that it's seen to be that then inevitably more it will fall prey to election cycles but i want to use that what we've been said about higher education and other social goods provided by the state to illustrate or to me seems to be a very disconcerting fact as we know in britain for instance higher education now is now no longer free when i was a student it was free this is one of the many examples property is another one which shows that the generations are getting poorer we are on a downward slope in spite of all the propaganda about how free trade makes anybody richer i don't have figures but i it is my firm conviction that there is nobody or very few people who are rich than their parents the property prices have been driven up by militarily generated inflation and by military instability generally and the accumulation of debt is obviously a taxation in one form or another on future generations to the benefit of present one one of the interesting one of the big issues of today is into what you also no

longer very interesting is if we look at the emerging market world you have this expansion of the middle classes huge middle classes right now but we have in the west in the putting green united states near his own we see the middle class being under enormous assault in the income disparity would be severe inequality that is growing now i mean to echo what john just said there i mean very few people know will save you they think they will do better than their parents i think what's happening is that we're seeing a polarization not just between the rich and the poor and the sort of journalistic sense that we seeing essentially a constellation of the underclass and i don't like using that word but it is not my class we seeing a middle class is consciously being squeezed for all the reasons i don't said and we seeing a tiny tiny upper class i'm not using this in any social sense or really in an economic one that is getting much much richer than anyone ever before where you know that their wealth is going out by a factor of ten or a hundred or more and you know which. i know has

a similar problem because it has now got the fastest rates or it's got a fastest growth or billionaire you know soon london property prices will be pushed up in our segment body and used to her with growing middle class simultaneously do as well sure but the fact is the kind of capitalism that we're dealing with tells polarized society even in a very different context so yes you have the right about the middle class in china but china but also experience and is already experiencing the social strife and conflict because of this polarization it takes on different forms accounts it isn't always works that it works good dispossession expropriation it does not trickle down to the masses that's a great myth which i hope the last three or four years you know it's going to you also if i go to use it you know a lot of people say that the middle class they get the state off my back but maybe in the industrialized west it's the state that can save the middle class actually i think the fourth myth is that the middle class exists. there are two divisions really one is between the financial guys and the corporate guys and i'm happy if the corporate guys invest the financial guys are not going to so if the corporate

guys don't invest the public's going to have to come in which is what's happening now but the other thing is the property owners and nonprofits here and i was amazed to discover when i got to the united states that everybody who's in the trade union is considered middle class you just mean guys with jobs that's what you know a little better very soon terrible the family capital or capital gains or whatever you just meet people who make money from money and people earning money from work most of these middle class people make money from work and they should cast their lot in with the poor of people who make their money to the point where being employed means middle class well i. don't know in both once said very politically that for him working class meant people who didn't want to work. lives in argentina when it collapsed and i would put it another way around when you get a crisis the middle class becomes the people who have to work and they start having this illusion that they can become rich like everybody else. and suddenly realize

hey we're just like the poor guy down the street that i used to pass by they're all in the same boat when they realize that then you'll get democracy back then you'll get equality back because once people think we're all in the same boat then they start thinking we should all have the same rights except the guys who are taking it away from us and that's precisely why we need much more or many more risk in sharing our risk and profit sharing arrangements so that you know you don't have a disconnect in those who take risk and those who suffer the consequences because what we've senshi dealing with is a system that has privatized profit and nationalized losses and socialize risk and that is the system we still in three or four years after the onset of closures them for the rich and capitalism for the poor exactly and in some ways what we really need is for people to share risk and profit so that if things go well everyone benefits and the way to do this is through property and through various forms of popular not just individual property but also forms of communal property housing associations are a great great example of this that's where you share risk and profit everyone is better off if you work together on your own you could never for example negotiate

better energy deals with the big companies you could only do it as a small body and we could have this across the economy and the central. banks but the money is with a credit union manitoba the prairie's have them right you give them their money they keep it. other people that use. the economist victoria trick that great can't . be old fashioned here thank you gentlemen for discussing this in stay with r.t. .

it's.

