Speculation local authorities have been encouraged to use things such as electricity prices and taxes to suppress the mining the order did not specify a deadline but does require monthly progress reports because Mining Operations are rewarded with payments and Digital Currency is and are also needed to approve transactions in the currency analysts say the chinese policy could dent the price and supply of Digital Currencies for weeks or even months chinese regulators banned new initial Coin Offerings those icy os last sept and the energy that gave the order is led by the peoples bank of china not so fast. Kodak is having a moment share values shot up dramatically after the Company Announced that they will make an initial Coin Offering themselves later this month its called kodak coin of course and the currency will be used for all transaction on kodak one a new platform to help digital photographers collect royalties and assert rights on the use of their work kodak is partnering with when group of london to create the platform some skeptics question or question the value of the platform and whether photographers would be smart to accept payment in the new Digital Currency but kotok stock which was just over three dollars before the announcement was trying to get ten dollars and ninety cents as we went to air kodak is or once was a well known u. S. Brand but its fallen on harder times with the rise of digital cameras and the collapse of demand for actual film what codecs provided to two thousand and twelve bankruptcy they have struggled to find their footing in a Disruptive Market we also no longer have those little green photo booths remember those in the park mall parking lots probably a good thing canadas government is cozying up to pro and after republicans in the hopes of keeping the trade pact alive President Trump and his administration had threatened to axe the agreement on a number of occasions even with many in his own party backing the deal and how does nafta impact farm in rural economies arties alex mahela bitch joins us from toronto with more alex tell us about Prime Minister trudeau strategy with the pro nafta high level republicans. Yes Prime Minister trudeau what keeps him up at night hell say nafta we know that negotiations havent been doing too well the last round which was some calling a mini round in december didnt yield much progress whatsoever so the Prime Minister trudeau is looking to up the ante he sent Christian Freeland our Foreign Affairs minister down to the states to talk to the commerce secretary wilbur ross we know that he is not a big fan of nafta as it stands but a lot of people when they dont like nafta all they want to do is see some major changes happen to nafta mainly because if you talk to President Trump to get a fair deal for the u. S. We know that the trade deficit especially were talking about mexico is quite substantial so these are the type of people she needs to convince but she also has a lot of people on board that are in the Republican Party so she spoke to a list of them or a look at least have a list of them that she wanted to speak to and that includes arizona as of jeff flake tennessees Lamar Alexander pat roberts from kansas nebraska instead fisher and of course South Carolina carolina Lindsey Graham that big name there so these are the people that she knows already are on her side but she needs them to get behind the ball and start pushing President Trump in the direction of saving enough to not axing the agreement now the next round of talks for nafta are due in two weeks in montreal so thats why the pressure is on right now yeah and you mentioned in those list the senator is Alex A Pat Roberts hes actually from kansas hes the chair of the Senate Agriculture committee and that reminds me i know we do talk about the auto sector being impacted by daft a lot on this show it will do it again like agriculture is huge and we know as it stands has created about one of trade between canada mexico and the states so even when you take the deficit into consideration the big one and when we talk about agriculture in this continent or on this continent we talk about dairy most of the time and the states that would be most impacted nine point six. Theyre doing nine point six billion dollars worth of trade with mexico and canada that supports nearly two hundred fifty thousand jobs if we were to see nafta ago there could be a forty five percent tariff on cheese exports to their top market which is mexico so that would big be a major hit to that industry within wisconsin itself of course minnesota also another big agricultural market were looking at one point five billion dollars of worth of exports but now were talking about products like pork soybeans and corn and michigan michigan sixty five percent of their exports they go to canada and mexico that is worth thirty five billion dollars so when all of this is taken into account you can see that you know nafta is pretty important to farmers and to the agriculture industry so for the most part what were hearing as theyd like it to be saved and if there has to be any type of you know changing it around that its better to change it around than to axe this thing all together especially for the Agricultural Industry only got about thirty seconds here but i got to ask you about softwood lumber thats always been a troubling trade issue tell us about that. Were talking about since the nine hundred eighty