as the u.s. government continues to borrow money to pay its bills the debt has topped sixteen trillion dollars but now one economist says our debt is so bad a civilization may not survive the so-called death spiral is that really the case will question more. and it's one of the dangers of living on the west coast earthquakes for years there's been predictions of the big one so how would the region handle of massive quake archie looks into the issue coming up. and day forty eight of a hunger strike at guantanamo bay and counting the detainees are refusing to eat over conditions at the facility today will ask why the mainstream media is virtually ignoring the hunger strike. it's monday march twenty fifth eight pm in washington d.c.

i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . a death spiral that could in civilization as we know it those harsh words were used by former world bank khana mr richard duncan to describe the path that the u.s. economy could take if major changes don't happen and fast here's what he said recently on c.m.t. see if they don't prevent the credit supply from contracting then we will have a new depression so the policy is to ensure the credit continues to expand and now that's what government debt is doing increasing government is making total debt grow otherwise we would have already collapsed into a deflation death spiral and duncan isn't alone in his fears experts including former reagan administration economist laurence kotlikoff and dr kirk moore's agree and yet little is being done to reverse this trend let alone address it in the first place to help me get to the root of the problem and offer some possible solutions i was joined earlier by peter schiff he's the c.e.o. of euro pacific capital incorporated i began by asking him if calling for the

federal debt a debt spiral is accurate or if it's just an exaggeration well i don't think he's exaggerating you know for years i think i was more bearish dinner richard duncan maybe he's trying to get out bearish me at this point but you know we are definitely headed for a real economic crisis in the united states what happened in two thousand and eight was just the opening act of meeting their main event is still coming in the debt is every you know every much a part of it you know how it's going to be unwound it's going to be a currency crisis for the dollar collapses because we print all this money because we don't want to default and we can't pay or will be some kind of combination of inflation and default but either way the chickens are going to come home the u.s. is going to be held accountable for trillions of dollars that we've borrowed and spent and we are simply unable to pay it back and we've created an economy a phony economy that is completely dependent on the ability to keep borrowing more money that we can't pay back now you did say that part of the problem is our debt

isn't really the debt or the persistent unemployment that's the root of our economic woes at this point. well one of the reasons that we have so much debt is because we have a lot of unemployed people and of course we have a lot of people who are employed in non productive ways and that's also part of the problem that's why we have such a large trade deficit but a lot of this is the fault of the central government the federal government the federal reserve that are micromanaging our economy from washington and the whole thing is screwed up there are they are focusing our resources where they shouldn't be whether it's housing education healthcare banking retail and those resources are being diverted from where they need to be so we have this phony economy that can create productive jobs that is dependent on the fed printing i'm borrowing on trade deficits but we can't do this forever and the longer we do it the bigger disaster when it ends but here

a side of the last forty six forty six the last fifty years excuse me on our country has been in this kind of budget deficit and we haven't gotten caught in a death spiral so why now what is really getting at this problem. well not yet but it's the enormity of the problem it starts off as a small problem it's like you know you can you can get cancer but you don't die right away you have to wait until the disease grows to the point that it kills you and you know our debt was a cancer but it's taken a long time for the disease to progress and i guess it's not fatal at this very second but you know we're really close to it if you look at the size of the debt you know the government is forecasting that interest payments on the national debt in two thousand and thirteen are going to be two hundred twenty eight billion the last time we had an interest rate buildout low ronald reagan was the president and the debt the national debt was two trillion something so what's keeping and o.e. is the fed if we had to pay

a real rate of interest on our debt right now there is no way we could afford it i've also heard of the economy being described as a harem and scheme that could potentially escalate to a point where we can't recover but let's take a look at what's going on in cyprus right now this little island nation's banks were eight times the size of the country's entire economy and they imploded the country was forced to turn to the european central bank to beg for money at whatever cost the demanded and that was a ten billion dollar deal that was actually just reached pretty recently and it cost the citizens quite a bit and this tiny nation is making a huge impact on the global economy particularly in the u.s. so let me play you a quick clip this is how the media protégé portrayed this event. baby i think this story has been out of sight for us to impact you but you want to think you get it how can a small island nation off the coast of greece how can tiny cyprus with just over a million people be rocking the economic world protesters gathered outside the

