for whom the bell hole wall street is calling for it the government benefits local q e three just did those who caused the most damage. i think we've really lost confidence in our president i think is his promises of new hope and change. baby with the opposite way than what we had anticipated well straight from the heartland of the matter of middle america talks about the road to two thousand and twelve from the economy to jobs and values will take it iowa or no one holds back their views. of. the sounds of war but should we be hearing them at all in iraq is the u.s.

ended its combat mission a year ago so why the new fifty six soldiers died since and how can the u.s. avoid being stuck between a rock and a hard place. when ground. and cons like you don't see. a jarring reality of today's libya as terror and gun fever grips tripoli is even more terrifying these small arms are falling into the hands of children live report from tripoli see how this is threatening the stability. good evening it's wednesday august thirty first it's five pm here in washington d.c. i'm laurin lyster and you're watching our team all right well with an increased number of economists saying the u.s. is headed back into recession consumer confidence plunging to the lowest level in more than two years and new jobs numbers due out friday expected to disappoint the

president took to the podium to talk jobs and investment he's pushing to extend some bills that to expire next month here's why. that's what we're going to need to do in the short term keep people on the job keep vital projects moving forward fund projects that are already underway in a smarter way. of course if we're honest we also know that when it comes to our nation's infrastructure our roads our railways mass transit airports we shouldn't just be playing catch up or catch up and we should be leading the world. well you can have a speech all you want but in reality president obama and congress have failed to deliver so far with two years of around nine percent unemployment and likely the bigger deal next month we want to point to what we could see we're hearing more and more about it is that the bed may be the one to act with another round of quantitative easing what some people like to call money printing the federal

reserve bank of atlanta well official there said the fed should consider it on wall street they're calling for it j.p. morgan says they think it's coming in september goldman sachs thinks it's come into and federal reserve minutes show they came just this close in august to doing it but just does this help we know that quantitative easing is helped wall street because it boosts equity markets and creates a demand for treasuries which are already on banks' books and also help the federal government because it allows them to borrow at an extremely low price because it pushes down the yields on treasuries when it buys them up but what would this do for millions of jobless americans afraid or too broke to spend underwater on their mortgages or first small businesses which ben bernanke these they still can't get loans here to help us answer that is peter schiff president of euro pacific capital they so much for being here peter nice a c.e.o. or so you are now we know that quantitative easing in the past has helped wall

street it's helped washington but how does that help everyone else average folks who are broke and don't have jobs well it has to be the reason that we're headed back into recession is be cost. to you know money previous not the solution to our problems it's the source of our problems you know i was on record before any of the wall street columnists saying you q e three was a certainty i knew it was coming because i did it two weeks you didn't work and i knew that rounded learning from its mistakes the people so then who want another round of q.e. help because we're here involves three banks call for it. well you know if you mentioned it earlier it helps the government get bigger it helps the government borrowing and spending but that doesn't help the economy the government is too big and spending too much the fact that the fed is making the easier for the government to go deeper into debt is out of productive if you had a higher interest rate that might were some responsibility on our leaders so

certainly to government will gain at the economy's expense wall street will gain cheap money will continue to flow so the wall street bonuses will continue to come but real credit continue to be scarce on main street you're not going to have any real capital investment in to have real credit how many savings we actually need higher interest rates that's part of a solution but unfortunately to buy there's an opt out i mean and ben bernanke actually thinks q.e. two worked but it didn't work unless you know maybe i hire an addict thinks that shooting up is the more our won't work and that it delays that with all but you know spending borrowed money feels good but it doesn't produce good amik wrote that actually how big ourselves it would be perfect or have them bernanke you think that maybe it's helping for the cult in wall street i just want to point out this one example of how the benefits fall straight the side that we talk about makes i'm clear on this if i'm goldman sachs and i know that the government is going to do