s. So a one nine hundred eighty two is when the software lumber thing started between canada and the States Canada has now taken this to the World Trade Organization pumping up the rhetoric part pumping up the argument some are calling it very bad timing since were trying to get now to push through softwood lumber very quickly when we talk about software lovebird us about eighty percent of the lumber we see its me used in construction also used to make paper and cardboard as well so for canada this is a very touchy point since we have a huge Forestry Industry in this country and theyre saying that the u. S. Is not playing fair when it comes to this but again this is something weve been saying since the one nine hundred eighty s. And for those to be resolved i cant see it happening too soon you know well well keep on it and youll help us keep on it r. T. Correspondent alex mahela bitch thank you as always thank you. So lets get into the details a little bit more how is the farm and Rural Economy doing and how has the Trump Administration fared so far lets ask brad kaufman the author of bet the farm how food stop being food who joins us from new york fred thanks for being with us i love that title of your book now the president s speech to the farm here was a fairly general but in his defense and ive listened to a lot of president s in the past work for a secretary of agriculture thats what most of the president s do theyre pretty general what did you make of his speech fred. Im sorry barb but it was just a bunch of bloviation about immigration and hillary and the wall and there were no details whatsoever i think he made one point about how there should be Crop Insurance in the farm bill and i think Everybody Knows that for the past one hundred years or so there we have been sharing fed profiteer its right yes i worked on a bunch of those bills yes theyre very controversial but let me ask you the i dont know if you may have heard the end of alexs report from toronto on nafta but whats your take fred on how the farm and Rural Economy has fared on under nafta do you have a view yeah i think that alex if anything is underestimating the impact this is absolutely huge for American Farmers that particularly in terms of meat exports sugar deals with japan deals with canada mexico and the idea was we were supposed to get out of nafta and make Bilateral Agreements there are no Bilateral Agreements apart none of this is happening this is completely stalled its a looming disaster. You know i didnt hear the president say anything about other issues issues i actually worked on in the past fred were all housing business rolex tricity he did touch on on broadband and he did say a little bit about that matter of fact ill try to find find it here but he signed a couple of executive orders fred and i went and looked at those executive orders and heres what i can tell you they dont do squat theyre just they generally say you know were going to make our best efforts to do all we can to pool resources but theres no new money theres no new competitive incentives for carriers to actually help get better connections or Rural America whats needed there with broadband. Well he needs an infrastructure deal i mean i hes been talking infrastructure for whats ever since he he went down that escalator talk about infrastructure there is no money there is no deal hes got this problem with immigration he cant move forward from it immigration is a whole other issue that he doesnt even touch and thats a huge issue for for farmers in america are those are whos working those farms and those Seasonal Workers but he needs an infrastructure deal is the bottom line for the broadband so its great to talk about broadband but theres no meat on them bones yet absolutely and we do to you guys theres so many great issues out there and i push it our viewers to hang with us on this but you make me think you know weve got to talk more about those workers particularly in Southern California who are out in those vegetable fields that in the valley and you know they mean nobody wants to know americans really want to do that work it is really hard work and you know what does that mean for the economy in california and throughout the nation last question fred as you know my experience tells me that the differences in farm country are less political less republican versus democrat which is one of the things i liked about working on those issues they were too partisan its more about where you grow crops are you in the south and you have rice and corn or you know the are rice and rice and cotton rather or in the north and you have wheat and corn or you have dairy etc what do you think is going on with with farming operations throughout the country what do you expect heading into twenty eighteen i think youre absolutely right part i think i think really one of the largest differences here is in the large mega farms and the small family farms there are two point one million farms in america and more than a third of them more than eight hundred thousand are on less than fifty acres and the new tax bill that trump is flouting does actually nothing for the small farmer that its really these these breaks are for pass through Companies Less than seven percent of the farms that pass through is for the monsantos for the very mega producers. Theres a big problem here the future of american farming is like the past in small family farms thats the only