germany is one of our largest trading partners and we discussed a lot of people are economies growing jobs are people well sure we can work well together but why is germany's economy thriving while the u.s. is barely surviving so what if anything can the u.s. stands to learn from germany. well apparently the u.s. military well the pentagon is preparing to treat cyber attacks as an act of war and they're ready to retaliate with troops and bombs what could possibly go wrong. probably with sixty thousand dollars things that and be an education of america has

a price tag of college or left the u.s. broke when it comes to being able to compete with the world's. good evening it's tuesday june seventh four pm here in washington d.c. and lucy catherine of any watching r.t. now german chancellor chancellor angela merkel is in washington today where she's meeting with top u.s. officials and receiving the medal of freedom from president barack obama now both leaders are trying to project a close working relationship despite recent differences on foreign policy especially when it comes to libya not to mention these starkly different approaches to tackling the global economic crisis now the u.s. economy continues unfortunately to stagnate we're dealing with bare bones growth that just one point eight percent consumer spending is down home prices are sinking jobs and wages are having no. now germany on the other hand is frankly not doing so

bad it comes to unemployment germany boasts a rate of just seven percent thanks to policies that encourage companies to keep folks on the payrolls during tough times meanwhile here in the united states the unemployment rate hovers at just over nine point one percent that's nearly fourteen million americans who are looking for work not to mention the fact that most almost half of whom have been jobless for at least the past half year now when it comes to taxes germany has one of the highest tax burdens in the globe its average tax rate and the including social security contributions is a staggering fifty point nine percent now compare that with just twenty nine point four percent here in the states and how does germany manage to grow despite this huge tax burden right that's why we keep hearing from republicans here high taxes means no growth while exports and manufacturing actually leave a way i'm sure many and even more telling is the fact that germany ran a trade surplus of two hundred eighteen billion in twenty two and meanwhile here at

home we're dealing with a trade deficit of nearly four hundred ninety eight billion dollars so what lessons of any can the united states take from germany's economic sense that's i mean this country found a way to thrive if this by high taxes lots of social welfare benefits high wages all things that folks here in this country are say are business killers right so how do they do it and what can we learn from our friends across the atlantic will join me now to discuss this is tom hartman author radio talk show host and also the host of the big picture here on r t tom thank you so much for joining us you know when it comes to the political rhetoric here in washington if anyone brings up the european economic model i mean we hear whoa is me this is evil code word socialist what we possibly learn from those lazy europeans abroad who work less than us and pay more and have more benefits and social welfare nantz and yet germany's doing really well what can we learn from this country when it comes to our economic crisis what would you go to trade germany has very very colorful. carefully

calibrated trade policies particularly have to do it taxation but effectively work like tariffs so they're protecting their their trade economy but with regard to the short workweek in the unemployment which i think is you know it's a bit more to the point of what you're talking about here they have a program called kurds are bite kurtz's german for short market is work so it's got short work and what the german government did the rather rest of europe was hitting eight a half percent unemployment and i think still is in that neighborhood right now. during the recession germany never one but wolves seven or above seven and a half percent of it my recollection is correct and they did it with this program where they took five point one billion euros the government did they said to all the employers ok you don't have so much demand for your products you know we have a recession but don't lay anybody off instead cut them from say thirty forty hours a week down to thirty hours a week and but pay them the full forty hours a week so slow down production give people some time off and then we will pay the

remaining ten you know ten hours whatever it is per week through you so the government gives the money to the corporations corporations pass it out as pay and so the net effect of this is that the money in the pockets of workers never changed and what the germans understood and dusted this is right by the way it is a very similar program in other ones although it's a little more optional it's not so optional in germany for the companies but what the germans understand is that what really drives an economy is demand. that the real job creators of people spending money and it doesn't matter where the money comes from as long as they're spending that money whether it's social security whether it's welfare whether it's kurds are by money or whether it's actual i've got a job money if you're spending money you're creating demand of the economy so as soon as the real shock of the economic shock wave finished wiping across europe and german germany had an economy where the demand was still there because all of the workers still had money in their pockets they were still buying things and back for

