canada asked. for asians are today. the boy. out of work so i'm down here to this friend's house and our friend tells me. different cities just to try to find work. the american dream slowly shattering into the american nightmare but new jobs numbers are on the up enough seventy was good right well maybe not if you ask that feeling middle class. and things don't look like they're going to get better anytime soon because it's dead if you do debt if you don't hear how the u.s. government is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to raising the debt ceiling and get the troops out of the way asking the stealing in this war that is unhealthy and some help to anybody

in the middle east from grassroots ground work to a pizza king the first g.o.p. debate kicks off but is the race for the white house begins a few contenders are missing here why campaign contribution rules may be to blame. good afternoon it's friday may sixth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and your watching our t.v. well new jobless numbers came out today showing the economy last month added close to two hundred fifty thousand jobs beating expectations great news right well here are some other figures one in seven americans is on food stamps only six out of one hundred applicants can get a job at mcdonald's and last week the number of americans applying for unemployment benefits surged to the highest level in eight months after the worst economic

downturn since the great depression job losses have forced formerly middle class families into poverty archies or mongol and a look at where the american dream has gone for them. sunny southern california long a favorite destination for those pursuing stardom and well throughout the years families have lived the american dream of comfort and increasing prosperity but these days many of those very families are caught up in a nightmare of escalating poverty the economic crisis has touched the before untouchable middle class what we have seen in my life. we've been in fashion and international family for i think some of them putting forth taisha maybury is trying to raise her daughters while she struggles to keep a place to live the mayberry's are typical of the growing trend of families that fly from middle class to poverty and homelessness i thought i had the best of

everything that's why my son's father he was participating with work and i was right there so we didn't have to put him on account many cattle you know here where we had the best we were working that was then and this is now made very receives food stamps and relies on the nonprofit program beyond shelter so that she and her children have a bed to sleep in she said to overcome many challenges in her life but before maybe lost her job she never imagined she would be fighting to stay off the streets every day are high think of where without honest. how are we going to sleep job security is gone the unemployment rate is stuck in a double digits around the los angeles area with few opportunities for a well paying jobs more americans are seeing their wealth disappear it is estimated

that banks will take back more than a million homes this year due to foreclosure another sign that housing affordability across the u.s. continues to decrease. this is the middle class neighborhood where tasia me barry enter two daughters used to live before she lost her job it's only a few blocks away from the ocean and in the shadows of the scenic downtown long beach high line it took only a few months to go from a life of relative comfort to a life of insecurity where she had no idea where her family would sleep at night in los angeles is that talk region in america for homelessness where more than forty thousand people have no place to sleep on a nightly basis nationwide family homelessness has risen nine percent in the last year according to a recent report by the u.s. conference of mayors the real numbers may actually be much higher amount of works on dancing here this friend's house or their friend's house not i'm in different

cities just to try to find work doing nichols live comfortably for years working as a floor installer now he's an employee and cannot pay rent nickels relies on the kindness of loved ones and food stamps social programs to help stressed families hang on are about to be lost to political games as lawmakers in washington wrestle with future budget cuts while battling to save tax cuts for the richest this nichols fears could push many already desperate families over the edge i think. honestly i think. the shills will price a look because people are very good in this they don't want to swarm us we don't want to steal. i don't know i want to go out there and still for food but who's paying the sherborne i couldn't what else am i supposed to do where am i going to do is a question mayberry yourself daily ever since she joined the army of the newly poor and struggling to research children hoping for

a hollywood ending to her story. playing. in los angeles. i'm sad stories there and joining me now to assess what is happening to the american dream for those stories you just heard those people and for so many others as michael t. snyder founder of the economic economic excuse me collapse blog michael thanks so much for being with us i want to start with the jobs numbers that came out today because a lot of the mainstream analysis is touting these numbers as encouraging as good news because the economy added more jobs than expected at the same time that we saw the unemployment rate rise a little bit because more people and people entered the labor market and plenty of stories and statistics that show the struggle of americans still so i want to know your take are these jobs numbers encouraging. you know there's a couple different aspects we should talk about your first job number is slightly

