cheesemonger. missions for. it ten thousand dollars a month to news goes almost too close to crime in space to be buying the experience you heard him right a ten thousand dollar martini and that's not all that's on the menu for america's richest one percent how about a burger stacked with gold flakes on it while america's elite wine and dine on the line many are. lost my house my business. now i'm just going to surviving millions of americans struggle daily as opposed food on the table some even wait for days on ads for handouts to be their family is a harsh economic reality it's a digest from one home to another many have nothing to be thankful for.

and squaring off with the government day after day gyptian protesters are coming out by the thousands and demanding to change their government promised thirty eight dad over two thousand and thirteen but they're not backing down so what will it take to get the protests leave tahrir square. it's friday november twenty fifth eight pm going to washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching artsy. well the holiday season kicks off at a time when our economy continues to struggle and it's perhaps this time of year when the growing income inequality gap and wealth disparity in the u.s. becomes most apparent despite high unemployment record poverty levels and skyrocketing food prices a select few are paying shockingly exorbitant prices for their meals from

a one thousand dollars dessert to a ten thousand dollar martini artie's on the southie a turk in a shows you how some are living the luxurious life and the slumping economy. america the land of plenty but these days that twenty is only reaching a few but one country split into two planets it's a tale of two americas right now new york city a place where the number of people on food stamps is soaring at a record three million it is also a place where one hundred seventy five dollars buys wall street fat cats a burger the black truffles and meanies we were martini for ten thousand dollars at an exclusive new york hotel the ten thousand dollars a month unit cost so much because the crying is basically buying the experience this is you know if you still recall site. what makes you.

unique and so special here we're going to order a dessert for staggering one thousand bucks nobody has ever had choir's remorse that's that's for sure with the forty eight hour advance order this thousand dollars sunday is purchased up to five times a month again with the edible twenty three carat gold leaf gold's doesn't really have a labor put it does have a very cool texture salt free caviar and edible sugar flour which takes eight hours to make and the rarest and most expensive chocolates in the world the ice cream is served in a crystal goblets similar to the one used at the vatican yes in the past couple of years people are suffering and they're saying you know why would you have a thousand dollar ice cream well you know why would you have a bentley a short ride across town angry and it made. whatever garlic onion valerie.

pear trees like this one for the money that's coming to your to spend on a dessert is seen as a lottery couple thousand dollars over a thousand. over a thousand close to two thousand individuals have gotten a meal a status of the number of people this week even among the amount of people that any person. over a million people said here last year and one hundred percent increase in demand for crude this place knows the face of hunger demand for any available produce simple food but your can't be produced and peas have been skyrocketing a pantries like this one as the gap between rich and poor is at an extreme low is the number of people who need any help they can get to put food on their table sixty year old soldier jacob is on disability and a father of three and a family with a ration that clean piece of work we pay to do. so little ground be great

for three to five family members. or we. help a retired single mother of three i make calls or and i make stained cabbage on disability after being burnt in an explosion she struggles as food prices continue to rise produce vegetables it's. i mean it's our wages but our. for local bread for these people what she's not even a dream survivals is their only priority there's just something amazing about and just being told thanksgiving very nice that they gave out we didn't get a ham but i got a big party and a lot of. critical mistakes giving might not be so logical callous and millions of others as experts predict the gap between those with an empty stomachs only why

. and if this is shirking our archie. now we're seeing as the income gap widens so what's here are the many years it's something that our walter. protesters have noticed one restaurant is making light of the movement and even making some money off of it take a look at this this is from the d.l.c. state restaurant in washington d.c. this is the one percent burger which hungry patrons can purchase for fifty eight dollars but you get for that an eight ounce kopi burger topped with water gras gold leaf and growth upon and then there's the ninety nine percent burger for those of us who can stomach spending nearly sixty dollars on a burger on the menu a six ounce cab burger patty no slop between some wonder bread and good old american cheese all for a more reasonable nine ninety nine but this is a funny way to illustrate the now very real income inequality gap in the u.s. stock more about this i spoke to founder of large awake news dot com charlie

mcgrath as some spend ten thousand on a martini while others struggle to put food on the table here in america i asked charlie a simple question what does this say about the economic state of the u.s. here's what he has to say. well it shows the people that are participating in the occupy wall street movement just like the people who participated in the tea party movement the core group of tea party members people who are tired of seeing excess corruption between wall street and main street are absolutely right i mean you know we're just we're listening to guy tell us how you just get this special feeling from ingesting goal it is absolutely unbelievable we have forty seven million one hundred eighty thousand two hundred four people in this country the day after thanksgiving two thousand and eleven they had to use food stamps in order to put food on the table last month it's utter insanity in what's learned is to this point it's rule simple you know we're back in two thousand and seven with roughly around

