restrictions nearby argentina and bolivia are declared open for business and here in the united states texas was the 1st to declare itself 100 percent open since then maryland mississippi connecticut arizona west virginia and why only have announced plans to lift restrictions in the coming weeks president biden signed off on the long awaited $1.00 trillion dollar stimulus package on thursday which include state and local aid and funding for covert testing and vaccines here's archies john with a look at how the u.s. has responded to the pandemic over the last year. one person coming in from china and we have it under control it's going to be just fine that was january 22nd 2020 president trump in an interview with c.m. d.c. downplaying the severity of a new and concerning virus so. weeping across the world and being reported on america's shores less than 2 months later on march 11th 2020 the world health organization would declare coded 19 a pandemic by then airports and airlines would shut down americans would be stuck abroad cruise ships would become petri dishes for the viruses spread creating a financial storm for the cruise line industry losing more than half a 1000000000 jobs nationwide schools businesses and churches would close wreaking extraordinary financial havoc hospitals would struggle to keep up with the sick as personal protection equipment and ventilators ran low testing sites increased but delays in results created another major problem tracking the sick and the asymptomatic as new variants of the virus would continue to hamper efforts to control its spread professional sports would be cancelled protests against the lockdowns would erupt nationwide and researchers would scramble to find a vaccine it's going to disappear one day it's like a miracle it will disappear but it did not disappear instead the cull of in 1000 virus only worsened with cities like miami here saying some of the highest infection and death rates nationwide i mean ited states becoming the epicenter of cold the 19 worldwide. the quote new normal would become the new catch phrase with u.s. officials begging people to wear their face masks and socially distance no one would be untouched by coven 19 and then in may 2020 the world heralded the good news about researchers developing a vaccine the race was on as the battle continued on a scientific and political level america's financial crisis the ongoing fight against coven 19 and the race for a vaccine would all become major debate points in the 2020 presidential election as america grew more the. bided by the verla of politics putting the country you know her viral vice grip after a chaotic election the united states would welcome a new president and the new year mort by the 3 insurrection inauguration and impeachment. protesters alleging the election was rigged and stolen would storm the u.s. capitol building january 6th more than $26000.00 national guard troops would be deployed to protect washington d.c. from violence for joe biden's inauguration and former president trump would become the 1st u.s. president in history to be impeached twice vaccinations would begin i'll be it slowly while towns and cities would also begin reopening as america now reports more than 500000 dead and 20 $9000000.00 still sick with covert 19 president biden will sign a monumental $1.00 trillion dollar economic america rescue plan to help those still struggling from the pandemic and a story that will be told about the turbulent and exhausting time when a scientifically perplexing though strangely fascinating but equally deadly virus changed the course of america and the world forever for boom bust john hardy. i think kerner virus pandemic impacted every industry over the last year all took a hit with production in the u.s. saying its largest decline on record following an all time high of 12200000 and 2019 the us produced an average of $11300000.00 barrels per day of crude oil in 2020 dropping 8 per cent that decline is likely to continue this year as the current forecast for 2000 and $21.00 stands that a lot of in point $15000000.00 barrels per day this as opec plus pledges to keep production cut steady and continues to see a decline of its own so joining me now to this. you open this i'll see octavio moran's eat now octavio we've seen some activity in the oil market lately with forecast improving but opec and russia remain hesitant to pull back on restrictions is this a case where it's best to be cautious and told there is enough demand. well what we have seen is that the price of oil now are very much back to pre-code level so about above $60.00 a barrel back through 200-1000 we saw prices been fortune $50.00 a barrel so we're actually above 200-1000 prices so what i would expect to see is that you rest production if these prices look sustainable will bounce back quite sharply and we should see that coming up in the next set of numbers we see for u.s. oil production they're going to dust off they of oil rigs to brush off the rust that's collected of farsi and start drilling again start using as they only really care about the price of oil. there than is i think correct to be quite cautious in this bear in mind in the 1st half of 2020 we saw a huge decline in in consumption of oil and not a corresponding decline in production we did see production go down about 10 percent but we saw consumption go down even further and that means stockpiles of oil have been built up or built up in the 1st half of 2020 and are still out there will only partially drawn down in the 2nd half of the year so opec is concerned that if they start producing again and people start drawing on their reserves that's going to crash the the price of oil again so they're very cautious but the u.s. producers should benefit from that they have course are not tied to opec production quotas and so they will sort of stop producing again as soon as the price looks correct and this is definitely one of those cases where the u.s. is glad that it's not tied directly to opec and now here in the united states we did see historic highs followed by a record decline that has continued into this year when it comes to oil production and right now the focus seems to be all on 2022 but are we likely to see the heights of 2019 or oil production anytime soon in the next few years. well i think if prices continue with the current level we will see production in the 2nd half of this year bounce back really sharply you can't you can start to be used from from overnight so it takes some run of time have to get ready and