out of work on down here this friend's house and our brain tells. different cities just to try to find work. the american dream slowly shattering into the american nightmare the new jobs numbers are all meet up and up so everything's good right well maybe not if you ask the failing 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 get the troops out of the way after the stealing war that doesn't help those in the sense of you know anybody

in the middle east from grass roots ground work to peter king the first g.o.p. debate kicks off but is the race for the white house begins a few contenders are missing their white campaign contribution rules might be to blame. good evening it's friday may sixth i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. you are watching r t well new jobless numbers came out today showing the economy last month added close to two hundred fifty thousand jobs good news right beat expectations but 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. today morgan stanley announce

home prices could fall another six to eleven percent this year sending a middle class asset thirty one percent are underwater on further down in value after the worst economic downturn since the great depression and job losses have forced formerly middle class families into poverty or his remote glinda looks at where the american dream has gone. sunny southern california long a favorite destination for those pursuing stardom and well throughout the years barry's have lived the american dream of comfort and increasing prosperity but these days many of those very pam lees are caught up in a nightmare of escalating party the economic crisis has touched them before untouchable middle class what we have seen in the last. week passion. in the family. some of them fall apart. maybe areas trying to raise her daughters but she struggles to keep

a place to live the mayberry's are typical of the growing trend of families that slide from middle class to poverty and homelessness i thought i had the best of everything. there he was participating he with work and i was working so we didn't have that cal. medicare. are where prescriptions 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's had to overcome many challenges in her life but before maybe lost her job she never imagined she would be funny to stay off the streets every day our high think you are where with that or how are we going to sleep just security is gone the unemployment rate is stuck in the double digits around the los angeles area with few opportunities for 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 taisha 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. 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 los angeles is the heart 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 work sundance and 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 unemployed and cannot be rich and he calls relies on the kindness of loved ones and food stamps social programs to help stress families hang on are about to be lost to political games as lawmakers in washington wrestle with future budget cuts while battling to see tax cuts for the richest this nichols fears could push many already desperate families over the edge. honestly i think. the jails would probably fill up because people were given 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 push came a sherman i couldn't what else am i supposed to do when am i going to do is

a question may bury yourself daily ever since she joined the army of the newly poor and struggling to raise her children hoping for a hollywood ending to her story a little every day. in los angeles coming early in the party and meanwhile the income gap in the us is only getting wider these days data shows that the wealthiest one percent of americans control a third of the wealth and they're expected to see their wealth double over the next decade according to the late study while the average americans everyone else seems to still be struggling the resident annette show host laurie harf and asked went to the big apple to find out how people feel about that. economy continues to cause a lot of people a lot of difficulties and yet the rich keep getting richer are you ok with that

this week let's talk about that well i mean we have to talk about what is actually defined rich i mean for people to say that families making two hundred fifty k. a year combined being rich as some people define rich is completely absurd absurd lower middle class hold on only a very small percentage of people actually make that yes but you see the thing is i understand a small percentage of people do however does not make them rich there's only a couple of them. i think that although we don't see it there's a lot of work they have to do you don't get rich overnight you think given the people on wall street are working harder than you are no i don't but i think they might be working smarter. so do they deserve money for that. millions of dollars of your taxpayer dollars but i don't know that it's my taxpayer dollars well they got . bailed out they got millions and millions of dollars and a security i disagree with the bail out completely so why does the government's

keep bailing out the banks. because a lot of people in the government go to work for the banks but all intertwined after that like goldman sachs today. when you consider that a conflict of interest because the government supposed to represent the little guy yes i would but they both so intertwined that they can keep doing it they knew that they were betting against harms homes being foreclosed on and mortgages were kind of bomb and people started losing their homes is that still ok people who couldn't afford to buy homes so you think it's their responsibility i don't think they should have read the fine print when you borrow three or five hundred thousand dollars you need to understand what you're doing i'm not ok with the rich are getting richer but guess what this is a man. more power to even at the expense of other people i once bunch of other people will be losing their homes because of bum mortgages all lost their homes

because they bought mortgages that they couldn't afford the mortgage companies didn't do anything about it you have no dad i do i have my house is going into foreclosure too but guess what i don't blame the rich for being rich that's why they're here so you blame yourself for that yeah might i thought would you be ok with profiting off of someone else's loss. and i think some of these people don't think that as to what they are profiting i'm not saying that they. intentionally set out but i think it's. generations perhaps. inherited or accumulated wealth. on into these families. you go to ivy league schools and what have you and it keeps going and going and going whether or not you think the rich deserve to keep getting richer the bottom line is it's going to continue to happen unless something drastically changes.

