joseph p morning was a bit up set about an article he had seen in today's "new york times" home section telling the construction at mitt romney's la jolla home and what mr. morning felt was an unfair attempt to smear mr. romney as rich, an elitist, out of touch. >> did "the new york times" ever dispatch reporters to john kerry's homesment because john kerry is worth a lot more money, obviously, than mitt romney. >> if you or anybody else out there can show me this type of spread from four-- from eight years ago on john kerry and his massive accumulations, and on teresa heinz kerry. >> jon: wow. well, i guess if "the new york times" did do something like that it would totally take the wind out of this man's complaint. is there a way to find out. it's a live television show. everybody is working-- what's that be, willie geist, the guy next to mr. scarborough and has access to the internet. >> i have piece for you.

>> okay. >> from october 10th, 2004, in "the new york times" that talks about how the perception of john kerry's elitism, the couple have an 18 century town house, a kitchen two stories high, an 88 acre pittsburgh area estate, private gulf stream jet n winter he goes helicopter skiing while staying at his wife's idaho retreat, a 15th century farmhouse transported from england and reassembled on the banks of the big wood river. (laughter) >> jon: he also had 15th century serf cloned and reanimated by scientistsment but so what, so the latte leftist of the times once buried a kerry elitism story on page-- a1 of the popular sunday edition just four weeks before the national election. how does that match up to the romney story in "the new york times" famed home section? known throughout the world as "the new york times" has a home section? (laughter)

but that's not the point. was's the point again? >> its proportionality. it's all about proportionality. if it were "the national enquirer", and they were doing this to both candidates i wouldn't say a word. i would say you know what, fair game. >> jon: fair game. it's about fair game. fair game is a big issue. that the media seems to be talking about, about whether or not it's fair game for other people to be talking about these big issues. >> now this battle over bain, what is fair game. >> tax on mitt romney the businessman and whether or not that is in fact fair game. >> is that fair game and a successful strategy for the democrats to use romney's business record against him. >> jon: is it fair to judge job applicant its on prior work experience? (laughter) it says here, it says here-- (cheers and applause) >> jon: let me see. it says here you have no

experience in cardiovascular surgery and are you not even a doctor but in the spirit of fairness-- (laughter) >> welcome aboard, new chief of sujry. now go scrup up! them heart valves ain't going to replace themselves! and the media is not just concerned about the fairness of that issue. it's every issue. >> the president's decision to launch the raid to kill osama bin laden. >> was that fair game. >> religion and the race for 2012, what's fair, what's out of bounds? >> are you fair game if you come out and criticize the president? >> is it fair game to attack him with the most vitriolic type of names. >> the issue of motherhood, is it fair game. >> jon: should our flag have 50 stars when some country's flags only have ten? (laughter) but while the fairness of a variety of political tactics would seem to just almost purely in the realm of the subjective, there are time worn meths the news media

has to adjudicate these matters. for instance in your attack, what is the motivation. >> there is a difference between attacking a rom know's record as fair game and attacking mitt romney's record in terms of political gain. >> thank you. you may attack him, that's fair gamement but not if it's for political gain. you may attack a politician's record if you are trying to make yourself look like a big man at your high school reunion. (laughter) fair game. you can attack a politician's record because you are unsure if that politician-- tear ducts are clogged and you want to see him weep, fair game. but you may not attack a politician if you are looking to just stop him from beating you in an election. (laughter) not fair game. and if you are attacking him after giving him a half hour head start in a jungle compound, that is the most dangerous game of all. (laughter)

i never should have read hunger games. of course-- (applause) motivation is not the only parameter for attack. political fairness also mandates that you can only look so far back in a candidate's history. >> was's fair game. high school has always been this line, right, what's fair game here. >> do you think it is a question that is worth asking? in other words, show the birth certificate or do you think that's out of bounds. >> saying that mitt romney's family comes from a polygamist come mune in mexico s that fair game? i mean is that fair to talk about. >> i mean, mitt romney's great, great, great-- i mean many great grandparents were evicted from their home for nudity and grand theft apple, is that fair game? (laughter) there's got to be a more attractive picture of the two of them. if only the news networks had access to experts with a