more to me can't i go out and buy up treasuries and then sell them back to the federal reserve and make money on the deal. last three certainly some of the banks that are trading in the treasury markets are flipping them buying them and selling into the treasury but wall street makes a lot more money based on the fact that interest rates are being held artificially low it helps to finance all their leverage transactions you're talking about highly leveraged entities are on wall street but you know what's good for wall street is not good for america part of the solution to america's problems is a contraction on wall street we have two large percentage of our g.n.p. in finance that has to shrink that sector sector has to contract with the government piece propping it up with cheap money but in order to prop up finance the government hasn't drained the money from other great areas of the economy words badly needed we need to produce we didn't make more stuff and we're not going to do

that if all the credit that finance business is going to be speculation instead and that's a benefit said really wanted wall street banks to loan why would they be incentivizing them not to lend by paying an interest on reserves. well you know what we really need to remember is there has to be savings to be loaned out you know you have to look at it from it to perspective of the saver know what is going to say when interest rates are practically zero and so there is no real credit all that happens is the federal reserve prints of on your money and what they do is that the banks take it in lonely through the government i just spent because the government is borrowing over one and a half trillion dollars a year and what they don't loan to the government by buying treasuries they speculated oil or other commodities or the stock market but none of this speculate activity is lead to increased production i to a growing us economy there is no real credit available offer real business because nobody wants to take a risk and loan

a business and they can loan risk free to the government well loan and also i just want to pull up this chart to show how the reserves at the fed of increased the scene banks i mean it's a blue line here that i don't know if you can see it it's flat and then it just goes straight up because banks are now keeping trillion or more dollars there are a thousand times more than what they were before the crisis. and what they're doing though is they're monetizing the deficits through the banks because that money is not just sitting there it's in treasuries and that if the government is spending the money to run the government but do you think that it's possible that the reason we haven't seen the type of runaway hyper inflation a you've been talking about for years is because a lot of the extra money that the threat is that is printed is sitting on bank balance sheets and not being lent out well i'm talking about hyperinflation happening eventually not right now in a word that's a worst case scenario i think what's really stopping hyperinflation is foreign

central banks can changing to support the u.s. dollar but with countries like china like japan or saudi arabia russia all the countries that are hoarding dollars come to the realization that this is a waste of money that they are undermining their own economies that are here importing our inflation by kinder currencies the dollar once the dollar really loses that reserve currency status and foreign central banks no longer supported that's what i think hyperinflation will really take hold and less of course the government the federal reserve does a complete about face dramatically increases interest rates and allows the economy to restructure including the u.s. government to restructure instead because of interest rates rise to a market level there's no way the u.s. government to pay the interest let alone the principle on the amount that it's far right and takes away from everything else that spends money on right now but i'm wondering if you think that we're getting to that point maybe with china if you see

this is a sign china has announced that they're getting a break on income tax to most of the people and the population aside from just very rich ones sixty million more pad at all they're doing it to try to boost spending do you think i sign you know china i think i think behind the scenes they understand the problem with they're still reluctant to admit it it's hard to admit that you've made a mistake in order for china to do the right. being now they have acknowledged that for years they've they've done the wrong thing i so i guess that's difficult to do but ultimately they're going to have to do it because the cost of continuing to repeat these mistakes is enormous and you know obviously the chinese are trying to buy more gold to diversify their reserves you know other currencies but they continue to accumulate dollars in treasuries and they continue to create inflation in their own country and looking for other ways to deal with the symptoms rather than getting down the root cause of the disease do you think though that if they stimulate spending in their own country will that mean anything for average middle

class people in the united states oh sure if the chinese are allowed the r. and b. their currency to go up in value then chinese people will automatically viber stop because stuff will be cheaper for them and as the price of things comes down more people will buy and so if the chinese buying laura what they produce they're going to have a lot less left over to export costs so americans are going to seek much higher prices for the things we buy because the chinese are buying them instead and we'll just have to buy but what's left over and of worshippers a smaller supply there's going to be higher prices and that is what america as its future much much higher prices energy do supply of consumer goods and china and its future as well or prices it or consumer goods it all depends on when the government grows the swedish and you know it's something that americans already can't afford to pay for a lot of things wal-mart has recently said that now food has become the biggest concern at that dinner customers the price as well as how you can afford pretty