put everything in place so it doesn't happen that quickly but we have seen the prices rebound and prices look good and that's what's going to determine production course in the u.s. there's a whole bunch of kind of production that is would realize it becomes unprofitable below a certain price we're back to where we were before so production should bounce back and i'm pretty confident about and i think the predicts that we've seen of 11500000 barrels per day i think or underestimated what we'll see in 2021 i think we're going to be have a positive surprise there. and i'm a lot of caution being exercised there now i also want to ask you about u.s. markets because for the 1st time in more than 20 years the dow jones industrial average finished at an all time high on wednesday while the nasdaq composite remained in correction is there a reason why we haven't seen this happen since the dot com era of 1999. well are you really have going back a few years now so again back 22 years to 109 and remembering what happened there but i think if you look back what happened in the real crash the real issue in the nasdaq market was 999 was it was sort of started in the middle of 2000 so in the summer of 2000 the stocks is some softness in the market and then by the autumn of 2000 looked pretty bad so what happened there i guess the we had very low interest rates a relatively low interest rates for some time and then the for which favored technology stocks and technology stocks always thrived compared to other sectors in low interest rates environments because basically what you're saying is that future earnings are worth a lot more because the interest rates are low so you discount them less so earnings 203040 years into the future become much more valuable and that of course favors tech stocks lower interest rates particularly low long term interest rates favored tech stocks enormously and so as interest rates are sure rise through late 1990 inter to 2000 those tech stocks look less favorable and then ultimately sort of crashed in 2000 a sort of a slow crash not not as fast as a correction on scene and i think most people in the markets are very much clued into that they realize that interest rates are driving this and monetary policy has driven the run up that we've seen in tech stocks and so even they're very sensitive even small corrections in interest rates so everyone's sort of a bit anxious and nervous realizing these markets look very sort of a bloody nose levels and waiting to jump for the exits and any sure the shift in interest rates is seen as an excuse to do that so even the small adjustments we've seen over the course the past few weeks in interest rates have had a disproportionate effect on tech stocks has a very long winded explanation of your forgive me for that but suggest. that i thought i'm points to consider here i really appreciate your time and if they are telling me on their end they think that. with the new administration in office the u.s. war on wall way continues forcing the chinese telecom giant to diversify its own network as it feels the wrath of washington's blackout wall always saw its shares of revenue from selling equipment outside of china fall 2 percent it is not going down without a fight and its latest partnership is with another one of washington's favorite rivals this week russian telecoms operator m.t.s. launched the country's 1st pilot 5 g. network across 14 locations in moscow using wall ways equipment so what does that mean for the telecom giant and how will the u.s. respond joining me now to go further and touch on this topic or boom us co-host benzion and christiane christine let's start with you here what can you tell us about this new project and what does it mean for waterway. well m.t.s. is russia's top cell phone carrier and with this rollout existing antient subscribers using 5 g. compatible smartphones will it be able to connect at speeds of up to 1.5 gigabit vo equipped networks so this means that they will enjoy ultra h.d. videos and gainey as well as augmented and virtual reality services if they're near one of these 14 cations and this 5 g. development deal between and ts and i was signed back in 2019 as a chinese company faced major pressure from the u.s. so now this fourteen's on test network has finally kicked off 2 years after sweden's ericsson announced the opening of russia's 1st 500 zone a very guy a street with m.t.s. its rival tell it to so this is a really big deal even though this isn't the 1st 5 pilot to launch in russia it certainly is the most notable due to its political and geo strategic meaning way has officially gone live in russia and it has real political significance there's this emerging text between the u.s. and its allies on one side and china and its friends on the other basically the splinter net and this will result in the loss of control and across major players in the western tech sector alternately were lossing in significant loss of revenue and these players include the likes of intel qualcomm google and microsoft and this launch is only phase one of the deal that's always struck with russia and $29000.00 another item on the agenda was for a while why smartphones to transition to russia was a war on and at the time it was also suggested the hallway might also begin some of russia's r. and d. and manufacturing including the joint production of chips and software. engineers things they were saying our way not only fight back against u.s. policies but also bring russia into it now then we've been talking for a couple of years about this us war on wall way how much of an impact has the u.s. had on the company overall. well they definitely had an effect i mean we talked about this for a long time right in the beginning that looked like one way was probably going to do fine because a lot of european nations especially were interested in going along with this u.s. boycott of weiwei and then they started to change their tune one by one remember the u.k. for a while didn't go in 2020 according to doro group apparently while way shares in selling telecommunications equipment around the world still about 2 percent they sold only about 20 percent around the world but what's interesting about that this is where i think this story stands out is that while we had a loss in terms of the total share of what they were selling at the same time that many analysts will say and certainly while we will say their equipment is vastly superior to what's been sold so new kiya and ericsson obviously have taken on a much larger share