eight trillion dollars in national debt and today we say to fifteen trillion dollars in national dead this money isn't going to buy gold leaf deserts or the ninety nine percent is going to bail out the too big to fail who are benefiting socialize their failure while keeping their profits private and they are the ones who can go out and for this new york city property or these ten thousand dollar drinks or does gold leaf desert games or this you know sixty dollar hamburger so none of this you know unfortunately unfortunately alternative you know media like our t. are showing these stories but the mainstream media is doing exactly what your report alluded to they're turning the ninety nine percent into a joke i've said it before and r t what they like to do is take the absolute least eloquent person they can find put have been for the camera and say this is the real ninety nine percent this is the real order of us they don't know what else to do they're bored they're hippies they need to get a life this is the message that mainstream is putting out fortunately our tea and

other alternative media arts are showing the true reasons why people are in the streets and it's because they have no voice and they're completely frustrated and that charlie whippets and widening gap between the rich and poor but we're losing we think secular. thing is a middle class recent brown university study shows that in two thousand and seven forty four percent of families work and said i wanted were considered middle income a much larger middle class or in one nine hundred seventy one sixty five percent were part of the middle class and the windowing down of this class how do you think that it's affecting social mobility and the us. well you know if everything's turning into a service sector job i mean you have kids going to college eighty percent of them now are moving back home because there's no job for them to go to so i saw the same report you were talking about it also showed and unbelievable of a jump in the percentage of people who either fall in the sub poverty line or the elite class and unfortunately you know most of the people are falling into their

poverty line look it just goes to show that the trends the real truths that we follow are painting a picture you know we're seeing one point three million foreclosures or you're seeing one point five million bankruptcies a year and we're seeing a congress in a government that is government by crisis that can get nothing done on behalf of the people and everything goes on behalf of the too big to fail so as this continues as this form of crisis by government continues we're going to continue to see further decline in the ever of that reading middle class and this trend it isn't going to we're not heading for some upward spike in income in this country it's going the other way and lastly you know what these occupy wall street movement they have caught the attention of the media and of the public that you think that more attention is now being paid to the issue of income inequality. you know it's a good question and i don't know if the income inequality is being paid attention to any more i do know you're right about more people are starting to realize that

these people are in the streets and they have a reason they're not just going to of work this hippies and i think we're going to see it despite the mainstream media trying to portray them as something other than you know people who are in addition completely and totally disenfranchised i think we're going to continue to see this movement grow and i do think we're going to start to see more of the synergy between the occupy wall street movement and the core believers in the tea party because when you boil right down to it we are protesting against the same people you know the occupy wall occupy wall street movement is going after the two big and tea party movement was going after too much government and the sooner we realize that they are one in the same our government serves their financial ministers or wall street as soon as we realize that we'll also realize that we're in the same camp and throwing you know insults at one another is exactly what the powers that be want to give you they want to drive a wedge between us so will battle with each other rather than look at the real cause of why we're where we're at which is in washington d.c.

and on wall street karalee thank you so much for your thoughts on that that was charlie mcgrath founder of wide awake news that dot com. well today is a black friday the day which has become an american tradition with hordes of people rushing to the stores to get those door busting deals but the rush for a deal turned violent in some places take a look at what went down at a wal-mart and buckeye arizona. this is serious stuff with the. police tackle emancipate ground his head bashed in the floor knocking him out cold you can see it got quite bloody the grandfather says he took a video game of his pants pocket in order to grab his branson out of the crowd police say he was shoplifting that's just one of many examples chaos in suing as some fights to get a bargain meanwhile a growing number of americans aren't making it to the stores and are having

a hard time simply putting food on the table with over forty eight million living in poverty things getting faeces out of reach for more and more americans this holiday thousands lined up in los angeles to get a free turkey dinner the county rates the highest for food insecurity in the nation artie's ramon kalinda reports from l.a. . lost my house my business and now i'm just kind of surviving it's difficult for lisa jones to plan beyond tomorrow she struggles to make it through the day the mother of three worries about her oldest son but in the war in afghanistan and she's among the millions of americans who go hungry every day you see around me you see the elderly you see pregnant women you see people were wholly owns the people would die if you people have died well eager shoppers camped out in front of retail stores on black friday joan sleeps on the cold pavement waiting in a different line for a free turkey i used to be

a dog groomer i used to have my own shopping now i do not and i'm in desperate straits so this is a godsend this is my purse here here jones is in the lone the elderly and disabled are among the many people who wait patiently in this line in hopes of feeding their families david brown who lost his janitorial job after the firm he worked for sit down we're going to get three to three nights now in the rain and the call it what i'll charge what are called the just in bartholomew joined the army after losing his job in the financial industry he can see that even members of the armed services are fighting a canonic battle at home. for the soldiers like a. key. member. of the princes. this year even the organizers of the giveaway needed a helping hand and probably never had