the. well of the global dominoes if that is grief peter is on the brink of collapse the e.u. and global economy await the attacks meanwhile as the world hangs on the brics countries work to lay a new foundation but in the end is to lowball get and evitable. our bridges dams fall down we can't collapsing infrastructure that kills people urge people. resourceful and say it's not just the economy that's falling apart america is literally falling apart decaying all countries like china are moving into the fast lane bush show you some of the major speed bumps holding up progress the new us. economic situation being so grim especially here we've been supportive of president

obama and there's a lot of blame going around including pointing fingers at the president himself maybe not new but at the blame game heats up we also take a look at how the mainstream media is ignoring global change such things as j. crew taken its place. good afternoon it is wednesday september fourteenth it's four pm here in washington d.c. i'm laura. mr and you're watching our team all right today moody's ratings agency cut the ratings for two large french banks the reason is because they're saddled with a greek debt this as the greece nears default and its leaders talk with germany and france about rescue meanwhile china says it's willing to help it will support europe and buy bonds from nations facing

a debt crisis and hold on it's not just china together the brics nations the developing nations brazil russia india china they're coming up with their own rescue plan could developing nations be the saviors of the developed world and what does this all mean for the u.s. china is of course the largest creditor for the u.s. and also the u.s. economy could pay the price of recession for a greek default some analysts say if this is a tipping point for a double dip to mr kofi yunus economic blogger and r t contributor is here to help us sort it all out dimitri so first france germany they're meeting with greece about a rescue plan some are already speculating that will happen you have china willing to help they're saying that openly at this point does greece default or will they be bailed out there who know a lot more rumors about the fall which is frightening but i think the most likely scenario is that. again kick the can down the road france and merkel have been saying france germany and italy over merkel i was talking about how they want to

wait until at least twenty thirteen when the european stability. mechanism is in place so they have some sort of a stew szell framework to go with with a bailout so i think that eventually greece will default but i think that it's likely to happen on october seventeenth ok why is october seventeenth of course the day when greece runs out of cash and you don't think that's going to happen but why is it that bailout is kicking the can down the road because they're not addressing they're not creating a scenario where greece or greeks. can say ok in five years and seven years whatever we have a viable plan to exit this this large that burden and go back into growth because right now the greek economy is in a collapse node so there's no way they can service this that and they're having problems getting their budget deficit under control even though they're cutting spending and that's what you're going to see so if they can't liquidate their debt and you out of the default them they need to have some sort of structured default

some sort of agreement with their creditors so you're saying that you're predicting a bailout and they're just going to end up with all of this debt that it makes that worse for the country ultimately i think that no i think eventually greece is going to have to do unilateral default i think that's going to have to happen but i just don't think that that's going to happen on the seventeenth ok despite all the news ok should greece to fall i think if greece doesn't have a viable plan which it doesn't have at this current time from its creditors then it should befall but in order for that to happen the government needs to be on the same page with its people and to be doing what's in the national interest so they need to be coming together with a plan and putting that out there and talk in the greek people about what that plan is how they're going to deal with the fact that the banks are insolvent and they're getting money from the c b and how they're going to move to a point where they can have an orderly default and prepare people for the inflation and the bank runs that would ensue ok so you're calling for an orderly default and you mentioned something you mentioned insolvent banks and it's not just greece it's not just greeks insolvent banks it's france is banks we just saw two french banks

get their ratings downgrade it because of their exposure to greek debt and it's not just france we don't know how much the united states is exposed to greek debt credit default swaps which protect against greek debt so our insure against rate that would be a better way to say that so what would be the impact for the u.s. if there is a greek default well you're right thing about the credit default swaps and derivatives market we don't really know we had heard a lot about this in june few months ago that a lot of the american banks one of the other. side of these derivative deals so they were ensuring that the the the debt that was on the both of the books of of european banks so that in the in the event of a default the european bank would they would they would lose out on their bonds but then they would go to the american bank and say give us the money because when you wrote the insurance so the u.s. banks would be on the hook no one really knows and again that's the problem of the banking system there's a lot of uncertainty about counterparty risk and panics can create problems to

quote it which with unmask the solvency issues of banks and that's ultimately the biggest problem it's a confidence again it's a confidence again it's a solvency problem that spans greece europe the united states and continue to is the savior of this we see china coming in and saying that they're willing to buy debt of these nations that are facing sovereign debt crises if china the savior well china could play that role and they want to play that role they have about three point two trillion in foreign exchange reserves and and in fact the funny thing is that the chinese premier when he came out and said what his primary concerns were regarding europe it was to have the european union recognize china as a free trading partner so china i think is in a position to use their massive savings and the position that they're in as a global creditor to extract certain foreign policy and political gains or benefits which is what a lot of people in the u.s.