of telecom equipment being sold around the world but the argument that's being made is they're not even close to as good as what ways in terms of their ability to produce solid telecom equipment so what the u.s. has actually been able to do you could argue is stop a superior company for being able to sell merely on the basis that they are a chinese own firm wow and it's interesting to see just how the u.s. has exerted that power and how they have carried on this campaign even threatening some of their close allies with sanctions now kristie on another topic here there is a lot going on in terms of the technology surrounding wall way and telecommunications and that of course includes semiconductor chips now apple is investing over $1200000000.00 to create europe's largest research and development site for mobile wireless semiconductors and software what does that mean for someone conductor development. well semi's have always been at the heart of technology development of the scene during the trade war it's a major choke point so apple is doing what it does best and consolidating its operations upstream to bring them in-house so they can have total control over its development and supply and it's a very smart move on their part as to make themselves more defensible if there were a situation to arise where they would be a chip shortage it's also smart given that apple has cash to burn the last few quarters apple has have a massive cash war chest with nothing to spend it on except for buybacks by piling all that cash back into r. and d. for mobile semi's and software apple is setting itself up for the future so it's currently part of the 5 g. modems on the i phone 12 lineup it's also fired most of intel smartphone modem business and in addition to in-house chip development apple's teams are also working on integrating 3rd party hardware with its devices such as i phone i pad and the watch so this $1200000000.00 project will focus on the 5 g. and future wireless technologies and comes at a time that the e.u. is also making a push to become a dominant tech course in the region so the european commission presented plans to ramp up semiconductor manufacturing in europe with the goal that the region be home to 20 percent of global chip production by 2030 so that walk also plans to cover all populated areas with 5 g. networks as well and it's a perfect fit as apple's engineering help in munich is already the company's largest in europe they've created custom silicon products to increase the formats across a multitude of product is now apple m one chip and now they're putting together its own team of engineers to also work on power management chips a lot of moving parts there and of course a lot of money at stake great insight as always ben swan christy i thank you both. time now for a quick break but when we come back facebook is calling on the u.s. government to dismiss its lawsuit accusing the tech giant of going too far to silence the competition well tell you why facebook says it did nothing wrong next and as we go to break here are the numbers of the quote. tactics that can be used to get innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit i don't even think people in the us really get that the police are allowed to lie to you the person who falsely fast actually came to believe the lie that they were told about their own behavior once upon a confession a stake in the case is closed and nobody really can tell the difference between a good confession and one that is. but you're right the stand has to be harmless and. of whom one has. a good armor on our show but there are rather democrats that are before 4th down together that. i'm going to let them but i don't question then you cut them there and keep an eye on what i have floozie china for truffle that it doesn't have a. lot of work then i'm on my machine little side of. the other thing the only a lot of the. members of the hey how you want to do it. and get this whole food place choice john you say you haven't failed to chime in terry has said. he she ought to have a. model for the name after the whole fuck around with mr hate that for jim and then oil for her for it are freddie macor. the money. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. this is. they need to actually physically hold it out of the ground you know well well. there's a lot of money with your oil and with. a lot of a lot of people from all over the country. you don't make a $100000.00 a year. they were told to you know are they hard work will work it's not easy work and so they want to relieve their stress and how do they relieve their stress. these men that outweigh these men that comfort these men that. people have been murdered up here people can raise their massive drug issues up here you have a boom you have everything else that comes along with money. the showdown over regulating big stack is heating up as facebook fights back against accusations it illegally squashes competition among other complaints by attorneys for the tech giant argue that facebook hasn't broken any laws so joining me now to discuss is molly barrows contributor with america's lawyer now molly it's no surprise here that facebook is denying these allegations of abuse of power but what exactly is the company's defense. you've heard from other big tech companies that essentially they sort of fall through the cracks of the regulations that their company doesn't fall under the existing definitions of what a monopoly might look like so i think there's some need for updating regulatory language if you will and regulatory laws and we can get into that in a minute but you know just to recap these 2 lawsuits basically make similar claims that facebook bought instagram and whatsapp in order to squash what they thought was competition that could pose a threat to the company the attorney general accused facebook of using their market dominance to stifle that the f.t.c. also wanted them to unload instagram and whatsapp and become separate companies again so in response to those claims facebook's basically alleging that those 2 apps weren't exactly real competitors they were potential competitors rachel rather than an actual threat and they're also arguing that the f.t.c. actually cleared those acquisitions and didn't have a problem with it at the time so what's the issue now and those are the types of argand's that have been overturned in other cases but basically again they're just relying on the fact that current antitrust regulation really needs to be redefined and updated it's not