main street moves to wall street as protesters make a lower manhattan their new home but it's not just wall street being occupy protests are now spreading all across the country from new york to los angeles this is average americans fight for an overhaul of the financial system but will their voices be heard. and will average joe's struggles to put food on the table the u.s. continues to fork over billions amounting to trillions of dollars for defense spending and wars so even as the country is hemorrhaging jobs how does the u.s. continue to send so much cash overseas for occupation we'll speak with professor andrew bass of it. that's for the preservation of global though he was brought in

as a symbol for the workers of oppressed people and against racism but is actually the policies of the traditional policies of big business and a tradition obama is keeping up with raising a record amount of money for his campaign this despite growing unemployment poverty and a housing crisis so where are those thirty five thousand dollar a dinner donations coming from. protesters in greece reach a breaking point as thousands come out to fight against the latest dose of austerity this is tensions continue to rise during these desperate times for europe we'll have a report from athens. good afternoon it's tuesday september twenty seventh it's four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and you're watching our t.v.

now the occupy wall street protesters. tinubu called lower manhattan home after more than a week they've been out there and as they continue to stand their ground over their grievances such as inequality in the u.s. and its growing wealth and power of the country's top one percent the movement appears to be spreading to other cities los angeles chicago to name a few yet as this frustration grows during a time of record in economic inequality in this country and poverty and persistent high unemployment the u.s. continues to pour billions of dollars into wars abroad adding up to estimates of trillions for iraq and afghanistan according to some economists with a payoff that is very unclear here to talk about how this is possible exactly is my next guest has boston university international relations professor and your base of it she is the author of this book washington rules and he's with us from boston massachusetts thanks for being on the show this afternoon now you've written about

the spectacle of obama embracing and expanding bush's war on terror even if he's banished that phrase my question to you is how has this been possible despite his promises not to mention the cash problems of the u.s. . well i think despite the pictures of protests that you showed in your lead him the fact of the matter is that the american people continue to be fairly passive and deferential to washington and this is particularly the case with regard to anything to relates to military policy the montra of supporting the troops takes precedent over asking the most fundamental questions such as what are we getting for our money you are correct that estimates of the total cost of the afghanistan and iraq war probably are going to reach something like at least four trillion dollars and yet this staggering sum of money really hasn't caused.

a sufficient number of americans to ask what are we doing what do we get in return for this incredible investment and then you make it a point i mean occupy wall street protesters as just one example those numbers are hundreds when you go and cover a protest in europe it's easy to get thousands of people out in the street for anything ranging from war to the economy so are you blaming just average americans here. well maybe blame is a strong term but i do think that i myself would say that i'm disappointed by the lack of engagement on the part of the american people with the problems that are besetting the country and how it's easy to overstate those problems i don't think that this republic is in danger of of collapse but we're facing some very serious challenges there is little evidence that our political establishment the to the republican and democratic party is

little evidence that they're up to the test and in one might wish that the there was more pressure coming from the american people to buckle down and get serious get real about the situation that we have to deal with rather than letting politics as usual prevail which mostly is what's going on but what about the president's role the president of the united states has a lot of authority over foreign policy we thought obama pretty much single handedly greenlight a new war in libya and you describe his foreign policy as in some ways connected at the hip with bush what do you mean by that. well what i mean is that if you take a broader view of u.s. policy the continuity between it ministrations tend to be much greater than the discontinuity yes even when there is a change in the party in power i think that's true in spades with president obama

but it's not simply obama it was true when clinton replaced the older wish it was it was has been consistently true. and i think one needs to be very careful about overstating how much authority the president hears you know people fell into this notion that the president of the united states is the most powerful man in the world and back in two thousand and eight many americans believe that if we just got the right guy in your whole office all would be well well we did get the right guy i mean in a sense that president obama is an exceedingly able and talented individual but the reality is that his power his authority his ability to do things are far more limited than some people seem to believe and well then how is it that we have if they had not about obama and what is it that allows you know now if we get an example of libya an expansion of obama's wars how is it that with fifteen trillion

dollars of debt now half of discretionary spending going on defense and a president that promised to wind down u.s. wars how is it possible that they've not tary solutions are still the u.s. response to a lot of the foreign policy issues the country has well i think i take issue with your premises i mean the president didn't this president did not promise to wind down wars he promised to wind down the iraq war if you remember when he was running he actually promised to expand the afghanistan war and that's exactly that's exactly what he's done but why right why do we keep doing the things we do well partially out of habit partially because the things that we do serve. powerful interests and institutions president eisenhower some considerable time ago now refer to a military industrial complex that certainly exists and also i think we do we do in

