third of our time here in the house that we all sort of expect go with it the way it was just a silence well you heard that right forget the white picket fence that fannie and freddie mae used to be able to provide the american dream is quickly turning into the american nightmare and so what caused the system to fail. from the midwest to the mid east and even up through greece but world rebellion seems to be spreading but will politics ever close the gap. and the fog of war has settled over the ongoing unrest in libya and reporters eager

for exciting pictures played out the unrest in the name of a hot story. well it's monday march seventh five pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy casanova you're watching our t.v. and when it comes to the american dream visions of the white picket fence are front and center but for decades those fences have been propped up by the government largely through fannie mae and freddie mac. now since taking these enterprises over in the wake of the housing crisis the federal government is now backing the ninety percent of u.s. mortgages but with new proposals on the table by the obama administration the message seems clear but this country could no longer afford to prop up the middle class archies lawrence lister explains more on the story of. the american dream you know you better have a good year our program could be a bar room and provide for your family so we spoke about the way ticket and its

traditional vision of homeownership central to living the dream like the many people we live in the faberge which is turned into a nightmare for millions of americans who've lost their homes to foreclosure. or our faith in it now people like retired corrections officer saw she didn't want to show her face because of this horrible problem to be facing foreclosure you have a family you have your children we try to keep things stabilize for them but she feels helpless in the fight against losing their home i think she's in because of a dispute with the banks over the terms of her adjustable rate mortgage i do feel like it's a right the it should be my right to remain in my home i've been here for nearly twenty years but now americans like sandra they have to kiss the national eco's that says owning a home is a birthright could buy altogether if the future people may still aspire to have got the picket fence where they're going of

a hard time getting that house that we all sort of expect go with that with just a friends that's because for decades it's been two government sponsored firms propping up homeownership in the country by keeping money flowing to mortgage lenders fannie mae and freddie mac. you may recall them from the financial crisis when their losses led the u.s. government to bail them out to the tune of one hundred fifty billion dollars here in the working class neighborhood of jamaica just outside new york city you can really see what some of those losses from the housing crisis look like this two family home for example before the crisis sold for just over six hundred fifty thousand dollars now not too long ago at a foreclosure auction one hundred seventy five thousand dollars of that debt was auctioned for just two thousand dollars and with the government in control of fannie and freddie american taxpayers stand behind six trillion dollars in mortgage debt now the government says it has to get out we need to wind down fannie and

freddie and substantially reduce the government for bring in the housing market it's a departure from past government policies which it treated homeownership as a virtual right and a report to congress now the obama administration says the goal is of course. housing not for all americans to be homeowners analysts alternately with all policies and fannie and freddie going by the wayside so too will the white picket fence the dream they helped manufacture it interest rates are going to have to go up because the risk of lending to homeowner goes up and fewer parties a want to get in on their. homeownership will reduce and it's not just the u.s. middle class that's going to feel it foreign countries all over the world hold billions upon billions of us home mortgages in their portfolios doing away with fannie and freddie could amount to massive losses for these investors and for us clout especially when you consider economists say shoring up foreign investment was

a major reason for fannie and freddie bailout in the first place but america appears unable to afford another option in the face of such massive failure of a legal banks would make and. i think that any effort to get out of control they took ridiculous amounts of rest which they didn't properly disclose to the federal government that regulators or to their investors who were significantly slammed by their misadventure and misadventure coming if it costed the american dream albion apartment somewhere i wouldn't want to be able to buy another home somewhere else that so many americans and the world might enjoy lauren lyster r.t. new york. all right well lauren lester our chief financial correspondent joins us right now from the new york city studios hi lauren how are you doing. well let's just get straight to the bottom of this i mean is the american dream as we know he dead. well it depends on what you consider the american dream if you consider home