as simple as say like a big oil company eating up a smaller company and then controlling prices it's difficult to define the marketplace you know how traditionally what's been called a monopoly is that what facebook is so they're just basically trying to say hey we sort of fall through the cracks we're kind of unregulated which you've heard from other big tech companies before yeah that's funny because only facebook would be able to say oh no they weren't really competitors just because of course we're facebook but we know this is a conversation and it we've been having in recent months trying to figure out are always congress is trying to figure out what to do with these big tech giants and right now multiple hearings are underway in congress over how to regulate big tech so how close are we to seeing any new legislation that actually would implement new regulations. well we could see new legislation maybe before the end of spring as these hearings continue now will they will have any real tease will it make a difference that's where the real interest will lie you know you had that subcommittee the house judiciary committee subcommittee they held their 1st hearing on tech dominance after that 16 month probe into the big ones amazon apple facebook and google and that prompted calls that investigation from a lot of democrats for structural remedies to businesses like facebook maybe even breaking some of these but you know whatever they recommend a lot of financial experts say that it's going to have to be tailored to individual issues that it's unlikely they're going to end up breaking them up because you have to prove that there was harm and that they hurt the you know the competitor that they hurt the consumer and facebook is claiming right now and blog post that what they've done is not causing any harm which is interesting because you know last week i did a story on illinois tech law where they find facebook like the federal court upheld them paying a 650000000 dollars settlement for just violating a privacy law there because they've got a privacy law that says you don't have to do harm all we have to do is show that you violated the law so it'll be interesting to see if the feds will follow in those footsteps that maybe you don't have to show harm we just have to show that you've been dominant in baiting our privacy you know yeah vesture and it'll certainly be interesting to see exactly where this one goes excellent points to consider here molly varos thank you so much for your time. thanks rachel. in a new milestone for any cheese of peoples artwork sold for by famous auction house christie's went for $69300000.00 this makes it the most expensive non fungible token ever this artwork titled the 1st $5000.00 days is a collage of images made by cult favorite mike winkleman over the past 13 years the price nearly doubled from $37000000.00 within the last few minutes of the auction meanwhile that 1st tweet ever published is still up for auction by twitter see jack dorsey until march 21st it still says $2500000.00. just a little bit of a price tag mayor all that's all for now you can catch on demand by downloading the portable t.v. out for your apple or android device will see you here next and as always don't forget to question more. one of the worst ever mass shootings in america was in less vegas in 2017 the tragedy exposed a little of the real last vegas where many say elected officials are controlled by casino owners the degas shooting reveal where d l g m p d really is and now it's part of the stand as sheen has to the american public barely remembers that it happened but just shows you the power of money on las vegas the powerful showed that true colors when the pandemic hit the most contagious contagion that we've seen in decades and then you have a mayor who doesn't care so here's carol i goodman offering the lives of the vegas residents to the control group to the shiny facades conceal of deep indifference to the people could have been saved if they were taken action absolutely keep the roads shrinking machines doing base is a money machine is a huge cash register that is ran by people who don't care about people's lives being lost. it's seemed wrong. rules just don't hold. any new world yet to shape out does they become advocates and indeed from an equal betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. some control for a middle. of the night most of them are very hardworking people who want to get ahead that either have some some health issues or have some strict about luck a full time job won't always pay for a place to live and missing just a month's rent can get you with victim to gunpoint if anything bad happens to any thing that just throws your budget off slightly. you better catch up real quick or you're going to have a judgment of possession against you and get addicted anyone that's homeless is treated like garbage people look at you like a monster or someone bad or you chose to be there most of the time it's not the case see how it is to be in the world's richest country. welcome to maximize your financial survival guide. that's what them. yanks this is what happens to pensions in britain. watched kaiser report. tactics that can be used to get innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit i don't even think people in the us really get that the police are allowed to lie to the person who falsely confessed actually came to believe the lie that they were told about their own behavior once a false confession the stake in the case is closed and nobody really can tell the difference between a good confession and one that isn't. ironic that all the people that are in the big point bubble talk about the other bubbles that the fed is inflated without recognizing that they're in a bubble themselves and it's like a bubble is generally in the eye of the beholder nobody can tell their own bubble and so you've got all these people who are involved in the crypto bubble they can see it. headlining this out of the european commission admits covert vaccines on being evenly distributed among member states following claims by austria of backroom wheeling and dealing by. performers ok by 3 of the country's 4 national finances saying they cannot survive the pandemic shut down of cultural sites. justice from new york state can homes cope with victims' families who lost loved ones accuse the authorities of covering up the death numbers. be careful what you read the british musician quotes a successful band after he slammed online for praising an anti hunting.