how can they learn to show that the real headlines that none of the mersey are going to live in washington d.c. and tonight will ask what the u.s. can learn from germany when it comes to the economy and all debate of internet access is a human right and we'll speak to think about the koch brothers role in oil speculation before is a let's take a look at what the mainstream media has decided to cover nonstop point sexting of texting and all this stuff i'm sure you know i don't know if it doesn't look this is sort of like you know not much of congress this is any other congressman anthony

weiner. of new york democrat congressman welcome to our consequences all matter anthony have you look at yourself i mean you're really not i mean nobody really wants to see you with less cool it's like me i don't take any pictures of me with less clothes on it's not. that's right your modes of popular talking heads on t.v. are still completely taken by wiener gate or wiener fever or wiener mania whatever you want to college just be sure to add a little wiener to the mix now one of the things that i find more to larry is actually was watching two media personalities who have hot sex scandals of their own talk about wiener struggles. even if i'm eliot spitzer welcome to the program today congressman anthony weiner how at a press conference. it was the kind of moment that neither politicians nor journalists should be proud of what we've made you know i've been

there i tell to both jobs congressman weiner comes clean that is the subject of this evening talking points memo the interest in the winner tweet situation comes because a sitting congressman has a responsibility of course to the people he represents and to his country and if you want there of those people and your country he must be held to account. but i think perhaps the most fascinating thing was the sheer disappointment coming from the mainstream media the judgment bestowed upon this man that on space that he just did something stupid and he has kind of a perfect streak. congressman weiner if you believe in yourself you will resign and you will come back and run again in two thousand and twelve because that's what the taxpayers deserve cash and we never thought he could outsmart the media with his lies but that didn't work you don't miss school a happy story was when i was ridiculous and then today more pictures the congressman it was cornered leaving him no choice but that careful fashion when i

left i was a capitol hill office in the house of representatives and i remember russian to our c.n.n. studios it was but i'm sure to myself you know what it sounds to me like it may have been his picture but it was out there but somebody else hacked and somebody else who. you know i wish the media spent more time laying judgment on our being disappointed in someone's character patting themselves on the back for not allowing someone someone to simply get away with it scot free i don't know how about that legal war that we're fighting in libya you know the one of the clinton chose to involve us in unilaterally without asking for any kind of congressional authorization all under the false pretense of humanitarian intervention when the congress. still hasn't voted on to stop and the two seconds that i actually saw chuck todd spent on the topic this morning well let's just say that he really let this one get away. the president had a right to do what he's done and i wish he would have come back to the to the

congress and shooter but i'm not going to quibble with the president in all of these decisions. that was i got jack a little thank you for your answer and then he just basically moved right on i mean do you really think that a war is something you can refer to as an issue to quibble about you think that somebody out there would be upset that the obama administration called resolutions brought up in congress about libya unnecessary and unhelpful keep in mind that wasn't even the resolution introduced by congressman kasich that would have actually ended our involvement there and that was john boehner is that simply gave obama a little slap on the wrist is that unhelpful to your words mr president i'm sorry i feel like the entire world has gone mad but no we don't have a presidency that's expanded its own powers and a congress i think that's absolutely fine to give those powers away because we have a congress that's a slave to the military industrial complex the lobbies for constant war and keeps their constituents employed by building weapons and because we have a corporate media machine the long ago stopped being the government watchdog and

just takes anything that a government official says at face value doesn't follow up on the inconsistency of or the hypocrisy unless one has to do with a picture of a winner and that's where mainstream is. german chancellor angela merkel is currently in washington d.c. and soon i shall receive the presidential medal of freedom from president obama as the white house hosts a state dinner but maybe what obama should really be doing is asking market how it is that the germany's economy the fourth largest in the world is recovering so well from the recession twenty time was an all star year for germany their economy grew at nearly six times faster than the u.s. in the second quarter for two thousand and eleven projected growth is looking to be a little smaller than the u.s. two point five percent versus a u.s. two point. but a euro zone in debt crisis is partially responsible for that but their unemployment rate is we really have to look at it they're at seven percent compared to the us nine point one that's all having one of the highest tax rates in the world i wages

high social welfare benefits all those things that are right wing likes to scorn as socialism or the death of capitalism you can call germany's economy a close one though the second a larger export in the world trailing only china which has sixteen times its population so what can we learn from germany here to discuss this with me in an associate editor at the atlantic gary thanks so much for being here and i have you back let's start with with unemployment what exactly is it that germany did to keep their employers from hiring or actually to encourage more hiring or to keep them from firing people at the rate this sort of image that germany has when it comes to unemployment first they literally paid employers not to fire workers at something called work sharing it's actually some u.s. economists that have suggested we do the same here essentially you have your workers work fewer hours and then you pay the lawyers back for those hours missed its work sharing and it's worked for germany desegregate it happened is like you mentioned germany had a really stellar two thousand and ten year and that's mostly because the developing

