they're both the they're the weight of both causes what we have right now is a fucking fortress and the question is do we want to continue that you can you know cameron can keep sending out as many elite to stories as he like but it seems a bit counterproductive and what we should really be looking at here again are the valid id of argentines claims which as you allude to go far back both historically and also the importance of their geographic claims the resources surrounding the fossil and ok i want i want to eat what i want to eat does it want only shoot i want to tell you i should a second look i'll jump in go ahead you yes i do firstly that they don't want to become british they are british in terms of the history of who is had control of the falkland islands you made the point that the the spanish the falkland islands are neither control the last spanish settlement actually left and eighteen eleven and i believe that the argentine declared independence from the spanish and eight hundred sixteen so at the time of this the argentine declared

independence from spain no one had de facto control over the falklands and it was until a hundred thirty three with a major british settlement that really became permanent around eight hundred thirty eight that the falkland islands were actually settled by anyone and this argument about a geographical location is i'm sorry holds no water at all because look at canary islands for example then morocco would have a claim over the canary islands ok larry if i can go to you i mean as a result of the war thirty years ago there was it was the united nations that it should be a compromise or should be negotiations between britain and argentina why can't wait can't this just be resolved i mean if there's just no political will is there. well you have a lot of little elements here one is the argentine is not particularly famous for good governance and an argument is repeatedly made to remind us

that back in nineteen seventy six eighty three some twenty five thousand arjan current civilians were murdered by the military. secondly. in terms of precedence and so forth you clearly can't look at the self-determination issue as either strengthening or weakening the respective positions of the two countries because you can find compelling arguments going either way and sovereignty issue isn't clear cut and you know both countries can score their points the real issue at this point is that there has to be a solution at some period because the argent times are going to continue to mine over the issue because this is a great national cause that can be exhumed when. you need a big whenever you need a good distraction waves

a bloody flag of frog. and even even a severance go right ahead. yeah let me jump in very quickly can i let me tell you one very easy way for me to lose this argument by defending the military junta and argentina and i would never do that i'm not going to defend a group of murderers and murderers who are currently serving life sentences in jail now the real issue here is that ardent the argentine democracy today which has not only distance itself from this military dictatorship but has been proactive in finding justice for for the atrocities committed why should they have to pay for the stupidity and the. just the actions of these these military generals the violent actions of these generals i think we have to i think what mr burns is doing is he's equating the government of cristina kirchner to that of the dell or some of these more of these these dictators and that's just not fair so i think we have to

really look at modern day argentina today ok just to get to a second point this issue of what ok i'm going to raise your second point quickly go. to an easy argument also to say to discard argentines claims here is that it's bloviation they're whining this is all political but if you actually look at the past thirty years their claims to the islands are and i'm talking the last thirty years very in keeping with foreign policy in economic policy after the the actions the belligerent actions of the military junta with with the birth of democracy following the failure of the war under menem in the ninety's he kept this issue low he wanted to get on the good side of england of britain but what happened with the kitchener first mr and the christina with their governments is they didn't want to be dependent on these strong western countries the united states england so they said we are going to build our national sovereignty we're going to make you know we're going to make this country great alex i want in let me do that involves let me jump in because there's another huge issue out there that we haven't really

talked about and that's called oil and there's a potential there of vast reserves could be there and the british are now unilaterally doing exploration. is this what it should really now all about is about oil because maybe the britons don't care about the falkland islands but they care about oil b.p. does go ahead. well that's a forgive me it's a bit of a simplistic way to look at the situation you're absolutely correct in saying that there is exploration going on around the falkland islands but i also believe and correct me if i'm wrong alex about think there's some actual there was some joint falkland argentina an exploration going on as well but the matter to me is quite simple if the oil that is found is found around the falkland islands in the area. under its sovereign control then we know where the oil belongs but the sort of back and forth between margin. in this and the following that continues to dominate alex

go ahead so i could say yeah like i said the only the only colonial asking me to this whole debate is the fact that argentina once a colonized three thousand british subjects in the hawk eye and i think that's a bit simplistic alex you want to record i heard david cameron too but oh no that's right yes something i know what you are still learning us that us the great and wonderful as the three thousand people who live on the falkland islands and they will want to remain british ok larry if i can go to you how do you how do you see the oil playing into this here go ahead go ahead larry. i'm sorry i didn't get your point now my but what you know we throwing in oil now here how does this change the mix all right right right. this becomes an economic determinism argument. you know the british certainly like the sniff of oil. but you have to face up to the fact that income we have to call in the nigeria and so forth which have plenty of oil the british had no problem giving up. colonies.