part because of our exaggerated sense as a people and there's a nation of somehow what we are called upon to accomplish in history americans going back to the founding of this country have somehow believe that we are the chosen people well we're not and the sooner we give up on that notion that we're chosen to transform the world in our own image the better it will be for us and the better it will be for the rest of the world now a long as lions something that is not a military industrial complex but that if foreign policy and it's an issue that the united states is not going to war over at this point palestine and israel i want to play a little bit of what obama said recently at the u.n. g.a. just earlier i'd like your response. one year ago i stood at this podium and i called for an independent palestine i believed then and i believe now that the palestinian people deserve

a state of their own but what i also said is that a genuine peace can only be realized between the israelis and the palestinians themselves i'm curious if that's the case why the u.s. with scrambling behind the scenes to avoid palace not sign statehood going to a vote at the u.n. . well because the president in there that this president like most presidents want to have it both ways the president wants to be seen in the arab world in more broadly the islamic world as someone who is sympathetic to muslims and and specifically sympathetic to the cause of the palestinians at the same time you understand this i understand this country is already basically into election mode and therefore the president needs to be very careful about doing

anything which will seem to be at odds with the security interests of israel because that can have very negative consequences for him in terms of domestic politics so he's trying to. thread this needle and getting the palestinian. initiative in the u.n. to go away would certainly serve his political interests so your thing with about. garnering as a part of probably israel constituents in the united states. i'm saying that foreign policy is always to some degree about domestic policy in that that is true in spades as you begin to approach an election cycle and that's exactly where we are today ok i want to keep on the subject of the u.n. has another thing i want to get your thoughts here we have heard of come out saying that the u.s. and nato went beyond the u.n. mandate in libya and here's what the russian foreign minister thirty lowbrow of the

thread earlier i want to play a little bit of that possibly of pneumonia so they should look at social tension is it touched the voters an arab or is russia condemns the use of violence against civilians and supports the aspirations of arab peoples for a revival of their states and their democratic development and social and economic prosperity at the same time actions by outside forces must be based on full respect for international law and the instruments of the search for a political settlement between the authorities in the position attempts to go beyond the u.n. security council mandate from acceptable since they undermine its authority and multiplied the suffering of innocent civilians my question for you professor both a bitch do you think that the u.s. and nato went beyond the u.n. mandate in libya. well of course it did but i mean let's not kid ourselves that somehow to think that the russian government defers to the united nations or is particularly concerned about. you know imposing its will when it when it when it

wishes to but i think that going beyond the mandate was inevitable once nato intervened whether whether the rationale of preventing genocide was genuine or whether it was a pretext and i'm not sure which is true once the us in the us but once nato intervened under those auspices i think it was inevitable that the campaign was going to continue until the removal of khadafi had been achieved and that's basically just about where we are now how then i think as you mentioned russia you mentioned the united states not following by all of you on policy is the u.n. undermined by actually doing that. well i think the u.n. is. a fairly toothless organization i don't know very many people who would argue that the u.n. today lives up to the hopes that people head back in one thousand forty five or so

and that one explanation among many for why the u.n. is as weak as it is is that great powers to include the united states to include russia in very much to include the soviet union in former days have disregarded the u.n. when they fit when they felt that the un's purposes were inconsistent with their own that's the reality of great power politics ok and then i just want to touch upon earlier because you were talking about the military industrial complex i'm curious with now that we hear politicians be in advance of war in some regards towards pakistan and we hear talking about the economy at work and regard to the attack in pakistan do you think that is a real threat or as a new book the man to justify war also the boogeyman i mean i think the u.s. pakistani relations are so fraught with contradictions that it's almost comic

to describe our relationship as friendly or that we are one another's allies that said i think the hawks who are promoting the notion that the united states should use force against pakistan. that's an absurd proposition you know states already has more wars going on than it can handle and anything like full fledged hostilities with pakistan would. would would truly be. ridiculous ridiculous why because. pakistan is a very big country with a very large population probably impossible for us to occupy and even the effort to try to coerce pakistan into conforming to american expectations would be costly and probably ineffective important words coming from

your mouth and i just want one final question and i don't have a lot of time but just to defend my honor a little bit would you say that with the fifty thousand troops that are any iraq and with the state department ramping up the people in a stop and it will send there in the contractors do you see that as a complete winding down of the war in iraq that obama promised or no what i said that obama's winding down i mean it is a winding down in terms of a very substantial reduction in the size of the u.s. presence but you're correct it doesn't follow that the united states is about to walk away from iraq and we will have a very substantial presence there and it's going to be a closet a military presence even if the the quote unquote soldiers are private contractors but we will be involved in in a security role in iraq for some time to come i believe thank you helen of the men decatur there that are that are both of us professor of international relations at

