the one called touch from the. video to. keep smiling. this is for. we have to think about what's required to preserve the american dream for future generations preserve the american dream with economic inequality and debt guy rocketing that already become a nightmare. and as the u.s. continues to grapple with its decline the brics countries need to lay a new foundation for economic and political change with their rides so will a new world leader emerge. and more drone killings in pockets on today this despite the country's call to end all u.s.

attacks so how will the two men their war torn relationship. it's wednesday april thirteenth eight pm here in washington d.c. and more on this are you watching our t.v. now the debt clock is ticking as the united states reaches its debt ceiling of fourteen point three trillion dollars next month the debate over raising it has descended upon washington to raise the risk defaulting on the country's debts those are really the two things at stake now today u.s. president obama revealed his plan for deficit and debt reduction showing also this warning our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don't begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order. yeah no kidding but china being the u.s. is name creditor and us debt reaching what the entire economy produces in g p r t's

marina port iowa shows how the debts already and taking a toll. in a city that never. thought that continues to go within ten thousand dollars per second when i was first installed no one was really aware of what that was nor could most people tell you the difference between the gap it or the so that blocks stands vigil keeping track of the national that jordan borrow it's represents the durst organization the new york real estate firm that operates the seeker of america's borrowing a caucus installed back in one nine hundred eighty nine when u.s. debt was understood three trillion we seemed weak that number is expected to reach a debt ceiling of fourteen point twenty nine trillion clearly the government does is on too much money. everybody knows that and everybody accepts that it's how you solve that problem. yet this familiar problem is being met with the wrist cycle

solutions he wants leaders are calling for congress to raise the debt limit warning of an economic armageddon otherwise experts say ongoing financial mismanagement by the richest country in the world is gravely tarnishing america's image as a global financial leader that we're approaching national debt on a par with the total g.d.p. of the country this is very serious because most economic research suggests that countries tend to decelerate in their growth and have more and more severe economic problems one for the debt to g.d.p. ratio gets above about ninety percent and we're about to go through that level and if the u.s. government reaches its borrowing capacity it would ultimately default on its debt and stop paying investors bonds have come due to pay and currently holds roughly eight hundred eighty five billion dollars in u.s. treasury bonds meanwhile china america's main creditor owns one point one trillion

. the economic landscape is. causing many to conclude that washington no longer claims supremacy over global economic issues it can no longer act unilaterally on any number of things you know so part of what the united states needs is credibility which can and grease the person wage and with which it can finance other countries to come together with it and moments when it needs care and the guarantor of the global financial system shows no sign of that discipline nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz says it's time to replace the once invincible dollar with a new reserve currency china has close to three trillion dollars of reserves about a third of the global reserves about nine trillion dollars you don't need three trillion dollars you have some voice and what kind of reserve currency system you want to have and china has been very clear that it worries about the current dollar

based reserve system just last week the dollar fell to nearly a fifteen month low against the euro yet day after day the nation's debt continues to climb higher u.s. congress has increased the national debt ceiling a reported seventy four times since one thousand six hundred two and it will most likely happen again in the coming weeks but as america continues accruing trillions of dollars in debt question is how much global economic influence is this so-called superpower and salute for in a fortnight or r.t. new york. good question to end on as for president obama he's making a case at a time when the u.s. budget deficit has shot up close to sixteen percent just so far this year compared to last year now he made the case today for raising taxes on the rich or do you think health care costs but is this just a lot of wishful thinking and

a little too late for this and is it. so far from what republicans will agree to as many reactions after that speech theme to be showing well earlier i spoke with michael snyder he's founder of economic collapse blog dot com he says neither republicans nor democrats are serious about chipping away at the u.s. debt pickle if and if we don't raise the debt ceiling there is going to be chaos on world financial markets we've got a raise the debt ceiling or else we're going to have another control no don't and it could be worse in two thousand and eight so this is something that has to be done to really no question it's are we going to have a goal our debt problem they promise to the edge of this horrible government shutdown and was over basically cruelness off a cookie like you said the budget took thirty point five billion of us about one percent of the government budget but when you take all the accounting gimmicks out the real budget cuts when you take out the new census money when you take out money

that was left over from previous years things like that it amounts to about fourteen billion dollars in real budget cuts now when you look at the he's just previous to the so budget he up with national debt up by fifty four billion dollars in just those eight years. right it's a much bigger issue than just kind of the short term look at the budget stalemate that's what i think so i want to know if you think that there's the political will to deal with that long term problem. absolutely not with the republicans only get snow for your kids so you can try to promise us that they're going to help a budget it's hard to remember three years ago when ronald reagan was coming into office he talked about the national debt being a horrible crisis but now today the national debt is over fourteen times larger than it was back in our politicians to great speeches but when push comes to shove just like we saw this recent episode he don't have the political will to do it they