it is not. and the. british are going to come here come these what you have here is that the conservative party margaret's. sure the iron lady who was able to describe general be known many as tin pot dictators but howard no problem in hugging and gracing general pinochet of chile because chile was of use to the british in the falklands that is the tories adopted this issue as the as the great pottery out of the issue of the decade and it was a very heroic one and for the british sending their v. bombers thousands of miles an improvised oil tankers that had landing

strips laid down on them it was a it was really a glorious war and there is a subset of the british population that is deeply committed to that war and also. a much larger percentage of the british population that can have their enthusiasm be revived very quickly if there's any threat to the fore prudence and the tories know they can work this issue and of course is a domestic component to this but it's not something that the world has to give us because the british have quite quite you know as a matter of fact as bonafide the case no better no worse than the arjun time and i don't think the argentines have so there's another scenario there's another element here look if i go to you what about the the antarctic ok because it's become more and more important and this is a nice nice foothold for the for the brits to be on what they call the falkland islands i mean there are other places you did these islands are moving but

political reality and economic reality is moving. yeah with it with these islands and the south atlantic you know the days of the british empire are over the sheer t.j. value of these islands now in the twenty first century are. not really relevant this isn't about for great britain this is not about oil this is not about power this is a. strategic influence on the subtle and think this is a simple matter of three thousand people living on some islands that wish to remain british subjects and say is listen i'm going to give you we're going to give alex the last word here is this just a principled issue here there's no it that's that's the top priority you think in this conflict it's principle. of course not you have political rhetoric of course on both sides christian teacher saying give peace a chance which everybody i think gave

a little sigh to this is about i mean this is about sovereignty and this is about the issue of what are we going to leave the colonial past behind are we going to look to the future are we going to face up to reality which is that it's not sustainable for the islanders on the falklands and the argentine citizens to keep up a good relationship if there's this tension and if there's this ridiculous divide between them trading lines the relationship in many different ways is very clear so we should just acknowledge that all right gentlemen we've run out of time but a status quo has lasted for thirty years maybe in another thirty years that many thanks to my guest today in washington thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember. to .

well. science technology innovation all the moves developments from around russia we've got the future are covered. it's.

been in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. bank stars are bulldozing their way through europe what will be left in the rubble when they're done also is the tea party losing its political mojo that more coming up in tonight's lone liberal rumble and new hampshire is trying to repeal gay marriage and minnesota's try to constitutionally ban it marriage equality ever be accepted in america like it is in canada and mexico city.

you need to know this the bank's toure's plan to remake europe is now well underway there's an iconic quote from chuck book the fight club which the main character tyler durden says only after disaster can we be resurrected only after you've lost everything you're free to do anything that quote has new meaning now when we look at the technocrats at the i.m.f. and what they're doing to europe and in particular greece at the behest of global banks toure's if the i.m.s. was tyler durden portrayed by brad pitt in the movie it would say it's only after europe has lost everything the banks can profit off anything or seen in europe now is the takedown of a small but important part of a comma of a continent's economy through forced austerity the big news in all the financial rags today from the financial times to the wall street journal is the collapsing parts of the european economy. for the first time since two thousand and

nine the seventeen nation euro zone economy contract and shrinking three tenths of a percent in the last quarter of two thousand and eleven one more quarter a negative growth and europe will officially be in a recession and looking at individual nations you can see why the british economy shrank by two tenths of a percent in the fourth quarter of the way to austerity measures from conservative prime minister david cameron who proudly proclaimed that europe has entered the quote age of austerity quote portugal's economy shrank by one and a half percent in two thousand and eleven and is projected to shrink by three percent this year and portugal has done everything the i.m.f. has asked it to do taking austerity poison pills and slashing budgets and what's happened things have gotten worse portugal's debt to g.d.p. ratio went up from one hundred seven percent to one hundred eighteen percent and that's not because portugal added more debt but instead because their economy shrank thanks to austerity spain and italy are also adopting austerity and also

watching their economies tank spain's debt to g.d.p. ratio is thirty six percent for the crisis now after austerity it's expected to more than double to eighty four percent by next year as for italy in two thousand and nine their debt to g.d.p. ratio was one hundred five percent and now thanks to austerity it's going to take up to one hundred twenty six percent by next year this is sweeping across europe or at least parts of it and is the reason why the entire continent is on the verge of another recession but nowhere is it worse than in greece athens is just now putting out the flames after days of violent riots in the streets greek people went on strike said buildings on fire and clashed with police to fight back against austerity measures being shoved down their throats by the i.m.f. austerity measures that aren't working going on two years into the austerity assault the greek economy is still tanking shrinking by seven percent in just the final quarter of two thousand and eleven and still in need of another bailout since

