont understand it so that we have this kind of curious. Equilibrium in the market where everybody is kind of trading on the basis of everybody else getting it wrong or at least not trading because these traders they can lose their jobs if they make a move that is based on the reality but the other traders dont come along if you lose money by yourself you can still keep your job but if you take a position where you you know we really base it on the other. Realities and nobody else comes along in the market then you lose the marketplace and then you lose your job but you know its no rational what im saying is that the marketplace is not rational but over time people will get the truth it will it will come out and we will see the market crash laid on purses crash and he discusses irrational policy and policy is all fine and. I mean not only in washington but also more broadly i want anybody economics you know the underlying reality is that somebody would have to pay my my benefits you know and its his are not making enough money to do it thats the basic game over problem here we face and the American Economy is not. Isolated i mean its a i think its the unique economy in the sounds of how much exposure for and there is have to it i wonder if there are real hitch here is that while the United States is preaching liberal economics and fair market at the end of the day it managed to create conditions for itself when it is not operating within the frame Market Conditions because everybodys treating the United States the American Economy as something. Unique partially because of the value of the role of the dollar as the top and i think its really the role of the dollar helps you. You know think that well gee the if the u. S. Isnt bad fiscal shape it can print a lot of money and the rest of the world will keep taking it but theres a limit to that you know theres a limit to how much many countries are gotten into trouble in the past and printed money to try and pay for their bills but ultimately obviously its too to inflation and we saw this with the british pound you know the British Empire was dominant and at some point. It became less dominant broke up and then the pal no it was no longer the currency of the world dominating currency if you look at the long term projections again coming from this really terrific gaidar model that. Is a global model so you have all the demographic changes and all the regions of the world that were seventy regions in the world all the fiscal policies if you simulate. The rest of the world catching up in terms of productivity with the u. S. In this framework you see that over time the u. S. Is going to become a minor player in the World Economy because its going to be dominated and this is very interesting by china by india but also by the middle east and Subsaharan Africa if those regions are do catch up in terms of productivity levels and thats a very big if but you see at the end of the century that the biggest region in the World Economically speaking is not china or india its actually Subsaharan Africa. And then its india and then its middle east and then its china and the u. S. Is down at about five percent of world g. D. P. From about sixteen percent now so the long run picture is one of the us lou you know becoming like germany to the World Economy and thats driven by you know very interesting the fact is that the un is projecting a population explosion in terms of the World Population mostly concentrated in Subsaharan Africa in the middle east and this is going to produce a an increase in population of the world by one china in the next twenty years and by three chinas over the course of the century so all these factors are going to go through time i agree with you its not going to be tomorrow but through time people are going to wake up to the fact that the u. S. Is in very bad fiscal shape that its Economic Dominance isnt eval and evidently going to decline just china alone is going to overtake the u. S. Has got a bigger g. D. P. Right now than the us and i think you made several attempts to get into the white house to try to change the system from within and you have very detailed proposals that took me a whole evening just to understand. Simple ones well i mean they they are very detailed and you know it takes. Not only time but i think it takes effort to understand what youre talking about and i think todays politics especially in the United States seems to favor people who offer very simple and sometimes very Dramatic Solutions does it mean that people like yourself. Will always be poised to lose to some demagogues who have politically benefiting by the fiscally unsubstantiated policies i think its very difficult to deal with a democrat demagogue who demagogues. Method of is to find somebody to blame and say well its the immigrants who are china no matter what the facts or. That are causing our country not to grow in terms of Living Standard at the radio used to grow and it requires somebody to say well look you know the facts are different you know one of the things we saw in this entire Campaign Leading up to trump selection was very little discussion of the facts the politicians were just exchanging insults with each other was very good at that but nobody said look you know you may be the smartest person in the world in your area of cheating people in the Real Estate Market but when it comes to actually understand economics you have no background but i dont want to say it was actually not at all useful was the campaign truly exceptional because there are i think there is always an element of that regardless of whether its a president ial campaign a lets say congressional race there seems to be a lesser demand for. Those in flight is very entertaining. And having somebody like obama is a great speaker and just very inspirational is thats attractive. But theres also something thats attractive which is having somebody actually knows whats wrong and how to fix it im not saying im the only one whos wrong by that i think any you know a good economist could possibly have won that election had the press played and attention to that persons or situation that yes pays attention to were people who seem interested and exciting enough for the people and this is ultimately a question of how you run a democracy and what is a democracy i mean its a very pretty look at marathon and in france i mean you know does he have a. Hes a very attractive person physically no i think hes a good speaker from what i gather but hes not. He basically got elected by saying the Political Parties are bankrupt we need some real change and real analysis somebody who actually thinking more deeply about how to fix things a new direction and lets go that was the name of his party. I think had the press spent some attention given some attention to my campaign its possible that i could have taken off like work on the in in france you know maybe not maybe maybe she said you know maybe the probably would not be interested in somebody whos clearly looks like an academic and sounds like an academic and you know when i tried once again that same two thousand and twenty well you know its under the right circumstances possibly and the problem is this kind of what we call a catch twenty two would emerge its a you know its its. You know if the press had paid attention i would have gotten a lot of Campaign Contributions and then i would have been viewed as a wobble kind of heat and got more attention so. But they said well you dont have any money and i said why dont have any money because youre all writing about the so thats what we mean by catch twenty two well as a consequence we have to leave it there i really appreciate your being on our program and to our viewers please keep the conversation going on our social media pages and i hope to see you again same place same time here on worlds apart. Prescribe medication is widespread on the u. S. Market a frequent cause of death at that point in my life i just felt like everything was that as my family was literally coming unglued i had actually planned. To commit some site was all who was made on to prison so commonly used we were doing what the doctors told us to do we were being responsible and what the real side effects. Was is jealously alter what i did was done on a cocktail of legal drugs. Just because somethings legal doesnt mean its sent. Out a mass will be another tax reform bill next year just simplified ran a flat tax before is all over and done with top will bring in a fifteen percent tax rate across the board what should be the best possible solution to the tax you know question in the us. This is harlan kentucky. Boys it was very funny using. A co money city it was almost no co mines left. The job to grow all the poll was that there was a lot of these people the survivors of disappearing before their eyes. I remember thinking when i was younger that if anything ever happened to the coal mines here that it would become a ghost town but i never thought in a million years i would see that and its happening its happened. Looking but its very. Good. At least. To the low to. Mid to. Low the low to the. Donald charles first day at the World Economic forum in davos gets underway with a meeting with u. K. Prime minister tres m a hes expected to write to his America First agenda at the gathering in the luxury resort. All these questions are why the president is coming also dont want to listen to him you can take a leaf. Turkey lambast the u. S. Saying washington doesnt keep its promises and that theres no trust between the countries