even though angry mobs are literally gathering at their doors look at this outside former prime minister caused to submit his house on sunday. they were calling him a traitor other names too meanwhile look at this greek national poll conducted this month it shows the influence of various political parties in greece we want to focus on that three percent it may not look like a lot but that is a far right political party extreme nationalist party they don't have members in parliament yet but three percent is the threshold reportedly at which parties can begin to place their own members in parliament so are people moving to more radical parties because the others aren't listening to them this is how we saw the rise of

fascism prior to world war two in europe i asked m.e.p. nigel farage about this earlier take a look ok mr farris let's get straight to it so you've been critical rightfully so of pop a day most in greece as an unelected official a technocrat put in place by the e.u. but in greece there is a deeper problem you have all of these elected officials democratically elected politicians in parliament who are voting for these deeply unpopular measures as athens literally has been burning outside of parliament why do you think that it is well sunday was very interesting effectively what happened was that the you you have held a gun to their heads in greece said to the political class unless you vote for this bailout package or less you vote for continued subjugation we will not give you the next tranche of money you will go bankrupt. and your reputation internationally will be destroyed and in the face of that the greek political class just don't have

the courage to stand up and tell you where to go and you know i can see why i mean for a country to go bankrupt or to face a devaluation going back to the ground were about sixty or seventy percent it is a difficult thing to do but i tell you this if they don't do it they're going to die a different kind of economic death because the greek economy is contracting now at an accelerating rate that has now reached seven percent per year yeah absolutely it's in a depression and so i've years now they've had they've seen a contraction of growth and you have the greek m.p.'s for example like some of us who is seen by some as possibly the next prime minister who backpedals away from the electorate every time there's pressure from the e.u. or from the troika put on what you kind of spoken to but what's interesting is you have politicians acting against their electoral interests and jeopardizing their reelections which is unusual for a politician what's in it for them. it is

a funny one isn't that i mean we you simply can't think of greece as a normal democratic country it is not a democratic country you know its prime minister is a puppet he was put there to dance to the tune of the european union we have a troika where we have a three people with common unelected bureaucrats one from washington from the i.m.f. one from the european commission another from the european central bank they're the people effectively that are now running greece and the political class in athens most of them are like rabbits staring in the headlights of this car that is coming straight down towards them and and the people i just think put yourself in their position if you take away from people their ability through the ballot box to determine their own future then violence is all they're left with and i'm afraid that what we saw on sunday may be just the start of something really very very bad indeed. and it's interesting we've seen the backlash against politicians in greece you've seen molotov cocktails thrown at the president's house you've seen

a former prime minister have a mob gather around his house literally harassing him i don't want to say this lightly but history europe does have this history are you concerned about political assassinations happening again i am concerned that if we continue with an austerity package on a country whose economy is already in a downward deflationary death spiral without any compensation which is what going back to the drachma would give then i think we're heading for a revolution of some kind in greece and i don't want to predict exactly what form that will take that would be irresponsible but i think it is i think the prospect is very very bad indeed and you said before that you're worried about a rise of nationalism as a result of what's going on in europe in greece according to gallup polls a very far right party could get a seat in parliament if there were elections today is this right and nationalism is dangerous in your view already in europe. what in the thirty's what we saw huge

financial disaster countries crashing out of the gold standard mass unemployment what we saw was fascism and it's what most of europe and do not think that that sort of thing cannot happen again i am very worried about it and that is why i've always been looking for democratic solutions i've always believed that if you are going to form a new united states of europe you can only do so through free and fair referendums only do so through consent and that consent has not been given and in the case of greece and portugal and spain the prospects are very bleak indeed i do not want a rise of extreme fascist nationalism in europe but i'm terrified that the e.u. itself is now so powerful and so determined to keep up with its own failing policies that we may well be driving people into this position. it's quite a warning coming from nigel farage the leader of the united kingdom independent party.

all right intention of our let's lighten it up a little bit let's bring in dimitri kofi anna right here in studio and shannon donahoe in the control room our producer is to talk about this which is actually kind of an alarming finding of a main street dot com just came out with a list of the u.s. is richest counties and just guess who dominates the standing the d.c. area take a look at the top three look at the median household incomes they are six figures in the top three counties all around washington d.c. listen this man puts it pretty clearly as far as what this is like.