. two thousand and nine a quarter of all greek companies have gone out of business half of small businesses in that country say they can't meet their payroll in the first half of two thousand and eleven the suicide rate in greece spiked by forty percent af of the entire greek population under the age of twenty five is right now out of work if greece has in-laws debt everything yet thanks to austerity and it's getting pretty damn close as economist and author max fraud wolf said on this show earlier this week. this is on the ambiguously a disaster this is a sort of excel aerated great depression shock being delivered to greece we've never really seen anyone cut their way to prosperity in fact this is and that's where we get to the bigger picture of all this back to where we started if austerity doesn't work in fact if it has never ever worked ever in the history of the world in any country then why are people who we consider to be smart economists still pursuing it why didn't these so-called smart economists look what happened in the one nine hundred seventy s. in the one nine hundred eighty s.

when forced us therapy in places like chile argentina and nations that were formerly part of the soviet union led to years and years of pain and suffering for average working people by what they see what's in front of their very eyes today as athens burns reason why because austerity isn't supposed to work it's not supposed to make economies better it's supposed to make economies worse remember what i said at the beginning only after europe has lost everything in the banks to profit off anything what's going on right now is a financial bulldozing of europe nation by nation so the bankers and the rich buddies can come in and buy up whatever's left of the commons at a low low price and make enormous profits into the future this is crisis capitalism it's what naomi klein wrote an entire book about europe has a long history of embracing the commons. the health care system is part of the commons they have public utilities their telecom infrastructure we talked about this last night it's considered part of the commons and you've got the obvious

commons of police and fire schools they're commons extends even to things like colleges but in countries like greece the commons also is their historic here and their ports democratic socialism which is the principal form of governance in europe has been very very strong in those countries that are pursuing it like denmark sweden norway germany france they're doing just fine but some of the particular when you look at what happened with goldman sachs and greece back four years ago and see how this is all begun if these commons if these countries like it can become privatized then there's a bunch of people who can make a whole lot of money off and the way to do that is to create a crisis or exploit one you bulldoze the economy with austerity and you let the banks gather up whatever is like a nation with a lot of resources it is for example greece the chinese are making huge investments

and reese's main porton iris qatar's investing five billion dollars in tourism and infrastructure there is selling off their country wealthy germans and scandinavians want to make greece the florida of europe as an article about this new york times over the weekend. greek they're turning greek islands that used to be the property of the government of the people into expensive retirement homes for wealthy europeans now that the economy has collapsed it's a fire sale for the country if you take down the government space is created so the corporations and very wealthy individuals can step in this is a piece from russia's russell short post piece in the new york times he said whether or not the country pays its debts other nations and foreign companies now understand the greek government is powerless so the future they'll take over viable assets and run parts of the country by themselves this isn't just happening greece other cash strapped nations are going to be following suit and they're selling off their comments they'd love to turn you know it again same thing with spain it used

to be a big vacation paradise now it's going to become a private vacation paradise europe is going to turn into a giant disney world for the rich it's already happening by the way in the united states were seen this with c.c.a. buying up state prisons they're actually they contacted all fifty states last week and so you will buy if you're prison facilities you have to guarantee customers to us and we'd like to lobby you for harsher drug laws and things like that but in any case our public utilities are being sold off education is be sold off austerity is working is exactly as it should it's taking us basically back to feudalism it's destroying our nation is destroying parts of europe other parts of europe are profiting tremendously off this and who wins the banks toure's. i. i it's one's are you ready to rumble joining me on the panel for tonight's lone

liberal rumble don. the genome on gino u.s. senate candidate former special agent with the u.s. secret service and former new york police department officer and lachlan mark a mark to market a market that's right market investigative reporter with the heritage foundation center for media and public policy thanks to both of you for being here and let's get started i was just reading about austerity in europe and it seems like the republicans are hell bent for leather to bring this the united states you know cutting we've seen in twenty five. twenty four red states. so far three years seven hundred thousand people laid off and you know like this. now we've got this tax deal this payroll tax cut and unemployment benefit cut and. you know they're talking about extending this but the republican succeeded in lowering the number of weeks for unemployment benefits for ninety nine dollars seventy three weeks why would that be a good thing you know to take more money out of people's pockets who would be

