to the. core of the latest developments on the arrest of the head of b. are you american he said to be arraigned on sexual assault charges the hotel housekeeper accuses dominic stross conduct of attempted rape and what that you have one of today's biggest stories why is it taking a sex scandal for anyone to talk about the i am never mind its effect on greece portugal ireland and its history in the developing world. and europe isn't alone when it comes to economic struggles the u.s. has officially reached its credit limit so what's next for america and cannibals and the state since for the average american they cannot. feel like. the people

party. girl adding insult to injury debt collectors are bullying main street this as wall street in washington get bailed out. evening it's monday may sixteenth i'm lauren lyster coming to hear from washington d.c. and you of course are watching our t.v. now it is a scandal of multinational proportion and top news on the us mainstream media outlets take a look at this. is that for you now the head of the international monetary fund just arriving to a new york courtroom he said to be arraigned on sexual thought charges in new york city. in court the latest developments on the arrest of the head of the i.m.f. on charges of rape head of the international monetary fund i.m.f.

will be arraigned inside this manhattan courthouse shortly that is going to happen a hotel housekeeper accuses dominique strauss kahn of attempted rape it's taken a rape scandal for there to be any major attention paid to the international monetary fund in the u.s. never mind the banks involvement in the greece ireland and portugal bailout of late or the criticism of its policies over the years by scholars like nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz and from countries receive the thanks quote unquote help and calling it crippling now they may be the real victims of the i.m.f. who you don't hear about earlier i spoke with paul craig roberts an economist and former assistant treasury secretary during the reagan administration here's what he had to say if not immediately suspended on washington's mind for two reasons one. the current director who's now being arrested strauss kahn

was likely. winner of the next french election least according to polls and rushton much prefers mr mansour cozy. it's also a marston's mind that the i.m.f. recently announced to wash its great consternation that within five years the chinese economy will have surpassed the american economy. so even though ordinary people don't pay much attention to the i.m.f. or washington was paying attention and apparently strauss kahn was also paying attention to joseph stiglitz. and his policies were being those by the banks because strauss kahn was. advocating a return of regulation to have the banks. more carefully regulated so they couldn't produce such crises that poor people have to pay for and this was also

you know getting attention are you know what are you alluding to i mean why what is the connection between washington length on south on a natural kind of what i am and that's great. well. he is now eliminated as a threat and that always raises questions you know with the prior threat to the bikes was the new york governor eliot spitzer and he was taken out on a sex charge and now we have. the i.m.f. director and he's taken out on a sex charge whether it proves to be true or false he's now out of africa and so this is a great relief to washington and talk of banks here i've been and many new york hotels and hotels. and other cities all over the world and i have never

had a maid come into the room unannounced much less while i was in the shower. it sounds like you don't buy this story is that what you're saying well we don't know we will never know we weren't there no one was there and there were two people there and so and so he said she said and what generally happens and american prosecutions is that. the defendant is forced into some kind of plea in exchange for commission a couple she want to ask you real quickly so that we don't run out of time i want to ask you know that analysis that you made that washington and everybody you know corporations maybe are breathing easier without strauss kahn you know charge of the i.m.f. at this very moment people that have said that he was kind of changing course and moving away from some of the neoliberal policies that that countries that that had i.m.f. loans that they complained about. that he was moving away from that do you really have confidence that the i.m.f.

was moving away from these policies and really i adopt in policies that were better for poor countries and not as good for corporations anymore well all i know for sure is that the banks were worried about that and washington was worried about it and joseph stiglitz seemed to believe it so the two of them apparently were talking and we know what stieglitz position is on the well so where i would think otherwise i believe strauss kahn would have been protecting us in these charges. nothing much would have would have come up generally someone who's who's serving well those an encounter difficulties since only people who come here writes. it's full of people that have been embroiled in sex scandals and their careers bill clinton that sort of thing binding and he

survives it. or if you have a from congress i want to talk a little bit about. the the things that have not been covered having to do with i.m.f. possible victims you know some would argue activist that the i.m.f. and if personal of fiscal policies by the rich world has been devastating for poor countries that it has quote unquote helped to ramp that well that's the general yes i think that's generally true and i.m.f. austerity program always makes the ordinary people pay the cost of adjustment and. the i.m.f. austerity programs are really despised by the so-called developing world by the people there because they invariably bear the brunt brunt of them and they will be just as they have been today in europe and that's something that you know i've reported on that in other countries in brazil and seen so that sentiment so i'm curious why you don't think any of those stories ever get any play in the united