have been saying for a long time that we're exposed to trying to prove it through that through debt and through our economy and the chinese government its military have other designs have other ambitions more money and power you can argue the united states or excuse me that china is using money and order to achieve goals that the united states would think you know military planes are shipped their buildup to it's definitely a different way and that's accomplishing things but as far as the chinese going in and they buying greek debt what happens because this is not you know everybody is not offering a vacuum here. it. the u.s. is the largest creditor china has three point two trillion dollars in reserves and spend what happens to the u.s. if china starts exit in dollars and buying up euro that's a that's a really good question because because the fact that it's not there the amount of money that china has has to go somewhere right now a lot of it's and t. bills so if they're going to move money out of the you know out of into europe they

have to move it out of u.s. treasuries which means are they going to take some demand out of the market and if the u.s. isn't change the amount of supply in the marketplace that's going to drive up deals it's going to make borrowing costs higher for the united states government which alternately because the way the fed works the pheasant have to step in to do more monetize ation so all that just means is more and more loss of purchasing power for dollar holders if the chinese words with this word choose to disengage from treasuries and move into the european sovereign debt or the euro bonds which is what a lot of your advocating that they issue your bones in europe and it may bring the us closer you could argue to what many people get on the show today which is that all of the take is one fail bond auction for people to really question the u.s. dollar as the reserve currency but it shows how much broader this issue is than just greece but i do want to play a little story because we sent out one of our broadcast journalists here to go see what people in washington on the streets think is to blame for all of the market turmoil we've seen over the last several weeks

a lot of this data driven by europe and affects the u.s. it's a very big picture it's very complex but who they blame let's see. i'm here on the streets of washington d.c. asking americans what they think it's a blame for the current state of the u.s. economy let's watch and sir give me if you would you say president obama still in. bush george bush president obama would you say that obama sublime for no i believe it on bush would you say is to blame for all this if i had to blame anybody i would blame government to blame i think that. everybody in nobody what do you think about what's happening you know in greece and with the euro right now do you think that has anything to do with you know how the economy is shaping up here well i think that the stock market has already baked the greek potential greek fall into it so i don't think it has any effect right now because i'm more interested in

america i don't think it's what's led to the downturn united states it's a trailing. event that things are going on europe everything just seems to follow our economy seems like a lot of those governments seems to be more large government. more socialist type government and i think it's clear that that kind of economy can survive if we are. really broke and then we can't help anybody else if we can't help ourselves well there you have it despite all the talk about globalization americans still feel bare in the driver's seat of the global economy and it seems they won't be letting up on obama or anyone else in charge any time soon reporting from washington i'm on genocide zero r.t. so you can see bringing to meet your feet is back in this conversation that despite all of these global problems people on the streets at least the ones that we talk to you know i mean overwhelmingly they don't see it is connected they don't see it

as a bigger picture they see obama as a graeme can you really look at these issues though without looking at the bigger picture. in the united states i think that one of the people on the street said alterman it's a u.s. problem that's true it is but. she did fail to mention the fact that again we can talk about china you've got people that are subsidizing the united states through the bond market but also through low prices so you're blaming time here for the problem and i'm nobody that i'm blaming china if anything china is just responding to what the united states is what has enabled for the past forty years running china current account deficits and not addressing that by functioning off of a finance i don't want ponzi scheme is you know if you need a german you're right that it sometimes i don't want to use it but yeah i mean the united states facilitates this model all right because it enables countries like china to do export led growth because the u.s.

runs these huge current account deficit so there is a global component to it absolutely do you that originates here right but that's an interesting point but even just separating you know greek out it's not just a great problem i mean it's a problem that ties in with the financial system and with banks and with the united states it's not just limited to any one country anymore of course and because you're not just seeing greece and europe for example saying ireland you're saying portugal you're seeing italy italy has a humongous deficits deficit and it is and isn't so big in fact they may not even be running a deficit or might be very small but yeah i think that there's a global financial problem or something i've spoken about before there's a problem the global financial system and there are different philosophies as to how to address that but you're saying that the core problem. country perpetuating this is the united states but ultimately the u.s. went off of bretton woods and facilitated an environment where you could run these chronic current account deficits because it was it's an empire that has the the imperial currency so yeah in that sense the centrifuges been here and that's where