it quickly and contrast that with what we did here in the united states and in congress passed employment benefits we keep extending those you know well there's a and there's it is a giant hand grenade embedded in those i mean president obama has this i think is going to be a real disaster for him because in order to get a a an extension of unemployment benefits that's just going to run to the end of this year he gave two years of an extension of bush's tax cuts which is going to make the budget deficit worse they're cutting social programs but what's going to happen is when you know first of all you get the ninety nine er's super old off and now the people with the extension those people again they have money in their pocket so they're creating demand they're helping support our economy but that's going to run out of steam at the end of this year and there's no way congress is going to give him another year so he's going to be going into the election with more and more people rolling off the unemployment rolls having bet that the economy will rebound and probably won't and it's going to be a real mess for him which is truly horrific but on the issue of taxes you know one of the republican talking points that we hear mentioned so often is higher taxes will stagnate growth that will not be any more jobs no more economic growth in this

economy if we raise taxes that's the big rallying cry meanwhile nonsense so let's break it down for us what the what does germany have to offer these republicans in terms of the left we don't even have to look at germany let's look at the white eisenhower in the republican president during during the time of america's arguably greatest growth rate after world war two eisenhower was president from fifty two to sixty five my recollection is right and during that period of time we built this great country and we. came and we were coming off world war two with one hundred twenty six percent of g.d.p. debt so when i said our came to the presidency the debt i mean we we were as were more in depth and we are right now as a percentage of g.d.p. so did he cut anything you know i mean no country has ever cut its way to prosperity and say what he did is threw money into programs like the eisenhower highway system schools hospitals i mean look at all the buildings around in every city in america that were built in the one nine hundred fifty s. and and the g.i. bill they sent people to school they said people it's too. well schooled nate they

actually paid them a stipend they backstopped homes there was a housing program or you could buy a house and the consequence of this was that we grew our way out of that what is the basic building blocks of growth that other countries are now and during that time the top tax rate in the united states was ninety one percent so you know if anybody said and corporations were paying thirty five percent of the total tax load the total tax input into the federal government right now is about seven percent has been paid for by corporations during the eisenhower years it was it was in the high thirty's and thirty's and i mean a very over that period and so anybody who says that high taxes come on economy has you have to ask the question where when how did we get where we are you know how did america from from one hundred forty to until you know basically reagan reversed it was stuff build this great industrial powerhouse in this extraordinary country with all this incredible infrastructure that was working so well when reagan came in and kind of reversed oh well what happened to that i mean it seems like the real

building blocks of developing an economy is investing in infrastructure investing in innovation research and development focusing on job creation and we're not really doing that anymore and what's changed what changes reaganomics reagan came along and said you know government is bad and government does it's bad so if government is investing for example in infrastructure that's bad one of the most important infrastructures the government used to invest in the united states and did hugely in the one nine hundred fifty s. and one nine hundred sixty s. in the late one nine hundred forty s. is in a lot. infrastructure we you know my dad went to college on the g.i. bill you know if he was paid two hundred dollars a month to go to college and college was free and that's the kind of thing that that's what built america and when reagan became governor of california california had a completely free public education system people get anybody to go to college there it was what thomas jefferson had in mind and created with the university of virginia a free education system let's invest in the intellectual infrastructure of our country reagan blew that up when he was governor of california and then when he became president he put in charge of the education of our bill bennett the guy who

when he had in his one attempt to run for the presidency had run on the campaign platform of abolishing the department of education so course he was the guy reagan put charges so we just basically stopped with reaganomics but we're almost out of time if you could sum it up what is the biggest or. some of the biggest takeaway lessons that we can and we can take away from from germany's operation of this economy and well here in the last number one the demand not supply is what drives an economy and the demand is money in people's pockets we have to figure out a way to get it there whether it's unemployment benefits or or whatever number two that we need to really reconsider our trade policies which is a conversation we haven't had but it's an important one and and number three the government taxes really have no impact on whether government's going to grow or not or an economy is going to if you like that the floor is about to open up in your solo that's just a look at where he was here and you can see all right well a lot of great points there especially the education which of course we will be getting to you later in this program as we talk about college thank you so much time that was tom hartman host of the big picture now if you thought traditional

warfare was scary then be afraid be very very afraid of cyber war and that is at least according to the rhetoric that many here in washington including president obama like to point out take a look. but our defense and military networks are under constant attack al qaeda and other terrorist groups have spoken of their desire to unleash a cyber attack on our country attacks that are harder to detect and ordered to defend against indeed in today's world acts of terror could come not only from a few extremists and suicide vests but from a few keystrokes on the computer a weapon of mass destruction while weapons of mass destruction may now be the official u.s. response to a cyber attack according to the wall street journal the pentagon has a new plan to respond against cyber attacks with potential military action and talk about bombs for hat so to speak so this policy actually makes sense and is even realistic given how difficult it is to trace the source of an attack now former