world just started rocketing at the end of two thousand and nine china india brazil had it wonderful wonderful years and germany sells industrial products that help them build their economies draw up or out of the earth and then you know build up cities and and machines so those are the really the true reasons i'd say why germany is in a position where it is right now well i want to get to the exports into the trade but in terms of the unemployment and asking or basically giving employers an incentive to keep people around because the government will pay the rest of the share do you think that's something that we've ever actually see happen here in america you said that some economists have toyed with the idea but i feel like the idea of government interfering with business that way would just would never be accepted i think it would be called socialist i think absolutely i mean the government literally would be. employers to keep workers that's a lot of interference or at least intervention and i think a lot of people would scoff at it but you know conservative economists and liberal economists have both said if you're going to get creative about ways to keep down unemployment this is a good way to do so but i think you have

a point there when it comes to calling things socialist this is the line that we constantly hear from the right wing and it's something that we even heard from mitt romney the other week when he was finally announcing his presidential bid and of course that's supposed to be his strong point is the businessman when it comes to criticizing obama and this is what he had to say let's take a listen. should have she should. i really only inches away from ceasing to be a free economy no i felt it was ridiculous statement running for president he wanted for president he's a businessman and the business of running for president is making huge claims that draw a stark contrast with the opposition as possible but the fact is germany has some of the highest tax rates in the world or at least at least in the european union european europe it's about fifty percent actually there's not say it's an enormous enormous effective tax rate yeah on the richest germans and if we can see the

growing this year it projected two point seven percent last year around three percent it's a vibrant economy it is the engine of the european economy it's literally responsible for keeping the entire european union together tax rates and growth can co-exist they have co-existed us they do co-exist in germany we can say whatever he wants but that's just how it is and actually you're right it's german not only has one of the highest tax rates in the world but if it comes to their social spending about thirty percent of their you know national income goes to that versus only eighteen percent in the u.s. but for some reason we just can't seem to accept that notion i do want to go to exports as well because i think one of the critiques we constantly hear in america at least is that we want our cheap puts we don't want to buy expensive stuff so we can't manufacture any longer because everything's made cheaper in china or in india or in some other developing economies but germany doesn't really make cheap goods so how is that they're still the number two exporter in the world. i want to talk

about geography here because let's say you're making some sort of good whether it's an airplane or some metal gizmo in kansas are you going to try to sell it try to ship it across the world to sell it to say indonesia or you're just going to sell it within the largest consumer economy in the world which is the united states you're probably just going to try to sell it he. germany doesn't have that option germans are notoriously high savers and they're surrounded by countries that spend a little bit more of their money per capita than the germans so they're more inclined to sell their product to the netherlands to france to spain and that's an export so in a way geography hopes germany germany is that they're part of the european union and the european union is being dragged down by these peripheral states so just a few is not entirely germany's friend but i think a lot of people are saying oh well it's so easy to export let's just be like germany you know we're not the size of texas where the size of china and it's difficult for a country or for a company deep inside the country to think oh well obviously i'll just try to find

a market in mexico for my products if you like you just get a look at one i'm happy you brought up actually the fact that germans are very big savers something that we haven't really seen in american culture in a while quite honestly we've just become the credit culture of right we just charge and charge and charge and we seem to will pay off later at some point and so there have been a lot of critiques when it comes to these stimulus plan coming from the obama administration wanting to germany saying look there's stimulus was so much smaller and they were doing better than we are but is that because they are better savers these are totally different economies create a huge it's difficult to compare stimulus to stimulus and say that ours worked better ours were it's worse germany has a really has a very different way that they tax when they spend a sort of a social contract in the us if you would effective tax rates near fifty percent you would you were you could ask for something like that you would be called socialist we had something a little bit similar in say the sixty's or late fifty's but the economy has changed and really on the one hand you know we're

a fifty fifty nation and we're going to have to find some way to make deals with mitt romney to the world but at the same time it's just inevitable if we move back to being more of a high tax country simply to be able to pay for the benefits we've promised we're also going to have to make cuts on the domestic side and germany has been really smart about keeping their private their finances in hold but at the same time we're going to have to sort of. well the tax rate back up what i meant by that basically is the fact that you know let's say that we did have a stimulus and let's say there were certain tax breaks or you know money that the government gave out to businesses to homeowners here in the u.s. we're too busy paying off our debts so you actually inject that money back into the economy to go out and spend once again or for oil companies claim that they can't hire because they have to pay off debts although i think that there's just no incentive for them to hire people when they don't have to but i think you really hit on the nose too with the fact that germany has more of a social contract they don't look at their economy in a partisan way and we do so are we ever going to be able to get out of iraq some