european union office in cyprus demanding help from its neighbor this is a tiny tiny country turning but huge potentially global ramifications of reverberates throughout the economy so it's a massive problem and yet no one even knows where cyprus is in the u.s. take a look at this. do you know where cyprus is you know where no. country. be to. people with no no doubt whatsoever that is by. jerusalem i mean days from now that's a very difficult for somebody who came from europe. i do not. mean brazil. so i think it's south america cyprus is a very large minutes or a mediterranean island just off the west coast of turkey. so that

a lot of don't know where it is and yet it's having a huge impact and as i mentioned they're seizing some thirty percent of the people's our assets the bank assets are over one hundred thousand dollars can something right back happen here where the government fees are a savings accounts. well first of all you know it's not fair to ask americans geography question than a lot of americans can't even find the united states on a on a map let alone cyprus but you know a lot of americans didn't know where greece was either and you know it sounds a lot like what we've said about the subprime mortgages you know it's a tiny little problem why should we care you know the problem is huge just because it's happening first you know cyprus is the tip of a very big iceberg when it comes to banks because you know we have the posit insurance in america just like cyprus and one thing we have in common is if our major banks failed if the two largest banks in america were to fail bank of america and citigroup there's over two trillion dollars in deposits there and the federal debt the i.c.

has about twenty five billion dollars that's it and of course it's all in u.s. treasuries so if large banks were to fail in america you know depositors are going to take losses too and of course what everybody forgets is american depositors already suffering at the plaza tax is called quantitative easing zero percent interest rates is a way the government confiscates the interest that you would ordinarily earn on your bank account and because quantitative easing means that there's inflation it means prices go up we're paying a very severe deposit tax everywhere in the united states unfortunately i think it's going to get much larger as the years go on all interesting points peter schiff that's why we turn to you for r. and allison a c.e.o. of a hero pacific capital peter schiff and speaking of doomsday scenarios it's described as the perfect collision of seismic events that kills tens of thousands of people and wipes away entire towns and a massive earthquake hitting the west coast seismic researchers say that that fear

could become an american reality and the not too distant future and is telling the government to prepare for the worst arctic correspondent ramon galindo reports. emergency personnel crushed under their desk as a huge aftershock hit the los angeles area this time it's just a drill the simulated seven point eight magnitude earthquake gives first responders a chance to prepare for the big one an earthquake researchers get to test an early warning system before the real thing happens after a magnitude seven point eight earthquake we're going to have of course a lot of problems are given he manages the office of earthquake programs at the california institute of technology she explains what the simulated quake would look like in reality we're looking at about three hundred thousand buildings being damaged we're looking at one thousand nine hundred deaths we're looking at fifty thousand injuries that need hospitalization water and electricity service could be

up for weeks a catastrophic earthquake is deemed inevitable in southern california and would be much worse than the six point seven magnitude northridge quake which killed dozens of people new research shows the seven driscoll which runs through california may be at risk for a mega quake which could shake the entire state very quick. very quickly the early warning system being developed would give people a few seconds notice before the shaking reaches them elevator doors can open so people aren't trapped inside you can shut down caustic material so they don't become a secondary hazard you can turn off if you're cooking at your stove you can turn off the gas here in california emergency personnel have learned many lessons from the japanese earthquake of twenty eleven you can see there are tsunami caution signs up and down the california coastline but despite all these warnings it seems like many people on the west coast are still unprepared for the next big one. building have

a big gala next to my bed and it's gone but i should probably get another one just in case native chris white as another plant i would just. i'll be just for a minute you know just sit down pray. hopefully my chickens will be with me i will have a girl so we go together at the same time you know los angeles firefighter larry collins responded to the quakes in japan and haiti he's not surprised at the easygoing attitude of people living in an earthquake zone we know that the human condition that a lot of people will bet that i know things could be bad could happen but i'm betting it's not going to happen to me california lawmakers have proposed an early warning system which would cost eighty million dollars that's much cheaper than the three hundred million dollar warning system in japan but at a time of tight budgets the state acknowledges they don't know where the money would come from all the government totally funded their early morning there they also have magnitude sixes and sevens and eight on a regular basis and so the need for that was that the government then totally