ownership a large part of that and if indeed fannie and freddie are done away with then there's a strong case to be made that yes it will be gone now i do want to say that it's not obviously been determined what will happen with fannie and freddie there are different options and people that i interviewed for this story did say that some are just cosmetic and the government would still be involved in subsidizing housing but there is a large argument in a large proposal being made to wind fit freddie and fannie down altogether and in that scenario it could be a lot more difficult for people to get loans it's going to be a lot more difficult to for people to own a home i mean as it is over the last thirty years wages have been stagnant and american savings we know has been extremely low now those are the things that really lend themselves to people actually being able to afford a home what we saw in the housing bubble what we saw that led up to that crisis was a lessening of standards where you know with the government propping up and subsidizing home loans and a loosening of standards many people got them that didn't have the wages to qualify nor do they have the savings so without that subsidy without that being propped up

we're going to see a vastly changing landscape in terms of homeownership in this country i mean it doesn't sound like a pretty picture at all but lauren if we look at this in the historical context when fannie and freddie came out of the great depression they were specifically created to give all americans or most americans a chance of homeownership and they've been able to do this successfully for about seventy years through thirteen different presidency is so how is it that one day we just wake up and suddenly boom spectacular failure how in the world do we allow this to happen. we didn't just wake up and boom i mean one of the things that lends to a bubble is a suspension of disbelief that everybody thought that housing prices were going to keep going on and keep going up forever obviously that wasn't the case and the housing crisis that occurred through that was wrong and in the midst of all of that there was a lowering of standards for loans there was a lot of what people attribute to greed there was a lot of instances of fraud there was fannie and freddie backing the housing. that allowed people to get loans and to get homes that they really couldn't afford tons

of leverage put on top of that securities made sold all over the world i mean all of this was going on to create a crisis that almost brought this country down and that affected the entire world i mean there are a lot of different factors or created a perfect storm here but i mean it really has changed the idea that homeownership that homes are now said that this is an asset that's always going to continue to rise i mean i was just speaking to the business insiders joe wise and always saying really if you look long term at homeownership there's only been a few different periods where it's truly been a good investment where you've seen increases i mean that is kind of a myth that has really proven itself over time and you know the consequences of the wind down seem to be pretty steep if indeed this family of men it. does happen and we're hearing that interest rates will potentially store the thirty year fixed rate mortgage alone which everyone that i have every one of my friends seems to have a fit if they own a home may now be a thing of the past and you have either insisting that somehow we're going to

magically be able to do this in a way that spares the taxpayer i mean it doesn't exactly seem to add up what's your take. well it doesn't but i think when geithner is talking about sparing the taxpayer i think he's talking about sparing them the losses of the six trillion dollars the taxpayer is now stand behind and hold mortgages and mortgage securities as essentially owners of fannie mae and freddie mac. i mean the government took conservatorship of these enterprises and the government now owns and that means taxpayers own them so by getting out of fannie and freddie that means that taxpayers won't be on the line for more of these mortgages and that is what i think he means i don't think he means that everybody's going to get a home clearly without obama administration statement doesn't sound like the government believes every american should be entitled to own a home anymore all right well you may not be on the line for any more of the homeownership but it looks like the american dream is not what it used to be that was a financial correspondent lauren lester. and when you look at the clear divide of this widening gap between the rich and the poor it seems that there are more and

more places in this country where there are popular uprisings going on even right here in washington d.c. the nation's capital right now as we speak hundreds of nurses are locked out of their hospital and they're fighting to hold on to their salaries as well as for better working conditions now our correspondent christine for is out was there and takes a look at to what extent if any this anger may translate into real action but. it is a rising tide spreading across the globe. as the angry the oppressed are fighting back against the oppressors in egypt a leader was taken down in libya he hangs on but barely in greece as many as thirty thousand protesters came out last month angry at the ongoing austerity measures imposed by the government there in portugal it was the same thing and in this country wisconsin remains at the crux of a fight described by many as the battle between the haves and have nots where the