encouraging how outward should be because we need to remember the u.s. government and the federal reserve have a sense and we've got them all in an all out it's going to stimulate the u.s. economy in the short term the u.s. government has been doing all the stimulus packages so trillion in house in dollars in debt this year alone the federal reserve has struck interest rates to rock bottom of it and doing all this quantitative easing so the truth is that the unemployment should be much lower than it is right now it's actually discouraging to see you know all these efforts by the federal reserve have not produced more results now in the long run. all of this borrowing is going to be disastrous for us and our mother element to look at here is that is look at the number of americans that are employed for example last year only forty five point four percent of all americans had a job that was the lowest number since one thousand eighty three and if you look at the number of american almost sixty six point eight percent of american don't have

a job last year that was the lowest number ever recorded and now michael now michael does there are some of the statistics you pointed out and every cent holon on what's happened to the american dream and another that you point out is that forty one percent of all jobs in the u.s. are low income so this job growth that we're seeing and some of the biggest gains last month were in retail manufacturing healthcare restaurants we know that donald announced i'll be hiring sixty two thousand workers are these more of these low income jobs and are those the jobs that the american dream with bells on. that's exactly right in fact over the past decade the number of middle initial jobs is the clone by ten percent in america if this is a long term trend in a long term problem so you're exactly right the job growth isn't faces but also welcoming people to wal-mart and that's a huge problem i remember back when i was teaching new to i walked into mcdonald's

and asked for a job application i was hired because they were desperate to find people who work but today we heard about that national hiring you know the tonal shift help over a million people across the united states showed up and only sixty two thousand were hired so that's about six point two percent now if you compare that to her harvard except seven percent of the people that apply for her so today learn since it is actually easier to get into her family is to get a job it does seem to stack out quite right another question want to ask the american dream another thing you think of as starting your own business kind of being entrepreneurial going your own way where is that going i want to know you know china india we know people are going back over there to have more opportunity we know there's also drawbacks and there's risks of corruption not so much the ability but are those better issues to contend with in america's bureaucracy and stagnant economy if they are an entrepreneur trying desperately to make their first million dollars. those who didn't notice it says such strong we knew difficult to

open up a new business not only to reach out strangling regulations were you know got the highest corporate tax rate in the entire world it's a big it's becoming a b.r.t. toxic environment for american business because our leaders many we're told to sins are essentially controls somebody loaded us down with so many rules and regulations that it's really difficult to get a business go go in meanwhile tons of businesses are going out the places like india and china like you said in fact since two thousand and one an average of fifty thousand manufacturing jobs per month which one of the united states and china joined the world trade organization back in two thousand and one so we're seeing a lot of long term trends that are are really hurting the u.s. a total right now and people can start businesses of people have jobs they go on the welfare rolls since two thousand and seven the number of americans are increased but you know are all time record forty four million americans are in the us i really quickly i don't have time for a long answer but i'm just curious how quickly you can say how still the richest

are benefiting because you mentioned had typical of it at the start a small business but yet big within the fortune five hundred companies have seen an eighty one percent increase in their profits and past year has of happening while all the entire industry big corporations and every c.e.o. now makes three hundred forty three times more money on the average person in the middle class and so the government greatly think is the big banks and big corporations and so small businesses are really being worked out in the polls and with that the wealthiest individuals are certainly not getting left out in the cold a new study from deloitte shows that by two thousand and twenty forty three percent of the world's wealth is expected to be at how by million or households right here in the usa i want to thank you for your and take that with michael t. snyder founder of the economic collapse blog sticking with the economy the u.s. national debt is fourteen trillion dollars and mounting quickly. approaching the debt ceiling expected to happen this month can be gotten out there's

a little google room the government really has until august also mounting though is the debate over raising the debt ceiling coming at a time lawmakers are claiming to get serious about reducing the deficit trying to agree on a budget but looking back congress has raised the debt limit ten times over the last ten years so is there really any point to the whole debate joining me now is edward harrison founder of credit write downs dot com very smart man to help us assess that thank you so much for being with us so really what is the point of this debate if history shows that the debt ceiling and raising it is pretty much a protocol is just an ideological debate preparing people for the two thousand and twelve elections you know it's you could say that america's sort of entering this whole been there republicans do we have these ridiculous debates about potentially defaulting on that that will have to default upon you know for ideological reasons it's really it's a it's a force it's

