the be the dollar is in the job so how to fix that i once radical idea only found at the end of the rainbow may not be so radical anymore but will this move make the us economy good as gold. and crude intentions on capitol hill this as the c.e.o. for a major oil company get grilled over subsidies and tax incentives so they get a public lashing from senators or anything really came. to light in the media or that the united states was the greatest country in the world because if you just work hard you can be part of this magical middle class and what middle class might

that be the once american dream now a distant memory for many living in the united states but as a middle class guys in america is growing elsewhere we'll take you to india to see the economic boom there. it's thursday may twelfth i'm christine for sound washington d.c. and you are watching our t.v. . well you ever heard the expression good as gold well starting to take on more and more meaning these days more people are talking about returning the u.s. economy to the gold standard and i know you're thinking this sounds crazy like a radical idea maybe it once was reserved for seemingly radical people the times are changing even steve forbes well known businessman c.e.o. of forbes and editor in chief of forbes magazine cover time presidential candidate he made an interesting prediction that

a return to the gold standard by the united states within the next five years now seems likely that move would help a nation solve variety of economic and fiscal monetary ills and just as one man not just four author and investor jim rogers also said the situation is getting worse he predicts problems down the road and came down hard on fed chairman ben bernanke saying quote dr bernanke he doesn't understand economics he doesn't understand finance he only understands printing money and you can't quadruple the amount of money in the next low down florida i spoke to stuff scott carter about this he's the c.e.o. of goldman i think many people are starting to see the value of gold as a part of their portfolio for diversification it's always been a great hedge against the falling dollar or inflation and that seems to be what the issue is here it's a dollar issue and gold is shining very brightly as a result of this you know if the dollar was as good as gold other people would want

to buy it this is the quote also from steve forbes about it but let's look around it and support that actually with what's going on around around the world this year mexico but around a hundred tons of gold that's according to the next conventional bank one of the global implications here. well i think it's a key point central banks used to be net sellers of gold for a decade they were providing most of the supply of gold in the marketplace most recently the all central banks have either been holding on to the gold that they've owned or they've been buying gold so not only mexico but russia has been buying gold the central bank of india lost a significant amount of gold a year and a half ago we know that china is building up their gold supply so clearly central banks who really are in the know with regard to see currencies or paper currencies they want to diversify against or away from currencies and gold is one of the asset

classes of choice that they make it that they make you know in contrast to maybe the euro zone i think there's a lot of raw confidence in the u.s. dollar sort of confirming you know if there's a lot going on that it's good for us people know that something is wrong with the dollar he said so i want to get your take i mean working for goldline you know what happens next we implement gold and we react a gold standard to the united states otherwise you know until world war i what changes here is does the economic crisis get soft. well i think what changes is that it put handcuffs on central banks and i think that that's really what jim rogers and steve forbes and others are saying is that we have to control the amount of money we're printing right now as you said the dollar used to be reserved as or stated as good as gold and not many in the world think that right now in fact there was a phrase that said our currency your problem was an old fray and the world is not happy with the fact that they're holding

a lot of our treasuries and it's losing value also christine the big fact is that we continue to add to our debt we're spending about a trillion and a half more every year than we're bringing in in tax revenues and that is only devaluing the dollar long term at goldline we talk to individuals that are concerned about their buying power and that's why they're buying gold as one way to move away from dollars and have another asset that might perform well in a weakened dollar environment you know it's really interesting just this week we had a bunch of leaders are from the financial area areas in china come here to town to talk to some of our biggest leaders here are they spoke with vice president biden they start with secretary of treasury geithner secretary of our secretary of state hillary clinton about a variety of issues and i think the main issues that they really need it's a touch of time lines about these financial issues in the fact that a lot of people are looking to china as sort of moving in the right direction what would happen i guess if the gold standard is implemented here in the united states

