They are arguably the most iconic their mail order catalog was once a fixture of american households in fact some facts some families even ordered their actual houses out of the catalogs they sold how this isnt catalogs for vaal things and then there are the hard numbers we continue to see a large number of retail bankruptcies registered by s. And p. Global intelligence in fact in may of this year the number of such bankruptcies eighteen had already equaled all the bankruptcies for two thousand and sixteen plus retailers dillards kohls sears and macys have all taken big falls on the fortune five hundred list why is this occurring well myriad reasons including but not limited to the bursting of the Consumer Credit bubble back in two thousand and eight that came with that crash of the Housing Market when people couldnt borrow against their equity anymore the rise of amman and amazon and other Online Shopping of course especially for clothes and the loss of middle class due to the stagnant wages and the upward shift in wealth towards household that are more likely to spend on luxury goods and items you might get the local mall. Still some retailers including costco t. J. Maxx and home depot have really beaten the trends and as weve reported on this program this year is black friday and cyber monday both set records with cyber monday two thousand and seventeen entering the history books as the biggest shopping day ever this suggests that there is still ways for chump change to survive if they can leverage their brick and mortar presence with a really resoundingly retail strategy. Not too long ago the u. S. Mens soccer team was eliminated from competing in the twenty first fateful world cup leaving fans feeling anguished one sports Economist Says that loss could also have some financial implications more about that were joined now by the actor matheson professor of economics at holy cross victory he wrote on the blog of the sports economist at the u. S. Not being in the world cup could mean money problems for russia which is the events host next year how sell well so the United States isnt always known as a big soccer power however when it comes to the world cup u. S. Soccer fans like to travel almost like no other country in the world in both south africa and brazil we had as many people come in from the United States to visit those countries as essentially any other country in the world. So you know sort of mentioned this but the u. S. Is not exactly a quote soccer mad nation and a mess but american fans have traditionally made up a big portion of the fans that attend the world cup so why do you think that is. So its at least in part due to the fact that were just such a big country right over three hundred Million People in the country as a whole were going to get a lot more tourists go into the world cup than maybe in iceland this year smallest country in the world cup with only three hundred thousand residents in the entire country so thats certainly one piece there and maybe another piece is the fact that our own domestic leagues Major League Soccer here in the u. S. Maybe arent the sort of things that inspire the u. S. Fans is as much as in other countries so for example in germany the fans might go and travel around the world to see byron munich and maybe not as much to see the German National team here in the United States if youre going to travel around the world to watch you know one of your teams its got to be the National Team because youre not seeing d. C. United or the l. A. Galaxy on the world stage as a club so do you think fans from other countries and particularly the ones that are quote soccer mad make up for the lost of the u. S. Tourists are almost certainly not right if you think about the sort of teams who are going to come from this region of the world instead of the United States thats going to be a coast to reka its going to be a honduras its going to have an amount of much much smaller countries in the United States certainly wont do anything to make up for the maybe fifty thousand u. S. Soccer fans that might have normally been expected to go over to russia what about the businesses that try to profit from the world cup for example these an ounce to amping up point of sale terminals to accept Digital Payments made their phones or even smart watches during the event are they going to be hurt financially in the same way. Well thats certainly a bit obviously also if your big advertiser who bought time already for world cup games here in the United States a certainly if your ship might be down some. And again the all of russia was counting on huge numbers of course from all around the world and of course those host countries dont always have complete control over how many tourists are going to show up exactly for reasons like this of course weve got some other big soccer powers missing the netherlands italy also countries to travel fairly well with their teams and youre also missing countries like china which is again not a soccer med nation but certainly a place with lots of potential tourists that could have been flooding into russia with lots of money so it sounds Like Networks could probably be hurt by this too i know fox sports paid four hundred Million Dollars to obtain the English Speaking rights in the u. S. Is that a decision theyre going to regret. I would say they certainly will regret it somewhat that being said United States is one of probably the few countries in the world where you could actually get away with your home team not being in the event and still having a lot of people show up so during the last during the last world cup in two thousand and fourteen the most watched game of the world cup here in the United States was not actually any of the games that the United States was in but wasnt back the final itself which was the highest watched sporting event outside the n. F. L. In the entire United States a year the world cup is about six months away is there anything russia can do to prevent offset the projected loss in revenue your expect thing we might see. So pretty unlikely again theres just some things that are always out of your control and how and what teams show up and how well they do is is one thats completely up to serendipity for example in brazil brazil got very very lucky they had the same sort of stadium problems that many hosts of had huge cost overruns there but when it came to the actual term in itself they got the best possible outcome they got neighboring argentina made it all the way to the final and because of that as many as two hundred fifty thousand extra tourists showed up in brazil beyond what people would normally have expected because it was an easy last minute trip for people from neighboring argentina to make so if youre russia what youre hoping for is well you were hoping for the United States and some of these other big countries to make it in the first place but were also hoping for is maybe a deep run into the tournament by some some countries that could easily get their last minute so maybe hope for germany to make it all the way to the finals i want to switch gears now and ask you about the n. F. L. After nearly a year protests the league and the Players Coalition reach an agreement for the organization and its owners to provide one hundred Million Dollars in funding for social activism projects deemed important by the players what are your thoughts on how that arrangement could work out. Well so obviously this has been something hugely been in the n. F. L. And of course the rest of the country. Teams owners players dont want to be seen coming out on one side or the other of the political divide pretty easy way to alienate half of your fans in a partisan nation like weve got today we definitely have seen this two years in a row of viewership being down in the n. F. L. Doesnt make any difference for this years t. V. Contract since thats already inked on that deal but it certainly could make