as for libya's colonel gadhafi to go do you think ousting assad would put an end to the crisis or do you think it could open doors to more instability afterward. this is the immediate issue here the end of big initiatives supported by the security council now. the ones to two or three and image where the problem is between us and the syrian people but this is not the end the problem is between going to the syrian people and the other point that is not a person who stands a little when he has the support of the military and they don't want to go into numbers but they can get the foundation found out if five percent of the court has said so how do we. go sort of the problem we still have the fifty five percent of the syrian people according to got the foundation they. do not want him to go and will not. support anything that you wanted him to go immediately why not try to each other form of the national unity cabinets and then go into elections this is

the only reasonable thing to do at this moment all right dr ali mohamed editor in chief of syria tribune website speaking with us live from dubai thanks for your insight thank you very much or remember r t dot com has got you covered online with plenty of other stories a click away right now april may or june that's when israel could launch an attack on iran's nuclear facilities according to some officials in washington what's. russia over the moon as it unveils its space ambitions there's some plenty more stories a click away at our t dot com. campaigners for online freedom are out in force in sweden protesting against a new copyright treaty signed by governments across europe the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement or act has yet to be ratified though by the european parliament that's what activists want to prevent saying the new law would in danger free speech and net privacy artie's tom barton reports from stockholm. this is the

frontline in the most modern of political battles over internet freedom these crowds have gathered in central stopover in sweden the original home of the pirate parties that have sprung up all over europe and beyond here to protest against actor the anti counterfeiting trade agreements it all revolves around anti-piracy laws that are trying to be pushed through in many countries this agreement tries to standardize the enforcement of those laws in the e.u. and in america and further around the world these people say it's not an innocent agreement it's not simple it's assault on the internet freedom and it's a way for governments to monitor them and to stop them from having a free exchange of information on the internet and we heard earlier from people on both sides of the argument about how different views are here on this issue if you say world everything should be free well perhaps no one will write any books or

produce music or films etc or anyway it would disappear but he writes less because it's not often. the next generation has grown up with the ability to say anything to anybody else on the planet today ideas battle it out for themselves to have a freedom of speech never before imagined we don't need to ask anybody's permission to present new ideas and. all of a sudden corporations want to take that away because it inconveniences them and millions of young people are rising up in anger this is a sense of the growth of pirate parties both here in sweden and elsewhere around the world is evidence of how haughty the status of internet freedom complainers has risen on the signing of the act of agreement a few days ago huge protests broke out in poland they were so out of it and so

angry that the government there has suspended the actor agreement that they want the same to happen here although the debates are going to go on until june when the e.u. parliament votes on this internet freedom complaint as a urging people to get their view across before that vote this debate is going to go on it's not finished yet and it seems it's going to be anything but. fresh clashes egypt's interior ministry as police again fire volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds who throw rocks in response at least twelve people have been killed more than two thousand injured in the protests across the country earlier several government buildings were reportedly set on fire people have been venting their anger at police for three days for failing to prevent wednesday's football violence importance which killed seventy four people demonstrators are demanding the military council step down accusing the rulers of hijacking the revolution middle east expert says egyptians are furious that many of the ousted

president mubarak's generals are still in charge in egypt. the main recipient of criticism now in egypt is the ministry council because it really has own powers and they are demanding that it will be transferred quickly either to a government or to and elected president and the military council is still very hesitant and i limit it to something that happened a couple weeks ago when the military council security forces were going to shut down and do. both and gyptian n.g.o.s and international n.g.o.s u.s. based n.g.o.s all of that indicates that the military council is very hasn't been in transferring power to democracy forces they want to deal with a force which most likely will be the muslim brotherhood that is something very odd about the fact that egypt broke down and looking to get into leader and yet some of its agencies are acting as if feel that again as you mentioned in iraq what is happening right now is that large segments of civil society specifically the youth

of egypt who began to revolt and revolt was taken away by other political bodies including the muslim brotherhood it itself is those youth are angry at the government because they want good military council to transfer power to them or actually to their representatives and they fear that egypt is moving towards another author with that regime. turning now to some other stories making headlines across the globe police in washington d.c. of cracking down on the occupy protesters camp in the city center of arresting at least four people several tents and personal belongings were cleared away in the raid which activists said was basically an eviction washington cap is one of the last remaining offshoots of the movement that started in new york last september against corporate greed. more than three thousand afghans were killed in two thousand and eleven making a last year the deadliest on record for the country's civilians according to a un report most of the casualties caused by militants with fourteen percent by international and local troops meanwhile nato is preparing to pull out by two

