this morning we learned that our economy and the other a hundred forty thousand private sector jobs in. the unemployment rate went down whoa whoa slow down there mr president don't pat yourself on the back too soon as the white house counsel so called economic progress millions of americans still have nothing to celebrate this holiday season. but the bank sure do record profits secret bailouts and that's just the tip of the economic iceberg well arrow wall street dirty laundry. and of laundry is not your thing need some protesters who are baring it all to show the

naked truth behind exploitation of women. it's friday december second four pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. only job numbers out today paints a slightly better picture of the nation's unemployment the labor department reports the jobless rate fell to eight point six percent here's how the mainstream media is reacting to the news today. i think you're going to drop in unemployment for november going from nine percent to eight point six percent unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level since march of two thousand nine hundred five in the white house this morning at least have to be breathing a sigh of relief shows you that there's hiring there's hiring again slow but steady hiring while it certainly is good news in that the trend is moving in the right direction to get good news like this every month and his reelection path will get

it will get easier certainly now on the surface the decline in unemployment looks like positive news after all of the lowest level of unemployment in the u.s. since march of two thousand and nine and one hundred twenty thousand private jobs were created in november but if you dig deeper you'll find there's not really much to celebrate that's because about half the decline is due to people giving up on finding work three hundred fifteen thousand people simply stopped looking there are currently more than thirteen million people out of work here in the u.s. so what is the real state of the economy these days well edward harrison founder of credit write downs is here to help me dig deeper into all of this thanks for coming on the show edward so eight point six percent that's better than the one percent in the month before that but when you add up unemployment in those that are underemployed those that stop looking for work altogether it's not really a pretty picture is it. really. to begin with two hundred thousand jobs which is

what you get when you add one hundred twenty thousand as the headline number to the estimates from before there was a plus seventy two thousand from previous adjustments that's really just treading water so this isn't a huge number it's an ok number but it is not a great number or to me it's good enough so that the president can go forward and say look you know things are getting better what he's hoping for is that as the election campaign kicks on he can say look march two thousand and that was at the nadir i was just president for two. months of that and look what's happened since the things are better obviously we're doing is working that's what he wants to be able to say but really more people actually stopped looking for work than those that actually gained work. and so if these people that dropped out and that have dropped out of the workforce now decided to start looking that that could actually make the unemployment number go back up to you know what you should expect

a really good economy will show improving workforce participation rate and this participation rate is actually continuing to decline we saw it go from sixty four point two to sixty four percent so what that says is that the economy is not robust yet so we could see them tick up and i'm sure that the president will tried to play with that and say that the work isn't done yet and so forth and so on from the republican standpoint how this is going to be really difficult to be able to spend in any way what you know the republic what the president's going to keep on saying over and over again is look march two thousand and versus today you know because this number is the best of that we've seen since march two thousand he will say you know we could be in a depression right now things are great bought you know i've got you to where we are today and we still a long way to go and exactly at these numbers the jobless number is it has huge implications political implications historically unemployment is about seven point two percent it's really hard for the incumbent to get reelected so obama is

definitely using going to use this to his advantage but then can't the republicans point out really what the real picture is will the rw picture is that you know the economy still has a long way to go and we would be in a depression if it weren't for this the question is whether you think that the president is responsible for the whether he's done enough and whether or not you really want to change horses in the middle of the race if you think that that's not enough and you know the president needs to do more than you'll go for the republic . my personal view is that if if the unemployment rate stays where it is or thereabouts it's going to be difficult for the republicans to say definitively that the president has not delivered and therefore they're going to need something else in order to to make their stake that you should choose us instead of and i'm one of are going other point out with the economy the way that it is we've been in this

recession for years are some say we still are in a recession but yesterday the senate passed a bill it's the defense bill six hundred sixty two billion dollars so that money is now being pumped in to the military military operations expanding military bases so considering the economic state of the nation why a pump more money into the military when a lot of people say the focus should be on on jobs on and building the autonomy back up to you know obviously the military they buy things too and they create jobs as well the question is whether or not over the long term this is a productive use of america's limited financial resources and i would say you know obviously the united states has half of the military expenditure in the entire world which is too large and so over time we should look to decrease that but if we would decrease it no obviously you would you would see job losses as