states you know those bigger more important profound stories too much more people then that one sex scandal well because they're not apply to the emergence so they don't experience the policies and and because often. the austerity it's. forced upon these so-called developing countries is in order that the new york banks can be paid off. so you wouldn't you wouldn't even widen the american media taking this on some foreign population against the wall street or new york so i think those are the two reasons if policies were applied to americans and they had to go through one of these programs which they may yet have to do. they would certainly pay attention to that but it's not their

pain it's the pain somewhere else so it's not a media story not a media dorie but we're making media story right here thank you so much that was called craig roberts former residents racing i stop. and sticking on the subject of money the united states has reached its credit limit the debt ceiling and what's happening tales in financial markets the u.s. defaulting on its debt armageddon well not exactly but this may be why the treasury department has employed what timothy geithner has labeled quote extraordinary measures so the government can't pay its bills until august second these include just in case you wanted to know borrowing from the civil service retirement and disability fund the spending investment and the federal employees retirement system and short borrowing from peter to pay paul and peter who are sounding a lot like your average worker they are talk more big picture about the debt ceiling and what's at stake here as dean baker he is co-director of the center for economic and policy research and we're so grateful to have you here so there are

really two counts on this there are the ben bernanke he's an economist at all in line with him that say not raising the debt ceiling defaulting on debt for the u.s. would be catastrophe and then there are those that seem to be you and yourself included that say that the bigger the bigger disaster is that the united states keeps spending this much and keeps raising the debt ceiling so to defend no i'm actually not at all you're not ok so i don't see any problem with the united states raising the debt ceiling where i think i've differed with perhaps some of the disaster people i said that in a worst case scenario if you actually had a situation where the government had to default on its debt which would be a very bad scenario we have financial crisis worse than we had in two thousand and eight the economy would still be there at the end of the day countries go through financial crisis you don't want to do that but we would be there at the end of the day what i've always point out to people is what would not be there is wall street j.p. morgan citigroup goldman sachs they would be out of business which is why it's not

going to happen because they if we actually got to the point where this was a conceivable possibility we're well away from that now but if we actually got to the point where that was a realistic possibility they would be screaming painter and the other. constrain them to pass a debt ceiling get to president obama and have it signed so it's not pretty there are things that aren't pushing for it but it seems that the g.o.p. wants to get that this bargaining chip of a deficit reduction commitment in the works do you think that's just a talking point if you think ultimately they will bow to the well i mean and the demands of five investors absolutely absolutely without a doubt which is why if president obama wants he just says give me a clean debt ceiling birman some point understand what we're talking about is spending money that's already been authorized for every penny that's going to be spent congress already voted on and improved so it's sort of like you know we sign the lease sunnah on the apartment and then two months down the road we go that's too much money we're not complete agreement well we already signed the lease so no

other country in the world has this sort of issue once you appropriate the money goes out the door and if you don't like you don't appropriated and of course congress could vote to retract appropriations it's hardly within their power so it's trying to play the sort of weird game where they go oh you can't let the country default so let's you know cuts of security let's cut medicare whatever might be and you know my guess is that president obama certainly if he's. in the clean bill because their backers on wall street will kill them if they don't and you argue though you know to the kind of play the flip side of that you know you say that just wall street would suffer but government spending is involved and more than just reassuring financial markets i mean these are the payments that do affect average americans government spending so it wouldn't hurt just wall street and it would hurt average americans all over the country oh you know if you got into a situation where the government could not pay its bills cannot send out medicare checks could not send out social security checks that really would be a disaster but i would expect in your something in

a situation and pay all the bills we have the stats ceiling that's binding you know again what doesn't get paid well my guess is that if we really got this issue as a said you'd end up faulting it would it's a very very hard situation to imagine just because we do have representatives that have to go back and face our constituents again and everyone sort of abstractly yells about spending they don't yell about spending on social security they don't you know about spending on medicare this is much of the spending now you can talk about the defense spending been fortunate people were doing the most telling about spending one is to spend on defense so you know it's just the money is not there at least it's not where they're pretending it is so the programs that take up most of the budget with the exception of the military do enjoy the overwhelming support of the public so if you had a represents in congress saying you're making your social security check next month more than i can be in congress for right and just looking at history i mean this has been approved ten times in the last ten years raising the debt ceiling is

pretty much protocol it seems that the differences are really using it as the targeting took this time is this an inappropriate way or an appropriate identity using as a bargaining chip oh it's in the so charlie black no to say congress appropriated all this money they if they want to cancel appropriations they could vote you know cut whatever area they like obviously they don't have support for that so it's trying to spend. tactic so i think it's inappropriate i mean what is the catastrophe if the u.s. defaulted is are you of that camp well it would really be bad news in the i'm saying it's not a catastrophe in the sense that the economy would recover in the present what about the global economy i mean the united states is the really currency and it's also considered the risk free asset in most financial models all over the world we didn't qualitatively different global environment the united states which is the fourth to mean you know again the world economy would recover go through really rough times go back to the fall of two thousand and eight it would be like that but worse so go through very very tough times but the end of the day the economy