much anything they want ceo's a new study today shows that the top twenty five companies in the u.s. and there's a list of their logos they're paid more to their c.e.o.'s in two thousand and ten that they did to the federal government in taxes peter how our c.e.o. is being paid so much more at a time when the economy is. so badly last oh yeah i guess i'd rather the c.e.o.'s have been the government but clearly you know there is a big disparity in the united states between the c.e.o. pay and pay of rank and file workers that it doesn't exist in a lot of other countries to that extent i think a lot of that has to do with that we would be corporate culture that we've had you know where companies are not paying much in the way of dividends and and instead all of the profits are are held off to to executives and i think ultimately doubt would change in an environment of of of tiger money if we had

a bore responsible fent higher interest rates and so the stocks had to compete with higher yielding bonds i'd be get my poorest properties to pay much higher dividends which means they would have as much money left over to shower on their executives they'd actually have to give some of it to the shareholders in the form of higher dividends so once again peter what i guess or you say is the fed is in part to blame something to think about as we're going into what many people see and what you predicted will be another round of quantitative easing of wall street into a casino you know everybody just buy stocks betting on the calm you know that i'm pining for the income but they're hoping they appreciate and that whole speculative mentality has been fostered by this environment of cheap money and rather than putting it into the party you know what is ben bernanke you want to do is watch that put more you know spike in a punched out so that we don't so we're up this cycle thanks so much peter seth president of euro pacific capital for telling us what you think. now peter and i can talk all we want about policy makers in this economy not looking out for the

average person but what about and say the country's heartland what average people in say a state like iowa really want what's important to them on the ground well lucky for us our key corresponding christine president was there she recently got back from a trip to the midwest she spent a day at the iowa state fair and she asked people just what does concern them the most heading into this two thousand and twelve presidential election here's what the sun. bird conservative so it's moral issues to me the most important be taxation i'd like to see the stock market bounce back economy down and everything else you need to go back now there's no right or wrong answer just what do you think are the most important issues in a presidential candidate for me it's economics but i'm also looking for a candidate that's reasonable sensible. that doesn't tend to polarize the country there's a lot of separation between democrats and republicans special last few years which we need to resolve. what specifically is important to you in

a candidate for additional family values that's for pro-life. you know moral issues that's really you know i think moral means something different to everybody so i would love to hear what you think of no homosexuals where. no abortions. when are some of the issues that are going to be most important when you vote for president in two thousand and twelve. jobs. the more jobs. better wages lobby asli our economy isn't working in the senate where we would be plummeting so dramatically we've got to lower taxes we've got to reduce spending are you ok with lowering taxes just for people who make less than two hundred fifty thousand or you want to lower taxes for even the most wealthy corporations those wealthy and we can all pay or pay the less but the wealthy ones going to also the running group more drugs less government

control and the health care bill those are some things but about the health care bill on i am for it. so you're glad it passed yes like a socialist government where everyone has no clue and everyone has an education and you feel you know that your master's degree for five hundred dollars a semester we're talking to people attending the fair today about twenty twelve and when you go to the polls what are you going to be thinking about. constitutional form the constitution differently. wars during. the budget actually i. think you've really lost confidence in our president i think is his promises of new hope and change maybe with the opposite way than what we have anticipated do you think president obama has done what he's going to do. as far as the you know that mostly he was left with in my opinion but he's going to.