a born to ask for any donations of things like that but you know sometimes god makes you do that. i think we're run out of thirteen we have to go to chicken by sunrise the line grew as far as the eye could see this a microcosm of a hungry nation divided by the haves and have. knott's we haven't spent enough time on job creation all of this wrestling about whether or not the bridge you got to pay their fair share is ridiculous the rich should pay their fair share government figures show that los angeles is still the worst place in america when it comes to food insecurity and these long lines for free to give away may be an indicator of that but throughout the nation it remains a large problem with forty nine million americans struggling to feed themselves on a daily basis sixteen million of those are children it's amazing actually to so many people in the same fifteen hours later in freezing temperatures in

a roller coaster of emotions jones can smile again knowing shell feed her family this holiday season it just brings up the rest of the rest of the month and. this is a godsend but as millions of americans struggle to find work hang on to their homes and feed their families the fear is that even those who have been able to help in the past may soon lead themselves in los angeles. archie and from i spoke to october two thousand and eleven when organizer cabin was here in the studio just a short while ago. the record highs we're seeing people dropping out of the low class the same time we're seeing the wealthier get wealthy get wealthier and so there's economic insecurity actually is what driving is driving this movement just like they were in the draft i think everything in the economic insecurity every family unless you're in the top really have percent of the top one percent even

their stressed top two percent or so it's a widespread impact and we have to come up with solutions to solve that and i think the first place to start is looking at the wealth of country with four hundred people with the wealth one hundred fifty four million and those four hundred people are paying an average seventeen point four percent federal tax while working people pay twenty five to thirty percent you know an unfair situation so additional security that unfairness is creating anger so people are willing to go out and sleep on the streets we have people who are doctors x. doctors we have nurses we have teachers we have unemployed long term we have homeless on the plaza a wide range of americans it covers all ask all segments of society so for the top one percent there out there because they see the wrong direction they want to do something about it it's really america. and while people are protests are making their way to freedom plaza on thanksgiving today as a black friday. to tell along with this movement we're seeing this occupy black

friday and they are mad and they say that they are not necessarily anti-capitalist they are anti crap in a live report and so there was a highlight but after the good we did two things related to this the first thing we did was we had a free store come down rather than. drop and is already running more because it is they're tired of knickknacks they're tired of it. for no charge rather than consuming. action at one of the big box stores target where we came out in support of the workers who would. come in last night at ten o'clock at night and repair for the store. extreme conditions and of course organizers we came to support them and we didn't like jack which is the core and repeat corner of. your target you are and you know highlight the. consumerism that pushes people to spend they we don't

have we we have a problem with that kind of unnecessary consumer society we've got to create a sustainable economy that's going to last and survive not when it's going to misuse resources misuse workers and the top one percent but what do you say to those that say about you know the occupy black friday could be hurting the economy because you want people to spend money it's money into the economy to stimulate the economy would you say to those that are like you know that this is not. the economy is the wealthiest corporations the world sitting on two trillion dollars in this greedy kind of way what was the housing bubble that was created by on a vehicle lending practices and when it burst and people are still paying those housing bubble prices so the economy can get better what hurts the economy is a government that does not respond to the urgent need for jobs and to deal with the deficit to cut military spending to create a fair progressive tax system not this almost flat tax that we have that's what hurts the economy people think. anybody don't have actually we don't want to look

further into debt when your jobs are insecure that will hurt the economy and you know i also want to ask you a little services now are on the chocolate chopping block because the so-called super committee failed to slash one point two trillion dollars in spending so to what extent do you think washington is it responsible for for growing the growing income inequality wash is totally responsible we had a occupy super committee on freedom plaza you can see it on our web site occupy washington d.c. dot org. the link to the always want to see it we also report a ninety nine percent deficit reduction plan. and what we look for was tested and proven methods of sauvie a deficit of creating jobs again it kind of i think what we discovered was it's actually relatively easy to solve the deficit crisis is relatively easy to get the jobs job creation going what's lacking is the inability of the government to face

up to the one percent the tax tax rate in the one percent now are so low that even though they have the wealth equal ninety five percent they pay a small percentage of income tax and people who work we have a tax wealth more in tax work the less we do that we can solve the deficit problem we face of the wars cut military spending again we can we can we can solve the deficit crisis and jobs programs that we there's a need for all sorts of jobs our infrastructure is crumbling teachers are losing jobs we have a lack of crashes that's a big hospital services the workers there's not a lack of jobs the lack of willingness of government to put money into those jobs you look at where jobs been lost in this recession you can look a lot of public service public jobs federal and state and local jobs and we've lost a lot jobs and we're not creating jobs here that's where the solutions lie the solutions are evident the problem is the corruption of the government the problem is we're trying to end which is the end of corporate rule and shifting power of the people tell them thank you so much for keeping us updated that was october two