a sideshow and. at what price i'm so curious you know timothy geithner is going to meet with chinese officials on monday need to ask them to let their currency raise an increase allowing the dollar to it would essentially lower the value of the dollar and make us exports u.s. trade more competitive how insulting is it to ask chinese officials to do this something that they can still continue to do it's been a hot topic for a while when chinese officials who are the largest creditor to the united states don't even have complete confidence that the united states is going to raise the debt ceiling well the chinese they really have to worry about their own problems the reality is that you know if the chinese were paying their currency at a specific rate to the u.s. dollar in order to export to the u.s. the u.s. community then they're going to have to receive dollars in return for that their current account surplus is death. you know results of their having

a very low currency you know until recently the u.s. dollar was falling so if the chinese don't want dollars then they should really raise their currency but that for the united states to make these arguments to the chinese what leverage today really have they have the leverage of the the chinese have paid their currency to the u.s. dollar they have to actually you know take on these dollars there's nothing else they can do because of the you know if. that's the way that the math works so the leverage of the united states be hurt if the united states if china was no longer taking its currency to the u.s. colors then when china not be so be hauled into taking on u.s. debt well backfire what will happen is that the chinese within suddenly hear this huge sucking out of all the jobs going to vietnam war going to thailand or wherever it would go and you know there are you have this massive bubble in china right now so they don't want to lose those jobs they want to be able to have the the

transition away from a load. to happen gradually you know a five percent per annum ten percent prince sort of a reach but you know if we're talking about a larger appreciation in the chinese currency then not only would they lose twenty percent if they were to do about twenty percent on their foreign exchange holdings there would be a massive disruption in their export sector so that you know it's sort of like you know the soviets and the americans with their nuclear weapons you have mutually assured destruction if if this breaks down ok let's get back to the united states though an issue i think that feeling there is a lot that someone earlier and i spoke you called it financial terrorism better financial leaders say that the united states the global economy rather would be defrayed elad if the u.s. didn't raise the debt ceiling is that true who would definitely be it could be that armageddon scenario because you know the treasury market is the. most liquid bond market in the entire world is considered the you know the benchmark in terms of

well government bonds and the concept of the so-called leader of the free world with the fall of voluntarily because of some sort of political debate not because they don't have the money to be able to do so it's just you know it's beyond the pale really it isn't us really to follow. the reserve currency exactly they do and so you know that's a great benefit to the spirit of the question is whether or not if we don't raise the debt ceiling what's going to happen. automatically what's going to happen in my view is that there's going to be some sort of deal that's reached at the end of the deal everyone will look and say look we got exactly what we were looking for as a result you should vote for us in two thousand and twelve because we're the better party we're doing to school responsibility or whatever it may be really quickly is it irresponsible of political leaders on both sides of the aisle to use this issue that could have such big major global financial ramifications for political

purposes is completely irresponsible. it shows the level to which politics in the united states has dropped and just real quickly i mean only twenty seven percent of americans believe the debt ceiling should be raised according to c.b.s. poll sixty three percent oppose it obviously it's something that you know financial leaders say needs to be done but is it time to listen to american people and their concerns the reality is that united states is deficit spending right now if the united states didn't deficit spend the can we go into a tailspin housing prices which are already dropping would drop dramatically banks would lose tons of collateral we would go into a depression basically you know so americans are completely uninformed when they say we should not raise the debt ceiling because they don't understand what will happen and politicians don't seem to help that because they make that a source of debate and. thank you for our way and kind of setting us straight on

your ideas about that with edward harrison founder of credit write down. now last night the g.o.p. presidential primary debate officially launched washington back into the frenzy of campaign themes then maybe it didn't what made the biggest statement was it who was on stage in south carolina but rather who wasn't there are take a look at ford has more on how money may have had some of the big names missing in action. from the piece in the green bay south carolina the republican presidential debate the two thousand and twelve republican race has officially kicked off with big promise to get the troops out of afghanistan in a in that war that hasn't helped us and hasn't helped anybody in the middle east. big criticisms a pretty united states side would have sided with the movies instead of the demonstrators but surprisingly few big names are going to go to sleep nine questions for all these guys and none for me so what is your tax affairs just this