thousand and fourteen leaving afghan security forces to take charge of fighting the insurgency. europe's week long cold snap has now claimed two hundred twenty lives as a nation struggle with a record low temperatures ukraine hit the hardest as more than one hundred died when temperatures plummeted to minus thirty degrees centigrade most of the victims were homeless people heavy snowfalls also cause widespread transport chaos and power outages. with libya's new government accused of abuse in their country's detention centers has been revealed that one former senior official could have fallen victim to torture libya's former ambassador to france died in custody twenty four hours after being detained by armed militia group so you can't chandan middle east expert in journalist said the same people who allegedly killed the former diplomat may also be holding colonel gadhafi son in custody i don't think the militia responsible for the the likely torturing to death of his the will be held

account but there's a lot of interesting political games going on in libya it seems to me very clearly is that why this focus now on the on the militia is because there's an tiny militia there's entirely people are holding saif al islam and the west especially the i.c.c. are very fearful about what this one tiny militia are going to do with so i feel islam saif islam hasn't had access to a sinister as far as i know and he hasn't said anything publicly so i think for this entire knees that saif al islam in their custody is the biggest power play that they've got to use in libya so i think this is the great agenda of what's going on right now with this latest development but nonetheless mr bush does seem to being tortured to death who is the former ambassador the fronts back with a recap of our top stories in a few minutes stay with us here on r.t. .

the. old means of protection can be used. when global supremacy desired stage. between two thousand and five and two thousand and nine the u.s. has spent fifteen billion dollars in the prostate for the entire program that we are dealing with right now here in two thousand and eleven is another hundred fifty billion dollars that's larger than many country's entire military budgets twenty

oftens becomes the best form of defense. it's.

russia and china vetoed a u.n. security council's resolution on syria at a vote in new york this is a live video from the security council chamber at the u.n. moscow wanted all references to regime change change taken out of the drop the meeting comes amid reports from syria of a crackdown in the city of homes with hundreds more to kill. more than two hundred thousand people braved the bitter cold across russia to ensure their views on national politics are heard one group demanding fair elections march through the streets others rallied in support of the current leadership. europeans demand a free internet as people flood the streets in protest against an anti-piracy act being signed across the continent activists want to prevent a new law being ratified in european parliament. capital account with laura lister

coming up stay with us. good afternoon and welcome to capital account happy friday i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. the u.s. unemployment rate dropped to eight point three percent for january naturally it was cheered and a good photo op for the u.s. president barack obama to say the economy is improving but. these numbers will go up and down in the coming months. there are still four too many emerged in. the job that pays better than the one they have no. yeah we couldn't agree more in fact a large chunk of those people who finally found work last month landed low wage jobs and yes numbers will go up and down but those that haven't been able to find work for more than twenty seven weeks that's six months that number isn't really moving it's stuck at five point five million youth unemployment is stuck at twenty

three percent and there's more don't worry we'll break it all down speaking of work say happy birthday to the u.s. income down x. as we hear rallying cry is this presidential election season for raising taxes in the u.s. we have a different message for washington stop stealing from us before you even think about asking for more of our hard earned cash how about start by getting this doc out done to try to curb insider trading in the halls of congress will have a little more advice to share but also we've heard time and time again we've heard it from us republican presidential candidate ron paul. it's time we not only all of the federal reserve but also in due time get rid of the federal reserve. and the fed we've seen a growing number of people get on board with his calls we've heard people say hey that's just crazy talk luckily author jeffrey tucker is here to break down how exactly the economy would work without

a central bank very exciting let's get to today's capital account. so people are pretty optimistic about these new u.s. jobs numbers that came out showing unemployment tick down point two percentage points to eight point three percent lowest in three years but is even us president barack obama said these numbers will go up and down so i want to take a look at the bigger picture and some of the downside of this report lucky for you i've got some numbers to throw up so the long term unemployed that's longer than six months was very little changed at five point five million this stunner for me that accounts for forty two point nine percent of the unemployed that's

a big number now the number of people employed part time for economic reasons that was little change that's eight point two million now these are people who were working part time not because they want to take some time off but because their hours have been cut back or because they're unable to find a full time job youth unemployment among sixteen to nineteen year olds that's twenty three percent that's stuck there and per bloomberg about one hundred thirteen thousand of the two hundred forty three thousand jobs added are low wage jobs that's according to a strategist at c.r.t. capital group so given all of this there are some proposals some solutions to tackling the u.s. economic problems some seem like they're really just aimed at the symptoms though of a sick economy throwing money at the problem you could say no pun intended then there are some who want to perform surgery we've heard republican for republican presidential candidate ron paul for one called end the fed. you can't paper the

