give up our strategic deterrent capability on the contrary we will strengthen it russia cannot rely on diplomatic and economic methods alone to remove contradictions and resolve conflicts. our armed forces special services and other security agencies should be prepared to provide quick and effective responses to new challenge the plans would include hundreds of billions of dollars being spent to upgrade the country's military infrastructure and forces as well has certainly been an incredibly interesting time politically in the country of course ahead of the parliamentary elections and head of the presidential elections we've seen the process and counter protest the really wise political debate a lot of people are viewing it as an awakening a political awakening amongst the population a real focus on reforms and of a fine enough political a voice as well being able to voice what they want those reforms to be in some ways

he could see these articles perhaps as a response to some of those demands certainly is the prime minister the leg out what he should be having in the country should he get that top spot in a couple of weeks time so for for porn there now let's take a look some other stories from around the world south korea has become the line fire military drills on islands near its disputed some border with north korea which have threatened to attack in response so far the north does not appear to have reacted in twenty tempo yang responded to a military drills from its neighbor with an artillery attack that killed four south koreans. finding between two warring drug cartels led to the deaths of forty four inmates in what could be mexico's deadliest prison riot the clash ruptured one inmates from one cell block invaded another cell block building them with stones and stabbing them the entire prison staff on duty at the same time has been

detained while an investigation looks into how the violence started. just they just have failed to confirm an official date for the country's first presidential election since former leader hosni mubarak was ousted official say the delays due to problems organizing voting for those living abroad but insist it will be held sometime in may the bark was forced from office a year ago after a mass uprising in clashes which saw hundreds killed but protests continue across the country from people calling for the and military rule. you know him gone ok pastor and former east germany human rights activist look so sure and to be germany's next president he has the backing of chancellor angela merkel and all political parties as a replacement for christine wolf who was forced to quit last week over corruption allegations merkel had opposed gawks bid for the presidency in two thousand and ten in favor all of. us presidential candidates ron paul has warned

america's domination by government and big business is pushing it towards fascism speaking at a rally in kansas city the republican said individual rights of american citizens are being stripped away radio host and author steven lemon agrees saying american policies are helping form a fascist system. the only thing i disagree with. it's not slipping into it it's deep into it but i absolutely support is into imperial wars he has got to have the federal reserve the years it's a repressive group it's privately all new it isn't federal and it has to get reserves is run explains it all but at least you're basically made legal wall street and the money going to create more of it at the patent expense we have deeply repressive police state was the most recent salute to the national defense authorization act it gives the us government the rate to let the military arrest

and throw in military don't use us citizens anywhere in the world charge thing leave them on charge give them a military tribunal trial give them no trial let them write in prisons forever if there isn't a fascist dictatorship what. was nato do to pull out of afghanistan by the end of twenty four team kabul is trying to man ties with the taliban president karzai has asked a senior pakistani cleric now as the father of the taliban to help me in talks with insurgents but aren't his military contributor says those after it's are useless until washington appears as pakistan next door. one of the main challenges for the afghan president during his visit to pakistan was how to persuade the pakistani military and civilian leadership to mend their ways and to

sue poort the. negotiation process between the united states. government. the tale about however despite the best intentions in kabul and washington d.c. the whole formit of negotiating with taliban was doomed from the beginning to do the right thing the right way the united states has to told directly to islamabad and only after this successful completion of this negotiation only of them they have a chance to competition and a positive development in rick installing peace and security both you know afghanistan and across the border and coming up in an hour's time here in our team retaining the title russia b.

portugal europe's beachside round right here in moscow all the details in our sports portend. and a bit later in the program are we await the saying the downward mobility of the middle class in developed countries join our across top program to get the answer well before that though we'll take a look at what's happening in the world of business that ash is here. twenty four minutes past eleven am here last few watching business on r.t. or oil prices have jumped to the highest level in a nine months after iran holding crude exports to the u.k. and france on sunday the move follows the european union's decision to stop buying iranian oil starting in july the west hopes to persuade iran to curb its nuclear program brand has jumped to the highest level this year as you can see on the chart it's trading up to one hundred twenty one dollars a barrel have to gains for the well which is currently topping one hundred five