go there having a firsthand look at what's swirling around the minds of i will voters i think they are the first once a vote in the twenty's well primaries are all issues that the candidate they want to take a look at into more in iowa i'm christine for the our party. so concerns about the economy about jobs about getting the u.s. out of wars let's talk about that let's talk about wars because remember the u.s. combat mission in iraq ended a year ago to this day actually allegedly ended the first anniversary so what exactly has this meant let's see well for american troops it needs a pair still dying the ones you see here those are names of the fifty six of them that have died in iraq since the combat mission quote unquote ended up close to forty five hundred have died since the war began and that's not even counting close to fifteen hundred iraqi civilians have been killed since the combat mission and

did that's on top of roughly one hundred thousand who have died since this war began remember there are forty six thousand u.s. to. they are still in iraq now that this mission is over and sides are still talking about whether that to keep u.s. troops there next year so what lessons should we be taking from this and especially as the conflict in libya continues and is reminding analysts we've had on this show of iraq back in two thousand and three well you know close to a decade later eight years later we're going to talk about that but right age iraq is a political consultant for peace action and i have some answers for us thank you for being on our show because there has zero i understand that you returned from iraq at the beginning of this month i wonder from your perspective a year after this combat mission ended why is the u.s. still there the first. question and i'm not affiliated with this action and oh i'm

so sorry about that and the problem is i think the end of the combat mission did not mean anything for the end of this war were not. and until the last u.s. soldier leaves iraq until the last two a space is shut down and over to the iraqis so last year there wasn't much attention given by the iraqis to mine because it was very widely viewed as a peak that line iraqis don't care what the u.s. government calls u.s. . troops military occupation with it because of the military occupation or with a record of training or whether they call it anything from an iraqi point of view this is a foreign military occupation but is not welcome in the west and so that's why i don't think less to use the brain was significant from an iraqi point point of view but this is that line is very significant because the see if the sun were thirty

first supposed to be the date that all of the u.s. troops in iraq i want to get to that but i just want to are you saying that this end of the combat mission means nothing for rocky. and then therefore the united states is just rhetoric it is not only us i think it was modeled list with a by president obama during. the campaign the loan of last year was nothing to do with any of the agreements between the two countries believe it or not the government did not even know about it when it happened because it wasn't included in the bilateral security agreement so it was just i think for. here for the mess to consumption in the u.s. the president said sixteen months or eighteen months he will and the combat troops but is a positive step in the right direction which is a version of the escalation but i think it would be incomplete the president does

not fulfill his promises of withdrawing all the troops this year and what we've heard both sides are still negotiating over whether u.s. troops will stay the u.s. is certainly offering them you said that this is a big deal this deadline for the iraqis what are they why you were just there you're rocky yourself yeah i think there are two u.s. voices in the last few months voice of the white house and president obama has been very consistent in promising complete withdrawal wouldn't by the end of the at the same time the voices of the national security establishment and the pentagon and the u.s. securities establishment organizations they have been attempting to be if there was to win or cancel it because of their calculations there do your political calculations are different than those of the u.s. and iraqi people and those of the white house so i think there is an internal

conflict and so the u.s. government and better guards from iraq and i think the iraqi public are demanding all but one majority of the iraqi public art. demanding that this occupation ends by the end of the year because iraqis believe that as long as the us is in iraq as longer iraq will continue to be unstable and buoyant if the us does entirely pull out and say instability actually increases our rockies willing to accept that of course it's their country to do the truth this entire argument that the us is there to protect us from themselves or to protect iraq us from other interventions is left of the iraqis don't fight us and iraqis will not blame us americans they will not blame the united states if something bad happens in their country without the us occupation of course it will be the consequences of the occupation but it will

be there to sponsibility i think iraq is have the wind and the capacity so long the country by themselves they know they realize it to take a long time maybe decades to stabilize it but the first step is a complete useful to look so therefore going along with what you're saying if bad things happened while the us is there did they blame the us of course and they would continue to blame the us this is not an if this is the reality we're talking about twenty years of us intervention the war with iraq started in one nine hundred ninety one and never been more than twenty years and the last remaining never ended so americans might think that that sounds crazy but in your perspective it never ended yeah i hope it will and i think that's the right thing to do i hope that president obama will play the leadership role of that he must be playing around actually and the war on terror looking at libya because many of the analysts have come on the show that we re i had compared libya now to iraq in two thousand and