you know the part of the country where people can speak consider locally rich someone here making a hundred thousand was just median. just media and you just write in there if you're making six figures all the top fifteen richest counties are in the d.c. area the top fifteen if you what more evidence do you need about the people sucking on the teat of government and that well yes courageous because the money gets redistributed to d.c. i think it's absurd i can't stand d.c. and i live here so that's when i was the thing i got this i don't i mean the fact that they make that much money. and this the city is really slow pace of it compared to new york so i'm shocked at that make them whole i think one thing that you find is all of the contractors and a lot of the people that benefit from business the government are all around here and they've all done quite. forgot about that one and you hear so much about welfare reform but there is a whole different kind of welfare that is going on that i think is pretty alarming shannon do you have anything to add. full disclosure i do live in one of those

counties but i definitely do not make that much money and we've got people in the control room over here high five being that they live in the counties but i'm pretty sure they don't make that much money so basically you're all bringing down the median is what you're saying and you know without just average people imagine how high those salad also goes and i think food the way foods there is work is it's about half of median income so from what i understand that the people eligible for food stamps in d.c. would have to make what could make more money than anyone else in the country all right some one fact check him and let's move on to something in london is causing rents to skyrocket can you guess what it is. it's the olympics and landlords are cashing in ok the rent for

a large house can be as much as four hundred thirty three thousand pounds per month and other landlords are increasing rent by as much as six times the normal rate is this why david cameron was so excited about the olympics when i heard him speak about it at davos because you got out they want to run i don't know maybe he wants you know that money to be you know coming into london in london as much money as you go because it's completely bankrupt the u.k. is the most bankrupt country in the in the world which we saw their financial sector at the. all the all of the debt if you take their fire actually good public everything it's over one thousand percent of g.d.p. so they can they can they need all the money they can get their role over there that they should pray to god that money keeps going to the u.k. shannon. i would feel really bad if i lived in one of those areas and the crowd went out yeah that way if you live there you're right goes up for that reason that would be a real bummer good time to leave your house then run it out to somebody else make a little dough that's all we have time for i'm only with that great idea you are

one of our viewers in the u.k. thanks so much for tuning in feel free to follow me on twitter at lauren lyster give us feedback on this show at youtube dot com slash capital account and from everyone here thank you so much for watching come back tomorrow and have a great. publisher is the same of you are going to go if i can get one hundred of them or so because we're going to take your pick the ones with a mel b. in britain and argentina again sparring over the legal status and future of these islands is this disputed. download the official t. obligation to go on the phone called touch from the queues ups to. life on the go. video on demand. mind bold colors.

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with max cons or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report. first. east meets west in a battle of economic ideologies the us sulking in the shadows of a recession while china's state run capitalism is paying off with growth so who has a right we'll explore. and iran is touting new developments in its nuclear program today and that's not all sources now claim iran is threatening to cut off all shipments to six european countries are these rumors true and if so as to count down the conflict officially begun.

the one year after the u.s. picked sides in libya's civil war the country still in disarray and what have we learned anything in that matter. and its history destined to repeat itself in syria . anything that's wednesday february fifteenth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy catherine of any watching r.t. . well leaders of the world's two largest economies met yesterday as china's vice president made his rounds in d.c. now the country's fates are intertwined economically but its problems between the two that seem to dominate much of the rhetoric now there are concerns about military rivalries and of course the ongoing economic to favor issues like trade and currency here was president obama speaking just yesterday. we have tried to emphasize that because of china's extraordinarily extraordinary development over

the last two decades that with its expanding power and prosperity also comes increased responsibilities and so we want to work with china to make sure that everybody is working by the same rules of the road when it comes to the world economic system and that includes ensuring that there is a balance of trade flow. between not only the united states and china but around the world but whether ally rival or both it is hard to understate the extent of china's economic success and many western economies are floundering right now prompting some to even declare a crisis in western liberal capitalism meanwhile in the emerging markets of asia brazil south africa and elsewhere those countries are sailing right along riding the powerful wave of state capitalism now whether guided by the invisible hand of the market or carefully planned state strategy capitalism does seem to be evolving

and it's worth asking where there is whether there's some lessons for the us along the way now dr benjamin barber has made a study out of democracy and capitalism his new book is called consumed how markets corrupt children infantilize adults and swallow citizens whole and he joins me live now from new york dr barbara thank you so much for speaking with us so is capitalism undergoing an identify crisis right now. well it has been undergoing an identity crisis for about three hundred years the say in each century it's had a different set of problems and the fundamental issue it's always faced is the relationship between the free market and government and it has a free market by definition is one that works entrepreneurially without government regulation on a market basis but the reality is from the very beginning that capitalism left to its own devices can be in our kick it can create monopolies instead of competition

it can destroy jobs rather than creating jobs and has always actually achieve the greatest success in. working with governments then comes the question will your show is a pope today what kind of a relationship is that doesn't involve regulation and he trusts legislation of the kind we have in the united states does the subsidies which the chinese do which singapore does but the united states also does for agriculture and for the oil industry or does it involve actually running certain industries such as in europe was traditionally the case orders interfering with trade through tariffs and all those things in other words there are many different forms of state capitalism where the state intervenes and the question here is we tend to like our own kind of united states don't like the chinese does the chinese which are very free at leaving markets to their own devices but interfere a lot it's trading currency in our own ways we both have forms of state capitalism