in terms of that relationship with china and with the fact that well i want to marry an interesting well that's true they do a lot of our debt and i think there's a symbiotic relationship they don't want to see the dollar decline but they also don't want to see the united states in a recession because their economy is so linked to our g.d.p. growth but the fact is that it's important for the u.s. to have a strong dollar the world reserve currency has to be strong and we cannot continue to increase our debts in our deficit so. what happens if there's some sort of gold standard well that would certainly limit the amount of dollars we could print central bankers will hate this by the way but it would put handcuffs on them and what they could print it would force our congress to live within our means which is good and bad it makes for a strong dollar but it also has some short term economic pain that was c.e.o. of gold line. well earlier i spoke to a man who has been talking about this for years carol selenski publisher of the

trends journal and director of the trends research institute he told me why others are now only starting to jump on the gold bandwagon. this is happening you go back to the world bank they were talking about this seven months ago the dollar is collapsing jim rogers is right about bernanke you know with a real public enemy number one is it's osama bin burn a key this guy's devaluing the money in front of our all eyes look at wholesale prices today at producer prices just today that retail sales went up why because energy and food prices were going off the cheaper the dollar goes the commodities go higher the dollar isn't worth the digital paper it's not being printed on not to reiterate this too much in general but let's look around the world what's going on interesting indicator i think this year mexico got around a hundred tons of gold this is according to the mexican central bank you know and looks like to me at least that the lost confidence in the u.s.

dollar is everywhere i'm confirming another thing that your favorite guy steve forbes that which is you know people know that something is wrong with the dollar and he said if the dollar was as good as gold other countries want to buy it so here's a question for you though we switch to gold as the gold standard is everything then sunshine and daffodils for the u.s. economy no because the business of america is war as opposed to the business of china is business united states is draining the treasury before our eyes look since there's a libyan war right a billion dollars already spent i just saw report today since the war on terror the united states is done two trillion dollars we have no what our manufacturing base we have now number two to china now it's not going to solve everything what it will do is however it will give other countries a more stable reserve currency to deal with because they don't want to get stuck

with a lot of worthless paper i'm curious gerald i mean about the feasibility of this idea we got these sort of more. mainstream people tonking about implementing the gold standard but what this does is this takes the reins away from the elites here in washington from those you know at the fed and currency manipulation so despite these calls from these now respected business leaders don't you think there will be a lot of pushback from those you know used to having a little more control oh they'll be pushed back but they'll find a way how to do is come up with another scheme undreamed of again the system will make the rules and we'll all have to play by them and they'll come up with a different rule to it to get around it but there's no question about it the fed can only do so much their game is almost over and we're seeing it with aig and with mainstream guys like forbes waking up and finally saying something has to change so

gerald you're saying the fed game is almost over are you saying that the fed is going to collapse sometime soon oh no no i'm saying with the fed can't do anymore they're running out of cards to play christine they they can't lower interest rates anymore they're near zero they try the q e three game again the dollar crashes you know this is what people feel god and i was talking with you i believe when it happened when you brought me on the day that bernanke gave that his story that press conference the first in their ninety eight year history by the time he left the stage gold prices going up twenty dollars an ounce silver prices went up two dollars an ounce and you pointed out that the trade weighted basket of currencies against the dollar well the three year lows out of games but the next game and this is what people have to understand is the next game is they take you to war we've seen this play out why i think twenty nine great depression cards the board trade

war world war we're in the same scheme right now. i was there a little and a publisher of the trends journal and director of the trends research institute. well we've seen it all before from goldman sachs to be paid he owes brought before congress to be grilled about their misdeeds by the tireless defenders of the american people congress but today's show trials lead to real reform or are they a useful charade as big oil voters continue lining congressional pockets are just killing ford has more on the tough talk and the big profits of america's big five i think you're out of touch deeply profoundly out of touch and deeply and profoundly committed to sharing nothing you'd have an easier time convincing the american people that a unicorn just flew into this hearing room and that these big oil companies need taxpayer subsidies or we have to pay you i mean telling all right wing cost is not a subsidy it's