three you're saying iraqis will blame the us for everything as long as there is a lesson the united states should have and. mind as it figures out what is going what's going to do with libya yes of course i think there are some differences between iraq and. there but overall what happened in iraq is how foreign military interventions look like it's not a foreign military intervention that went wrong it's how u.s. interventions look like because. domestic problems because more violence and they destroy the country's sovereignty and the government's legitimacy i think the same for democracy. and i don't know i don't think even those who used to say this thousand and three say that anymore and i think people unfortunately would see the same symptoms in libya the same problems of lack of legitimacy for

a government that is seen as a puppet government from no problems with this with the libyans with the libyan capability of providing services so there are many. you know examples i think between the two cases and certainly something to consider now that it's been a year anniversary since they combat mission quote unquote ended which you said it never did and as libya continues thank you so much for being here that was blogger and political activist there are now as we look at those lessons of iraq and look forward at libya it may not shock you to hear that nato says it has no immediate plans to end its operation in libya despite the rebels now being in control of most of the country nato is continuing to bomb the town of sirte the main procrit off the stronghold and earlier on wednesday colonel gadhafi once again valid he would not surrender meanwhile though in tripoli people would be celebrating the fall of

the regime but with many now carrying guns is still a long way from say fluxus. my mother is a libyan rebel he got a bullet in his ankle fighting against gadhafi soldiers in seclusion of a tripoli but with the shots coming from his own side. i didn't even notice it until my friend told me that my foot was bleeding big trigger by mistake it was saul security himself. this is a reality of today's libya for when the rebels stray off and march from the country tons of gadhafi is captured weapons have fallen into the hands of nonprofessional fighters one of the biggest stories was discovered at the ever slim top security prison in southern tripoli where inmates were released after a major bomb the area of the do this the father of three young boys refuses to appear on camera so fear of change from gadhafi loyalists he was among the first

scene to help destroy the arsenal. which i don't want we're going to give you all of a hundred songs or the unions and chant we're our country we'll be going with ground rules this is a very dangerous thing it's not a toy but with a country it was with arms it looks like livin kids have already developed a fascination for the weapons of war but. when i go out and have real life and will go back to guys like it's nothing in your stories you say they'll soon start gathering up weapons through mosques i hope police are back on the streets the young gunman demonstrate their readiness to. will get back to as soon as they ask a stone which many here are afraid that this addiction may have a painful withdrawal the gun has become one of the symbols of the libyan rebels and freedom for a new country though people want more peaceful symbols but fear of albeit is a for many to lay down their arms when the guard has played such

a prominent role throughout libya's volatile history. written osha azzi fearfully libya and speaking of history as it takes shape in libya one thing does remain gatos presence to remain strong and as the coalition continues to forge ahead and prepare for future posts gadhafi some on the sidelines like activists build an ark and are reminding people of the humanitarian motives that nato was supposed to be there for which he says play no role in our earlier he told r.t. just what he thinks are the real reasons behind intervention this is going to war from the outset has been waged for a definite material interest largely oil geo strategic placement in north africa a means of countering the revolutionary upheavals that taking place on libya's borders both in tunisia and egypt now what will nato do in its state and it says it's protecting civilians and leading an air war against civilians its trained

so-called rebels who have now been implicated in massacres of civilians including sub-saharan african migrant workers so i think this is a bodes very poorly for the future of libya and i think more broadly that this is a threat to people throughout north africa and indeed across the world so the united states britain france and italy to some extent i mean these powers have essentially portrayed this intervention as a humanitarian venture to protect civilian life. this is been a fraud from the outset it's hardly a new excuse for the united states i think you could go back to eight hundred ninety eight and say every war ever waged by the united states by u.s. imperialism has been waged in the name of protecting civilians humanitarianism and democracy as our us presidential candidate and activist bill van auken and that's going too far for more of the stories we covered at r.t. dot com slash usa you can also check out our you tube page and youtube dot com.