a result of decreasing that the question is whether the economy could take that at this particular juncture i don't think it could take it. you know you can redeploy those somewhere else. it's not that the military would duction is going to increase the economy it's just about over the long term whether or not to reduce the reduction of military expenditure is a more efficient use of resources that's a longer term sort of argument right but so much money as you mentioned. already pumped into the military and we're not seeing significant job creation so how is pumping more money into the military going to create jobs it seems not really likely. that you work at mcdonnell douglas or you work at boeing already the other . manufacturers and then suddenly someone comes and says well we're going to cut the budgets by twenty billion dollars suddenly those people are out of work that's

the reality the question is where would they find work over the longer term instead of where they have worked. the we don't know what that is what i would say that they would be able to fund. ways to work that are more productive that war increase you know growth in united states greater than if they were in the military industrial complex. just want to ask you one last question we are seeing for the first time in a long time this positive growth looking ahead to do you think that this is going to be the start of a new trend that we're going to see see more improvement or maybe it'll go back down to what do you think. it's just one month it's not a trend you pointed out quite correctly that the labor to spatial rate really is just not there yet we should actually expect to see it increase over time so unless you are enough jobs to deal with the number of people coming into the labor force

we should expect actually the unemployment rate to go up slightly if the economy is going to start firing on all cylinders so this is just a one off let's see if there's any to this if it pulls through but at this point i think that we're still in a very weak position at where thank you so much for weighing in on this that was credit write downs founder average harrison. and with unemployment numbers so high and so many americans giving up on looking for work tis the season to be saving or so you might think turns out holiday sales are actually up this year by about one point nine percent but is it really time to be loading up on that one horse open sleigh and that credit card with all those expensive gifts laurie harshness of the resident dot net that question to the streets of the big apple. tis the season once again will this lousy economy affect your holidays this week

let's talk about that in a moment it's ok not so much effected but it's a spend a lot of money for other european countries the moment yes so that's an effect right but personally you don't feel. you can enjoy your holidays and shop in portugal is a lot of trouble there with the money do you think people will have less shopping and different holidays not at all to me i mean holidays i'm from brazil so the economies are helping me. how is it helping it to travel you know i'm from brazil is a developing country. personally i don't it hasn't affected me too much i'm a real budget or so has my income went down i just changed my budget so for me it hasn't been a huge problem is it just that the world is bad at budgeting. i believe the world

or america is very bad at budgeting you're not personally affected though. with that comfortable. clothes. you can buy anything apartment something. i think some people are not affected but i'm sure people are affected and so the countries like we're from singapore i've got friends it's hard to find john. ups and stuff like that but for us relief overseas so you know an aspect it is the ones that go. are you scared that it's going to start affecting singapore more yeah. but until then your shopping that's. going to keep their you know their finances under control this year i know i am so do you feel like that's a good or bad thing. sometimes it could be excess which has been in the past i think it may be it may work for the best people you could give

a little less and still have the same meaning to christmas i think it's a great thing it's almost like that's what got the economy into a bad place people spending money they didn't have right yet i think that in america we're taught to buy whether we have the money or not whether or not your holidays will be affected by the economy this year the bottom line is the holidays aren't supposed to be about money so maybe cutting back this year will be a good thing. still ahead on our t.v. economy might not be sunshine and daisies but bank profits sure are well speak for the man who isn't afraid to open the book on wall street wall street secrets. to the police corruption that.

was contested and nobody seems to know. that never a pepper sprayed the face quite hard the argument that they're being overly dramatic. and. looking to the capital account i'm lauren mr.