don't want to talk about it even with these very small budget cuts the budget deficit this year is going to be the largest it's ever been before obama assume that he's not serious about cutting the budget at all and we will go to instead of cutting billions we need to be talking about trillions of dollars at this point it's being projected by the year twenty twenty one that we're going to be paying one point one trillion dollars just an interest on that national debt right and according to what i mean and that's something that obama actually touched upon you know i have to say i agree with a lot of the things he said in his speech there are things that we've been saying on this station for a long time the impact of china being the u.s. is the biggest creditor as you mentioned interest on that debt reaching a trillion dollars in the next ten years. but i want to ask you as far as some of the proposals are being that are being made. tax reform what is the possibility of that actually being feasible i mean with the power of corporations and big banks in

terms of lobbying and campaign contributions which are now as actually unlimited because of the citizens united case how could the u.s. ever really reform taxes. well something it's to be done if you look at the tax system it's very broken for example back in the nineteenth put these corporations pay about thirty percent of all of taxes the united states that city it's only about seven percent so why is that is that their operations overseas tax havens things of that nature so whatever the rate is they're going to keep working taxes you know we need to totally rethink the way that we do taxes because the people at the top the ultra wealthy and that's how corporations they are experts at avoiding taxes in fact it's been estimated that approximately one third of all the wealth in the world isn't all held in our shore tax havens so obama can try to do things but what people in congress for and it's not that the tax dollars for these corporations are always about two or three steps ahead of everyone else so

something dramatic needs to be done just tinkering with our current system isn't going to get it fixed one of them main things that needs to be done is we need to go away from a debt based currency system which is what the whole federal reserve system is based upon when ever more government the government wants more money work out it's actually created because it's pouring from that the reserve and the federal reserve auctions those bonds off to investors to china things that are so good very creation of money in this country creates more debt so we want to wait a no and get these currency i think that review gigantic step in the right direction also we need fiscal discipline we simply cannot spend right and we grow again but we've been doing it for so long we think that it's normal and yet the republicans say they actually want to cut taxes for the rich with that without saying how they're going to pay for those tax cuts the democrats just long and keep standing around current levels but neither of those solutions is going to work we

have like you know all american families we have to get to the point of saying ok we're going to live within our means but nobody in washington d.c. seems to want to do that. that was like ok so that he could check out his blog at economic collapse blog dot com now we heard obama today talk about preserving the american dream however nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz told me and in our team interview that the data shows it may already be gone here's a case of the increase in the concentration of income in wealth in the united states has been enormous. i said has described looking at growth of inequality is watching the grass grow having very slowly but it happens over time and before you know it the lawn is overgrown and things have changed. which happen in the last couple decades is twenty five zero most

a quarter of all the income goes to the upper one percent around forty percent of the now you measure of the wealth goes to the upper one percent americans used to think of themselves as a land of opportunity everybody else thinks of themselves as a land of opportunity and they think of old europe as ossified the data to show that they're beginning to realize their most americans are worse off than they were say a decade ago so it's not just that all this wealth is going to the top if everybody were getting better off you can say well some are doing little bit better than the others but actually most americans are worse off than they were a decade ago and that is if you can include the sense of insecurity the loss of jobs that will it insecurity about health rights that most people in europe take

for granted but if you have a very split society they're going to be very different views about what's important. if the rich can buy their own parks they don't need to have public parks if a rich can buy their own education we don't have to have public education is the rich can buy their own health care we don't have to have good health care for most americans and that's where we're winding up today so the people at the top that one percent are using their political power to try to preserve their wealth and meanwhile making sure that the government doesn't do what is necessary for the prosperity the functioning of our entire society if you don't make these investments we're going to wind up in a divided society and in unproductive economy and even that one percent will suffer and that is the link between what happened in tunisia and mexico.

and in egypt and in other countries where they divide is room and. it's meant that their economies have function and the societies have nothing to. say it was essentially saying the u.s. could go the way of egypt or tunisia with on rest you can catch my entire interview with a professor on our website you tube channel actually it's youtube dot com slash our to america we talk also about the call for a global reserve currency and why he says federal reserve policy has been so flawed meanwhile as the u.s. tries to dig itself out of decline through and doesn't become the next egypt or tunisia the world's largest developing economies on the rise brazil russia india china now south africa the new kid on the block they're not of bricks and they're getting ready for their meeting to talk about how to better leverage their growing economic and political influence in the world r.t. the real english show how the story. while the old world order may be pumping money