a legitimate key duction the c.e.o.'s of america's big five oil companies were in congress today you know the champion of the free market we love to compete i mean much that is what we want is competition they were on the hill to defend something very different that's incentives credits and subsidies for billion dollars worth of but if you see big oil companies who rake in a collective thirty five billion in the first quarter of two thousand one loan has the most vulnerable americans to make a lot of money that's why it's american way. but it also seems that maybe the subsidies are not really that necessary anymore but could go phillips slammed those who want to end those subsidies as un-american did you really mean to question my patriotism and the patriotism of the twenty eight other united states senators who are co-sponsors do you believe that president obama is an american because he has proposed cutting oil subsidies do you believe that former president bush speaker

boehner congressman ryan are un-american because they have expressed cutting oil subsidies the plan would shrink america's one point three trillion dollar deficit by twenty one billion over ten years and with gas hovering around four dollars a gallon and everything on the chopping block it was an opportunity for senators to show they feel americans pain do you think that your subsidy is more important than the financial aid we give to students to go to college could you answer that yes or no oh it's very difficult question for late big tobacco and goldman sachs before them boy that timberwolf was one should feel how much of that should you deal if you sell your clients after june twenty to two thousand and seven parading c.e.o.'s before congress or representatives can grill them generates press that leads to little reform the same oil companies testified in two thousand and eight and two thousand and five when gas prices spike all those c.e.o.'s then

said they did it using facts incentives you all have done is major oil companies a dramatic about face this morning in two thousand and five all of you were there mr moore but all of you said you did not need cacs incentives to drill for oil and today you've come to say you've got to have them when oil is that one hundred dollars a barrel i just think that position defies common sense and big. oil's response to the extent of taxes or higher in the united states will look elsewhere to the extent that foreign tax credits are limited will be even more difficult for us to compete overseas as well so with all the provisions that have been considered it will make it more difficult for us to do business raise the cost of doing business alternately produce less in revenue for the u.s. government see we're jobs and. move against the president's agenda of reducing

import of oil congress is expected to vote on the close big oil tax loopholes act next week but what twelve point nine million of lobbying dollars flowing from chevron four point four million coming from exxon nineteen point six million coming from conoco phillips and seven point three million i mean from b.p. america it's unlikely the public interest will be able to speak louder than black coal when ford artsy washington d.c. all right so the c.e.o.'s of major corporations are enjoying some of the best most profitable years of their lives gas prices are soaring and what about those millions of americans who lost their jobs who are basically left in the dust of the two thousand and eight financial collapse that's about dust still settling joblessness still at a peak so we want to know where is the working class headed in this country are the correspondent on a saucer churkin of delves into the struggle. the u.s. was once home to the picture perfect american dream a house a car and a job symbolize the middle class as the core of

a prosperous country yet for an increasing amount of americans some or all of these are now out of reach this country was founded on the ideals of life liberty and pursuit of happiness how can you be happy if you can't pay your rent how is this american a new way shape or form and the new america is littered with millions of homes lost and abandoned with the unemployed officially at over thirteen million still queuing to get a job does this mean the middle class is this appearing in the us there have been four pillars that supported the american middle class the chance to retire the chance to send their kids to higher education you know graduate school university the chance to work and afford a comfortable standard of living and access to medical care and if we look for these killers our chip cracker sway to date over sixty percent of americans say they typically believe he checked paycheck leaving little for college fees mortgage payments or retirement the u.s.

is increasingly being divided into rich and poor but the traditionally large center and middle class being squeezed out the bottom fifty percent of earners today on less than one percent of the country's wealth america has gone from the most egalitarian nation on earth back in the nineteenth sixty's and early seventy's so now we're to gap between the rich and the poor is the widest in the united states then any of the industrialized nations so why every see the middle class is dead in america came up comes from a traditional american middle class family the twenty three year old college graduate lives in a rented basement and says middle class jobs just don't exist anymore i was taught all my life in the media in school that the united states was the greatest country in the world because if you just work hard. you can be part of this magical middle class i'm part of a generation of youth who will never have the so-called american dream finding work