funded that that system celtic says they are still a couple of years away from making their quake warning system fully functioning they just hope the next killer quake won't hit before then and. in los angeles. for more on the imminent dangers this predicted earthquake could cause our to correspondent ramon galindo joined me earlier i asked him whether california was prepared for the big one when it comes to the us california is considered to be the most ready for an earthquake but when you take a closer look and the things that scientists and engineers also are taking a look at california much like the rest of the west coast is woefully unprepared now here in this day we have some tough this building restrictions ever engineers point out that something like eighty percent of the buildings were built even before these earthquakes and theirs were put into effect so we still have the potential of thousands of buildings just crumbling during an earthquake and the

infrastructure underneath the ground is what you're not thinking about pipes that are over one hundred years old likely bursting not just water pipes but also gas pipes as well and ramon you did just say that there are woefully unprepared are there any reason examples that show that infrastructure on the west coast is not ready for an earthquake or a tsunami. absolutely well when we when we talk about infrastructure in two in two thousand and eleven there was a massive blackout which affected four million people here on the west coast and this was this was not even during an earthquake you know people were stuck in elevators this was there was one hundred degree heat where people didn't have air conditioning or water people were stuck on rides at sea world so this was not even during an earthquake during an earthquake there would likely be tons of fires but a simple event like this prove that. even without a disaster the infrastructure here in southern california is woefully and it was

still not up to date and a room and i know that there are several nuclear power plants i'll long the coast of california and other places let's talk about the san onofre nuclear power plant and its running s two to withstand an earthquake is it prepared. well that's right this i don't overplan lies have a between los angeles and san diego now that plant was built for more than four decades ago and they also cater to that six point five earthquake would hit the area so it's designed to withstand a seven point five earthquake now if you take a look at the japanese earthquake which damaged the fukushima plant now there was an eight point nine now scientists here are predicting a mag magnitude quake of that size here in california but that hasn't let you know that has really calm the nerves there especially when you look at the fact that there are more discoveries when it comes to faults in earthquakes every single year just two years ago scientists discovered fifty more earthquake faults just here in california and there's new research that shows that

a mega quake could stretch all the way from l.a. to san francisco so despite the fact that a tsunami of that size is not prognosticated for the southern california area still a lot of worries whether or not the plant will be able to withstand such a powerful jolt quite a scary notion remonde thank you so much for bringing us that story r.t. correspondent rym angelino in our l.a. studio. well when the u.s. was considering entering iraq back in two thousand and three almost every major publication took the bush administration at its word when it claimed that saddam hussein's possessions of w m d's was a slam dunk but there was no weapons of mass destruction in fact and the majority of the media never really apologize for failing to verify what the bush administration asserted as fact last week to ten year anniversary of the iraq war on the ten year anniversary of the iraq war the washington post commission author greg mitchell to write an article about the apologies that have come out but wa po might have bitten off more than it could chew in his research mitchell our

mitchell's article focused on the roles numerous media outlets played in the iraq war including an analysis of the part that the washington post itself played in propping it up and it said quote unlike the new york times with the washington post editors three months later did not produce their own explanation but allowed chief media reporter howard kurtz to write a lengthy critique editors and reporters admitted that they had often performed poorly but offered one excuse after another that article is pulled from publication a decision that has earned the paper a lot of criticism and also speculation as to some of the nefarious reasons for nixon in the piece but the washington post's outlook at or carlos lo saga claims that the reason he held the article wasn't a result of the criticism his paper suffered in the article in a statement he wrote the huffington post he said quote the notion that we were somehow seeking to protect the post or the media at large by not running mr mitchel's piece is misinformed we were well aware of his critical perspectives on