consumers who would otherwise stimulate the economy well i think the data on the unemployment rates are pretty clear you'll see that if unemployment was given for five years unemployment takes down not coincidentally after five years the incentive to not work is there i think that you realize that most people if if they're if they're given just a couple hundred bucks a week they'll just not work it's not just because you don't mind it's not just conservatives saying that you can look at anyone from new york times poll paul krugman of new york times the cold mist or alan krueger the recent edition right now white every job opening there are for people who are but but the point is that for a job i mean that my my my you go serious about. not only one of the we're not talking about blaming the victim here we're talking about incentives and i'm telling you that it's not just free marketeers who are who who say that an incentive it's a safety net giving people money for doing something will inevitably result in more people doing that and not just certainly depends on how much money you give them

this is textbook economics and i say that literally because paul krugman himself has written it into his textbooks that one of the reasons for prolonged unemployment spells in europe were unemployment benefits are much more generous generally is been precisely because of those on what is going to are you get unemployment benefits you get free health care you get free childcare you get out you have nothing to none of those things or have well that's what people are paying for i'll agree with you but none of those things are available in the united states people people when they're on an unemployment they're screwed and they know it and they're not trying to stand on. employment of the vast majority of around trying to just cause all of this is right but you're making a simplistic ad hominem argument when the reality is having studied psychology and economics what lachlan said is right the incentives are there i'm not saying everyone what we're saying is the incentive is there to not work if you don't have so very proud so you agree with cutting the number of available weeks for unemployment from ninety nine down to seventy three we need to make it realistic we can look at that right now is

a very prolonged the question but that's what makes it but that's also a form of austerity i mean what drives an economy is people spending money i don't agree with us we're still spending it's just a third party spending your money there's no wonder less what they're spending your money there's still money being spent going after the seventy third week they're not spending anything they don't have any money they're spending the taxpayers' their money not the third party government money still being spent in other words on the benefits that would be spent by unemployment people instead of unemployed people excuse me instead of tax dollars being taken from taxpayers to then go towards unemployment benefits that are being spent by the taxpayers them so you. know well you could say if you're too if you're talking about wealthy taxpayers i'd say no there is simply put it this was bank accounts but you would just see it. as what the thing you know what drives and what creates jobs is demand and demand is caused by people but what i did what i always say to the folks who bring up that topic is where did the man go people don't demand things now that they say that their demand is a function of wages period econ one hundred one no wait wages drive to mages are

a function of productivity we get it we're going to take a break we'll be right we'll be right back coming up why do republicans think a nineteenth century energy and transport plan so it's twenty first century america just five more rubble coming up after the break. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and she told the truth. i'm a contestant i am a total get a friend that i love grabbing hip hop music and. i do is kind of the jester day. i'm very proud of the role that al-jazeera has played.

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

by the bag tonight i'm joined joined by dan bongino u.s. senate candidate former special agent with the u.s. secret service and former n.y.p.d. officer and lachlan marc a investigative reporter with the heritage foundation center for media and public policy welcome back guys. the transportation funding bill this is there's the obama version of the house version and since the constitution says all spending begins in the house the house version is the one that counts and the house version put together by the house republicans calls for a nine percent reduction in infrastructure we're back to austerity. the

republican secretary of transportation ray la hood who is still are registered republican calls this the most part is. and worst transportation bill he's ever seen from a member of congress as well republican member counters it it it's a touche allies is the war on unions makes it harder for them to unionize. it also blows up california proposed high speed rail system and ends consistent funding of highways the gas tax have been doing this since eighty two every year was forty billion dollars last year that out of the gas tax that was dedicated for highway funding this is going to end one year and again and oh and there's a huge giveaway to big oil. in this thing how how can this be good for america they've a spake in there's been no greater act the u.s. government has instituted it was had a more disparate impact upon minority construction workers so i find it odd that we as republicans are constantly lectured on inequality and yet davis bacon the numbers are there when davis bacon says is that if the federal government is

funding a project in and in a community whoever is hiring the people in that project have to pay whatever the prevailing wage of the community might be twelve dollars an hour might be thirty dollars which is having to divert to find what the prevailing wages were which is the wage that union employers pay pay their employees only when you have a majority union employers but the point is that these are not as used all over the country in areas where there is no you know that's right and the prevailing wage laws are and to be immediately fined by the marketplace between the employers and employees right but when those rates are defined by what union workers in the state pay but they're not it what would you find by the prevailing wage in that we're going to davis bacon even mentions unions we're talking about prevailing wage laws state prevailing wage laws are based on what union contractors pay in that state ok so so apparently there's something in this transportation bill blows up davis bacon is that why you brought this up yeah because i find it ironic that we're lectured constantly.