September 18 – Could the Fed’s Stimulus to Wall Street be Better Spent on Main Street?; The International Backlash to NSA Spying; A Peace Lobbyist on Ending the War in Syria

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the Fed’s announcement that it is continuing to pump 85 billion a month into the bond market which prompted share prices to surge on Wall Street. Robert Kuttner, a former chief investigator for the Senate Banking Committee who wrote a column for Business Week for 20 years, joins us to discuss whether quantitative easing is a subsidy for Wall Street that could be better invested in Main Street and his article at the Huffington Post “Summers' End”.

Part 2

Then we examine the international backlash to the extent of NSA surveillance on foreigners that has caused Brazil’s president to cancel a state visit to Washington and call for the creation of a BRICS Internet that would link Brazil, India, China and South Africa. Gigi Sohn, the co-founder and president of Public Knowledge joins us to discuss the collateral damage to America’s technology companies and our Internet-fueled economy, not to mention the future of freedom of information on the Internet that Russia, China, Sudan and Saudi Arabia want to control and censor.

Part 3

Then finally, Kate Gould, the Legislative Associate for Middle East Policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby that field the largest team of registered peace lobbyists in Washington, joins us to discuss the challenging prospects for peace in Syria and hopeful signs from Iran, particularly their silence on Assad’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians that the Russians are still insisting was a provocation by the rebels.