down the drain on warring in libya the new world order is fighting battles that can be won on the world's money and trade market brazil russia india china and this year's new kid on the block south africa have gathered on the chinese island of hainan talk business and it's not just about economy it's about politics as well though the brics countries do put a heavy emphasis on economic issues broader political questions such as the situation in northern africa and the middle east are also going to be hot topics for discussions to recount to stare gold. or un resolution was very wise in terms of we're not going to get involved in this mess in fact when the french and the british were drafting the resolution there were serious checksums from the four thought countries brazil russia and china traditionally it was always the u.s. and major western nations like france and germany playing the leading roles in

politics and economy but if you take into consideration the ongoing financial crisis and the fact that brics countries comprise more than half of the world's population and pull in almost a quarter of the world's g.d.p. it becomes obvious that a certain geopolitical shift in power is in progress or that there are several reasons these are the emerging powers of the twenty first century europe as we all know it's absolutely bad economically politically has slowly slowly it's taken out you can organize foreign policy it's a fearful continent and these are car countries there are have been less affected by the crisis and have the european countries the united states and these are countries that are going to continue to grow if not rapidly and least moderately while the rest of europe and the united states seems to be mired in crisis european leaders them. admits to losing state ground in recent years everything that we have

taken for granted for two centuries american and european dominance to the point at which most of the world's manufacturing goods most of the world's exports most of the world's investment was done in these countries it is no longer a fact so it seems europe and the us are finally beginning to understand the emerging power of the brics nations i think the western countries is already. the strength of greeks economy is. expanding what. now it's twenty and it is within the. brics countries have been. which has been very effective i certainly think that they will. that's inevitable as these countries group while the western powerhouses continue pounding away on regimes they find in the czar of all when you are going on because

political architecture is emerging and these five countries are keen to prove they're not just another brics in the wall because courtly china now as you heard at that meeting brics leaders are expected to weigh in politically they're expected to reject use of force in the middle east and north africa urging dialogue and nonintervention earlier i spoke with mark weisbrot he's co-director for the center for economic and policy research and i asked him what impact if any this will actually have on the military intervention underway in libya. well i think it has a it has an impact because it puts pressure on europe in the united states too they don't they're not really looking for a negotiated solution they weren't from the beginning and so the more that you have a big part of the world and you have turkey also playing a mediating role this is something that they were had to deal with before the su i

think it will increase the possibility of a negotiated solution which is obviously what it's necessary what do you think it means going forward longer term because brics obviously have a much different idea of what intervention should be there more question for dialogue and for non intervention so moving forward what do you think this means as far as global cooperation i think it's a very it's a hugely positive development i mean you if you would brazil arranged last me for example the nuclear fuel swap arrangement. with iran yeah building well the west and it was a post it didn't go to push them back in terms of their march towards military confrontation and i think you know it's a slow process but it's moving much faster no that it ever has in decades do you think that western leaders realize that because i have to say i was at a conference over the weekend it was supposed to be about the rise of brics and

incorporating them more into global governance but i have to say that i felt like it was a lot more focused on how to fix the europe and the united states so that they don't decline and there was a lot less focus paid i felt to the role of the developing nations like frank. no i don't think the united states has recognized any of this i mean it's most extreme in this hemisphere where they've lost you know south america and they still don't even realize it and they still think they're going to get it back so no. i think they're a little bit more pragmatic in other parts of the world insue it's starting to sink in that they don't own the place. but i don't think. that they've really they haven't changed their attitude they don't look at. they don't look at foreign policy from primarily a diplomatic point of view it's much more trying to muscle other countries to do

what they were at what point will they be forced to change course as a result of the rise in sentiment that we're seeing with the correct well i think they already are i mean first of all the fact that the creditors courteau the used to have with the i.m.f. the world bank i mean dozens of middle income countries russia included. are not going to pay any attention to that anymore ok so that's a huge change in the world that's to me the biggest change in the international financial system that you've had the past thirty years and just to piggyback on that we hear a lot about that i question whether the u.s. dollar should do that with our currency by both that western academics people like us as steve letts george soros and also from countries like china i want to ask you what role you think the brics getting together making deals to trade and invest in their own currencies circumventing the dollar has been on that issue well i think

that has it in tact more building trade and investment between these countries and that's very important because it's another form of economic integration that isn't depended on the u.s. and europe and so by trade. their own currencies they're promoting in terms of reporters who have dollars reserve currency i think that's still got a long way to go you know sixty one percent of reserves in two thousand and ten were in dollars the same as the year before it's you know it's not going to change anytime soon but do more and more of these agreements push that issue more in the direction away from the dollar you know there's going through your move but so it's a long term thing. it's a fairly possible but there are a lot of reasons or nobody in china who doesn't want their currency to be a major reserve currency as mike was driving the co-director of the center for

