t america's broadcast headquarters in washington where cleaners look like they're mopping up plutonium we've been issued a 17 page manual handsome instruction book for re entering the workplace now is a long time consultant i'm green with envy i can only imagine how many billable hours went into producing that document but for what other products and services is this pandemic a legitimate gold rush and richard who are the opportunistic profiteers. well there are so many it kind of fogl to the mind on the one hand you have the hustlers and i'm trying to are like the people who are using a social media on the internet to sell fake medicines to sell fake cures to sell fake vaccines and to sell all manner of things that are going to protect you from the virus and from getting sick. much of that is illegal and many of the claims involved are straight out of the regal but it's going on it's very hard to stop it exists both in the united states and in the larger world so that's one con but even when you get upset about it it's a small amount of money compared to what you might call the legitimate examples like you were mentioning of levy stroud's with the genes. let's take one example amazon where you can't go to a store safely when you don't want to get joe masks and gloves on and all the rigamarole what do you do you use a delivery service amazon is a delivery service jeffry b.'s ost is a delivery boy it tells you a lot about the united states that the richest reward we give is to someone who can deliver packages quickly but he's cashing in the current estimate is that his personal wealth every tied up in amazon stock went up something on the order of $24000000000.00 in the last and weeks so there's something extraordinary in an economy that makes what was already the richest man in the world that much richer while 42000000 people went on employment benefits facebook anything that the internet offers is something that is now going to be purchased as we're all stuck at home trying to figure out how to pass the time i'm worried over the job we may or may not have when all this is over and cetera et cetera huge amounts of money being lost by the neighborhood store or lost by the local restaurant lost by all manner of people that money has however moving somewhere and it's moving to the people who are in a position through no effort of their own they're just lucky that the way this virus works brought then an avalanche of new business in europe less point next trying to tax all of it so they're claiming that they have a national emergency and those who are already rich and became richer should get at least a significant portion of their windfall to help a country and problem we're not doing that in this country and it's making the the tension between europe and the united states more difficult than them they already were. and history has not been kind to the widening gap between the haves and the have nots you are raising 2 interesting points when you say a mouthful when you say amazon because amazon is more than stuff i've been watching movies and t.v. shows and i have access to 14000 songs if i bark at alexa because i'm an amazon prime so he's got a big software play there jeff bezos does but in terms of the delivery dynamic don't you think that in whatever the new normal turns out to be that that's something that's going to sustain have we gotten spoiled by this bring it to me moment we've been in. i don't think so and i only thing in the argument and you're quite right to look to ask the question president news a reason that i think it won't go that way my wife is a psychotherapist and so i am earning a whether i want it or not to all of the discussions among that and one of the most profound. swirling around the internet among psychologists like i are just and all of that is a dreadful do you need loneliness that americans had as a people going into this i bet has become much worse because you're locked down in your home you can't visit your children don't go out and meet the kids their own age they're with you all the time you can't really give them the to i mean the tensions and the difficulties but also are building up to what at least i'm hearing are explosive levels of loneliness and that we are told you know what when this breaks when finally there's a vaccine or whatever allows us to go back to whatever the normal is there is going to be a desire to go to the mall to go to the shuttle or to go to the restaurant not simply and not even primarily to buy the object going to have remedial it's going to be with the people again even if you're only your casual station because it's becoming a very urgent need that those stores and malls will be able to fill and amazon chant doing that. we are social animals and the browsing is something we have massed we're speaking with richard wolffe of the economist and it's hard to imagine that our economy is not going to suffer in cleanup mode after uncle sam has been running the printing presses day and night creating the monopoly money for all these relief payments is hurtful inflation inevitable and are we at risk of what guys our age remember as stagflation. you know i'm afraid the answer is yes we are subject to it and yes we are going to pay for the policies that have been in use today it is important and i say this as a professional economist it is important to understand that this is the worst economic korat in 99 years it's a it's worst the only thing worse than this is a great depression itself of the one thing pretty and not only do we had such a collapse but we have my own crisis on top of it it is our lot to deal with and the people in charge of our economy oh secretary of the treasury the new chairman or the head the federal reserve mr powell and so on they are what ever they show the public they are on it they know a whole that we don't have any roadmap out of this the mess throwing