a lot of differences new deals come forward in the future. Question is what can you do to try to tamp all this down at least one compromises is trying to get the players to be standing during the anthem and to acknowledge some of their problems by by donating to their choice of charities some people obviously have been critical of this is in that are you just redistributing n. F. L. Charitable funds from one charity to another its hardly a win for the players if you get money going into social justice organizations but being taking out of places like the cure for cancer. Victor matheson professor of economics at holy cross thanks so much for your time. Well thank you for having me. Teachers students in schools across the United States are speaking out against the g. O. P. Tax plan after moodys downgraded its rating for Higher Education arties david miller has the latest on the ratings and how students will adjust to higher costs and less deductions you have for public universities across the United States are facing financial uncertainty and this comes after moodys downgraded its Financial Outlook for Higher Education to a negative rating from a stable reading rating Credit Rating agency predicted that the growth of the industrys expenses will outpace Revenue Growth for the next twelve to eighteen months public universities empathetically will face numerous money woes because to federal Financial Aid programs or even funding growth it fails to keep up with inflation but exaggerate Higher Educations problems moody said increase of two wish in Revenue Research funding and state contributions will remain subdued the agency says expect that the sectors expenses will rise by four percent but less than twenty percent of public four year institutions will see the revenue increase by more than three percent and more than half of private institutions will achieve growth of a least three percent and the g. O. P. s tax bills could hurt college as private fund raising increase borrowing calls for private activity the bonds and depressed graduate student enrollment also at play are the federal immigration policies which could decrease International Student enrollment and both the house of representatives and the senate have passed legislation in recent weeks that would overhaul the u. S. Tax code the bills have been harshly criticized by Higher Education leaders geo. The plan would also prevent americans from deducting from taxable income the interest paid on Student Loans benefit saves borrowers two hundred two dollars a year on average this is according to an American EnterpriseInstitute Analysis of federal data and changes in Financial Aid programs and tax reform could work to further negatively impact in rome and to wish Revenue Growth donations and the cost of borrowing the g. O. P. Plan would also repeal a provision tax payers to deduct up to four thousand dollars a year into question and Living Expenses and if they earn less then sixty five thousand dollars a year in adjusted gross income and critics of the bills that hardworking students would suffer as a result of many of the provisions and with the downgrade and ratings from movies a question is how will the United States continue to compete in terms of education and advancement in a Global Economy reporting for boom bust david miller r. T. America. Stay right there plenty more best of boom bust is on the way well be right back. A robot governments can be much more rational and lots more compassion to. All of human governments that. People will be more happy with the situation. With the. Us running insisting that we do not in keeping them i am. I must. I mean you when you. Who are new. When you dont need you to go should start with. Oh. Yes yes to. Showcase they. Dont need. To do from a jewish when you want. To do everything just to discuss but the custos throne room just over young. This is the last edition of cross talk for the year and were doing Something Different we also questions from you our viewers. On wednesday the Federal Reserve decided to raise Interest Rates for the third time this year policymakers pointed to a few reasons behind their decision like lower unemployment higher Household Spending and bigger investments by businesses to get her insight on that were joined now by danielle de martino booth president of money strong l. L. C. And author of fed up and insiders take on why the Federal Reserve is bad for America Danielle this decision was widely expected to happen but theres still work to fed president s that voted against raising rates was the right decision made on wednesday. Well i think the fed is still playing a very aggressive game of catch up if i had my druthers we would be a two percent right now and call it a day were certainly not there and evans and cash cari are tory asli dovish cash couriers dissented every time the fed has raised Interest Rates. According to him they should still be down at point six two five percent somewhere in that area which is just ridiculous its the same thing as being at the zero down and its what has fomented so much financial instability but beyond that we dont really have to worry about them because they rotate off after yesterday when we know that Jerome Powell is probably going to continue on the same path of his predecessor but new york fed president bill dudley is leaving next year and President Trump still hasnt nominated a vice chair for the feds board so do you think that could maybe throw a wrench into what everyone is expecting for the fed in the next year look this is a full blown regime change it is anybodys guess i was i was intrigued yesterday the president of the United States managed to have a press conference in the middle of Janet Yellen Press Conference i found that to be extraordinary but you know what we really didnt need to Pay Attention to her last press conference because anything can change Going Forward because the cast of characters is almost completely different than what it used to be well during the press conference eon finally answered some questions on crypto currency calling big corn an unstable source of value that doesnt constitute legal tender but she then added that the fed had been doing research on creating their own Digital Currencies even though she emphasized there is no plan to do so at least not right now so im curious what are your thoughts on that. Well so youre talking about fed corn and im kind of aligned with jay powell and randy quarrels whos new to the Federal Reserve board and their take on a Federal Reserve electronic currency that the time is premature but because countries like china and japan and russia and venezuela we know that theyve theyve taken steps to implement their own which means the United States is going to have to have its own electronic currency as well as a matter of National Security that being said i would certainly side with again corals and powell and their view is that if we do have a fed currency of some kind the transactions themselves would have to be im not a miss as opposed to using fed coin as a means by which to monitor the purchases of the purchases of u. S. Households well as you just alluded to Central Banks around the world have a lot of differing opinions on bitcoin for example india has totally banned it over concerns about Money Laundering and other financial crimes but in the u. K. Bank of England Governor Mark carney said cryptocurrency could be part of a potential revolution in finance so what do you think the biggest concerns about bitcoin are at the fed. Well i think the fed should rightly be concerned about anything thats basically gained fifteen hundred percent in short order and surpasses the size of the tulip mania of sixteen thirty any time any time anything goes parabolic i think that is the central banker you have to have that on your radar screen because its simply a reflection of a speculative mania. That being said the Block Chain Technology itself i thin