governor wants to take away collective bargaining rights of public workers well it turns out it's not just people whose job it is to protect and serve america. it's also those whose job it is to care for americans these nurses here work for the largest hospital in washington d.c. it also has a level one trauma unit which means many of the patients they get are in the most serious condition they say the company that runs the hospital medstar is operating on the cheap not only not wanting to give these nurses raises but also wanting to leave there is a med star also severely understaffed the hospital and in the end it's not just the nurses patients will suffer nurses have about six patients expression late at night sixty eight patients that's way too many these patients cannot move do not. it outta bed and i walk around and i i think there's a huge problem with safety because. they've been without

a contract for nine months and are locked out of the hospital as other nurses had to be bussed in to care for the patients here you are something the most frustrating thing is the sharp differences in those who run the hospital from the board room and those who actually run it in the emergency rooms and patient rooms traditionally c.e.o. pensions and and wages are about three hundred times the average what the average worker makes and it's the average worker that's put me in the putting the product on the street that's that's doing the doing the job and it's just amazing that corporate profits have come in front of worker belt welfare corporate profits versus worker welfare you could say it sums up most of the major conflicts but at what point are words not enough stunning pictures. even angry lawmakers this is an important moment in history that's a moment where we watched stand up and speak out and speaking out they increasingly

are the real those now whether in wisconsin in egypt or on the streets of d.c. achieve a fundamental change in the system in washington christine freeze out our team. and earlier i spoke with journalist and author david cook raw about the spread of discontent around the world and i asked them to look at the different connections that these movements may actually have in common when you look at the root cause here's his response. every one of these protests are so you sure are all against the same steady neo liberal economic policy you know century and plans through the federal reserve through the i.m.f. you know whether people in egypt or wisconsin understand that these are global systemic make and i will also use created a century ulit rule aristocracy. this is the way the global economy works so once people start connecting this to realizing you know look at egypt as the

example of the every bell here against goldman sachs and j.p. morgan because the i.m.f. took over their country and six thousand of them were implemented all these economic policies then all our game and their billing because they can't get jobs they can't put food on the table and i think people and people are reacting to very specific things that apply to their everyday lives i don't know if you can go and make that connection as a fairly that's how art of the economic policies that are put in place the neo liberal economic policies increased unemployment the increased power to increase the price of food you know they make the cessna's hard to get to these are systemic global policies and these people react that can't be it can't afford to eat it can't you know they don't have any jobs these people are fighting for survival essentially and it is all done through economic policy through the i.m.f. and the federal reserve quantitative easing because the price of fluid to rise around the world it's not wasn't the only cause but it basically threw gasoline all

over the fire and this is why people or try to merrily rebel but the unemployment isn't that it's nice or centrally planned economic policies that everyone in the united states egypt's new greece or through your this this is what's happening this is an essential already billion against your liberal economic policy but a global rebellion when decayed some sort of potential change and unfortunately i think history has shown time over and over and over again that people taking to the streets doesn't necessarily translate to the actual system being a foreigner i mean i would go on and take a bet right now then about a month we're not really talking about the labor movement anymore you know once the pictures are out there and and i don't think are just my space publicized that this was this such a high level of suffering now you know if it were all declining resources and extreme weather there. and these these centrally planned economy just trying to you know wait you know and anyone else. it's not sustainable i mean just look at the

united states i know you people don't have health care if it's you know you know if i really thirty million are in need who are in a level of suffering it's not exceeding increasing so you know you have to be concessions or be a long battle doubt about that but as time passes newer and more people are going to be fighting for survival so this is not something that's going to end anytime soon but you know you know. these changes with the you know the arts or somebody else or even people are like you know whatever the republicans throw out you know those moves are going to fly senate world people can't afford to eat they can't afford to have any decent living. that is author and journalist david. so as protests continue to spread throughout the middle east is it really shocking that people are taking to the streets as a way to fight for change or a hard and fast after president that took to the streets in new york city to find

out more. than all of the interactions revolutions and uprisings in the middle east catch you off guard this week let's talk about that i use that prize i'm not surprised i am. whatever i'm grown up i was seven weeks ago and by that. i reported to the board that the political situation in the middle east was very very unstable and. one week after the whole thing color in tunisia in egypt you know change was to come and we all knew jesus is going to come i mean more market up you will get this guy it was just a matter of time before these dictators were you know things change people want change and people were hurt and people hurt we moved to action and people were avery be moved to action do you think that the world leaders are caught that by the