the u.s. national debt is fourteen trillion dollars and mounting quickly approaching the debt ceiling which is expected to happen this month but there is a little bigger room that the government had until august also mounting is the debate over raising that debt ceiling coming at a time lawmakers are claiming to get serious about reducing the deficit but looking back congress has raised that debt limit ten times over the last ten years so is there really any point to the whole debate joining me now to tell us what he thinks is charlie mcgrath he's founder of buy awake news thank you so much for being with us now i know the debt is high but this debate over the debt ceiling is there really a point to it if history serves that pretty much passing that raise to the debt ceiling as protocol well you know there is

a point to making the. i think we're going to. make. it so. what. will be. your. entire. anybody. but in the last. year. who are these three. trillion dollars. to train them in this war and you know the kind of you that lost the. war when they did the last. dollar it was. because it's a reflection and to do the same thing that they want to get in the body two trillion dollars. i think that you probably watching from either side.

and. they want to. so they can sail through the twenty coalition. without having to answer. another two trillion dollars of debt because polls show that americans really are in favor of raising the debt ceiling only twenty seven percent of americans believe it should be increased that's according to the c.b.s. poll sixty three percent oppose doing so but what's really the alternative setting financial markets tailspin. well you know that the fear the fear the. three letters the congress they need to do that. then it's going to be pandemonium but there still is beer and that is the i think there will carry you know the. thank you craving to that you know obviously when things were for the dollars and the ending this year we obviously don't have the money to do that we have

a debt ceiling for congress but check the amount of money that we're spending but there is no there is not a little bit because the true power of the i think we wrote an article like ben bernanke. timothy geithner and they demanded they spend the money to be don't have and the american people are the ones. we will pay this money want to use they want to use the effect that they want to be ever was if we don't. but again we don't know how to the. three years after. my. recovery about. the reporting with. them what do you think is the alternative let the united states hit that debt ceiling default and not be able to fund its activities with countries like china losing all faith to get paid back. well you know i think china are you know that

you know not even two weeks ago or they decided they were going to take a two thirds of the dollar to do that and get rid of that they understand that. you know depending that we can to keep our own body i can pay for them or a program or completely nothing more than a way just because they borrow the money to pay for it doesn't need was a nickel and i love that they you know if you look at. all period i call that a ninety eight trillion dollars adjusted for today's dollars with the debt limit and that'll get one point eight trillion if you buy that or maybe maybe it doubles of the three and i think that the two thousand and five point six trillion dollars to build the two thousand and eight you know this is the problem. if you look at two thousand and eight we are sitting with them trillion dollars national debt not in two thousand and eight to two thousand and eleven it's all the free syrian

dollars that we want another two trillion it's going to be big. dollars but it isn't twenty fell. in our debt and it is going to destroy the house selling it well you think is really going to cost that people are going to pay and . continue to mount but look at what they did to different groups in iraq that are right that you either keep bugging the world market or you keep borrowing to fund the government or the liberal party or we stop and we see an absolute imposing a. value that that wall street. firms you know that are. raising the debt ceiling they would be the loser is that it kept our. people. the american citizens of the world if we keep raising. the bar very far in the last few months i mean if we look at the house you need to have laid out. where we saw. at.

least marry. somebody. borrowing money but you don't have to get in. and this is the thing wall street this is why they're all. i think the smart thing to do was you know if we had stuff like that that the two thousand eight. we're going to audit the way back to recovery and all of that into a dollar that the proposal and maybe people like the head of j.p. morgan chase. their path they would be what would the american people to feel and just really quickly though i mean the government does get a lot of money out today american people at a time right now when a lot of those people are facing joblessness one in seven are on food stamps which is terrible but at the same time they're on food stamps fifty nine percent of americans are receiving some kind of federal money so if the united states doesn't

raise the debt ceiling is unable to continue its normal functioning it argue that hurts average folks to not just the banks. it's absolutely but this is because you do more than forty five million people on with that the fact is we're not going to make it better by borrowing money to give the last i think. in the last three years that we call the devil bit and get the getting into the president or the mobile or mess with it knowing that. the i mean the logic to borrow money in order to make when it. doesn't work and then we do is you know look at the conditions and it's a direct result of the policy or the wizard of our perjury i think you are really going to be don't ever love you already but like are you concerned about treating there and at the same time they do continue to buy u.s. debt and there does continue to be a customer for u.s.

debt so i guess my question is are you ok with average people that have been so hurt in this recession getting hurt further if there is financial austerity. you know about ok. i did that little happen if the debt ceiling wasn't raised that essentially is after my financial austerity because the government won't be able to continue funding everything that it does which includes benefits for people. i think if you look at the government money and so you know. here we have to do some of the law and we could eliminate or raise back in this trillion dollars of your military spending if we cut spending in the government it doesn't have to be that people were all of a couple too big that it was you know court was the bill of. that but it. has a problem. you make