pentagon policy or just able to actually help here to help me answer this question is benjamin friedman he's a research fellow at the cato institute benjamin thank you so much for being here when we talk about this policy i mean i understand that cyber attacks are sort of difficult to get our hands around wrap our heads around but you know when it comes to military prowess and a strong military that's something that the u.s. has plenty of so given the increase in recent attacks that we've seen from lockheed martin to the sony networks to the google hats why not we have a big military why not threaten any potential brawn doers with retaliation on the ground well i think that there's some truth in that in the feeling in the pentagon in the government is that we have to have some sort of policy on paper given all the excitement hoopla right now about cyber war and cyber attacks and i will say that i don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the policy as outlined yet i'm just worried about what it could be the pentagon hasn't announced it's

a policy its policy officially yet they certainly have a study thing about w m d which is so in the lead in they just said under some circumstances we might respond to cyber attacks or military force and to me the trouble with that is just that the vast vast majority of. facts have nothing to do with the military the criminal attacks people trying to steal information and what not and we need to be careful that we don't group that in with the real high and cyber attacks which luckily we've never seen in the united states and which remain largely hypothetical well that's the thing i mean we're not talking about writing a nice little screenplay for a hollywood movie here in a pentagon policy even if just on paper and have potential severe consequences both for this country and other countries across the globe so if this is just supposed to be some sort of a deterrent effort that just doesn't really make sense to me it cost so much money to potentially get involved militarily why would you put open ended conflict as a deterrent when there's if there's other policies you can put in place instead well i tend to agree that it's sort of

a bad idea in advance to tie or try to tie the hands of future presidents and congresses in terms of what response we have to cyber attacks it seems to me that we ressort of saying you know overly specific way what we're going to do i think that other countries understand now that if they do something whether it's cyber or not that kills americans they're going to be subject to retaliate usually i mean we say that you know harboring terrorists is bad and yet there's plenty of allies that we have pakistan case and claims that potentially harbor certain people that we're not necessarily for and friendly relations with and don't see consequences so i don't know if the threat of something is necessarily that powerful well i think deterrence tends to work and there are certainly cases were punchers choose because of their own internal politics and take risk but i do think countries understand. if you kill americans using some cyber whatever it is that you're going to you're taking a big risk in terms of retaliation so what's the point of making it official people's hands so to me it's just

a bureaucracy trying to deal with something that really we don't need to deal with right now i think it would be better just be silent and not put something down on paper and of course the bigger issue is that it's not calmed countries that more often than not that carry out cyberattacks individual hackers you know if i. bunch of kids in a cyber cafe in china or in moscow or you know in israel do something how do you prove that it's the hackers and not the country i mean it seems like you're sort of going down a slippery slope there how do you prove intent and who's really behind it and is the pentagon even capable of outlining properly yeah absolutely i mean we've seen situations with russia in a story where snowden is a medo and there was allegations that the russian government was involved in hacking a variety of stolen websites but we don't really know what the relationship between the government hackers was so does the united states want to say we're going to deter russia with nuclear weapons because of some hackers in a moscow internet cafe i'm not sure i don't think that's really that seems like an overly bellicose threat to me so i think we need to be careful that we don't.

invade so i think we can sort of let it let it develop within us and at the same time with the launch of the cyber command you know our own cyber warfare against resources are getting more and more developed so we have this sort of cottage industry that has sprung around the threat of cyber warfare and cyber attacks and there have been some experts that allege that for example the stuxnet virus that attacked that crippled the iranian reactors was somehow potentially developed maybe in collaboration with the u.s. government whether that's true or not it does raise the question if the united states is one of the more developed countries that's capable of launching of cyber operations i don't know is there the issue of hypocrisy here well it's only a pocker see if you don't get away with it so i think the united states being the most powerful country in the world can get away with a lot of stuff i think that we ought to have often subsided capabilities i think it