money just as you say printing it out of going out as well you know throwing the money they're saying the kind of things you say when you're running and if i can get out of this mess now throwing everything i got there's no point in worrying about the future so if they're not we're going to have to regain that future but it's a kind of a scary prospect it's all one train all that money where has it gone it has not gone to masses of people to produce more goods and services we know that because they're all on the employed and companies can't even sell what's already in their inventory then of course the money isn't going to go into producing more where is the money going it's going into the stock market which has added insulation now that's wonderful moods but a 10 percent of americans who own a be present of the shares for everybody else not at all and finally there's the risk. if and when that money that run little in the stock market were to become serial full about a crash in the stock market again where is that money going to go they're going to start buying what are called real goods land buildings inventories and then you're going to see the inflation where it hits our pocketbooks rather than in the stock market where it makes the rich even richer and all the while the difference between rich and poor worsens. well i just got a minute left but i must ask to that point look we've just seen in the space of about 3 weeks we went from 3 percent unemployment to over 40000000 unemployed and beyond those round numbers gaze into the crystal ball which occupations in the new normal will be dead ends and what will be the opportune new career paths i got just a minute richer. well i'm afraid we don't know i wish i could give you an answer and tell you but to variables are so many and the unknown nature of all of this my guess is however that one of the areas that will come back strong is everything having to do with health and much has to do with education we were unprepared for a virus we could and should have been prepared for we don't have in place a medical system that is as good as many other countries who have less resources than we do i think you're going to see a reaction in which people demand and we as a society will give ourselves then new jobs in the health care clinics care etc and the other big crisis is education we stopped at your schools i'm a professor we don't teach at a distance to do proper teaching you need an interactive arrangement that is private and that is intense and we're going to want that back in the same way that will repeat a want to get back into the browsing and the interactions with other human beings i think you're absolutely right economists richard wall thank you again for your time always appreciate your perspective on these issues coming up while we've been hunkered down at mother nature is on the mend are we seeing the green view. sure this is the big picture on our t. america. we go to work so you straight home. america and so long as they're growing at propitious rates because america empire right because it's easy for the top to say feed everything and leave nothing for everyone else america will be better off if it was not an empire so the collapse of the us dollar will be painful for a period of time but what comes on the outside will be i think a lot more amenable to nothing. secret prisons and not usually what comes to mind when thinking about europe however even the most prosperous can be deceived we've been busy rose on the way to view houses were allowed to leave prison was located only see how you can fool had access to the story for investigators show how zillion covered the darkest dealings of the secret services but i mean. you graded nor been taught or known son you. p.c. may be a sore knee yes or no for. crying for justice on oxy. well something terrible has been happening something wonderful has been happening fewer cars and trucks on the road fewer planes in the sky and if you look up at that sky over los angeles even over in new delhi it's actually blue on land and sea critters are returning to places that they had shunned and while the 50th anniversary of earth day went to unnoticed dramatic changes in our environment seem to be happening overnight as a result of lockdown orders taking place around the globe while these orders intend to mitigate the spread of the corona virus the unintended consequences have been some quick and stunning anecdotal changes to our climate challenges have we seen the greener future in the new normal or have we given planet earth a gift we're going to have to take back let's ask brian keene's was president of smart power dot org a nonprofit washington based firm and brian was the very 1st guest on the very 1st show i did on r t america almost 3 years ago brian we haven't schedule off welcome back. it's great to be back in your good you remember that. the the midnight how ling of coyote's who have ventured back in the music to the ears of city folk but long time no see dolphins in the canals in venice what are some of the other good things that have happened while we've been torturing the environment less lately. it's been unbelievable it's and you know it's i think everybody watching says is pricing part of this it's we're seeing animals kind of that we've never seen we're seeing cleaner air i mean you mentioned new delhi we're seeing cleaner air you can see beijing that from space where we've never been able to see that before dolphins in venice and we're talking about there's literally deer now walking down the streets in major major cities major cities and towns across the united states and you've never seen that before the trick here that we have to keep reminding ourselves is. they've actually probably already always been there it's just that now we're not so what's happened say in venice for instance the dolphins have actually always been