numbers frankly in the republican debate but that is a demonstration of organization and power. and the other thing is i think both parties have to look at the enormous impact of big money on politics. k street and the lobbyists and they re in there all day every day. the most recent example is they were trying to cut back on agricultural subsidies for example which is something that really does need to be examined in this country but at the same time some of the leading voices are coming in through the back door and finding new ways to reinstate subsidies under a new name. we need to think about all that. i think if there is a long-term trend by the way, it will be that we ll have more public/private partnerships, what mitch daniels is doing in indiana with toll roads, with some in iowa they ve got a private company coming in to manage water districts much more efficiently. even turning out profits for them. you re seeing that in some of the schools. it s a tricky piece but we ve got
to say anything. right. so these two women with alleged stories took money for their silence and we ll never hear from them. are there any other women coming out when they hear about this stepping forward because they want to show a pattern? i don t understand your point. i m just saying we don t really know what happened at all. we have to be really careful and it is probably planted by another campaign. this is what campaigns do and it s completely side tracked him. i think another republican campaign planted this story but at the same time, this speaks to herman cain s fitness as a presidential candidate. totally. not the underlying story itself. right. the way he handled it. but harold ford i m not denying that. the embarrassing way he handled this story. again, being caught in a lie and then trying to explain his way out of a lie like a sixth grader. it s embarrassing if you, as he has stated, i heard him say repeatedly
other members of the political culture would find a way to have a dialogue about what was going on. we have very little of that anymore and that s driven in part by the blogosphere and the amount of money spent on both end of the political spectrum saying you can t begin to meet them in the middle. there is something else going on, though, joe, which we ve not paid enough attention to. during all those events that you describe we didn t have china closing in on us. we didn t have brazil, russia, and india emerging as great global economies. japan used to be our worry. right. china blew by japan last year and it s just on a track to blow by us economically at some point. so that is the difference. we tend in this country to constantly look back and not enough forward. you know, we re, i suppose, the best we re riding on our credits at this point. you know, the 20th century, the american century. guess what? we re in a new century. we have to redefine who we are
mort has touched on one. the challenges in europe, the contagion effect and devastating effect it could have on the economy here and the impact on the presidential race next year. the last thing we need right now. as we begin to see manufacturing tick up, china faces challenges, if we can t deal with the europe thing we got a problem. but to the volcker rule which calls for separation of moneys used in firms for trading and individual accounts, if indeed this allegation is true, which we don t know with the new york times states this morning naturally it spells some other questions, related to other questions the firm has to answer but it probably fuels the conversation in washington around support for the volcker rule. we ll get to more europe news in a minute but first michael steele you have a thought. jump in. i think this plays to the whole problem that people have right now with big money interests not just here in the united states but dwloeglobally. here you have this
to a rival, a deal the company needed to stay afloat. instead of making the deal the firm headed by jon corzine filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday. the investigation centers on whether mf global diverted customer funds to support its own trades. i don t understand this, mort, at all. you have a guy like jon corzine, good guy, knows the street, understands what happened in 2008. there are so many things i don t understand, why he would risk his good name first of all. secondly why he would invest, make one his firm would make one of the riskiest investments possible. the worst investment possible. by the way, investing this kind of money in european debt, this was a risky thing when he did it. i mean, i don t know what he expected would come out of it. to risk the entire firm on one bet basically at this stage of the game, he just goes into it within a matter of months and puts the entire would you call that decision