boston university author of the book washington rolls and certainly something we appreciate having on the show thanks very much. now despite record breaking inequality and poverty in this country that i was talking about earlier in the show you wouldn't know it exists when you look at the free flow of cash and glitz pouring into politics take a look at the donors going to a fundraiser for president obama in l.a. last night now despite the tough economy supporters still shelled out for recent obama events from seattle to san diego over two days up words of five million dollars so quarter's pay up to the legal limit of close to thirty six grand to hear obama speak or have dinner or whatever now it's on that many americans right at that fundraiser could never envision affording take a listen to a protester outside you see the restaurant he's charging thirty five thousand dollars for people who can be part of the dessert community you can make do you

talk thousand dollars a year. to the community. and it's not just the communities of those press protesters that you saw a new report shows that city budgets are getting crushed forcing them to cut more workers and services and at the same time corporate team are saying that china is more business friendly than the u.s. peter schiff is here to tell me how all of this is possible i.p.o. thanks for being on the show so. my first question to you during these tough economic times a bomb with approval ratings or forty two percent who are selling out thirty six grand for an obama fundraiser and why well who are the forty two percent that are still approving president obama and these guys have got to wake up and see the reality as far as my other questions are selling out all that dough for this campaign but look there are obviously some people that are able to make money off

of this system unfortunately not nearly enough that that's the problem and there are you know there are people with money in the country to you know don't understand what's going on and so they believe that obama is actually going to help this country and there are other people that know that it's not that they're they have a vested interest in the programs that he's perpetuating and many of those programs are responsible obviously the majority of americans but a day and rich is their contributors like what in the one example that you think is the best example of what you're saying cottagers a lot of policies that are perpetuating the financial bubble that are perpetuating a wall street and so i think a lot of finance years are benefiting from the reckless policies certainly a lot of the industries that government drives money towards education health care those those sectors are bloated and there's a lot of money that's being spent there is a very wasteful matter but obviously there are people who benefit from that

wasteful spending because that's that's the source of their income so there isn't a tire constituency that is feeding off the public trough and you know broccoli bamma has been. they're just filled up and so there are plenty of people that benefit from it and they helped reelect them and of course you know you guys you know the drug companies i think pharmaceutical companies benefit large brokerage firms the benefit there are a number of companies that i think are direct beneficiaries of a lot of these government programs a lot of regulations that stifle competition benefit the companies that are being protected by competition but i think the higher carb suffers from these big government policies so you know you run for office do you think that this is why obama's campaign election adverts have not been as impacted by the economy as one would believe and that we're talking about no matter who they are in fact i think

a lot of people are becoming disillusioned with the president that's why is the ford is is falling and i expect his supporters to keep a default but that's not a good in a minute is ability to raise money he's still going to raise money from the people who profit from the status quo in a status vote is undermining the strength of the u.s. economy and of course you know as the government is able to help through the economy and create dependency people who become dependent on government checks are now more likely to vote for the people who are signing those checks they don't connect the dots are they don't understand that big government is responsible for their plight but they buy into the rhetoric that the government will solve the problem which is why you know the government lot of support actually poverty because it's easy to get the votes of the impoverished when you're the one that is provided the funds thinking of poverty peter said the finances are just getting totally crushed by the economic downturn and just a new report that came out from the national league of cities today says that

cities ended their two thousand and ten fiscal year with the largest year over year reductions in revenues and spending in the history of the survey why are cities getting creamed now. why are they what why are they getting creamed now why are they getting by their finances getting so crushed right now all the countries getting across them in the cities aren't going to be immune from that member of the city's withdrawing their revenues from their tax base and their tax base is being eroded property values are falling people are paying property taxes incomes are diminished you're getting less sales tax revenue there's all sorts of ways that cities and states are going to get squeezed from this recession the real problem is going to be when interest rates start to rise because a lot of these that is about is the states are surviving by borrowing and with the cost of borrowing goes up it hasn't happened yet but eventually it is going to happen and then you're going to have a double whammy because it's going to cost the cities a lot more to borrow money but they're also going to have to borrow

a lot more because higher interest rates are also good at least in the short run further undermine this consumer debt the bubble economy that we're living in i mean right now the impact of of the economy on the cities means that they're continuing to cut personnel they can't invest in infrastructure they're cutting services so are you saying that this is just going to get worse if and if interest rates go up . it is going to get worse i mean interest rates need to go up but not for the reason that they're going to go up the real reason they're going to go up now is because inflation drives them off because the government is destroying our money savings mean it would be better if we can have higher real interest rates where the fed gets ahead of the cover and we can have more stable investment but still that is going to pressure the debtors and to the extent that to suck too much debt higher interest rates are going to be problematic that is why you're going to be so painful for service segments of the of the economy but ultimately if we can cure