last election cycle the stage was a crowded place ten republican candidates duked it out for their party's nomination in two thousand. but this time around just five candidates participated in the first g.o.p. primary debate with fox's focus group showing americans but this man won godfather's pizza magnate herman cain a big businessmen with no political experience one of the biggest problems we have with this country right now today is too much government intervention in trying to kill businesses how to do what they do this which is create jobs government doesn't create jobs businesses create jobs we need to get government out of the way well there were few contenders there was no lack of harsh words to describe obama's three years as commander in chief from health care to foreign policy and now he has his hands tied by the united nations and it's subordinated our decision making and options to that pathetic organization in many risk. i would never put the united

states in that untenable position if the president says could act he must go he must go and despite blockbuster. you. can get the biggest names mitt romney sarah pailin bridge mike huckabee and donald trump say home hesitant to throw themselves into a race against an incumbent like president obama so early please join me in welcoming mr donald trump. like everything in american politics waiting to declare also comes down to money analysts say that because of campaign finance laws that prop donations the presidential campaigns at twenty five hundred dollars politicians prefer to rake in money for political action committees before officially declaring we see today this charade of obvious candidates for the republican nomination pretending they're not candidates delaying their declarations of candidacy although he's dismissed by the mainstream media congressman ron paul is no underdog fund raising wise. thank you one day alone his liberty

did in one million dollars compared with another two million raised by the campaign for liberty much of it coming from young voters god is smiling upon us it'll be runnin round in two thousand and twelve republicans say president obama isn't unbeatable president obama is not unbeatable because one right decision does not a great president make all there was so many party favorites still hedging their bets it may be hard to tap illinformed artsy washington d.c. . and joining me now for more from new york is a very handsome long author of national review online the agenda and co-author of the book grand new party how conservatives can win the working class and save the american dream also in los angeles i'm joined by tim cavanagh columnist for reason magazine and reason dot com gentlemen thank you so much for being with us you know this is supposed to be the first major debate the first time top republican contenders would square off on stage before

a national audience but lots of big names missing what why do you think that was right on. well i think that it's so early and there was a sense that if mitt romney is not going to be there then for example mike huckabee might not be inclined to be there there are a lot of people were still weighing whether or not they intend to run for president at all including indiana governor mitch daniels so there are still a lot of uncertainty in the air so that they can get this debate matter yet the idea that this debate didn't matter and that somehow this. somebody is in position to unilaterally declare this the b. team is to use to favorite word preposterous and this was obviously an interesting debate and a matter for the first time and you know there are some of us who will not forget this that the first time we ever heard drug legalization openly discussed by two different candidates the first time we heard ending the warfare state discussed by two different candidates the first time we heard ending the federal reserve and

drawing down the troops from afghanistan and iraq was at a republican debate and that is obviously important if the republicans don't realize that's important they're even more out to lunch than i think what do you think right on if you have a point. yeah i think that the tenor of the republican party has changed pretty markedly over the last few years there were many senses in which president bush represented an outlier when president bush was first elected in two thousand he pledged a much more humble foreign policy there was a sense that he in a lot of ways represented more continuity with the clinton years the soft libertarian clinton years one might say then his rival al gore who promised a much more populist presidency but during the bush years you saw a very marked shift in the direction of a stronger national security state thanks to the nine eleven terror attacks and i think that what you see is a kind of visceral reaction of the part of grassroots conservatives who never really did fully embrace the idea of nation building etc you see a lot of these folks saying that well now that we've killed osama bin laden now that we don't really have

a very clear sense of why we're not going to send or why we're in iraq let's turn the page and embrace a different kind of american foreign policy the question is whether or not another republican presidential contender a more mainstream contender one might say is going to embrace those views as well let's talk about the idea of mainstream and kind of what the possibilities are are here this was the first debate to feature two libertarian leaning republicans do you think that signifies could a libertarian when the g.o.p. nominee would that be possible to many think. hope not on this side of the grave but i think but you know it was certainly good to see ron paul and gary johnson both not only getting their points across and being able to extend each other's points and there are many ways to approach the issue of drug legalization and no rain on this with the national review which has been in favor of legalization of drugs to its great credit for many years long before it was cool and you know if that is all that mainstream topic at the main table is that do you