well and any sort of raise the issue of u.s. state capitalism i guess one excellent example of one of that would be the u.s. bailing out the banks and the auto giants during the u.s. economic crisis which has sponsored of the birth of this occupy wall street movement tim banks got bailed out we got sold out that's the chant do you see at all this kind of interference or perhaps turning the tide of public opinion against capitalism as it's been played out here in the u.s. today. well he certainly you see on the right in the republican candidates people who thought the bailout of the banks and who particularly fault the bailout of g.m. of the auto industries and without question a lot of people say if you believe in capitalism the big firms should fail just with a small businesses fail and if they fail they fail taxpayer should not have to be bailing out these big companies on the other hand given that the auto industry is

the wombs of america's economic success and that banks finance capitalism around the world and if you let fail there would be a danger of a global meltdown the fact is governments have had to intervene and subsidize and bail out industries here twenty thirty years ago with russia corp they did it with the steel industry back in the late one nine hundred forty s. early fifty's so the fact is whether or not we like it capitalism needs big government because it has big capitalism and big firms when you let g.m. general motors go under or chrysler go under u.s. steel go under you might let ten percent of the national economy go down and no nation can afford to do that but do you see any sort of shift or a change in thinking and i'm not talking we have to step away from the republican presidential candidates because they're only going to be one line or rather it rhetoric are going to get out of that but any sort of large scale shift and perhaps a knowledge in that capitalism may need a little bit more of

a role by the state in order to succeed especially in light of these are propelling economic crises that we seem to not be able to get out of. without question occupy wall street as you said has already not just among young people and unemployed people in the homeless raise the alarm that capitalism is destroying democracy but has really made people begin to think about the legitimacy of a system that creates such deep inequalities and left that one percent get bonuses of ten million dollars while other people about a quarter of the american population makes less than forty thousand dollars a year so those inequalities are being highlighted in very important ways and are raising the question of what government can do but we have a very special and difficult situation the united states because the government to which people want to turn for solutions is itself tainted by big money and big banks which makes for example the occupy wall street people not say let's have more

government but the same more government means more money more business more banks more rationed in other words the failures of capitalism were being seen by many critics as failures of the whole political system and the democratic system so one of the dangerously have is that rather than say let's have more state intervention more government control people are saying not just capitalism but the mafiosi itself is in deep trouble and that's creating a systemic crisis for america which is very very dangerous and very briefly on the side of time but do you see any empathy as to sort of get out of the cycle of what would have to happen in order for the politicians the people who are in fact in control to sort of take notes and try to act differently but that's a great question lucy and the simple answer is you've got to find ways to get money back out of politics because as long as the politics and money seem to be the same thing then capitalism is democracy democracy is apple ism and the faults of the

fish and seas of capitalism become deficiencies of democracy so that fix the mocker see we've got it increase its autonomy from. money and see all right well money out of capitalism mr barber dr barber please thank you so very much for joining us we hope to have you back on the program sometime soon thank you kraft all right well new developments out of iran today which has reportedly threatened to preempt the european union or oil embargo by cutting off its own fuel exports to the region now iran also proclaimed a major advances in its nuclear program an announcement that's not likely to sit well with the west which already suspects that program of being aimed at creating atomic weapons now the significance of these developments lies partly in the timing iran has reiterated its readiness to resume talks with major powers in order to discuss that controversial nuclear program but the message does seem to have been drowned out by the loud drumbeat of war at least aggressive aggressive talk out of

israel now prime minister benjamin netanyahu has accused iran of destabilizing the globe alleging that tehran was behind the recent bombings in georgia india and thailand now iran and turns as that israel is waging a psychological war that many fear may pave the road for military action a lot of tough talk but if it turned to actual action the big question is where that would leave the u.s. and there is a sense of deja vu here with the lead up to the war in iraq the threat of weapons of mass destruction al qaeda and iran pundits lawmakers warning to act now or else and it all seems that the public the u.s. public opinion is swaying too now a recent poll by the newspaper the hill found that nearly half of all likely voters believe that the u.s. me should be willing to use military force in order to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and while president obama has called for a diplomatic resolution solution to the issue he has been just as clear that no option is off the table the drumbeat of war is growing louder the question is where

this march will lead before that i'm joined by jim all of d. is the policy director of national iranian american. counsel thank you so much for joining me. let's first parse sort of the announcement or the potential talk of the iranians cutting off oil exports the market reacted it's very unclear whether they're actually going to do this or if it's just threats what's behind that assume it's an inspiration of course of the of the embargo by the countries and yeah i mean first things first the e.u. announced that they're going to cut off purchases of iranian oil in six months five months now and you know what this is like is the e.u. saying to iran i'm going to break up with you but first i need to find a new girlfriend so give me six months. i think views this as well if you're going to cut off purchases we're going to go ahead and preempt that and use the leverage that we have right now europe is dependent on iranian oil they haven't found yet