would be a mistake not to explore that knology but i think there is some truth in the fact that if you have this capability you risk looking like a critical if you make bellicose threats in response to other people actually causing the same capability espionage. this is typically defined as a kind of cyber attack and we really want to get into war of. each other all the time we don't go to war over there was obviously lots of spying in the cold war between the united states and the soviet union short of war so again i think we need to be careful about locking ourselves in and if we're going to say let's respond with military means let's be clear that it's only in response to lethal and to kill. a fair number of people not happy and have people stealing credit card info and things of that nature and how he lethal attacks that the u.s. had in terms of cyber warfare and cyber warfare is over to anybody in the world as far as we know this is what i mean i think a lot of this is somewhat hysterical you know all right well thank you so much for

your time i really appreciate you having you here in studio that was benjamin freedman a research fellow at the cato institute now from cyber war hype to the potential hyped up threat of iran's nuclear program despite fresh alarms from the u.s. and israeli officials about tehran's quest for the nuclear bomb pulitzer prize winning journalist seymour hersh says that the obama administration is actually exaggerating the iranian threat ignoring its own intelligence then his latest piece in the new yorker magazine has sent shock waves throughout the washington and he sat down with me to discuss what's behind the hype on iran. there is based on the notion that you know that some our iran has a bomb or is going to get a bomb soon that's ridiculous because every bit of evidence they have from their own intelligence community. the people of the top of the very government know there's no weapons there we've known it for years we've been looking for years after years after years we support the sanctions program that's designed to stop the punishment is it's aimed at stopping the iranians from doing something you know

we know they're not doing for me and as i wrote in the article they analogy between what they're doing with obama's doing with iran is very close to what bush and dick cheney the vice president then did to iraq no evidence that our weaponization there's no evidence anywhere i went you go to london you go to you go to you go to the french you go to the germans they all say the same thing we thought we still think they might want to go but we can we don't have anything it should be open and shut we should move on but we're not instead what you're seeing is they're my malini and what i wrote and they're ignoring it to a point there there's always a group that doesn't ignore stuff but the mainstream press basically they have their narrative. has the united states taken the right course understanding to the so-called arab spring look if you're an iranian in the middle east and you know what's going on in bahrain and you see the white house down with. iran. and criticize iran at the same time everybody in iran and everybody in the middle

east is watching what's going on in bahrain and we say nothing about how do you think that impacts going to be parker see there's no love for us in the middle in that's not my gulf anymore because we certainly betrayed the trust and in the streets of egypt when obama finally came and supported them they was there was hooting you know they were done with us they wanted him so it's a board early and so we've missed the boat out that those movements were probably the best tools we've had so the better than the use of force that we've been using the night raids and all that stuff and then there's the you know the renditions and yet he's you know we've talked that out so well and you can watch my full interview with seymour hersh here in r.t. the next half hour. or so finances recovery is still far off on the horizon which has not been helped by unemployment numbers creeping back to over nine percent and job recruitment is at its lowest point in eight months which is bad news for college grads were entering the workforce this summer are these marine important i

am reports on the college kids who fork over big bucks for their future but is getting little in return on their investment. america is home to the world's most expensive and prestigious universities yet paying for them has created a nation where the majority sign on to lifetime payments of loans i probably would like sixty thousand dollars student. over like ninety thousand easy. yet i make you nervous yes that makes me terrified every american graduate is launching into a dwindling job market saddled with at least twenty four thousand dollars in student debt the they're going to lead a great job or start a great company are going to be seriously in the hole according to the economic policy institute the us economy currently has one job for every five applicants meanwhile business for bankruptcy attorney nineteen whitman is surging half of his clients are unemployed degree holders drowning in debt anyone going to college

essentially is gambling once again from an investor's point of view right now the way the dollar is the way inflation is going and the way the job market or a college education just isn't a good investment and not a good return on your money even economics professors on the inside like richard wolfe say enslaving students to banks is a disaster for america's economic viability the future of any country in the world economy these days depends first and foremost on the quality and the quantity of. crane and new young workers and the major institutions that produce that the colleges and universities you're pricing them out of. today at the moment no longer serves as a guaranteed passport to prosperity for america in the meantime the number of foreigners studying at u.s. colleges and universities has reached record highs according to the latest

statistics nearly seven hundred thousand international students have flown in from all over the world to study it. america and the majority are transplanting from america's economic competitors ok we're going to the institute of international education chinese students studying in the states surged thirty percent in two thousand and nine most foreign families reportedly bypassed financially and paid full tuition since one nine hundred seventy eight the cost of u.s. colleges and universities has reportedly increased more than nine hundred percent while household income rose just one hundred fifty percent what you're seeing is american universities particularly the elite are happier to have foreigners who tend to pay their own way because they come from the very top of those societies. will forgo the americans who can afford it much in the way anyway according to the