thousand and eleven isn't organized by our talk of the. still have on our t.v. jim i don't love the science of the arab spring but it sure how the found a way out of it yet thousands of protesters have taken the tahrir square again saying they are not ok with the status quo and they're prepared to fight and even die change coming up open your report from cairo. which is just story speak so slowly you think you understand it and then he lives up you know here see some other part of it and realize everything you saw you don't . it is a big issue. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to

break through. who can you trust no one who is imbue it with the overall machinery see where are we heading state controlled capitalism school sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our t.v. question more. internally it would. do the work to bring justice work. i have a right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i think taxes . but i would characterize obama as a charismatic. american exceptionalism.

we turned out to the egyptian capital worth tens of thousands are protesting against the day they are demanding that egypt's military rulers hand over power to civilian leaders r t is a policy clear is in the middle of all the action. now the rallying point here is much the same people wanting the military to step down immediately and amenity despite the concession of appointing come out guns are read as the new prime minister has done little to meet the demands of the people the prime minister has spoken for the first time live on television he said he would not have accepted his position if he did not believe the military was sincere about handing over power he was to say that he has more powers than his predecessor the violence has continued although not of the devils we've witnessed in the past few days as you can hear behind me there are ambulances streaking past the human rights groups have also

said that in addition to the fact that the army and the police were using live ammunition many of those who were killed were killed while trying to help others we also are not hearing sad reports that families have been gathering at cairo's main mortuary tied into friday loved ones many of them sobbing and urging a message to western leaders to stop sending the bombs gas and weapons because bin leaders are killing them from within now let me i have one of the protesters who is behind this he is am sure if joseph risk who is a founding member of the new republic group should rethink how will all of the stand i mean we see such a large crowds here what is it what is going to take to get people off his square well let's be clear this is the beginning of the new wave of the revolution the revolution was not about removing barak it was about removing mubarak as them and that's basically the security state being the ministry of interior plus the army

we've been under army rule for sixty years and that's what we're trying to get rid of and i think that it will depend on can we keep up the momentum in the square that's one side or the other side is in that happen while the elections are taking place but more importantly will there be defections from within the system from within the army from. then the judiciary from the media the state media from all of those state institutions which were tightly controlled why does the appointment of a new prime minister change nothing well ironically they point their prime minister that was what from ninety six to ninety nine he represented all of the the dark policies of mubarak the far right economic policies. you know he has of him because of him there were a number of the rise in unemployment in egypt. a lot of what's attributed to the economic a disparate disparity is it was attributed to policies like his but of course his

human rights abuses for these times what is happening with the muslim brotherhood i mean they were one of the main organizers of these demonstrations back in january february and now they are no longer represented here. book and the muslim brotherhood were there before friday for a quick timetable of the handover to civilian rule. there however are not there to end the elections what this is becomes and this is grown so much what has happened is that this is challenged the legitimacy of scarf altogether which of course challenges their election timetables and their constitutional declarations the referendum everything we're starting from zero price so for them this of course they have much to lose. and not only are they starting from zero but on monday we'll see a return to the parliamentary elections one of the big questions here is the role of tear gas over the past week and here we are hearing from human rights groups that as possible eagle substance has been used and other growing concern is just

how safe it is full of women reporters and a woman protest as in tough to square at least three female journalists have been sexually assaulted and i continued if walking around town here just a short time ago i was feeling incredibly i say much more unsafe than i have been feeling over the pasta case. and that was our to use policy here on the ground in cairo and be sure to tune into our with you next week for a brand new lineup on deck as the debt crisis in europe reaches a peak president obama and the e.u. leaders are ready to clients the summit right here in washington d.c. but doesn't the u.s. have its own problems to deal with like staggering unemployment mounting national debt and a growing income inequality gap to name a few so as america gets ready to handle prescriptions shouldn't take a dose of its own economic medicine and while europe tries to climb out of the red egypt is quickly falling into the likes of another revolution thousands taking to the streets doing whatever it takes to get the change that they were promised r t

was there when hosni mubarak was ousted and we're there as these protests unfold we'll question what really came out of the arab spring and who were the winners and losers and finally they're armed and dangerous police have been called out in droves to contain the occupy wall street movement some even accuse of provoking violence that's right the people we hire a super attacked and serve might actually have a secret agenda in mind so whose interests are they really serving we'll explore those are just a few of the stories we have in store for you next week along with more news an in-depth interviews so keep it tuned in to our see right here and that does it for now for more of the stories we covered go to artsy dot com slash usa and check out or you two pages you tube dot com slash r.t. america you can also follow me on twitter at liz wahl for now i have a group.