dollars a barrel experts don't expect crude prices to climb much higher as they see iranian risks for the most part held ready been priced in despite a surge in prices analysts say a wrong decision is more of a symbolic act neither britain or france straw is on a rainy and well wall to wall on is dependent on revenues from selling crude to the block. tell us now to check out the actual figures brant is putting on more than one and a half dollars a barrel the w t i is up one dollars and twenty sounds trading around one hundred five dollars a barrel. and the euro is seeing some gains against the dollar however it's a lower to the ruble supported by a group prices the dollar's those old losing against the russian currency and now into the equities and asia they are mixed a week three yet has sent to get stocks higher than in k.

ended monday's session more than one percent higher exporters were obviously benefiting to try to hang say has slipped into red in the last hour of trading that's despite the fact that central bank reduced the reserve requirements for the financial system pushing banking stocks higher. and of the russian markets are quite all beat the r.t.s. is gaining more than one. percent in the second hour straight to my sexist putting on more than three percent and now the biggest movers on the my sex editor majors and gaining momentum thanks to higher crude gazprom and luke weller putting on around one percent of our banking stocks also off severe back this time coalesced more than one percent. last week broad gains to the global equity markets greece move it moved a step closer to the second round of bailouts and the upbeat economic news from the states boosted risk appetites should traders expect the rally to resume this week

mark rubenstein for metropol financials in moscow outlines the main drivers for the week ahead and their meeting of the euro zone finance ministers is scheduled for monday in the late afternoon and it is expected and expectations are growing that there will be a decision made on their approval of the second tranche of their on the second package of the france trade for greece and also at the same time could be similar to prove their restructuring or the write off their voluntary write off of their dead by private shareholders about private debt holders. foreign investors are eyeing russia's regions that's according to kill dmitri of the head of the country's investment fund speaking out in a comic form in siberia had told business r.t. about the main attraction points for foreigners in russia as a specific interest in logistics area that's very important there is quite a bit of interest it's infrastructure and those are very specific projects so for

example airports infrastructure is very interesting you can look up and i would trip upon which is one of the largest investors and airports worldwide and we tailor investments and we invest with those investors into areas in industries agenda stand well and therefore they can do a good analysis of the project and their value to it going forward. and that's all way that's the sour but you can always find a lot more stories any time at r.t. dot com slash business.

just. wealthy british. accent. that's going to

let. the. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy. welcome back you're watching our top story israel's allies want to gas an attack on iran urging diplomatic solution saying military action would have grave consequences. as a ban on oil shipments to britain and france to international pressure on its nuclear program. the chinese government uses its main newspaper to accuse the u.s. and its allies of pushing the opposition in syria to fight a prolonged civil war violence is reportedly escalating across. out of

a controversial referendum on a new constitution you know it's time. fresh from a green diva sterrett e-cards greece's prime minister flies to brussels hoping that you resign ministers might finally hand over billions of euros the meeting is crucial to determine whether country's made enough cuts to receive a new bailout. as for the top stories here in our team next peter lavelle and he's crossed our guest discuss whether the global financial crisis is slowly swallowing up the middle class. well the earth science technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia we've got this huge you're covered.

and you can. blow in welcome across town people of all the trials and tribulations of the middle class long considered the pillar of the west political and economic border it is now the victim of a long term downward mobility why is this the case our government policy is to blame or is this due to what is called the politics of dependency. and if you. could cross talk to decline of the middle class i'm joined by louis shoval in new york he is a sociologist professor at and invited professor at columbia university in chicago we have david psychotic he is a professor of philosophy at loyola university chicago and in los angeles we go to tony katz he's a tea party organizer and a radio talk show host all right gentlemen cross talk rules and if i mean you can

jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it tony in los angeles you got up early as for this program so i'm going to go to you first why why has the middle class been suffering so much over the decades is it government policies that have done this to the middle class or is the middle class itself it's changed its values its structure and this is just the way of capitalism it's just a way it works that's there's been a myth about the middle class for a century and it's just something that's changing. first of all it's good to be here and let's not engage a conversation where we're blaming capitalism capitalism is not the problem capitalism is what allows people to thrive and survive and grow and allows for opportunities i'm never going to allow anybody here anywhere else to have an attack on the open markets and free markets that just that's just for hardy nonsense but i think there are interesting conversations as to what are the forces at play and that are making making a living difficult right now how do you change those forces those are conversations