the economy we can have much more robust economic growth which ultimately will benefit the states even if in the short run they are negatively impacted by the increased cost of services or death which is also why some of these missed values are stays where it ends up the fall they want some of that that in order for it to be manageable i mean if it doesn't seem like it ever that how much worse could it get about ready for how bad i mean what you're calling for you get a lot if you get a lot worse i mean we really see not that ye be yeah these things are bad people are having a hard time getting jobs but the people that still have jobs i mean gether getting squeezed a little bit but nothing like it's gonna be i think it's going to get a lot worse when you really see it for sivits the climate by the dollar that's will you to kick it in because that's going to lead to big big game freezing consumer prices on basic necessities which are really again across american families and when you see a big increase in interest rates i mean this is this is going to get much much

worse i mean it's really still the calm before the storm but when you think that storm will hit because we've seen so much air national turmoil what for example what's going on in europe that the dollar people have ran to the dollar and recent times i mean that's what's buying up some experts. because people are more worried about europe right now than america and so our day of reckoning is being postponed is. that but ultimately by a lot of us economy if you go deeper into debt it means our day of reckoning is going to be that much more dramatic when it comes and you know i think that one of the catalysts could be some sort of resolution to the european situation where the world can read the file relief and decided ok the worst is behind europe and bases are going through because then they're going to focus their attention back on the u.s. because we've done nothing to improve our situation our fiscal imbalances continue

to deteriorate so what's better for you know could be worse for the u.s. you can of course for the u.s. not a public sector is hemorrhaging employees with these cities and states being really impacted by the economy the private sector isn't exactly picking up the slack and we just heard the c.e.o. of coke saying that the u.s. is less business friendly than china because of the u.s. political gridlock and the tax structure which he says an antiquated bitter as it is there to do business in china than the u.s. i would say that for years that's why we're investing more money over there that we are in the u.s. . i obvious joke that you know it's big government simply get out of the way of capitalism the chance that i know will work because you know it's working pretty good in communist china so i think it would work in america we gave it a try and you know so we want need to get rid of a lot of these government sector jobs i mean that that's part of the solution the government jobs are a drain on the job we can't afford the so a lot of government employees need to lose their jobs but we want them to get

productive jobs in the private sector the reason they're not is because the government has directed so many barriers to employment the governor has made it so much more difficult for businesses to grow and expand and hire people i mean the regulations many of the regulations that have been written specifically punish employers reply there are all sorts of taxes and fees that are directly tied to hiring people. probably you sort of litigation you have all sorts of litigation risk when you are somebody is very your employer if you get fired. and so all businesses want to know the cost of living and the way they do that is limit the number of people harder so it's kind of a catch twenty two because people are getting laid off but there's not jobs for them that you say that businesses don't have the necessary you know way to get the regulations in order to hire more people and tax holidays that the government is talking about have been shown to not actually create jobs but we're going to leave the discussion there for now because resident i'm sorry peter we're totally out of

time the president of euro pacific capital thanks for being on the show now as the u.s. struggles to get the economy back on track as we just talked about europe as they think its own debt crisis and it's not going well there either today the greek government passed a new property tax this is in hopes of meeting conditions for the next e.u. i.m.f. loan payment to deal with their mounting debt however as imagine the public is not taking this well and tonight thousands have reached the breaking point they're gathering in protest of the new austerity measures. in athens take a look at what's going on. only shaving on the scales and misquotes night thousands upon thousands of people have turned out the parliament discussing the property taxes create extremely low country you can see the tension levels rising and the people translate that see we have faceless we go to see the riot police meeting in there you can see possible go through the mind of being fired certainly if else i

could piece that we saw in the summer when those crazy. sadly we saw the violence sunday evening resource the only thing happened on syntagma it's been a struggle here to get the situation under control for the first time in this country is seeing people the public feel like being attacked they simply think have that money and they pulling on us their leaders not to be realistic the talk is such need turning to that agree to polls i list here has said to us that the really is the case and how that happens whether it's controls to pull this all greece's times over the e.u. leaders will again play by their rules and that benefit really the greek prime minister just happened today has been having meetings today in berlin he said he thought the country could get out of this crisis we had the german chancellor saying much the same thing that people were in extremely skeptical about this message you only have to look at the numbers of the chatting and i can tell you it

is a tense situation we call a standoff once again between the riot police and the protests to say we've already seen some boss who thinks right everyone hyping that the situation doesn't once again descend into violence like we've seen happen before but unfortunately that is the level of bank today amongst the greek people people we've been speaking to saying they can't fold their rent they called for to support their families the visa applications the greeks wanting to meet the pros has risen dramatically and unemployment. has plummeted extremely volatile situation that then played with what they see as a complete and absolute right that's when all the people are asking for i will be leaders approaching three years a leader that the menace still has yet to decide whether to revise that eight billion a year a cash injection that we say desperately needs is still the potential.