other suppliers that can replace oil that would be cut off. at the peak oil season right now where they're using the most amount of energy and so a cut off by iran and actually be pretty harmful to them so this is really given the eurozone crisis and and you have that as well so you want to use this as this is our time that we can actually inflict damage and say. before you hurt us we're going to hurt you so is this sort of i mean if you look at the decision to participate in this and bargo as a sort of bluff to get the iranians to do whatever when it comes to the nuclear program it's the equivalent of iran calling the europeans out of its bluff and what advantage is there for the iranians to do this now knowing that all this rhetoric will just paint them as doing these bad things to europe to israel to america yeah i mean i don't know that it is a bluff this has been passed by the e.u. the more than a bluff it's sort of like they are headed headed towards a cliff and they're convinced that before they get to the edge they're going to be

able to build a bridge so that they're not going to fall down it and iraq is basically saying well guess what the cliff is the cliff is right now whether or not either side goes through with it is still a matter question of. and there is still hope that there is going to be some form of negotiation that ratchets down this back and forth escalation but until we get to that point it's going to be an escalation where you have each side posturing potentially taking steps will be devastating for their own economies an own national security interests but you know the danger with posturing of course is sometimes the rhetoric and sort of get away right and it could lead to concrete actions that could potentially be dangerous is there any sense that there is a serious push for war military intervention at least on the side of israel and if so would the u.s. inevitably get involved i mean there's been some sort of debate about that there's been a little bit of a public back and forth about this with a lot of you know president obama sort of pushing back a little bit against the threats by israel with some of president obama's domestic opponents saying we need to be more forceful in wielding the war threat and

a lot of people questioning whether or not israel is actually serious about potentially. doing strikes on iran's most nuclear program what the u.s. has said is that they still haven't made a decision to build a nuclear weapon and the difference between the u.s. and israel right now is that israel you know netanyahu baraki are saying you ron is going to enter this point of nuclear immunity where once they pass this point we're not going to be able to take out their capabilities regardless of whether they're peaceful or for military purposes we're not to be able to take those out and then of that leak that actually the israelis i think didn't brock's say that it wouldn't happen for another three years at least it's been out who said that he thought the tax could potentially come in. yet another was i mean this is what this is the public back and forth with the u.s. sort of you know shining the spotlight a little bit and i think i take the panetta warning of israel could strike imminently as more of a warning towards israel to say hold off we're not going to allow this to happen and put us into into you know

a very risky situation without some pushback the question is ok how do you how do you actually hold israel back before they make a decision to actually do that and what. would be the consequences of israel carrying out an actual attack and the u.s. getting involved i mean certainly in terms of public opinion level public opinion turns to us it seems like it would be devastating if we really devastating i think to the u.s. role in the region and i think would be devastating for. israel's role in the region i think it would expose both sides to some pretty dangerous security threats and. the real problem here is that there's this escalation towards this military action that's not going to actually take out the nuclear capabilities of iran if israel bombs iran it sets the program back a couple years and then they have to go in and bomb again and then have to go in and bomb again and you just have this cycle that really the end of the day this and in full scale occupation and total war there's no clean strike that happens this is

if this happens it's the beginning of a long confrontation that really it's going to make you rock in afghanistan look like a cake walk and it's going to plunge the u.s. into a very long term military engagement was certainly a frightening proposition that we're not really hearing at sea-tac for example and here that the g.o.p. candidates speak very briefly and you know it's hard to answer this quickly but what what is behind this assumption that we're seeing in the mainstream press from the pundits from a lot of the politician that iran is sort of this irrational state actor iran has signed on to nuclear agreements iran has not preemptively stricken the resources of other countries as israel has for example so why is there this presumption that a nuclear iran will be a major threat and will behave irrationally i think a lot of that perception does come from the fact that iran does not behave very well towards its own people it's not a democracy it's not accountable to the iranians and the non-democracies that we

still support on the other hand if you look at the way that you ron has reacted to or preempted some of the moves that the u.s. the international community has done it's very similar to what we're doing there are terror attacks inside of iran in which iranian scientists are killed and then you see corresponding terror attacks carried out purportedly by iran. and the terrorists inside of iran it turns out ok it looks like israel is behind this complete tit for tat you look at the same sions you says we're going to cut off oil purchases you said ok we're going to block. curses it's all the same thing it's all the same formulation the struggle for leverage i think that painting iran as irrational after is very much a way to add to this argument that you can't you can't have any diplomacy with iran you can't negotiate with these guys when in reality everything they've done has been driven by interest and cost benefit analysis at the end of the day unfortunately whether you're talking about the europeans or the iranians or the americans it's the everyday people.