. i think they're caught off guard knowing what how to react because they i believe they know the world is going to be more unstable but they have to support the idea of freedom so it's a mixed a mixed blessing so you think that all these are going to lead to more unrest or more instability yes i believe it's more about power and the unfair distribution of power than it is about real democracy well i think it's you know does the time make the leader or does the leader make the time though i saw it like in an ongoing question when it comes to stuff like this and i think we have to wait and see this is going to be a good test for everyone in power right now to see how they come out yeah what do you think the effect is going to be around the world what i think it's really not going to make much difference what our hope is that when different people come into power to tell c.n.n. they will start create their people right and everybody in this world we will have the united states will have to be a police country more of the social networking that's going on they can no longer

hold their people and feed them the propaganda that they used to do you think this is something that could happen here or in europe or in other places definitely that's scary you know you know well you're prepared for it but i think it'll definitely happen it's a little scary to know that people anyone can have so much influence now i don't want to read or giving me problems and the but it's a little unnerving to know that anyone with a computer can have that kind of. howard. you have to be someone enough to know what to listen to and what to ignore whether or not you think anyone has any idea of what's to come next the bottom line is that there's no denying this time of change. but when it comes to the unrest in libya it seems that facts are few and far

between there are conflicting reports about the number killed airstrikes by gadhafi forces the number of cities controlled by the opposition pretty much everything that's been reported seems to be in doubt now last week a wave of correspondence suggested that the opposition was in control of the entire country and that the doctor was doomed archy's oksana boyko went to the opposition held and ghazi to find out why these exaggerations came to light. of the war in comprehensible as it sounds it's present in any conflict just days ago these parents feared for their children's lives today they're taking their pictures in front of the tanks the desire to be kept truthful laughing in the face of danger is even stronger in the of journalists and the conflict in libya is providing a perfect setting for a moment gadhafi is striking back now we're hearing reports of war planes bombing authorization camps in eastern libya forces loyal to libyan leader moammar gadhafi

appeared to be advancing east into areas held by his opponents on t.v. screens have been ghazi really look like the center of the rebel resistance but in reality it's more like a seaside resort than a conflict zone who told the fully booked withdrawal is presidents go about their daily lives here boys are looking for new things to play with toy guns are in council supply some reports sent from bin ghazi referred to the tree in eastern libya as war not a conflict zone where rebels are engaged in sporadic. and oscillated beach battles with program after forces but an all out war now i don't have any theory i think is going on institutional it's ok enough research is one of the first reporters to arrive and because the several days she's been traveling with the rebels about two hundred kilometers west of the city at some point the pro-government forces opened fire at her through a focal point of the record there's

a war going on and whether really i could or not there is that there is a frontline you know and there are people with guns and there are two sides fighting she's channels know the gunfire and explosions snakes are strong disease but they also can help to blow things out of recession that journalist and leave gets really really from tripoli and all the gadhafi controlled parts of libya some can find themselves stopping by the rebel side of the story just opening up to journalists they just love them and. just whenever they take one city we go with them and then we go into into the other city that reporters need to travel to here in the opposition's press center and ghazi internet access isn't restricted and because the available twenty four hours the message is on the wall and sometimes once it's way into reports from the people the prize on each of the scale so we are really in danger. because we don't trust the driver so we have to be within