people are saying that this might be the next great depression if we continue to have a partisan approach to the economy i mean you know germany has its own internal politics i'm not an expert on them but you know i assume that they're not living in some sort of utopia at the same time i think we should point you made about saving is absolutely right you have to look at how we got into the recession when we got into the recession with debt because families were encouraged not to save through you know certain governments and also through. cultural incentives germany with its high savings rate did not enter this recession with the same kind of debt and that put them in a better position going forward it made smaller stimulus more effective because people didn't have to pay down their debt they could spend it on new products and so that's just an advantage they had and i do think that going forward we're going to want to look at it probably slightly higher tax and higher savings country so that we don't have exact same problem all over again good looks on that one here gerri thank you so much for joining us thanks. are still to come tonight do you consider access to the internet to be a human right the un has put together

a new report saying just that for the children as soon as we come back. we're going to bring justice for the. right to know what by government you want to know when. i think taxes. well i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok and you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. says.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right here in the lead. i think iraq is easy to want to quell. whenever the government says they're going to keep him safe get ready because you give them their freedom. for. fear for.

a. is internet access a human right that's a new report from the united nations argues put together by special rapporteur or franklin root and the report states the vast potential and benefits of the internet are rooted in its unique characteristics such as its speed world wide reach and relative anonymity at the same time these distinctive features of the internet and able individuals to disseminate information in quote real time and to mobilize people has also created fear amongst governments and the powerful this has led to increased restrictions on the internet through the use of increasingly sophisticated technologies to block content and monitor and identify activists and critics criminalization of legitimate expression and adoption of restrictive

legislation to justify those measures so there's a lot to pick apart in just one statement there from copyright infringement privacy versus free speech and of course national security and wiki leaks so is the un right joining me to discuss this is aaron schwartz executive director of demand of progress and james pullos host of the bottom line and reform school e.j. t.v. john thank you both for joining me tonight james i want to start with you tonight here i mean obviously there are some problems with not every single country not every person in every country has access to the internet because of you could say the country still developing they don't have the infrastructure put into place but when you do have that do you think that the internet should be considered a human right as in something that once you have it the government can't just take it away they can't just shut it off. i'm not sure of james to hear me there james. all right let's see it let's see if arrington hear me

aaron can you hear me the other ok i think james might not be able to hear us right now so i'm going to pose the question to you that do you think that the internet is something that should be considered a human right and something of the government cannot take away from you. clearly i mean the internet is the most exciting new smarter in developed form of expression there is and you know our country you know we use expression as a first in the great and around the world it's a universal human right so the idea that the government can come and just take away your ability to express your soul to communicate with others is just because that all right some of the things you're doing i think it's great that you and standing up against. well the u.n. is pointing a lot of fingers at governments here they're specifically pointing a lot to the arab spring because we've seen that happen across the board be in syria or tunisia or egypt where these governments have clamped down but even here if we have a kill switch being debated in our congress to think about something it still could be passed. you know i think it is and we had them in progress you know we're

organizing people with killswitch there was a big outcry last time it was proposed by senator lieberman and so he changed the bill just slightly to say this bill does not have a kill switch at the top but of course all of the provisions that would allow the government to shut down the internet are still there there's just no switch the very end has changed so we need to keep fighting on this and the use in some other top senators are still pushing it i'm just curious what you think that you know this report specifically says about copyright infringement and we've seen legislation in europe especially where they said that if you're caught downloading something let's say three times that you can get kicked off the internet entirely i'm assuming that you probably don't agree with that but do you think that what the u.n. here is saying deal specifically with copyright infringement are they going into whether you're breaking those types of copyright laws or not. the un says quite clearly that it is a violation of human rights to take away someone's internet connection just because

they've been using it for copyright infringement but i think that's exactly the right decision i mean there are so many issues with the notion of copyright infringement is this kind of serious crime what it is of course that everybody doesn't know and it's hard not to because copyright laws are so complicated when aryans about what's fair use and what's not or so in big us it's very easy to violate copyright law without even knowing you're doing it you know so i think the notion that because this thing with everybody it's almost impossible to avoid it just the way computers are set up it pat is such a bad thing that it should cause people to lose their entire access to the internet but you it is right in saying that that's just what it wants not to mention of course the fact that you said copyright laws are so hard to understand but they're different in every country and if the internet is something that's going to be used internationally you can't necessarily have just one country say well it's not and i know i say sell like we're seeing right now here in the us when it comes to the protect ip act i'm curious to know what do you think of this report about human