on average takes eight and a half months now and with six americans vying for each job the prospects for the country you look at the future of the lies is living in basements like ideo some of them are becoming homeless others are going to prison right there is increasing crime and drug use and things like that there's also the wars right the military is you know they don't have a recruitment problem anymore now that the economy has had declined so much. would have been declined is military spending i'm a teacher there's teachers laid off left and right this is the future of our country and we are spending more money i mean a tremendous tremendous billions are being spent on war on the war machine priorities how do you devastating effect on middle and working class america melanie samuels runs the food pantry in new york she says the face of hunger in america has drastically changed and now we're seeing people that do have an education you still have decent jobs not on the line coming in teary eyed crying

they never thought this would happen to them some forty percent of the forty three million food stamp recipients today are working americans and every fifth child now lives below the poverty line america grew prosperous on the belief that the next generation of workers would live better than the first but nowadays the outlook for the future is anything but optimistic we're going to see more and more of a squeeze more people on food stamps more people with kitchens and more malnourished hungry children in this country no question as the foundation of the middle class continues to crumble concerns are growing that the heart of the american dream has stopped beating altogether if the middle class collapses the face of america in the twenty first century could become one this country has never seen before and since it's circular r.t. new york. well for more on the dying middle class earlier i was joined by tom hartman host of the big picture here on our t.v.

here's our conversation. seven in fact before reagan became president seventy eight percent of americans had defined benefit pensions in other words they could retire and they got a check until the day they died i mean that's down into the twenty's or thirty's now it's just wiped out before reagan became before basically what we're looking at is thirty years ago it's before reagan became president we were the largest importer raw materials in the world we brought iron ore into this country we made it into things like radios t.v.'s cars we were largest exporter of finished goods and we really are as world's largest creditor we are now we've completely reversed that in thirty years we are now the world's largest debtor we're the largest importer of finished goods and the world's largest exporter of raw materials we've become the mining operation for the world and the consumer and and as productivity is can steadily increase in the last thirty years wages are flat and this is a radical change from the previous two hundred years of those numbers always

tracked and a film that gap people use their credit cards in the use their home equity and now the middle class is tapped out a couple of points there i mean it kind of interesting that you point to president reagan who was going to be the one good old calway that a lot of conservatives point to as the best president of our generation and yet you're looking at him and saying you know he significantly changed things talk a little bit about those policies and how much you think they're still in place and sort of the politics that plays into. the joke that much and so i was going to say it all started with reagan it's when reagan was brought into power by two groups of people to groups of conservatives there were the russell kirk conservatives who wrote nine hundred fifty three a book called the conservative mind that is still the bible of the movement it was it animated william f. buckley motivated barry goldwater it was. still today it is like most one of the most important books and and and kirk's worldview and that conservative worldview back then this was in the fifty's kirk was predicting that within the next twenty or thirty years because of this growth of the middle class we've seen enormous

social instability. and that that social instability would be a bad thing for america and sure enough it happened to us that this book came out in the fifty's this is my favorite teacher so ok parents are with the rights movement right but that's right out of the anti war the year before brown versus board of education and he basically predicted these things and so in the seventy's you had people like william f. buckley jr and other conservatives thoughtful concert is looking at what was going on and going oh my god this is incredible women are burning their pras you know kids are say hell no i'm not going to go to after a war that you african-americans are demanding their rights you know gays the star wars you know it's like this is things are out of hand their cities are burning i mean there were riots you know and so they said you know william kirk was right we've got to get rid of this pesky middle class so they're with the ideologues taking on the middle class and then there's a predator is gone yeah ok we can make some money on this thing and they took on the last really really interesting certainly what's happening here is the trend

that we've seen changing but there's that trend going in a different direction in other countries for example in the uk they're seeing the growth of the new middle class an r r r c correspondent for history there is there right now and she's talking about what's going on and what's making this happen there. ponytail is living the dream age of twenty eight the former investment banker is now running a restaurant and bar in the heart of south delhi then usable if i were to take over from my father would have. the points of opportunity. but in the past ten years india has experienced enormous change and with it came a new set of hopes for the world's youngest population. the market is huge the opportunity to. spend money tales far is located inside this small one of around six hundred mega-mall that have sprung up in india within the past decade and it's driven by good design.