depends on the capital stock infrastructure the skills of the workforce the technical knowledge they have lost still be there so again i don't ever want to go through this but if a point is you know you either get rid of social security or when the default i would say well you know then fine you know we'll go to the top and again that's not going to happen because it wipes out wall street first where you're saying you would rather and social security than i would rather default than and social security rather default and it will bring so security back ok i see everything i want to ask you something slightly different you know more on the the subject of confidence in the u.s. economy and and kind of the global financial system the c.f.a. institute conference which is you know that's a body to control access and of russia longer than vesting it's also touted you know by the financial times as kind of setting the conventional wisdom in some ways and they seem to be pretty bearish on the. the financial recovery the economic recovery and the united states is role in that and to hedge against that they've

advocated you know investing in u.s. farmland and gold in currencies of emerging markets is this becoming the conventional wisdom is up to conventional wisdom hi bill really see that i mean the fact in there is that markets risen very you know very impressively over the last year or so so obviously while people invest in the stock market i know there are gold diggers out there in the gold was doing very well but bulls nation today. recently i think it has taken a bit of a turn i personally don't think that makes sense i mean the idea that somehow the u.s. economy is going to be racked by huge amounts of inflation which is soon their fear is just really no basis for that data so i think this is kind of work thinking and i realize again some people are following that path my guess is they're going to end up losing a lot of money just as people in the housing bubble lost money betting on housing well what about those that say that we're already seeing in place in the united states they're just not calling the rising commodity prices food prices oil prices isn't is that inflation well it's inflation of the sectors has little to do with

the united states because you're seeing that in europe china japan everywhere so the idea that it's a u.s. problem is just misunderstanding the markets you just have to look that's happening everywhere it's not you know states do you think that the united states policy of quantitative easing and flooding the money with so much of the markets with so much the credit he has played a role in that very trivially i mean again we can't be causing inflation in japan we can't because inflation in europe is any but the most trivial way you know the u.s. if we sank the u.s. economy where it would go to twelve fifteen percent that's going to have an impact on the world economy is we're still a big enough economy but it's going to very perverse story that because we have. a terribly healthy recovery believe somewhat of a recovery that's helping to boost the world economy which does increase demand for these commodities and therefore raise their price but to blame that on quantitative easing anything they please their economy would have that same effect so in the sense people want the us economy permanently depressed we're going to see those rising prices are already down to see where everything goes from here on out but i want to thank you for your perspective that was dean baker co-director for the

center for economic and policy research now meanwhile while the u.s. government gets to just raise the debt ceiling to continue borrowing more money whether the u.s. can pay off that that or not average americans are not so lucky but wait till you see the legs the debt collectors are going to in some cases criminal to get americans to pay up parties report neither has the story. imagine a call coming to your home alone you pick up and a stranger demands your money and threatens your life they had said that they would you know where you live we know your wife is not going to get away with this before they hung up in court brian's case he was dealing with the mafia and i called them back to find out exactly who they were they were the voices of debt collectors harassing the fifty year old music producer over a small debt belonging to his son took.

it to the perpetrator. with a record number of americans drowning in unpaid bills losing homes and searching for jobs abuse in the us debt collection industry has reached record high one hundred forty four thousand complaints were filed with the federal government last year among them collectors resorting to racial slurs anti-semitic remarks and threats of rape certainly any threats of violence or clearly illegal contact with third parties somebody other than the consumer is illegal and unless it is on the very specific circumstances however debt collector is routinely violate the third party disclosure rules and contact neighbors and relatives as a means of putting pressure on consumers to pay attorney joseph morrow says most collection agents work on commission only getting paid when a debts been recovered a climate of economic desperation intensifying the use of the legal and aggressive

tactics just to net a bounty paycheck there are to my knowledge about four or five cases of suicide coming from that collection harassment this also been heart attacks and strokes ironically i like time is always extended to the biggest bar of them all the us government with an exceptional debt. fourteen point three trillion dollars america then doing money printing more cash and relying on creditors like china who own one point one trillion dollars in u.s. treasury bonds and when you make it perfectly clear that congress will raise that doesn't mean washington gets a safety net wall street gets a bailout and the working americans facing financial hardship gets harassed is it unfair yes it is the economic environment disasters right now yes it is but there's been traditional ways to to work your way out of these situations and those mechanisms are working anymore but. i sound on likely to be heard on wall

street where the rich and powerful have lost billions in past years while poor americans on main street continue dealing with all the constant breena fortnight r.t. . and meanwhile moving overseas the country of france is moving to ban a gas extraction technique known as fracking meanwhile this industry the shale gas industry is booming in the united states but not without consequence a new duke university study has confirmed what concerned americans have been claiming for a while but which was dismissed as anecdotal by the gas industry that fracking pollutes groundwater but before we got to all of that let me give you a little background on friday if you don't know what it is already now some journalism students from new york university they did a song which is going to do a much better job than i could give you a little background take a listen. it's