agree on is this a mainstream talking topic and that it's all marijuana is going to shape up to be a huge issue in there if he doesn't call the action. the thing is that medical marijuana is in a way the easier issue because medical marijuana doesn't raise our international treaty obligations and a whole thicket of other issues i do think however that for example indiana governor mitch daniels is talking about changing our approach to drugs as a cost saving strategy it's a very pragmatic argument we incarcerate a huge number of people going to states and this is led to a huge what you might call prison industrial complex and when you're talking about a party that is increasingly oriented towards the idea that big government is burdensome to government expenses that a lot of the debt that we've racked up is going to be burdensome on future taxpayers the argument that the drug war just isn't worth the extraordinary amount of money we're spending on it is going to resonate more and more i think i think is

interesting that this is something that we're even talking about in terms of a republican debate that doesn't be a big issue but i want to ask you ron if you do think there would be the possibility of a libertarian candidate that would win the g.o.p. nomination or if not it's time for a third party bursting a rise in kind of libertarian sentiment in the tea party as i mentioned to a libertarian leaning candidate on this panel is it time to recognize that in an terms that the system. i think that's relatively unlikely i think that you have seen an upsurge in interest in for example the ron paul campaign he has a large number of very devoted relatively affluent followers and i think that you know he certainly is going to play a significant role but what you also see happening is a lot of other more conventional republican candidates trying to draw on some of that rhetoric and in a way that's what you'd hope would happen by having a couple of libertarian candidates in the race you'd hope that they would help tug the debate in a different direction but i don't think it's very likely that gary johnson or ron paul will ultimately win the nomination and i think actually one of the

disappointments for me was seeing gary johnson not perform quite as adroitly as one would have hoped of course this is only as first debate and it's possible that he'll get stronger in the future i mean i just ron paul raising more than a million dollars according to his web site in a debate game money but he's raised three million dollars in the first three months and two thousand and eleven if this thing up again is this is is this more than you guys are going to expect him. yeah absolutely and you know i mean ron paul i'm not going to comment too much on how he came off last night he certainly made all of his points quite well there were a few moments where maybe his diction wasn't all it could have been but people giving this money they are giving it to ron paul many of them in a legitimate hope that he can win the presidency but clearly this is also idea money people want to get that into the debate and what's interesting is that even herman cain who i think i'm not going to be able to come down on herman cain side on a lot of stuff but the reason that he took off the way he did in the you know just

in the focus group and certainly the media attention is that he was himself presenting a kind of you know almost. i don't know whether it's better or not but it's a jacksonian view of the presidency rather than a wilsonian view of the presidency which a lot of folks including some folks on you know the maybe the national review side over the years have projected have said you know we want to beat big government republicans and on the accusing anybody but that's it seems like a good step in the right direction is that everybody is trying to run away from that even mitt romney who wasn't even there what would it take part candidate like ron paul to be taken seriously by you guys i mean he won if he packs toppled this year he won it the year before and identified him as the g.o.p.'s bathmat tap against president obama compared to mike huckabee and romney why would it take the first time on how to be a three contender. i do take it serious i don't want to give the idea that i don't

take him seriously and i would say i don't know that run or gary johnson really did the most sterling performance as a performer any guide to sweep the room apartment aside big picture of what is this you know where could this go and what would it take per someone with different views that's not the traditional republican or democrat mainstream candidate to have a real chance in a presidential race the absolute you can have a mild mannered man or person as president calvin coolidge was a great president and it was extremely mild mannered and quiet i think these are viable candidates i don't think i mean there's something wrong with the media that for that because huck and trump and bachmann weren't there that somehow views this as not a serious debate on do you agree are these by of i mean at eight inches we've had. before and fundamentally if there is a large number of americans who like medicare they think it's a great idea and they want to hold.