money in secrecy bob the federal reserve it for can this is a creation of well we have gotten the attention the american people dealing with our monetary system and the federal reserve and it's time we not only audit the federal reserve but also in due time get rid of the federal reserve. and then there are some people that say come on that's insanity you can't really end the fed so let's talk about that let's talk about how this would actually work we criticize the fed a lot but i want to know how we could really know why it's been around for a while now so jeffrey tucker is here lucky for us in studio he's executive editor of la is a fair books contributor to the daily reckoning also author of this book it's a jetson's of world private miracles and public crimes which i luckily have a copy of right here and cannot wait to read but first i want to welcome you to the studio thank you so much for being here pleasure to be here so i want to get to the jobs numbers they are as yes those are big news today but as i said there are some

solutions in light of these economic problems that seem like band-aids and then there are some that seem like open heart surgery that you don't know where it's going to go and one would be this argument to end the fed we've heard from ron paul we've seen protests occupy the fed protests in the u.s. we've seen in europe at the e.c.b. first before we get to how to get rid of it what's your case against the fed well i think it's very interesting we live in a country where we've returned that we love capitalism we love free market we love for him to pause and then we have the central planning apparatus that's running our money and banking system we've only had it for one hundred years all throughout the nineteenth century there are debates we have a national national bank going on and typically was the mercantile as the state is the national is the people that want to grow government and have a kind of a nineteenth century version of big government programs who always love the central bank we do have one but banking was getting ever more centralized and every time they made a bigger more problems and finally in one thousand thirteen they created. and look

what's happened over since you know the dollar is now worth less than a nickel of what it was at the beginning of the business cycles have gotten worse or more and the moral hazard associated with the financial system is just growing worse and worse we're making our problems even worse now all bernanke so called those solutions are actually just first of all in the worst problems down the line and that's why i think if we in the fed right now ron paul is exactly right the only thing i would take out as a qualifier says in due time will do this or that you say do it today look as long as this thing is a row now going to you it's like if you go to doctors poison in the patient you got it for the guy ok and that's what i think we're doing slowly when the patient got it cut it off you got to because they're going to keep pursuing the wrong solution everybody more or less agrees that the problems of the housing bubble that we just went through were created by the low interest rate policy in the two thousand and that they created this problem and this contributed substantially to so what do we do now we've got bernanke you reduce interest rates to zero zero yeah i mean like

contrary natural laws in say the mean we've had positive interest rates since the beginning of human history and now this guy shows up a little bit i mean interest rates is get rid of it and it's funny when you look at the federal funds rate after every recession since one thousand eight hundred baht lower and lower and lower till there's literally nowhere to go but jeffrey tucker let's really break this down because yes there is a case against the bad guy here and you say it's only been around for one hundred years but it's been around for one hundred years and this economy we've seen financial services grow is a huge chunk of a this how do you realistically unwind that at this point and what's the impact of the first thing the first thing we have to do is get we've got to have the hands off the yield curve and you know everybody these days thinks that the fed controls interest rates well look interest rates are part of a free market economy it's a kind of a price of time it's something it's like a price of shoes or price of potatoes or anything else there's a price attached to the food let it freed up which has happened on some of us interest rates would rise that would be very good in many ways but that's what i want to ask you if we just ended the fed right now wouldn't it. straits just i mean

even when we mentioned ending the fed when they just shoot up to what twelve percent and we'd have massive defaults massive foreclosures massive unemployment and a depression i don't know about the unemployment of the pression part but the thing is that high interest rates to be good for savers right now as it was need to break they're being looted every day and i couldn't agree more but what would be the damage let's be honest what would the damage be if all of a sudden change or a straight shot up to twelve percent wouldn't we have massive foreclosures massive people cast out on the streets i mean i just don't know how you know a little more conservative and i mean if the if we can loosen up so labor's directions like minimum wages and a new regulation stuff like this labor markets to the resources we go to most valued labor resources nobody wants to work in a job and a booming economy is going to get fired eventually anyway because the stuff that's sustainable so i don't believe in sustaining unsustainable booms so if we let the market take care of it then we see some reality we're living in a very distorted world right now we don't really even know what these numbers mean we don't know if the banks to really solve the holding all these assets i think is

a prized yeah everything's kind of chaotic and we were flying blind right now when you're going through the unemployment unemployment numbers we don't really even know what those one say on the amount that's going to play distortions introduced by the federal reserve and it's a massively distorted bank and so the basis is broken right now i mean the banks no longer doing what they once did and they think can't make money when you don't even know when you say now what is a bank do you don't even know you don't answer to that but jeffrey i want to we interviewed here at dimitri did the by former vice chairman of the federal reserve alan blinder and he asked them about this issue of setting interest rates i first want to play you what he said about the fed's ability to properly forecast the economy and know where interest rates are let's take a listen to that. it would be a better world if the people at the federal reserve had perfect foresight and had a perfect model of how the economy works so they knew exactly what to do at exactly what moment that's a fantasy now what it means ok so he kind of admitted that the fed doesn't really