selfless interest if discerning the fairness of various campaign tactics. >> is it fair game, i mean putting-- putting the killing of bin laden in a political ad and taking the additional step of suggesting mitt romney would not have given the kill order? >> absolutely not. >> that's fair game. (laughter) >> jon: what do we do now? i'm beginning to think this whole media is it fair conversation is a time-killing circle jerk. but that would be a disservice to circle jerk, because even circle jerk end with some kind of tangible conclusion. (laughter) oh, what if instead of asking if politicians attacks are fair, maybe you could find out if they are true or accurate or relevant, unless you've got some sort of scientific empirical way

of calculating the fairness of something that i am unaware of. >> text your answer to 36288 type sr 1 for fair game, sr 2 for dirty politics. >> jon: texting! no better way to solve politics than with the same method we use to distribute pictures of our genitals. (laughter) we'll be right back.

(cheers and applause) >> jon: welcome back. i'm sorry, i'm still adjusting to life under mayor bloomberg's newed soal-- soda restrictions. (laughter) i think this is less than 16 ounces, probably the smaller size, better safe than sorry. what else has been going on in new york? >> new york governor andrew cuomo just unveiled a plan

to decriminalize marijuana, meaning anyone quote with the small amount of the drug wouldn't be charged with a crime. new york city's mayor and police commissioner are on board with this new plan. (cheers and applause) >> jon: all right. two things here. first, awesome. and second, and second, what the what? what the who? so mellow yellow, no. mellow yellow, yes. (laughter) criminalizing soft drinks and decriminalizing soft drugs t this brings to us our nug segment jon stewart tries to figure out what he is going to put in his mouth. reallying that is how we are going to tight they will? just out of curiosity, and i'm only asking for a friend f this bill does pass, how much marijuana would someone now be allowed to carry around? >> under cuomo's plan having 25 grams of pot in public would only be a violation, not a misdemeanor.

>> jon: lolly-- 25 grams? do you have any idea how much that is? seriously, does anyone have any idea because i don't-- i haven't-- i don't use the metric system. i haven't since-- since 5th grade. i mean i know a gram is pretty small, so what are we talking becomes like you get to carry around a sudafed worth of pot, enough to get a mouse high, like what-- how much is 25-- oh, let me get my big book of useless metric conversion information out because it weighs exactly 25 grams. wow. that is a lot of pot. it's pretty heavy. in fact, 25 grams is nearly-- oh o an ounce of weed. that's 8/8th of weed or depending on your dealer 9/8th. how would someone who knows very little about pot describe that amount. >> being able to just walk around with 10 joints in each ear and it only be a violation i think that's--

(laughter) >> jon: 10 ear joints in each ear? first of all, that's ridiculous. i don't know if is there anyone in the history of the world with big enough ears an enough experience with pot to actually be able to do-- oh yeah, okay, that-- all right. he has got to crack down on those photos from high school. but all due respect to state senator fran narkington here, i'm not taking his word on how many joints 25 grams is. you foe what i bought an ounce of pot awhile ago when i was younger, i think i might have stashed it in one of my lp record albums. hold on. let me sort through here, i have got led zeppelin, peter frampton, captain and ten ill, another captain and ten ill in case that captain and ten il scratched. i got bread, cream, peat loaf, hot chocolate, vanilla fudge, never buy lps when are you hungry.

here we go. let me see. it's-- i kept it in my dark side of the moon, here it is, yeah, it's-- yeah, that's about right, that's-- oh [bleep] that's a lot of weed. it's like willie nelson breakfast burrito right here. that's just like a-- (applause) now if this bill passes, let me make this clear. if this bill passes and you get caught with all this, you get $100 fine. meanwhile, if a business shells-- sells you a soda, that size that is a $200 fine. so just to be clear, this soda is twice as illegal-- (laughter) >> as this much weed. (cheers and applause) you know what?

