members of vans and ship will explain. what you have to say at this abruptness of any just wrapped up a few moments ago the mood was a definitely sunny side. looks like election coverage is a little scrambled these days but as candidates cock up primary votes where are all the real issues the hard on the back burner. it's tuesday january tenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching artsy. well the u.s. now shifting energy away from the middle east to asia pacific that's where all the action is with china's growing economy and expanding influence in the region president obama recently announced a plan to scale down the military budget but part of that plan is zero in on asia as i made clear in australia we will be strengthening our presence in the asia

pacific. and budget reductions will not become a big expense of that critical region china and the us now two of the biggest world economic powers and we see somewhat of an arms race going down now with the two countries the us pumping billions into new weapons to do to deploy to the region here's a look at some of the this is a fighter jet lockheed martin is working on it it integrates advanced cell technology isn't sensor systems with supersonic speed and then there's this you're looking at a sketch of the most expensive piece of military equipment ever to be created the first of the navy's next generation of aircraft carriers nearly three football fields long weighs more than one hundred thousand tons of equipment to cutting edge nuclear reactors and defense missiles so those are just a couple of the new toys the u.s. is getting ready to unveil but they're not the only ones upping their arsenal let's

take a look now at what china has in the works this is a g. twenty stealth fighter jet the first of its kind to be developed and tested by china and this is the dongfang twenty one d. this land based missile is able to hit an aircraft carrier as far away as two thousand miles off shore. now with this new military version is a battle of sorts emerging between the two world players and could this be the beginning of a new cold war well to dig deeper into this with me now is lawrence korb welcome to the show lawrence so as a former assistant secretary of defense want to get your reaction to what is going on now and this new military plan or our new strategy in the asia pacific region well it's not a new strategy but the president has said as he cut the projected rate growth of military spending is we will not downgrade asia but there's nothing new about it we've always been we've had an aircraft carrier in japan for you know going on you

know fifty years we've had troops in okinawa we have troops in korea so there's nothing new on fortunately a lot of people have played it up as new but there really is nothing different the only marginal thing is they put two thousand five hundred marines in or stroke but again that doesn't match nearly what you have at okinawa what you have is you will go in guam and other places in the pacific right president obama though you know we heard in his speech recently that he doesn't want to shift more of the focus away from the middle east and to this region china now you know becoming more of an economic world player a political world player but you know. our strategy in the middle east that was a counterterrorism and it's very arguable now that that we're better off now than we were ten years ago so why i kind of pull away from that mission and now.

focus more and this region well again the reason you pull out of that you're out of iraq you're on your way out of afghanistan and so basically that's how you can save money by cutting your ground troops the president decided not to cut the number of aircraft carrier so he's not increasing the you had up there yes they build new carriers every secures. i've been doing that you know basically since the end of world war two so there's nothing you know i understand we're toric leave people think so but i think what the president was trying to do was look we're going to cut back to france by the but it won't be in the pacific because that scenario it's very vital to us and it's not going to be ground forces it's going to be what we call call the air sea bubble it's going to be offshore balancing we will have air assets and we'll have you know aircraft carriers but as you pointed out they're not going to get very near to china with china's got those new missiles right right so you know with this new defense plan they do need to pull back somewhere. is deciding that they as

a pacific region is not the place where the scaling down needs to happen well that's correct and part of the reason that is a lot of the countries in the area including paradoxically a war that i. believes are now calling to us and asking you know us to make sure we're there so china doesn't get too too too ambitious and you know in this past decade with the u.s. fighting these two wars and iraq and afghanistan and our situation our focus not so much being an on trying to end that time china has has had some time to kind of build up its own might and so we're getting to this point now where the u.s. is realizing that hey china is kind of catching up and we need to you know do something about all the charges catching up economically their g.d.p. gross domestic products going up you know pass ours by two thousand and twenty at the rate they were going by per capita it will be in the year two ours china

basically according to the pentagon's latest report basically only spends one third of what the united states spends on defense and the interesting thing to people don't realize you're going up what they're having to increase the salaries of the military people because the economy is doing so well on the outside if they want to keep you know keep people in. well with all this in mind how much of a threat is china to the us china is not an expansionist power what you really need to be careful law is you might have an accidental conflict over taiwan or all with some of the mineral rights in the in the south china sea china is not an expansionist power they want to protect their their their their their own interests but there's no real danger of the united states and china going to war. so militarily that the obama administration does is keeping at least a close eye on the area and expanding the bases there at the base in australia

increasing ties with the philippines also in south korea there's an island off the south korea where the u.s. is eyeing to expand the bases there. so i mean from china as pers fact of when you see a military build up kind of surrounding the country how can we expect china to react well this is the great irony is because with the rhetoric of some people the chinese think we're expanding we're not adding any forces to the pacific and i think yes we're going to put twenty five hundred marines in australia but that's hardly a threat to you know to try to you know it's got to be over a thousand kilometers away so you have to be careful of the rhetoric that people might think that your your your surroundings know what the matter of fact is we've always had about fifty thousand people in asia we did not take them down when we focused on the on the middle east we will be withdrawing troops from europe we will not be withdrawing troops from asia so relatively you're spun you know you have