the media's role in the iraq war given his book and frequent writings on the subject so if the paper was already aware of mr mitchell's perspective why then did it commission the op ed in the first place just some food for thought this monday night. to cuba now where the united states southern command is asking the government for forty nine million dollars to construct another prison building in the guantanamo bay detention facility for so-called special detainees that's on top of the money officials are already asking for for renovations to the facility bringing the overall requested budget to one hundred ninety five point seven million dollars meanwhile the guantanamo bay hunger strike is entering its seventh week with no end in sight a reported one hundred thirty one million in excuse me for reported one hundred thirty one inmates are refusing food until get more official agree to end searches and seizures of the detainees personal belongings although facility officials claim that the true number of hunger strike participants is closer to twenty six but the

inmates cries for better treatment could be falling on deaf ears or to correspondent marina porton shows us how little attention this story is actually earning from the media in the world of twenty four hour news no country knows the power of media better than the us are the ways it's been ten years since the shock and awe campaign that launched the iraq war i believe we could have removed saddam hussein in another way that would not have been so damaging to an ark i mean a man had to go ten years later the killing continues in iraq without also continuing without end the mass hunger strike at the guantanamo bay detention center but that topic remains off the radar of mainstream news and hidden from the american public know i didn't know to know i had no idea you know really according to the center for constitutional rights one hundred thirty guantanamo prisoners began a life threatening hunger strike nearly seven weeks ago to protest treatment and

conditions at the island prison a prison america's president promised would be closed at the start of twenty ten do you think that that's a topic that should be reported about by u.s. media yeah i think so. because they are being kept. imprisoned by the us it's only fair that they get their views expressed that's what the whole country's built on the freedom of information to do that i mean i just think it's the right thing to do time square is otherwise known as the mecca of media messages millions walk through here on a daily basis flooded with information through news tickers plasma screens and advertisements but as we've learned even the most important stories can be ignored that nobody else is talking about the subject if this were happening in russia if people had disappeared into a legal black hole in russia and were facing indefinite incarceration without trial without charge and without access of attorneys we'd never hear the

end of it the western media would be full of it human rights watch honest international they'd be screaming from the rooftops of westminster behind me but because this is an american crime because it's an american crime they are allowed to get away with it because the people who control the so-called mainstream media are fully on side with the agenda of the obama administration top u.s. general is now calling for hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the u.s. detention facility when c.n.n. finally turned its focus to get them out the so-called worldwide leader in news ignored the hunger strike is there anything wrong with trying to improve it fix it spend a few hundred million dollars to get it ready for maybe a new generation of terrorists instead focusing on the money being requested to update the facility where one hundred sixty six detainees are still languishing you know that more than half of the teeth he needs at guantanamo have been cleared for

release are you serious. you know i didn't i had no idea that. i did not. have more than one hundred prisoners reportedly could give you their hunger. trike the u.s. military continues to dispute the figures however when r.t. first broke the story on march twelfth u.s. officials were denying that a strike was even taking place as you recall they started off by saying no one's on a hunger strike just the five or six people who have been in a hunger strike for many years you know then that figure was revised up to fourteen and now we're seeing the figure steadily increasing but nowhere near the extent that the that the prison lawyers are talking about and i think you know hearing about how the lawyers and not being allowed to visit plus this big go between what the lawyers are saying and what the administration is saying is indicative of the administration still trying to clamp down on it they don't want this story and i

think that that means that there is a very big story going on but in the business of broadcast news u.s. networks have to prioritize which big stories deserve the most attention that's right the canadians are using farting to combat smoking nancy grace first of all i want to express my condolences what happened to your necklace of former president bill clinton gets his way actress ashley judd will never be a united states senator marina port art new york well a new report is out this month that breaks down the number of hate crimes people right here in the u.s. experience each year a hate crime is generally described as the victimization of a person for their disability gender sexual orientation race religion or ethnicity and here's what was the discovered by the study between two thousand and seven and two thousand and eleven nearly two hundred sixty thousand people experienced non-fatal hate crimes the number of hate crimes that correspond with religious bias