and there's a lot of money. so combine the desire and ability is going to do. today indians can get just about any international brand from hong kong to the u.s. to the u.k. it's access that is change the mentality of many to. people thinking that already. this is the. globalization is the. thinking in a very different manner india economy is booming twenty five years ago ninety percent of the population live on what's going to dollar a day by twenty twenty five forty percent of the population there will be caught by the middle class and with the growing income india's being a new culture of consumers and brands from around the world are ready to cash in on india is a huge country. and so even if

everybody spends so it's a huge sum but despite the success most indians are aware that the country still has a long way to go and while things are moving in a new direction and there is a large portion of the population who is at risk of being left behind in that respect is the white. rich blood is getting richer. but largely middle class indians and especially the young working demographic try to focus on the positive and watch with pride as their country comes of being and is able to achieve a global status they always believed was possible it's the woodpecker for us i mean earlier western good used to think. is a burden but now i guess even the area the more the people the more libertarian both the more the mining the more the economic times. that is difficult for the world to ignore preassure either r.t.

new delhi india someone to talk about this i mean we have not only a trend of the shrinking will. in the united states but a growing middle class in other countries like india is prius so to us you know the money is being spent people are getting jobs in what we would consider middle class wages so let's talk about the contrast that's going on here i mean you can't drive down any highway in america without seeing you know either homes that foreclosed or shuttered factories or factories that provided jobs for so many middle class americans in contrast with what's going on in other countries like india where they're investing in their middle class yes and a large part of it has to do with trade policy in seven hundred ninety one alexander hamilton george washington said we're going to do something about this when he was first when he was informed that he was elected president he had he henry knox came up op or some told me he was standing up in this field he said in six weeks ago to be president and c.c.s. and i got to do think say goodbye to his mother who died shortly thereafter and buy

him a suit made in america it was illegal in the us is to make frank clothing at the time so washington. hamilton said we want to build an industry you know here in this country and also put forward this eleven point plan and seventy nine when it was adopted by congress in seventy ninety three and from seventy nine hundred three until the reagan administration we built things in this country because we protect our industries we subsidize their industries we have tariffs that are borders that was not an original idea to hamilton he took it from the british it was called the king his tutor plan king henry so the seventh actually he stole it from the from the dutch and so it's been around for a long time so you know what's happened over the last twenty years thirty years is that the indians and the chinese have picked up basically hamilton's plan and reagan and bush and clinton all abandoned it so that we don't make policies here are directly related to what we're seeing we have no trade policy in the us it's i

mean other than you know joining the world trade organization and surrendering our sovereignty to national group or transnational corporations that's. about i know india is going to go the only country where things are kind of going right but i know that you and your show you speak a lot about germany and some of the things that they're doing they're doing it to make sure they're middle class is moving in the right direction well you know first of all they have a trade policy that is highly protective which a lot of people complain about but it works just fine for them thank you very much secondly they're generating electricity like crazy they've if they're gone in ten years from virtually nothing in solar power generation to twenty thousand to twenty twenty twenty gigawatts if you go out is a million watt so so it's that's the equivalent of about twenty nuclear power plants really briefly we're almost out of time but i love and point plan from alexander hamilton who was one of the next you know what's the five point plan that president obama the future leaders of america should jump on in order to change things to change the direction of this country number one go back to hamilton's

plan number two roll back the reagan tax cuts on the super rich stop the crazy speculation number three rein in wall street bring that stable. i'm not sure that i have fibro but i think you can sort it seems that you know here in washington we see evidence of this all the time a lot of people that make decisions they may look like the elected officials but it's actually the people lining their pockets the lobbyists how do we get it how do we get says this is a promise and brought to us largely by the supreme court and you know it's going to be out there i think frankly it's going to be addressed with an amendment to the constitution citizens united needs to be able to turn at some point in a certain i think president obama would agree with you but a lot of others but we're not tom hartman host of the big picture here on r t thanks for joining us and that is going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered on our web site our team got home slash usa we also have a very popular you tube channel youtube dot com slash art.