more tension but you're only more fortunate i can't emphasize that too much there's no you know i've put in another aircraft carrier there for you know for example i mean we have you know you mentioned the f. thirty five that's not the best point we have the f. twenty two the best part and we have we have half of them we built a hundred. so minority in the pacific they've been there for you know ever since we built them so the us there they are as we pointed out before we are developing some weapons that we were at the other day we were talking about the biggest aircraft carrier most expensive piece of military equipment ever in existence now being created some of this being deployed to that area of the world china as we just saw also increasing their arsenal i mean from your point could this kind of be kind kind of be interpreted as a as an arms race no i don't think so i think we you know you mentioned kerry it's a hundred thousand we've had kerry has ninety thousand nuclear power since the

sixty's so it's not that big you know it's not that big a difference and we've been building them as i say every five or six years for forever i think what the chinese are doing day want to ensure that they have a military that can protect what they see is their interest in the global luggable commons they're not just concerned about us they're concerned about india they're concerned about what's going to happen in afghanistan and you know as we leave they're concerned about what happens on the korean peninsula so the chinese i think and again you look at the you know the chinese are getting the new carrier this is a ukrainian character you know carrier built in the ninety's yes they do have a stealth aircraft but we've got thousands of stealth aircraft. that is so a by your in your point of view you seem to be a little bit optimistic that maybe a cold war might not be brewing or what you thought is no cold war brewing i mean we had a cold war between united states and the soviet union because the soviet union was

an expansionist power their ideology was to expand and they did go into eastern europe they did go into you know to afghanistan so no i do not you know china is not an expansionist paul they want to safeguard what they perceive as their own interests the real key is taiwan i mean that could get out of hand. because of some sort of misinterpretation but the fact of the matter is no it was not a cold war three but i think the key thing to remember that china is lending us money ok and they're lending us money and we're using this money to buy weapons systems so they're not worried about you know into arms and you know during the cold war we had a relationship with the soviet union called bad mutual assured destruction or relationship with china has also been it was called mutual assured the pressure because we are economies are so intertwined but both of us have to you know keep going or it's going to hurt both of us well certainly a very complicated relationship that the u.s.

and china is now and lawrence thank you so much for coming on the show that was senior fellow at the center for american progress lawrence call lawrence corp. well still ahead in our tease sticking it to the man or this time the great lady new york times employees are in revolt against the newspaper we'll tell you why. people calling like you said for free and fair elections. and we're still reporting from the land where you can hear behind me loud explosions.

welcome to the capital. mr. well as the song goes the times they are a changing the new york times that is but maybe not for the better at least that's what employees there may think and they're angry and it's not hard to understand why workers there wrote a letter to their boss voicing their frustration at their benefits being slashed and people being laid off all the while the company's c.e.o. there she is there general been sent she made out like a bandit upon leaving the company a nearly fifteen million dollars goodbye package well employees are not letting

this go unnoticed here's a part of their letter to their boss that reads quote our foreign citizen employees and overseas bureaus have just how their pensions frozen with only weeks mornings some of these people have risked their lives so that we can do our jobs a couple of them have even lost them so is this another sign of the times earlier i spoke with investigative journalist russ baker from who what why dot com and author of the book you see on your screen there family of secrets i asked him first how is it that the c.e.o. can make out with millions in a sinking company and workers they're the ones who are paying the price. well even more interestingly why is it that situation at the new york times this is an article that we just wrote on our website who what why don't we look at how the borders of the new york times who really have been in a very privileged position for a long time are now beginning to series the same things that the rest of us are

what happens when you're really vulnerable in a corporate environment and it's interesting because they've been covering the story from some distance and suddenly they're part of the story. and it's it's ironic that that this is the way that it is unfolding i mean this is the new york times i mean this is seen as a leader around the world for news people around the world turn to the new york times for news i mean if it's happening to them i mean what does it say about the state of the media here in the u.s. today. well i mean i think what it reminds us is that the media is by and large owned by in controlled by the very wealthy and corporations and we tend to forget about that we tend to when we watch or listen to the news we tend to assume that these are people who are just doing stories trying to figure

out what is happening and and they do their best try to do that but the fact of matter is always kind of lurking whispering in their ear is this reminder that they really are working for the man they're working for the one percent of the one percent and so any explorations of inequities in our society i think are constrained by that reminder. and. you say you know they're working for the one percent they're working for the establishment so in doing so whose interests are they are they really looking out for. well i mean this is a problem because you know i'm not speaking of the new york times i've written for the new york times i have friends who work there and i think they do a lot of good work but they're trying to battle the odds because the fact of matter is those operations are principally designed to create profit for the owner and the owners themselves tend to live in a world where there are other powerful influential figures who are very very

concerned about keeping the status quo keeping things pretty much as they are and so the efforts for and the efforts of digging deep into the root cause of the problems in our society are always going to be somewhat limited so russ you were talking about how the fact that the times they work for the establishment and evidently that is going to affect the types of stories they cover how they cover these stories can you maybe cite some examples and the reporting that you've observed. sure we've got several new pieces up at our website who what why are we explicitly taking on that issue and principally places like the new york times owned by corporate and wealthy owners are very very reluctant to look at the big questions about our in america is very very reluctant to look at for example how much presidents as in the letter how much power does reflect the president really