a fair point there and i want to thank you for weighing in on all of this as you talk about effective quantitative easing we know that coming up this monday timothy geithner will talk to chinese officials and again press them to change the value of their currency which essentially would lower the dollar further continuing kind of some of those trends you spoke a lot the way it happens there it will talking about it that was charlie mcgrath founder of wide awake news dot com and switching over to forward looking politics last night's g.o.p. presidential primary debate officially launched washington back into the frenzy of campaign season but let me the biggest statement wasn't exactly who was on stage in south carolina but rather who wasn't archie's kalen ford has more on how the money and her alone. from the piece in the greek south carolina the republican presidential debate the two thousand and twelve republican race has officially kicked off with big promise it kept 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 pretty united states side sided with the mullahs instead of the demonstrators but surprisingly few big names like nine questions for all these years and none for me so well you're taxed the fair just last election cycle it was a crowded place as ten republican candidates duke 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 boxes focus groups showing americans but this man one godfather's pizza magnate herman cain a big business man 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 this which is create jobs government doesn't create jobs

businesses create jobs we need to get government out of the way 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 is subordinated our decision making and actions to that pathetic organization in many respects i would never put the united states in that untenable position if the president says khadafi must go he must go and despite blockbuster. given the biggest names mitt romney sarah palin bridge mike huckabee and trump stay home as it's into throw themselves into a race against an incumbent like president obama so early on please join me in welcoming district and i'll take you up. like everything in american politics we're going to declare also comes down to money and i say that because of campaign finance

donations to presidential campaigns 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 is dismissed by the mainstream media congressman ron paul is no underdog fund raising one. on one day alone his liberty pac didn't 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 run in two thousand and twelve republicans say president obama isn't unbeatable president obama is not . one right. not a great president make all there was so many party favorites still hedging their bets it may be hard to town in ford artsy washington d.c. . and for more earlier i was joined by two guests in new york ray hans along he's

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 and from los angeles ten capital he's a columnist with reason magazine and reason dot com here is part of our conversation there was a sense that it's mitt romney is not going to be there for example mike huckabee might not be inclined to be there there are a lot of people are still 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 said tim did this debate matter. yes 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 tim poland favorite word the proposed. this was obviously an interesting debate and it mattered 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 anything the

warfare state discussed by two different candidates the first time we heard anything the federal reserve and the drawing down the troops from afghanistan and iraq was a republican debate and that it's obviously important if the republicans don't realize that's important they're even more out to lunch than i think i want to ask you right on if you think there would be a possibility of a libertarian candidate they would win the g.o.p. nomination or if not if it's time for a third party worth being such as a rising tide of libertarian sentiment in the tea party as i mentioned to you a libertarian leaning candidate on this panel is it time to to recognize that in ensuring 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 happen 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 and hope that that help tugh 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 that actually one of the disappointments for me was seeing gary johnson not performed quite as adroitly as one would have hoped of course this is only as first debate and it's possible that they'll get stronger in the future i mean i just ron paul raised more than a million dollars according to his web site in a debate game money but he's raised three million dollars and the first three months of two thousand and eleven is this significant is this is is this more than you guys are going to expect him. yeah absolutely and you know i mean we 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 site over the years have projected have said you know we want to be big government republicans and you know 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 for a candidate like ron paul to be taken seriously by you guys i mean he won a seat back struck all this year he won it a year before the ad and identified and i think g.o.p. is best match up against president obama compared to mike huckabee and romney why

would it take that first i want to be a theory contender. i do take it serious i don't want to get the idea that i don't take him seriously. i would say i don't know that run or gary johnson really did the most sterling performance thoughts or anything i just leave the room right there apartment this guy big picture what is this you know where could this go and what would it take for someone with different views that's not a traditional republican or democrat mainstream candidate to have a real chance in a presidential race. absolutely you can have a mild marriage mannered person this president calvin coolidge was a great president 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 do you agree ideas by about ninety eight and should we shouldn't you know that if you're a guy that's obviously forward fundamentally if there is a large number of americans who like medicare they think it's a great idea and they want to hold on to it they want to keep it and even when you have a fairly conventional conservative republicans who are saying look we need to reform the medicare system quite dramatically we need to parrot back then they receive a tremendous amount of blowback because simply put the number of elderly voters is an incredibly large and also americans being relatively affluent are very risk averse and so when you have any candidate who is advancing what is taken to be a risky proposition including dramatically paring back the size and scope of the federal government something that i think both tim and i would endorse it's going to frighten people and so that's why there is a powerful tendency towards more conventional less daring political candidates candidates who are going to focus on what i think a lot of us would refer to as fake issues and fake controversies rather than dealing with some of these core propositions because again you know many people come to depend on these institutions. and that was jim cavanaugh columnist for

reason magazine and ray hans a law and blogger for the national review online the agenda and with that is going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to our t. dot com slash usa took our you tube channel it's you tube dot com slash r.t.m. america you can catch additional interviews analyzing the debt ceiling as well as the decline in the middle class all very interesting viewpoints from other guests also follow me on twitter at lauren lyster have a good evening thank you so much for tuning in.