there it's just that there have been so many people so many boats so much mud and muck being picked up every day that we just never saw them and so it's happening is actually that we're the ones going away and the animals are taking over and so it's really kind of passing to see it happen what's really very cool to see him to realize what we've done is that we have changed human behavior because of the coronavirus literally overnight we changed quickly we changed human behavior and the lesson there and kind of the exciting point if you will is that we can change human behavior now hopefully we don't have to do it again as dramatically as drastically but if we're going to actually solve the climate crisis is going to take a piece of changing our human behavior and so what we're saying is hey you know what we can drive less we can actually go to the store less we can actually change our lifestyle to improve human kind of human nature for the better and that's what's really been pretty exciting throughout this process it is if you will the silver lining that really between from the coronavirus. well and nowhere will that behavioral change be more apparent than in the workplace with all this telecommuting we've been doing you've got the boss rethinking the return on investment of x. $100.00 per square foot of pricey new york real estate and many employees now prefer to work at home wall street journal article recently said they're questioning why do we even live here because where there are a home game a wary of rejoining the work space or traveling to it on public transportation and in a survey of $425.00 companies by human resources consulting firm operations ank 57 percent of the employers surveyed said we will allow these employees to continue to work from home only 6 percent say we will stand by our safety measures and insist that these employees come to the office with their coworkers and 37 percent are unsure at this time here's operations and c.e.o. david lewis that's one of the big stories i think we're going to see out of all of this is that we've learned how to do business on a face to face basis without being in the same room when we do that and so businesses who have figured out how to master the art of skype or teams or zoom or whatever the product is that they're using have really come to realize that this is going to be a game changer. brian could this shift in the way we work walk in some of the relief the environment has enjoyed lately. when i 1st preface this by saying i always knew i should have gone into commercial real estate some let it into. good. exactly i don't do many things right that was one of them. but you know i think we're going to see him keep in mind you know we are social beings we really don't like just being locked in our homes for months potentially years on end so hopefully this will end and we're going to want to be with other people are going to quit and i'm going to work with other people i think we're going to see then what we're realizing and you know the work force was moving towards this eventually anyway very slowly that we can be as productive at home for it. for certain months of time that you know we can do work via broadband we can do work by assuming all that and then go and meet with their own. colleagues in person for a certain amount of months of time we just don't have to all be in highway traffic and traffic jams from 7 am to 9 am and then from 5 pm to 7 pm so we really can save all of their gasoline we can actually say not produce all of that smog we don't have to waste all of that time quite frankly we are having people be much more productive because today they are the 1st in the office because they don't leave home and then the last to leave and so it's really been fascinating to see people be more productive without creating the pollution that goes along with it it's also very interesting that they were seeing some insulated challenges as well because you know a simple get garbage pickup is now spiking its way on it because we're all creating this much trash we're just creating it now at home not in downtown cities you know at the workplace and so you have kind. just challenges moving back and forth there along the long story interestingly though is there. it is isn't it lasting a kind if you kind of don't think these things i said in but is going to write like is that so much more trash it all now and we're eating so much more at home so i think you see just that lunch downtown but now it's here so it's really very interesting but what we're actually going to head somewhere is. it does it just doesn't go away and we still just perhaps that end you then they would say wow we really can going to change the way the timing works and so it is like oh you know i really don't care if you come into the office at noon or 2 because i actually realize that you're going to do that work from home and it's just really kind of a matter of you know let's meet can we have a meeting at 2 o'clock because we can do it by soon but actually at some point why don't we just meet in person and have that meeting would be great you make a great point about drive an eternity because you know what i know people right there in the washington area doing the beltway bop every day their drive an hour and 45 minutes each day in each direction and we have recovered that time we're speaking with brian keen from smart power dot org brian while nature has been enjoying the lock down the economic consequences have been dire how has slamming the brakes on business impacted green technology progress. so it's been fascinating you know that it's that those numbers have been dire to just having a meeting but that the other day and i actually think it's a short term hit that what we're going to see in what i think what we're seeing is that especially as we talk about solar power that people are now saying well wait