lindsey lowe and raised the point that these women young people are suggesting she's older you know she says she's a star. well wall street has faced the ire of protesters across the country for the past couple of months members of the movement are calling out the wall street fat cats for contributing contributing to the economic decline by being greedy and corrupt they're also angry that the same people seemingly get rewarded with big bonuses and while the movement has brought some attention to the issue of income inequality and corporate corruption there may be much more wall street doesn't want you to know about one columnist has devoted to six shocking revelations about wall street's secret government let's take a quick look at. the big banks and hedge funds were in much more trouble than we

were led to believe number two wall street secret government made sure the largest banks would grow even larger aided by secret funding number three the bigger wall street becomes the more government it can buy and next the wall street secret government protects its own and wall street is a clear and present danger to democracy number six occupy wall street is fundamentally correct but we need more the man that's helping bring this all to light is here now to talk more about it economist and author les leopold he joins us now from montclair new jersey welcome laz so you say that wall street and washington are running this secret government how are they doing this. well the fundamental way that it's done is through a revolving door where the top wall street executives become the head of the

treasury and at the height of the crisis unbeknownst to anybody in congress. the secret government provided wall street with seven point seven seven trillion dollars of loans meanwhile we were told the tarp program of seven hundred billion was all there was to it and those people who were trying to regulate the banks were considering legislation to go back the glass people to break up the hard spanks those people were not told those congressional leaders were not told of the incredibly bad condition that the wall street banks were in and of these secret loans and so the banks you all say that the banks there they were getting and bigger trouble than the public knew about what do you mean by that well without this seven point seven seven trillion dollars of money they would have been toast they would have been on the verge of bankruptcy or

a bankrupt and the case for breaking them up and reorganizing our banking system would have been much greater instead the desire to create stability was first and foremost which meant financing we actually financed the large banks to grow even larger while we were complaining about too big to fail we made them bigger and it was done secretly that's the bad part because it means that our democratic process these are being subverted even from our congressional leaders so this is all happening with public taxpayer money and this is all happening these they secretly so congress doesn't even know about it or who doesn't know about it. well it's a very small cabal it would be the treasury secretary the head of the federal reserve and the top bankers. the congressman there was serious discussion about breaking up the large banks after all they had caused this crash it wasn't you know

consumers getting fat on loans it was the gambling spree that wall street went on and these banks were in serious trouble so the idea of breaking them up in reinstituting glass steagall separating commercial banking from investment banking was on the agenda was being discussed now if those congressmen knew. that these secret loans were being given out then they might have acted more forcefully instead they were told oh no these banks are fine. we need them to compete in the world economy they produce jobs blah blah blah. and you also say that wall street the secret government they serve to protect themselves rather than the public can you elaborate on that a little bit you know this this is an unbelievable story. hank paulson was treasury secretary under bush was about to nationalize fannie and freddie take them over because they were in such bad shape when he in doing so it would wipe out the

share or hold or value of those companies. meanwhile he was telling congress and the public that it was going to take some minor fixes and some audits and everything would be ok but he secretly met with a roomful of hedge fund managers who had a lot to gain from this information he gave them this information before he told congress and me for he told the public now we don't know for sure whether or not these hedge funds and short of the stock we got out of it out at freddie and fannie but they might but what is he doing meeting with leaders top hedge fund people and not meeting with congressional leaders not telling the public and that's absolutely outrageous is it legal for this to go down to the aspirated it's i'm afraid it is because they are lar our laws are so porous about this and b. hank paulson didn't actually make any money on it so he's not really committing

insider trading and now it's unclear whether or not a law was broken if other people acted on that information probably not but more of that what what's being broken is the mockers you can't have the treasury secretary give tips to his old buddies from goldman sachs who now are in these situations that is absolutely outrageous and i'm so you know if that word got out there might be more occupy wall street demonstration because it's just simply outrageous for that to happen and you yes you said. this and wall street is it is a danger to democracy and you say that occupy wall street is is fundamentally correct and they're on the right track but we need more what else needs to happen. well we need places for the rest of us to express our outrage people like me are not going to sleep on the concrete you know it's just not going to happen people

with families are not going to and jobs and whatnot are not going to riches that pay at that level so how do we protest about how do we show our democratic outrage it's not enough to just go to the ballot box because we know that both parties are very much but hold on to wall street whether it was a democrat in with robert rubin from. you know citi group as treasury secretary or hank paulson from goldman sachs it doesn't really matter so we need to be able to express ourselves what i'd like to see happen actually would be for all kinds of people to set up their own ninety nine percent clubs to help dramatize and to come up with our own ways of protesting about these issues let's thank you so much for sharing all this with us and that was that economist and author lezak leopold. and we're going to take a sharp break but coming up nothing says i'm angry and i'm not afraid to show it like stepping down for