economic and policy research. as nato airstrikes over libya worry the brics countries american drone strikes in pakistan are the cause of unraveling relations fresh u.s. drone strikes this morning prompted strong condemnation by pakistani officials the strikes are the first since a march seventeenth attack that reportedly killed dozens of civilians and all of this on the heels of the release of cia contractor raymond davis the former blackwater employees of queues of murdering two pakistanis only to be released from prison after payment of more than two million dollars by the u.s. joining me now is a man who has covered the davis case extensively scott gordon is a contributing editor of harper's magazine mr hurd i want to thank you so much for joining us now touching upon the raymond davis case because you've covered that extensively now though it involves one american man accused of killing two pakistani men it ignited protests on the street of pakistan it seems to have initiated this breakdown and u.s.

pakistani relations to which this drone attack that's recently happened will likely only add to what you argue that the raymond davis case was a smokescreen and i'm curious what you think was the biggest reason this kasich a breakdown between the countries. but i think you know raymond davis as an individual seems to line up perfectly all the concerns that the pakistani military and their senior intelligence apparatus has had about american operations there a so we start with the fact that although he was the station chief for the cia in lahore he's not a cia agent he's a contractor where there are big gripes has been that contractors who have little professional training and discipline seem to be running rampant all over the country second when he was captured on his person they found a g.p.s. tracking device in the been used to fix targets and north waziristan so he was obviously involved in the drone strikes that were going on there the third

a year or so had footage of photographs that were taken the dresses all over the horror of these seems to have been studying very closely connections between pakistani intelligence and some islamic terrorist organizations and i think finally we have the whole issue of nuclear proliferation which also seems to be a nature point of interest for the cia so all this was tied up in ray davis and the tension really had less to do with ray davis and the visual and more to do with the turf war between the american intelligence community and the pakistani senior military and intelligence community and thinking about relationship death in this case and the attention it can bring to light the dubious relations that the u.s. gets it felt involved in in the name of the won terror i mean here is that the i.a.e.a. that is supposed to be working together with pakistani intelligence to the taliban

fight al qaeda in pakistan meanwhile the i.s.i. is known to have a longstanding deep relationship with taliban groups they didn't and after nine eleven. well i think the bottom line here is a lack of trust between the pakistanis and the americans and i think it has to do with exactly the problems that you cite there are lots of connections between pakistan's i.s.i. and a lot scary to you both for instance very very powerful terrorist organization on the other hand of course i.s.i. itself has been the major terrorist target in pakistan many. killed but it seems that senior i.s.i. thinkers and lower level figures are on both sides of the divide they're very tight connections between them of the tower daryn for instance in afghanistan and the taliban government when it thrived really did so under the protection of the i.s.i. and that's something that the american cia is quite familiar with as quite they're

trying very hard to keep tabs on it but there is the lack of basic trust and that has really fueled this conflict and i guess it's not surprising that there would be that lack of trust given kind of the situation that is at hand i'm curious in the case of raymond davis i just want to flip it around for a second if there was pockets tani contractor for the i.s.i. they shot two american cia agents or officials are you know whoever raymond davis really is in the back would that pakistani man be free. you know if it happened in american soil there's just no doubt about that in fact that you know we have much more innocent incidents you know a georgian diplomat many years ago killing an american and the nor the mobile accident and although the diplomat was formally and fully accredited the u.s. insisted that george will waive diplomatic immunity so the could stand trial on the

on a negligent homicide count so that shows the america that that you and in this case is particularly greeters because when we wade through all of the state department's rhetoric but we find that the first attempt by the state department to register ray davis as a diplomat occurred one day after these incidents before at best there were only attempts to accredit him as a consular official which really wouldn't help and deal with these problems so the u.s. was trying to pull off a little bit of abracadabra to protect him very interesting story it is an interesting story i'm curious if you think that a double standard that you just kind of spoke about would it will have an impact on the u.s. and pakistan moving forward and working together in the way to a u.s. needs pakistan in a wine tear. so it absolutely has i mean you know the it is become

a hot issue on the streets and pakistan so it's helped provoke massive demonstrations but largely much groups who were not america's friends to begin with but america's support amongst the professionals in the middle class that are the core of the new relationship that the american leadership has been trying to forge of that have also been damaged so i think this all of these developments have been harmful for american pakistani relations and more likely it's going to lead to a narrowed role for the united states on the ground and pakistan and bigger picture what do you think that means as far as the u.s. after it's an afghanistan and but the taliban in pakistan what in fact you know there's no clearly defined border between afghanistan and pakistan that iran line has never been formally recognized and it's very difficult to fight that conflict on only one side of the frontier.