way were going to get the right connections from urban to rural and the other issue which i just want to bring out is everybody understands from the military to the cia that having food from nowhere from the largest mega producers is a Huge NationalSecurity Risk because those monolithic lines of distribution are the easiest to disrupt therefore fostering family farms is not only a boon for National Sovereignty and for Food Sovereignty but for National Security and i think our president needs to look at that i could agree with you more on that and by i will by the way a little programming note tomorrow were going to have some back banks takes a look at estens. Power the culture the rise a big going in the millions of people about buying it in japan the multi billion dollars that theyve appreciated in value is causing a genuine effect in their economy and this is going to be the year twenty eighteen where Bitcoin Cryptocurrency savages geo political influence. In two thousand and sixteen the panama paper has shown the world with a tax haven the secrets to trailing and United States dollars pass through most conseco in the amount of time that we did them in Panama Papers exposure thats what it shows for a lot of money it really is. Journalism its an act of journalism looking at things that people want to keep secret and im asking why millions of phone so we could dont commence were examining. All the people we basically have tried to get then ive done the job to the saudi. Newspaper. And probably other politician which what. Are the police and the media would point to find their targets. Such as the kings of morocco and saudi arabia the president of argentina several Prime Ministers. And russian president Vladimir Putin of course. Michael at that time so i have sued so many newspapers for defamation some things dont just happen by chance it was very striking there were no more americans and girls especially a lot of people from the brics countries specially brazil russia and china their special project reveals what was missed in the media coverage. The panama chronicles. Welcome back switzerland made a lot of money in twenty seventeen with its central bank earning more than fifty five billion dollars in profits get this that amount fifty five billion bucks is more than apple earned all last year and more than j. P. Morgan chase and Berkshire Hathaway combined keep in mind that these are world spanning companies against a central bank with about eight hundred people working there while the Swiss National bank is also one of the few Central Banks with listed shares which doubled in price in twenty seventeen alone interestingly enough the swiss banks filing showed that it owned over nineteen million shares wait for it. Apple. Toyota and mazda in a joint manufacturing effort will be opening a new car plant in alabama bringing in more than four thousand jobs the new plant comes at the cost of one point six billion dollars and is expected to produce more than three hundred thousand vehicles a year toyota currently employs over one hundred thirty six thousand people in the United States and last employs around twenty five thousand throughout the United States foreign automakers employ directly or indirectly over one point two nine million people. Data data and more data theres so much information in todays goober complicated Technology World plus software quickly becomes outdated how do we capture and use and analyze data in this increasingly complex world heres what we know big data is big money and for big businesses which often do not use their big data properly it could spell big trouble here to discuss in studio as our data wrangler with c. The c. E. O. Of tendou systems. Pam thank you for being here its great to see you happy new year happy new year im glad one person yeah its nice that last time you were up in new york ok so lets talk about just give us a hundred thousand foot view what do you thinks going to happen on big data in twenty eighteen i know thats generic but do that one drill down ok i think us to you know its quite simple i think where if we if we compared to the last five years of that revolution of the bitcoin and the block sane and all of the noise that we heard before we isolated the problem i think what were going to find big day is going to shift so discussion around Machine LearningArtificial Intelligence and there are going to be pundits out there which im one of that are going to be trying to sell their solutions and the answer as to how they can do this and i think were. Facing a very complicated and confusing two thousand and eight to understand what were supposed to do with these tools for the data but you sort of look at this the future of two thousand and eighteen as a really Tipping Point where theres going to be lots more focus like on the Digital Currencies and people are going to start questioning what were what were doing on that i think absolutely this can be the transformation ear of where theyre going to go and really recognizing that we have to get a handle on the state and i think the opening remark you made about some of these old systems i think that the fact that we never went back and looked at our back Office Infrastructure across the board has left us with you know old data which is very big and important and its left us with new data and with the clues in how do we start integrating but more importantly monetizing the value out of that ok im g