a cause coming up we'll show you how baring it all maybe the best way to get recognized. the new website with twenty four seven lives streaming newscasts what to do about the ongoing financial hardship unlimited free high quality videos for download. stories you may never find on mainstream news. and i believe that there's a need for a political. question more on our team just like us today. at first for a just burns your eyes right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. this is much stronger. in anything you buy i was italy's is thousands of times i'm stronger than any one of the w ever but you know .

there's been some talk here in the us on how effective occupy wall street has been in getting their message out well maybe they should take some notes from some ukrainian feminists they are letting it all hang out in the name of women's rights and finding that taking off their tops is attracting a lot of attention but we've all heard that sex sells but did the same rules apply to protesting r t followed some of the latest to find out. oh yes. on a chilly morning in kiev hoff naked women in racing outfits drink champagne and chant slogans this is how the feminine women celebrated the resignation of silvio berlusconi several days prior to that the very same ladies were in rome voicing their support to the anti berlusconi protest i moved even though at them until we had staged

a lot of protests against berlusconi and his sexual adventures here and here and we are really happy his political career has finished this inhibition interrupted the next couple somebody who came to the ten embassy not only to celebrate defeat but to say that he needs to go on trial for his sexual crimes but for more than a week the cranium topless protesters had been making themselves heard across europe on a dedicated road trip to draw attention to the sexual exploitation of women in room one of their activists made a revealing protest against injustice towards women in the catholic church in the vatican right in front of the boat. was before that they hit paris storming former i.m.f. banker dominique strauss kahn this residence. that. woman from italy came to us in switzerland and said we know that you're coming to rome and will be staging

a protest again berlusconi and the pope thank you they said for sharing our problems they are wild brawl free rallies in ukraine have been making international headlines for several years now from protesting against the alarming rate of prostitution especially with the upcoming heuer twenty twelfth book ornaments to exposing flaws in ukraine's politics now they're looking even further afield those of them with dealing with the now could be worse what they went through the classic famine is no longer works it is if you excuse me impotent but what we do. that is artifact that's why not only ukraine needs us but europe as well who are planning to take over the world. while we see how well you were received in europe remember your colorful actions in ukraine where are you planning to expand now but those. who receive lots of letters telling us to continue fighting against religious and justice towards you on this especially in the muslim states that's where we want to

develop it we are even ready to go to iran or any other islamic state to stage our topless protests but knowing all risks if given tale for us. they started out as a few enthusiastic containers now they're told this protest message is growing global. in ukraine alone they have tens of thousands of supporters the family network has been set up in europe and now stretches as far as the united states still they say they've got a lot of demons to fight at home. r.t. because you from kiev in ukraine. whatever it takes to get your message out i guess while the capital account is up next on our t.v. let's check in with lauren listen to see what's on the agenda laura hey liz well i know i think i heard you talk about jobs earlier we are going to get even further into those numbers for our audience today so that anyone who had any question about whether this jobs report is good news or bad news will know the reality and it is

not rosy liz as i'm sure you know and more than that you know we have a lot of people on this show that come and talk about solutions to the current economic system from sound money to more regulations but today we're going to talk to peter joseph and he is for a whole overhaul of not only free market capitalism but the entire social system so we are going to really grill him on how that would work exactly liz looking forward to looking for it lauren that's going to do it for the news right now for more on the stories we covered go to r.t. dot com slash usa and check out our you tube page it's youtube dot com slash r t america you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall the capital account with lauren lyster is up next see you back here in a half hour. culture is that so much different and there is

a huge decision to find the mark when going from very bad to even worse this is the state of u.s. pakistan relations after a cross border attack that left up to twenty pakistanis. a nation of free credit patience three runs for charges free. range month free risk free. to tide free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media oh don darty dot com .

you know our sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.