a minute i actually really need to prepare for. worst case scenarios now and residential solar is actually a big salute piece of that solution and so we're starting to see as people say well wait a minute you know i've never actually taken renewable energy seriously before but it actually could be a piece of a worst case scenario and so you can get solar to a by the way in it can be done very socially distant you know when we still sold it to folks people just if you go on in particular will maps a google earth and you look at someone's house you can tell them right away whether their house is good for solar when they come in look at your house bill they climb under your roof they don't even have to see you want to meet with you they can actually do it without even talking to without actually meeting you in person you can all be done socially distant and so it's actually not a problem in fact you know we reset we're seeing this increasingly have people saying well actually i hadn't thought about it before but now i think i want to have my own energy supply too can i get a battery in so it's really actually going to start having a really big uptick not to change and fix the sustainability land but simply to start protecting themselves and that's fine with me as long as people are understanding that hey we could actually you know take care of things here and i don't know how things are going to play on the long term so i want to make sure i have my my own energies of lines too and that's really pretty not going to change. and we're all in the survival mindset now i'm running short on time but when you mentioned small solar i must ask you a couple of years ago post hurricane mario we were talking about the fragile grid on puerto rico and here we are again and another hurricane season and you were talking about neighborhood size power grids i got about a minute left is puerto rico still a sitting duck and if it's not being done there is this kind of technology being implemented elsewhere and places that are fraught. yes so in puerto rico it has serious as its own justice ignition challenge still but the concept in putting in place micro-grid is really exciting and is in solar community solar plants really exciting and in since we talked about of before adding to them solar storage solar batteries which are really coming on the market now so basically what you have is not only just solar that can work you know during the day when the sun is out but it actually collects the energy and then that community can tap into that energy actually even in the in the middle of the night when this big storm hits and there's no power that community then has power when he needs it most so the concept now is solar storage is a real thing and really happening so you have communities solar plants that are really actually able to sustain local communities and that's really saying we're actually seeing utilities use that you know in in arizona the largest you cleaners and it's actually seeing that that is part of their long term plan for sustainability to 2050 and that's really exciting they're actually talking about local community solar arrays we have storage as part of their long term solution. small is beautiful right and a keen smart power dot org thanks again for joining us i look forward to seeing you back when they let us into the mothership in washington meantime stay safe and thank you things i change to see a vote big picture from rhode island the great ocean state i'll be back here next week and in the meantime if you want to look at any of the shows we've done they're all available on demand at youtube dot com slash the big picture r t you can watch us live in a bunch of places including youtube dot com slash r t america direct t.v. channel 321 pluto t.v. 279 dish 2 anything and right there on your device when you download our portable t.v. app. have a good week and happy birthday although salem. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation or community. are you going the right way or are you being led so. direct. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or a maybe in the shallows. thousands of american men and women choose to serve in the country's military and the decision that has shattered lives every song came to a complete. the day that i was raped and i'll be instructed you know told to shut up or they'd kill me and i see how it destroyed my life many screamed at me and he made me come in and you graham my arm and he write me with his birthing curia if you take into account that women don't report because of the extreme retaliation it's probably somewhere near about half a 1000000 women have now been sexually assaulted in the us military rape is a very very traumatizing tat happen but i've never seen trauma. like i've seen from women who are veterans who have suffered military sexual trauma reporting rape is more likely to get the victim punished than the offender hand and almost 10 year career which i was very invested in and i gave the target of sex offender who was not even put to justice or put on the registry this is simply an issue of tower and violence male sexual predators for the large part of target whoever is there to prey upon whether that's men or women. you're. welcome true or exact to deny this is the show we're americans in america covering american news are called foreign agents let's talk about geoffrey epstein now you might be thinking way do you think everything about i've seen has already been said over the past year we've had a wall to wall coverage of arabs in fact he was so tired of seeing his face on television that he killed himself then chopped his body into pieces and dump them in the middle of the atlantic everyone knows it everyone knows but before that we have wall to wall coverage on mainstream media i mean there is a netflix series about him for god's sake he's bigger than fuller.