hours in a circle so you as a human being you tell me how could you be i mean objective here is human rights with rebels professing their readiness to fight could after his regime to the bitter end no wonder news reports a caring predictions of imminent civil war yet as the rebels inability to mount a fully fledged offensive becomes more apparent so is the unbalanced nature of the coverage media may call gadhafi delusional but in their assessment of the. they don't show a full grasp of the tree even. many people think that being a booker is going to take so little of courage and hard work but actually. it's much easier and far more enjoyable than a routine journalistic assignment especially when they were sitting sideways so accommodating the problem here and it being got to is that some reporters became not only part of the story but in its main driving force and instead of hoping that

full blown confrontation and bloodshed could be a perfect almost calling for it sort of like artsy bin ghazi. well joining me now from war to talk about weapons of mass distraction is larry beinhart from woodstock new york he's the author of this book right here american hero which was the inspiration of an adapted for the film wag the dog larry thank you so much for joining us it's great to have you on i'm a great fan of the book and the movie now you know this book came out i guess in one thousand nine hundred three and the conflict does your at the time was operation desert storm how much as if anything has the media environment changed from then to today i mean i know we're talking about a fictional book here but all fiction is stemmed in some perhaps oh well this is an interesting. book this is what you should well. be interested in should. you have. a real or.

for the mystic. movie you. or i would mr. and when you do it. should. we. should you. know in the lurch we can rule it we are. george bush the lesser or the younger. aunt if he decides he wants to have one must be walked resident. because that'll get reelected and even though. you have rank you do it because it moves becoming part of our national international consciousness we then have jewish bush slain in the same exact scenario

we just didn't happen plays out in the movie you know first equally oh he has nukes and we realized oh well he's humanity as nukes do anything with him as he had planes and boats is no way to get here and then he says lay there steve hartman gay says. it could be suitcase bombs could give terrorists too much terrorists can it's not just the evidence i mean if you look at the way if we go back to for example the two thousand and three of iraq you had this whole pundit analyst complex right all of these former and current pentagon officials here are happily invited on c.n.n. on a sunday if the fox news tear out their ramp up to the war and so it really raises the question of how can you trust mainstream media when we so willingly presented the ramp up to the war in iraq and turned out to be so wrong and i wonder if you can make a connection between that and what we're seeing in for example libya right now it

seems to be the conflict or your yet again we need people can't be sure but i honestly think nobody wants to be involved or i think if you're looking for when a scenario here you have kids walk or somebody wants this war who wants a western have been won or the united states sure got well it's already rolled to worsen we want and what up. new troops or i don't think considered pursuit. or our current president president obama become the oh and we were resident. show at the clinic which i have been is the media is getting with it you can write it we will we will rebels. it rebel narrative. could die happy has its own narrative what it presents and in situ when the.

nobody's going into. it we're almost out of time but i just want to point out it we're still obviously so involved in this conflict in afghanistan and yet you're hardly hearing any sort of reports about the casualties on the ground there what's really happening on the ground you know it has been exciting going on in the middle east and libya or whatever and so every one of the mainstream media turns to that but how quickly we forget the actual hot conflicts in which we're still and evolved you know it's because the media is you or them on reality the zero or a conduit restrooms and people running the war in afghanistan i don't see couldn't nonis look at it because they don't know what they want to get from one side they want to get out on the side they want to win over and they can't quite do. so in maintaining shadow and show contingency well it's

a tough situation but thank you so much for your insights that was slaughter larry payne hark now it seems that the united states may be carrying out its own kind of p.r. stunt trying to repair its image in afghanistan u.s. secretary of defense robert gates is in the country right now on a surprise visit arriving shortly after cars i rejected an apology from the united states. now sorry just hours before robert gates landed in afghanistan general david petraeus said that he was sorry for the civilian attack in a country that killed nine young afghan children a few days ago but cars i said the apology was quote not enough so q.s. the u.s. secretary of defense who again apologized on behalf of the u.s. and a move that seems to have done the trick cars and aides have since talked about everything from civilian casualties to the drawdown of u.s. troops in afghanistan that does it for now for more of the stories that we cover go to our t. dot com slash usa and check out our youtube page if youtube dot com slash r t america and of course feel flu.