the real financialization has kind of expanded the u.s. didn't have such a huge financial sector when it went off a bretton woods. european banks were played believe they had a much bigger role certainly japanese banks but if this if this point in the game where you still have the u.s. dollar as the reserve currency you still have the banking system with a lot of power we've seen a number of people say that too big to fail hasn't ended they still believe that they'll be bailed out dodd frank the financial regulations didn't go far enough so is there anything that is going to change this system coming up with all the things that could change the system but if you're asking me whether i think that the system is going to change itself because the system is in powers of the driver's seat so if you're going to just give of control no it would have to be you have to have a real social revolution where people would really demanded understand what the other side of the problem is there with the man a real solution so there are solutions but it's just a matter of getting people on board to fight the entrenched interests which are

very powerful and as we saw in two thousand and eight. henry paulson what the congress and said if you don't give us this money there may be martial law in america that's not me saying that i was that was a ventura man from california so you know their congressman yes so they're in a position of control they have the ability to exert their influence so people need to stand up against that learns to give up control they're not going to get out of control and with the people on the streets not aware of the problems it doesn't seem like social unrest would be likely. is there anything else because i mean we've seen a downgrade of u.s. credit and the u.s. treasury yields have not been lower have you know there are at record lows and people are still having a demand for u.s. debt despite all of this so short of social unrest are we just going to see more of the same. i think that if you don't have social unrest if you don't have people standing up and you're seeing more of the same but eventually going to have social unrest because you can have a system that continues to have increased poverty rates more and more people in

poverty more and more people depend on the state and not seeing a future and not have social unrest that's the inevitability and it's we won't know what that tipping point would be but we have seen u.s. census poverty numbers come out and show that a record number of americans are in poverty in the united states the most and say started collecting those figures at all so that's a debate we'll have to wait and have and see what toll that takes but i appreciate you dimitri for coming on and going through so much of this with me today in our thank you right still ahead here on our team it's not just europe it's collapsing america is falling apart you. we haven't had the kind of it would be best or the resources to put investment into hard to keep or infrastructure strong and seep so when will america step on the gas and next those crumbling roads and collapsing bridges we'll show you why america is stalling while countries like china continue to speed ahead with faster and stronger infrastructure.

it's. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it through may who can you trust no one who is in view with

a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask why we do our t. question more. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i don't get a look through. i'm a confession i am a little get a friend i love that make up is that and heard. that he was kind of the jester day. i'm very proud of the world without you it's a place. you

know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life please you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and hears you some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. welcome back at a time when many americans think this country is headed in the wrong direction in fact seventeen percent according to a rasmussen report from this month look at this look at the frankfurt auto show there are still people they can afford very expensive cars no matter what people think of the economy maza radi debuted its s.u.v. it has a ferrari engine and this is all the frankfurt auto show which is a showing of what the world has to offer in cars and it is only been growing over the past few years in fact reporters reporting on it now say money woes are no

problem at this car show need while more proof that the u.s. is literally falling apart but the country's top five percent of the richest who control sixty five percent of all assets according to the economic policy institute maybe they will still be able to navigate the crumbling roads with the new models are already s.u.v. but for the rest of the country ramon glenda look at the cost and the toll of the u.s. is decaying infrastructure. the complete lack of the systems of massive power outage that effected millions of people in america southwest highlighted color abilities in the nation's power infrastructure outage cause reactors to shut down it sent in oh for a nuclear power plant and cut power to waste water pumps sending tons of sewage into the ocean just the latest example of a crumbling system we haven't had the kind of investment or the resources to put

investment into it to keep our infrastructure strong and seen in the past years americans have seen their levees fail leading to massive flooding cracked bridges buckling not to mention the constant water main breaks and costly traffic congestion in its report card of america's infrastructure the american society of civil engineers heed the nation's infrastructure a d. grade and estimated two point two trillion dollars over five years was needed to bring that up to a b. this is gotta stop we are produced can't fall down we can't have a collapsing infrastructure that kills people hurt people. leaves us and say that's just not the country we promised to be beside safety concerns a crumbling infrastructure france to do real any hopes of a significant economic recovery here in the u.s. making it even more difficult to compete with powerhouses who see infrastructure

investment as a national priority and a key to sustainable growth building a world class transportation system is part of what made us economic superpower and now we're going to sit back and watch china build newer airports and faster railroads at a time when millions of unemployed construction workers could build them right here in america the u.s. only spends two point four percent of g.d.p. on infrastructure europe spends more than twice that in china outpaces everyone at nine percent we're be. by the rest of the world we're no longer going to be number one. that's the reality actually the u.s. is already far from the top the world economic forum ranks u.s. infrastructure twenty third in the world some blame growing federal bureaucracy in a web of environmental regulations there's no question it would take years to get through all of the various hurdles and hopscotch is that these.