exactly know where interest rates are supposed to be if the fed doesn't know how do we know that the market would know and how does the market set them where the market every does everything through a decentralized way it gathers information from every individual actor according to the buying and selling decisions of individuals and. explain the process this generates a greater knowledge than any individual has right now we have this i don't know if you've read those transcripts from the f a mostly that came out recently from two thousand and six but you know the fed is a dysfunctional corporation i mean it is just crazy i mean it's like a comic routine reading these guys ok well that's what i want to ask so even a more nefarious way i guess part of the reason the fed was created was because of public opinion it was against a private banking cartel has the fed sell that or do they now have a public private cartel yeah that's really what happened i mean eventually the government basically nationalized the base system in cooperation with the banks and you know there are now two sides of the bait the republicans more or less want the

fed to be controlled by the big banks and big corporations and the democrats want to turn it over to congress and i'm saying there's a third option this is you know we don't we don't need to nationalize banking system you know this is go back to free market going further and we not just need free banking but we should consider private production of money it was i've heard very argument in the beginning in the years of the industrial revolution people made their own money and it worked beautifully and it could happen again today especially in a digital world where enron money and yet there's no money and you know it's more common to see these attempts and since the internet opened it's opened its doors we've seen more and more attempts to try to create digital currencies we should give it a try and in fact this is the whole suggestion that and i did that's an idiot. let me ask you this though you said the fed's only been around for one hundred years there were times where it was done just fine without one but i want to go back to this interview with alan blinder because one of the things dimitri asked him was if the period between the second bank of the us and the civil war wasn't an example of the market being able to set interest rates and it was called the wildcat banking

here's what alan blinder said. to me the best way to answer this is that we didn't call it the wildcat banking era for nothing while cats are wild cats and they sometimes produce very dysfunctional results and they did. so mr jeffrey tucker mr whiskey and gunpowder are wild cats still as wyoming and all the ones where you get not wild or the defense of bacon at least they produce the local problems that were solved locally now we have national and international problems that are solved in this interim out of there never solved get along and agree. to be far preferred and we have to look at what what caused those banking things were at least we went bankrupt you know i mean this is part of the free market is that you not only make profits make losses too so we need this is where banks do can and do go belly up bankruptcy can be a sign of a healthy functioning progress in the economy but those well there are a lot of consequences where hurts but at least everyone think he'll when you're

really sick sometimes you have to agree but at least if you have competition you have a condo of working towards excellence in service of the customer you know over time the markets are never straight move forward all the time but you know the one who's also very influenced at the time by all these kind of railroad records that were going on and these little mini explosions of booms the bankers even back then were working with the politicians you know trying yeah that's true that's true we went on and what led to the creation of the fed is that the banking system ever more wanted to kind of have a puffy life where everything was perfect we're protected from market forces all that still happens but jeffrey tucker before we go to break really quickly we know it's a confidence game these days. that is i mean i hear part of it all how do we know that everything the financial system wouldn't just collapse once everybody knew that we were ending the fed i don't believe this i don't believe you know every word about this from two thousand and eight that we've got to have the strike down to trillions of dollars in bailouts and it's all propaganda you know we would go through a little bit of

a tough time would be tricky but the market does amazing things every day for us you know from giving us groceries and digital media and i phones that you know everything you can go from the bottom of the sea to to your gas station i think the market can handle money and buy things just fine we just have to let it have a chance and all right well we have to go to break quickly when we come back i want to hear your song if you can give us a preview you got a fed song we'll have more with jeffrey tucker so stick around. and still i had to say happy birthday to the income tax and write your wish list for what you'd like government to give up before they talk about raising it we will after the break the first your closing market numbers.

in a time like the world trade army. religion ruins. the first time a land where time stands still. becomes the seed of nothing. the mysterious sons of russia. oh oh . welcome back to capital account let's get straight to it because geoffrey tucker

is in studio it is the birthday of the income tax and i think he has a birthday wish for it he's author of the book you see there jetsons world private miracles and public crimes so jeffrey tucker it's the birthday of the income tax started ratified in one nine hundred thirteen now we hear this discussion around this presidential election about raising taxes we have an idea that capital account before you even talk about raising taxes for any of us you've got a sacrifice there at washington you hear that you need to cut the waste fraud and abuse you need to eliminate all of this stealing one good start would be this act that supposed to curb insider trading can we bring up that comic really quickly ok so this we love dad i'm considering a career in organized crime the dad says government or private sector i mean that kind of sums up what we're saying what do you think it's not fair for you to sack of for you to ask us to sacrifice more washington until you can you know get it together well that's been true for a long time a couple hundred years.