actually doubled during that time as well now the amount of crimes remained steady over the years but the percentage of cases they reported to the police has actually declined over time take a look at this the percentage of all hate crimes reported to the police went down from forty six percent. from two thousand and three to two thousand and six to thirty five percent from two thousand and seven to two thousand and. and periods the number of violent hate crimes reported also dropped from forty three percent to thirty six percent there are a number of reasons for why this drop is actually happening one reason is that there has been a drop in reporting by people other than the victim itself only a quarter of hate crimes reported are by the victim his or herself meaning that witnesses are instrumental in curbing and recognizing this problem while hate crimes are legally punishable today the fact is that these crimes continue to go unreported and it is a surprise given the legal protections that are available to victims these days

just something to think about the next time you see someone being ridiculed the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people who are being targeted won't report it themselves and your testimony could help them in the end. if you're a casual our t.v. viewer you may have noticed that we can be somewhat tough on the mainstream media but it's the way things are as the media continues to be more interested in the usual party politics and movie star lifestyles but of course it's also a matter of getting what you pay for when you tune in for more on that artie's the president.

the mainstream media is full of crap whether they've been left right forward or backward and today's news outlets all report on the same story with predictable angles and very little substance they either try to come across as intellectuals who are better than everyone else or they're just outright trolling trying to impress the audience into watching or clicking on their stupid story it seems like half of the journalists today with p.d.f. as their main source and the other half don't even bother with citation they just present some slip shot inflammatory opinion the powell together from the corporate memos their papa give them and some blunts they like but what many people don't realize that the media has stopped because of us and we are part of the problem because every time we click on a pseudo news story about bionics day or an incendiary opinion piece from some network talking heads or a post from a blog that never bothers with citations or just cut and paste from anywhere on the

internet like it's a big ball of truth we are complicit in this. not only are we telling the media that we like this crap they're feeding us but we help them accumulate ad dollars from our view and that encourages them to churn out more every time we click on something we're voting for it we are electing crap for our information and i'm sure what's worse is that we share this stuff on facebook or twitter is that we're proud to be kind of stores of crap we're so happy to tweet something snarky with a link to some awfulness from our mainstream media we can't wait to see how clever or informed we are a vice. sharing the media. yes that's right media feeds and that's what we're consuming today if we want the mainstream media to stop pumping that out we can at least let them know by tuning out if no one click on puff pieces on stupid popstars the media is balland to report them well if we show the media with our viewership

and our clips that we like stories with substance and thoughtful perspective they might just start doing homework they might just start. a little less but you're watching hearties so you are ready you know all is right you already question more which is great now it's time to spread the word tell your friends and family by sharing only stories with substance and real citations and facebook and twitter tell them to resist putting on that piece of crap story by a mainstream media outlet because just as every vote counts so does every click tonight let's talk about that following me on twitter at their best. well authorities are telling nudist sent a popular nude beach on the wisconsin river to take a hike at least on the weekdays anyway a nude beach in maso maine wisconsin attracts people who live in the buff from all

over the country but police say that the fund on an end with a little bit of naked splish flashing arrest records show that the riverbed is a hotbed for sexual acts and drugs in a span of nearly nine days in two thousand and eleven twenty six people were arrested by wardens for sex and sixteen people for drugs it was these kinds of antics that have the wisconsin department of natural resources put the brakes on the beach perhaps the real question should be who travels to wisconsin to go to a naked beach for those of you wondering the beach will remain open on the weekends . and that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america if you missed any of our newscasts here a lock you can find everything right there don't forget to click comment and forward our reports to your friends and for the latest information on the stories we cover today and a few that we just didn't have time to get to check out our web site r c dot com slash usa and i want to hear from you follow me on twitter at meghan underscore

lopez and send me your comments and story suggestions my question to twitter followers tonight those j.p. morgan chase deserve the crisis management awarded for navigating its way through the one london well crisis a crisis that many argue it manufactured in the first place for now have a great night and keep watching let me let me use one order let me ask you a point. here on this network it's what we're having a debate we have our night so. relieved to hear this play was expecting there to get here it is where the united states on the mainland we.