about taxation those are conversations about what it is that a society needs to offer what it is that government is supposed to do for us as opposed to do to us those are the real conversations i don't even think that they're political i don't even think they're right left or or or anything like that they're about what are the constraints of government what are good tax policies government policies that allow people to thrive and survive i think that one should gauge those conversations here but do you mean on the left is an earlier survey living nonetheless i think we would all agree on this program in our view my viewers too is the middle class has taken a real clobbering over the last thirty years and particularly since the advent of the financial crisis in two thousand a david if i can go to you the fate of the middle class i mean it just gets worse and worse and worse and i will part company with tony i think it has something to do with capitalism i think it is an important conversation david go ahead in chicago. well i mean i certainly think so too but yes the middle class has really taken a hit as joseph stiglitz nobel laureate in economics remarked

a few months ago we can no longer pretend it isn't true the upper one percent now owns forty percent of all the wealth now takes home twenty five percent of all the income the average income the median income in the united states household income is fifty thousand dollars right. there four hundred billionaires in the united states if you get a five percent return on your on your billion you know you get fifty million a year doing nothing. you know a million times more thousand has more. but the root cause of this i think really does go back it's not something that's just come about because of the financial crisis it really goes back to the mid seventy's a striking thing when you look at the data is that household incomes have been rising steadily through till about one nine hundred seventy five and they have flat lined since for the middle class this would seem to create a problem because if people aren't making more money you know yet more and more

stuff is being produced how come the economy hasn't been in crisis since then and i think we know the answer the answer is people have been borrowing the money in effect the wealthy capital is classes instead of raising wages regularly let's say you can buy our products will loan you the money so you've got this massive debt that finally exploded finally gave us the melt down but even then what i think the root cause goes back to something earlier than that the new technologies that were coming online that made it possible to offshore production to set up factories abroad so that you do get around the globe global wage competition which is you know if anything is david it's interesting i mean with the things that tony said and what you've just said and i'd like to go to green right now in new york it should we even speak in terms of in terms of the middle class anymore i mean

because of the technological changes and because of the way the economy is involved in this the financial ization of the economy is a very good point to the credit. crunch that that was just mentioned here i mean it has the middle we should be keep using this term should we be using a different term because middle these people are not in the middle anymore they're in the single digits at one end. yes the middle is interesting so you didn't really go into your list there had no going to new york first yes yes in fact it's very clear that fifty years ago the western countries where the civilization of middle class middle class nurses technicians engineers and the sky and of of associate proficient all those where as a center also says we does ation of western countries in europe in the us to the problem of heights now is that we have a shrinking middle class and the kind of explosion of middle class in two parts

a low well middle class that is sinking and on the middle class of professionals increasing in incomes in impact in political command of society and we are not we are no more able to to to to to to create the new dynamics of middle class the problem is not simply technology it's a problem is that investment technology called these investment new businesses and you knew from is more in the market in china in india in buzz euna and inertia r. and service in less in the western countries and zoo loo where we don't class the western countries are completely sin king they are first hated they face political problems and difficulties and seats we are a problem for there were crises in most with the i want if you want to call i want to do what it was for us evidence in the second half of the problem david you look

a little perplexed if you want to jump in there yeah well there's two things first of all the middle class is dissolving but it's not that fifty percent are going down and fifty percent are going up no it's about eighty to ninety percent you know are seeing their incomes stagnate or go down in the upper twenty ten and above all the upper one or two percent you know are doing well but the other thing there is this political dimension of the. it's not just technology there was also the polish move to advocate to push for free trade to dismantle any kind of protectionism so that our workers had to compete with workers everywhere else in the world this was a political decision that was unable to buy the new technologies that now made it profitable for companies here to do all this outsourcing of moving their factories and so on ok tony if i can go to you the most important and greatest export of united states is jobs apparently and that's destroying the middle class whose fault is that ok is it just technology you know you know snooze you lose or is it on more