have not withstanding the pressures coming from for example the military industrial complex the spy agencies wall street we know over the years that presidents have hinted at the fact that they really had their hands tied but you don't see reporting about that kind of thing you almost never see that in the corporate owned press and you know i read your piece there and you made a very interesting comparison you compared the new york times employees to that to working in a plantation. elaborate on that comparison. i mean it's it's a very cushy plantation certainly but the reality is that they have an owner they actually even refer to him the new york times members of their guild of their union published this open letter to their owner basically begging him and sort of pathetically saying we've been so loyal to you all these years and look what you're doing to us you're cutting our pensions your treating badly our foreign employees

who risked their lives look at all the things we've done for you and i find it ironic because they don't seem to see that this same thing is going on to our entire society and that they really themselves have not been entirely vigilant enough in reporting about it in part because of i think their concerns of their own and you know the same to be yet another example of the bigger picture and some of the problems that are happening right now in the us so how do they get out of that how did you know it get out of that plantation what is the solution. well the solution we suggest on who what why dot com is that journalists working for these large corporations start understanding that that is the old model that we've got to move on that we need truly independent media where we are not owned by anybody except by the public and then we will fearlessly pursue the truth in every single

case press thank you so much for coming on the show that was investigative reporter and author of the book family of secrets russ baker. well we are going to take a short break but stick around move over football players america's other favorite pastime is involved playing presidential primaries a little all this glitz and glamour is a media ignoring the real issues. r t is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. into only military mechanisms that do not work to bring justice or accountability.

i have every right to know what my government's doing you want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic. of american exceptionalism.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcomes a big picture. full primary of primaries primaries unless you've been living in a cave you've heard all about them maybe it's too much because it is consuming most

of the air time of the mass media these days almost like watching a sports game the minute to minute updates about who may be winning points scoring votes playing to the strategy is tackling their opponents no doubt it is important to cover the election but it is early in the game and are other more important issues being ignored as the news is swamp with nonstop campaign nitpicking artsy explores that question and we begin of course with presidential politics by candidates are out there in force boy are they busy today can anyone stop mitt romney at this point campaign seasons in full swing in the media sure is on top of it mitt romney is probably going to win the lion's share of the votes here in new hampshire if you want to have coffee this morning with the candidate he had diner after diner after diner day and night you have to say at this breakfast of any just wrapped up a few moments ago the mood was definitely sunnyside all primaries all the time but it's from now jon huntsman is going to visit mary's bakery and cafe it head of her

and then later this hour rick santorum is going to reach out to the right with a town hall meeting on faith family and freedom some viewers say it's warranted it's a very important election. they need to cover all the bases of the election but how much is too much i think it's a little kill too much to saturation too early in the election process will be burnt don't come november and with the around the clock to. sexing of campaign details are they missing the real news about a lot more important issues than the republican primaries its economy jobs. government fiscal matters harmony disharmony congress to the republicans and democrats or what about a possible war brewing with iran the crisis in the eurozone which could spiral in so glibly recession or the shutting down of a boeing plant in wichita over two thousand workers laid off while the c.e.o.

and chairman made nearly twenty million little mention of the record poverty rates crippling the nation or the expanding income inequality gap nobody wants to know about debt reduction or talks about you know what are the the meat and potatoes of leaving afghanistan or you know cutting the budget first is more stimulus well as americans prepare to head to the polls a lot is at stake and it's important for voters to know the issues what's really going on in the nation and the world but with this constant bantering about campaign details and may prove difficult for voters to make informed decisions and washington lives wall r.t. . while the capital account is up next on our table let's check in with lauren lister to see what's on the agenda lauren you talk in primaries today liz we are talking primaries but i heard you kind of given a little bit of a critique saying hey aren't there some more important issues to be paying attention to that are going by the wayside with this first primary of the season and we say yes in fact we're going to look back in history to give

a little bit of perspective on some of these issues were to look back a century and see how much has changed yet how much remains the same you might be suprising to here the role of money in politics the criticism of the role of money in politics also back then you had candidates arguing for easier money to no avail today you have a candidate like ron paul begging to stop it and to bring back sound money so. we're going to look at that with a historian who knows better than any of us about all of this liz that's what's in store today lauren thank you so much that is coming up next but that is going to do it now for more on the stories we covered you can head over to artsy dot com slash usa and you can also check out our youtube page at youtube dot com slash r t america you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall the capital account with lauren lister is up next we'll see you right back here at five.

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good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm more in the store here in washington d.c. with the iowa caucuses behind us now voters in new hampshire head to the polls for the first primary of the republican nomination process today satchell to at least one candidate wrong paul's campaign is a platform against easy money he's critical of the federal reserve's rolling printing presses but how did we get here because a century ago the populist candidate was campaigning to no avail for easier cheaper money a look at what's changed and money and politics allowing corporations and.