. going to go to the to the. city it's. like they're going to. see. one of the i don't. know how to talk about this is kate indeed she is senior attorney for the natural resource. council thanks so much for being with us so i want to start with france and what's going on there they're moving to ban fracking which which hasn't really gotten off the ground there yet because they say that it can't be shown to be done safely and that there are. information suggests there's a big risk for the groundwater as far as toxic chemicals what does it say that they're moving to ban something that has been going on in the united states since

the ninety's and makes up twenty five percent i read of the gas supply in the us. yes i think what we're seeing is the beginning of a trend where folks are increasingly realizing that there are significant risks associated with fracking so fracking was allowed to move forward and parts of the united states that are perhaps more used to having drilling where the extraction industries are more welcome as it's moved further east and is being increasing accidents water lucian air pollution all the side effects people are becoming increasingly concerned about that and that frankly going across the atlantic and further than that where really there's an international recognition now that this is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be what about the recognition in the united states that you know just most recently duke university had a study confirming that there were dangerous levels of methane in drinking water

where wells were where the drilling was occurring is there any sense there's also been more public information out there more investigations that have shown the consequences of facking is there any movement in the u.s. to regulate it more tightly to move to ban it you know is there a response here. there is a response here i mean when you've seen it in new york state for example we've had a an effective moratorium on any drilling for the last couple of years because the state has said like france we're concerned about the risk we need to understand what they are before we can move forward in other states you have seen improved regulation are we where we need to be in this country absolutely not and that. because of. two things one is the pressure to develop a mystic energy by them the feeling that natural gas provides an alternative or an

oil and then economic development pressures a lot of where show up in the country isn't in economically good but there is a lot of political pressure from the other guy again and develop much got. one of influence from the energy industry because one thing that i noticed and not necessarily saying are correlated but i do know that in france for example their largest electricity company tries to take defrosts their main electricity generator is still eighty five percent state owned in this is of course includes all of their nuclear energy which is really big in france and also powers a lot of europe so their state has a lot more control in energy production in general does that play a role is there more ability for government to go in and say hey we don't want this here somewhere like france versus the united states where it is largely a private operation and where you could argue there is a lot more influence from private companies

we lost my most important question unfortunately we are going to have to leave that one to you so investigate meanwhile violent protests have broken out in spain as locals have taken to the streets to voice their disapproval of government sanctioned austerity measures austerity measures we've been speaking about so much even earlier today when talking about the i.m.f. policies now the cuts designed to alleviate economic woes have many in europe believing that spain may be next in line for one of those multibillion dollar bailouts are two correspondents there for us as that story. first greece then. and now portugal has the euro things paid out by the number there are now serious concerns that spain could be the next to topple the protesters throughout europe i can arrange to replace even more taxpayers' money being plowed into

rescuing others. if i had. three. things. that the government. might write about it probably met with forty three percent under twenty five thousand what i didn't like the whole labor market the focus a little side was that i think that there's going to be one fight this. year is a problems weren't enough there is now talk of greece defaulting on its like even potentially accepting the year i gather and portugal's recent bailout is reported to be worth around seventy eight billion euro spain is the usain bolt largest economy a different challenge altogether if it fails. if the situation happening in the

markets were not managers buying out of spain's debt is the most catastrophic scenario for the e.u. what will the e.u. do i think and many experts share my opinion that the e.u. will do the utmost to avoid the scenario that any cost because spain is too big to fail. then we got to. the big question now is just how much longer can the usa continue bankrolling going bust as the spiraling debt crisis continues to escalate. ministers are struggling to maintain a united front. the financial survival for such countries is spain seriously in danger. it could lead to. a strong group of countries using the euro and the rich not using it. thank you and take the place our speculation will be the next month for. this problems continue greece ireland and

portugal possibly spain becoming the next to a sink the teeth of remains very real and right now your kids like the reality. that is so far apart. and of course the part that we mentioned earlier that doesn't always get mentioned is the i.m.f. role in bailouts like there would be if in fact spain did ask for a bailout and that has also played a role in those other countries that have faced sovereign debt crises in the eurozone that's been here for now though for more on the stories we covered go to r.t. dot com slash usa also check out our youtube channel it's youtube dot com slash r t america you can see that fracking song in its entirety on our website and i encourage you to do so it is quite good and please follow me on twitter lauren lyster and we will be right back here for more news in a little bit thanks so much.