pew research center fifty seven percent of americans say college is not worth the price but with a widening workforce of untrained and educated many wonder what the u.s. economy will eventually be worth during up or deny an artsy new york so is going to college a worthwhile investment i mean decades ago a college education virtually guaranteed people a place in america's middle class today college education is big business prices for everything from books situation are soaring and many grads continue to remain unemployed in the twenty first century economy that's essentially imploding on all sides so is college worth it or is it just a high priced scam join me now for more from creation washington as michael snyder the founder of comic books dot com michael it's great to have you back here i know you had a interesting little piece that listed some of the more dire statistics on the merits or lack thereof in a college education what's your take is it a scam or is it a worthwhile investment. well it's true the college education in this country has

dramatically changed today at many of the top universities. it cost forty four thousand dollars a year just for a tradition that doesn't even count room and board or books or anything like that leisure fortune is mentioned smoking so than the cost of college tuition the united states is increased by over nine hundred percent and now today students that are graduating here at this time of the year two thirds of them are coming out with student loan debt and the total amounts during the united states today is actually more than the total amount of credit card everyone always talks about when to call them credit cards but today americans have racked up over nine hundred billion dollars in student loan debt and particularly students coming out today with poorly a few hundred thousand dollars in debt they are inflated to a lifetime of debt payments before they even get started and it does kind of despite the soaring cost despite as you say being enslaved to to these that

payments to which an enrollment continues to go up i mean folks are continuing to choose college and frankly from my personal experience i know that internalizing it's almost impossible to get a job if you don't have a college degree so. if you have all of these factors stacking up against students why do they continue to sign obviously incredibly about expensive schools. will be part of the problem goes back to high school when i was in high school in today all the guidance counsellor teachers. missions health it all tell people go to college don't worry about how you're going to pay don't worry about how much it's going to cost to go to college to get a job a job or go to the best school in camps and they never told them to take a look at how much can pass the students go on paper they're going to get a job let me tell but the truth is as a report stated it's a big gamble a little some people are able to keep their jobs and get out but a lot of people are doing in the event there are three hundred seventeen thousand

waiters and waitresses that have college degrees and in terms of what it all retail sales persons across most of us working twenty four percent of the college degrees message out of college degrees not require so we have a lot of college graduates but there are hundreds of jobs but at the same time you know you say it's the sort of the way the system is stacked up but these college counselors these folks in high school it's not like there's some sort of conspiracy against against the students and the fact is that if you get an education at least you have more of a chance it would seem to get ahead in the society if you completely decide to abandon this idea of going to school and getting a degree aren't true shooting yourself in the foot i mean there's a reason why there's only one eric schmidt and one market that purple can't all be billionaire inventors in the internet age. well we have the remarks dr burke actually dropped out of college and. going to college yale there's

a lot of yards where you need a piece of parchment in order to get in the door for a career and so want to certain extent you know for some fields yes and we need it but what we don't tell students is he instead of looking at the best college you can go to maybe look at the best but at least the order will you give him that he surprised me because the truth is that quality of education. is absolutely horrible according to one research report american students are spending fifty percent less time studying to get aid and they did a few decades people and i spent eight years at american universities and i can tell you it's a joke students go to class or two or three hours a day if you spend an hour or two studying and most disciplines the rest of the time it's party time it's time to have fun i never had more free time than i did when i was attending universities and most of the classes that i went through and most of the classes at u.s. universities the family dollar could pass. the family part of that and very briefly

what's the role of water in all this because really it does boil down to that and lending well. the financial institutions they love to get people into debt and so that's been a big part of this all the all of the years and students come out they can't. you can just declare bankruptcy but with student loan debt it's almost impossible to discharge the bankruptcy and so these young people they're in slave to it with no way out for decades to come. up point you don't know what to do all right well michael thank you so much as always for your input is michael snyder the founder of economic collapse blog dot com. unfortunately that doesn't for now for more on the stories that we've covered this go to r.t. dot com slash usa and check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash r.t. america of course is always you can follow me on twitter as well it's absolutely have to go to see you right back here in a.