people with capital saying it sees will can make easier money in the bric countries for example is it a political decision. again we will not be attacking capitalism or the open market around but if we can being gauge in the side. of your intended ology god god god god forbid we should have the automobile we can just go back to the horse and buggy wouldn't we be all better off it's like dan rather saying that there should be protections in the us house of representatives amongst the federal government i should say for newspapers because newspapers somehow need our protection technology is a good thing advances are a good thing sometimes things fall by the wayside new things you hear tony is that there's a middle class family on not just the middle class even if for a moment because rich people benefit from these you know they do but just the middle class the conversation about jobs in america for example isn't so much a conversation about technology take a look at fracking technology take

a look at what we can do to get the natural gas right from underneath our feet but we don't seem to do it it's a conversation about regulation in america that keeps things from growing and thriving and prospering so there's a great i'm going to talk about. an affair of all of us if we don't take it david jump in your hands on the technology go ahead david yeah i mean tony mentioned the automobile now that was an interesting technology but what was peculiar about the automobile technology is that it was a technology that generated far more jobs than it replaced ok yes the horse and buggy industry took a hit but you got automobile factories you got gas stations you got auto parts the new technologies that was an historical accident the new technologies may be wonderful but they do not magically generate anything like the number of jobs that they are every placed and in fact the newest technologies the big one to hire is the. hospital to shut off sure sure those jobs ok larry and we're

going to know when they come and the new york i want to go back to new york chance please you know we have to have a fair time here and we did you see you see. what we call the middle class in the west recovering i mean what's going to take two for the west for the middle class to regain what it's lost over the last three or four decades. in trying to he gains indeed status fails to question is the effects of work it's a problem in many countries notably in though your poor western europe and countries of two strong welfare states is that so work the basics of work is disappearing but it's not simply that it's also investment in new businesses investment in and here universities and formations the development of a new intermediate professional class such as does it is that has been disappearing over the last thirty years so the problem is that fifty years ago all associates proficient old professionals who are away or kind of will power of the west of

western countries the problem now is we have more of them are kind of not could only but to so on contrary is in front of the economic poor technological poor and poor of china and of is to own asia our problems is that we are focused turn in investment and the problem with investment is that it's not simply capitalism or big governments that are able to to to to do with anything so polemic over the last thirty years is that both the big governments and both capitalism have forgotten a lot of science and technologies that we need in order to create a new middle class if it is ation that is disappearing quite a know all right interesting point gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that meet our break we'll continue our discussion and downward mobility of the middle class stay with r.t.

. if you. want to.

i shall be soon which bright. sun from stupid question. please please don't talk t. don't come. and. welcome back to crossfire people about remind you we're talking about the prospects of the middle class.

ok david i want to go to you in chicago i mean we've mentioned before we went to the break when he didn't say it exactly but he was talking about what people say the politics of dependency and how the state has made the middle class dependent and because of the the rise and maybe we see it we're seeing the fall of the welfare state do you think that's a mitigating factor in the fate of the middle class because no no i mean i think we had to go ahead and think so go ahead that that makes that make it makes no sense in the i don't see how anyone can blame the fact that there's people on welfare that's not what is responsible for the fact that we're the jobs are the number of jobs are less and less available more and more people are losing their jobs it has nothing to do with a cultural defense dependency it has everything to do with the fact that the invisible hand of the market given a free rein will not create enough jobs in a very curious way marx is coming back marx remember predicted that when wages go

up the capitalist will replace skilled workers by. machines this will generate unemployment ok mark so you can reserve army to. push downward pressure just not. yet ours and worse a fuse with a fuse went off and. sure there is your head let's make sure let's make sure that we're all all talking about a couple things karl marx was a first rate hack communism sucks so let's never engage the idea that karl marx is someone we should look up to second of all it is a thrill to hear people say and recognize that the eight point three percent unemployment numbers in america are false because when you don't include one point two million people on the rolls you can't say that the number has gone down number three it is capitalism in the open market that creates jobs and opportunities allows people to grow thrive and survive yet can't say and you can't sit there and pretend that you're in any way.