rights and the internet says about wiki leaks about whistleblowers about putting information out there that well just might be a little bit embarrassing to the government and they mentioned specifically the fact that governments are now talking about national security issues about countering terrorism but perhaps the motives aren't really oh it's about that. yeah exactly right i mean this notion that national security is an excuse to shut down the internet that's exactly what we heard in egypt and syria and all these other countries and so yeah it's true so it's like we can weeks are going to be putting up some variously material about what the u.s. government does and people are going to be organizing to protest about it and try and change their government you know and that's a good thing that's what all these first amendment rights of free expression and freedom of association are all about and so the notion we should try and shut those down only just goes against very basic american principles but so do you think of that's the un's way of saying that they support breaking leaks without actually having to say it so as not to piss the u.s. government off. i mean if you went in

a variety of ways has indicated some tacit support for weepingly sixteen of the un special rapporteur on torture investigated the treatment of bradley manning when he was held in solitary confinement for no good reason you know now they've been protecting freedom of speech on the internet and. you know that in general most other countries understand that you know it's reasonable to be putting up a few documents about what your country is actually doing the vast majority of the world supports them it's only a handful of powerful people in the u.s. who are embarrassed by it you really want to shut it down i want to know what you think this says about privacy because i'm one hand the u.n. is saying that everything should be out there on the internet that everybody should be able to access or the government shouldn't block it but then at the same time you have legislation like the right to be forgotten that's coming out in the e.u. so then does that counter the idea of freedom and your human right your freedom of

expression on the internet if you also want to talk about privacy i feel like the two start to kind of blur the lines there. yeah i mean it is a confusing subject but i think a place where we can draw a clear line between individual people you know nonprofit organizations like we can weeks on the one hand who want to share information and on the other hand these notices corporations and powerful governments which are collecting dossiers about people and building big databases i think it's perfectly reasonable to regulate governments conduct to regulate the conduct of big corporations all of that is you know well accepted law what's different is when you try and say the entire internet every little guy every little nonprofit every little random red state that also has the calling the end of regulation that's where i think it goes too far but what about the things that we also have these gag orders in the u.k. where essentially rich people if you have enough money you can get stuff pulled off the internet that doesn't really seem all that fair does it. because they wrote the super injunctions are a great case of this because on the one hand you have this argument that people's

privacy should be respected and on the other hand they're doing things like everybody on twitter who talks about you know the soccer players have slept with and trying to arrest them so i think again you know it's reasonable to say ok if you're making a big team you know you're making a t.v. movie about who soccer players have slept with maybe we can regulate a pollution of every individual on twitter who talks about it should be under government regulation seems to go way too far right now erin a lastly. not government regulation we're talking about the fact the government needs to stay out they should not censor they should not block content here but then is it going to be the government's job to also regulate certain internet service providers so that they don't make internet the internet so expensive that they don't charge such exorbitant fees to where people can access it like it's a basic human right. this has read back to the point about human rights you know in this country we have a post office which allows you to deliver mail to everyone you don't have to pay to get the post office to go with your mail to you you are a member of the post office network for free the internet is just like the modern

post office know the sort of sending letters we send emails and so i think it's totally right for the government to ensure everybody has access to that network for free you know we can think about that way way to soak it all up and there's all sorts of complicated questions about how to implement it but the principle i think is one that our founding fathers would have understood if you didn't have been around and instead of putting post offices in the constitution they would have put i. was saying to see how far the world this i've seen a lot of comments a lot of people tweeting today asking when i don't know access to food and water and shelter and maybe health care are going to be recognized as human rights but here we have the internet that's already made it that are of course the u.n. i definitely believe that all of those things are your human right as well and i want to thank you very much for joining us tonight unfortunately we we lost james pulo so as not to be a debate but we had a few technical issues want to try again some time now if it's safe to say that going to college is like gambling with your future with skyrocketing tuition

figures and unemployment over nine percent here in the u.s. now might be a good way to look at the true worth of higher education and eyes are to important i explains college kids who are the folks over big bucks are facing little 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 are probably of like sixty thousand dollars student. over like ninety thousand easy. yes 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 here that really led to 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 cannot be lived in 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 there's 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 the tens first and foremost on the quality and the quantity of skew craned new young workers and the major institutions that produce that of the colleges and universities you're pricing them out of being able to do that today i think oh my 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. if america and the majority are transplanting from america's economic competitor according 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 financial aid and pay 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 and they will forgo the americans who can afford it much anyway 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 un educated many wonder what the u.s. economy will eventually be worth growing up artsy new york. coming up next we have tonight's show and tell segment and the culprits are launching a new media campaign that saying that it's all obama's fault that gas prices are sky high i'll speak with him progressively falling about the irony of that campaign when we return. we. heard right. either.