and you know, here's the sad thing. they go together so well. (laughter) i think you are gaeing to need a system to know how to manage the criminalized drugs and criminalized snack. and how much of them you can have. like a new weight watchers point system. so we're clear on which combinations of which will keep us out of jail like a smack and snack calculator if you will. you could get 15 points a day so if you felt like smoking two joints, you could wash it down with a 7 point snack like a slim jim. boom. that is your 15 points for the day. are you going out dancing, i don't think anyone does that without two hits of ecstasy so-- oh looks like din certificate only one fun on. i know what you are thinking, but john, but john what if tv land is running a gilligan island marathon.

you can dip into your flex point os. we're not [bleep]. get yourself three ounces of weed, a couple of big macs, fribbles and have a blast. just know are you in for a month of cottage cheese and sobriety. (laughter) we'll be right back

by guest tonight, my guest tonight he was a partner at bain capital from 1993 to 2007. nis new book called unintended consequences, why everything you have been told about the economy is wrongment please welcome to the show edward conard, sir it (applause) too prepared and then a mispronounced your name, it's conard. unintended consequences.

>> yes. >> jon: you, the book argues that income inequality which in my summation our country we are approaching, you know, countries that have like kidnapping-based economies in that sort of income inequalitiment but you argue it is not necessarily a bad thing, that risk is not what brought down our economy from the banks. and i guess my question to you about the premise of the book is huh? what-- explain to me, because listen, you have the experience in this. why is what i think about the economy wrong? help me here. >> well, let's talk about income inequality to start. i think if you think the economy hasn't changed much over the last 40 years you look at income inequality and say it's rising what is going on. are they manipulating the system. why are the rippest people getting more money. but think about the economy of the 1950s, manufacturing cars and other mass marketing goods. it's big companies. general motors, exxon,

individuals don't matter much in that economy. individual tax rates didn't matter much in that economy. today 13 people can create a billion dollars in value in two years, it is a much richer set of investment opportunities. >> jon: but one is more sustainable, is it not? in 509s and 60s you say people didn't matter much. but that was the rise of the middle class in this country. >> i think was a more stable economy. i would agree with that but it slowed to a crawl. we transitioned to a service economy, it slowed to a crawl. germany and japan are growing at very slow growth rates. >> jon: so why would it be helpful to transfer to a boom and bust economy. isn't that also fraught with peril. >> nobody wants to transition to a boom and bust but i think that we've been given an incredible opportunity that with the commercialization of the internet, we've opened up a window of investment opportunities. it takes alot of risk and equity to underwrite the risk and tall tont harvest the opportunities. but the u.s. alone has created google, facebook, intel, microsoft, apple, ebay the list goes on and

on. >> jon: so is your position that the risk and reward for the investor class is not great enough. >> well, it's pretty-- pretty nice way but i would say this, if we-- i believe that we have more risk-taking it in the u.s. that produces the innovation and the growth rate because the payoffs are better here. now the payoffs are better for lots of reasons. our guys are working at google and facebook. >> jon: what dow mean by risk thenment because i guess i might have a different view here it looks to me like the investor class is coddled and the working class is not necessarily penalized but certainly ignored to the benefit with the idea that the investor class is gain's will i guess the term is trickle down. >> that would be my thought on it. >> tell me why that's wrong. >> first of all i would say the trickle down is something you learned in the

6th grade to make you a democrat, right? even -- >> it was something reagan taught me, wasn't that his idea. >> in "the new york times" piece which called my book perhaps the most hated book of the year, dean baker a liberal economist agreed that the ratio is five to one in favor of noninvestors so you can call that trickle down. i argued if the book it could be as high as 20 to 1 but i use the number to make the calculations that i make in the book because they are very -- >> i only mean it in the cents if capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than income gains. >> yes, we are. but i would say this, if you make a comparison to the u.s. in europe and japan what you find is the most talented people in the u.s. are earning and producing way more than their counterparts in europe and japan. and at the very worst, and i think you really have to look at the data in a skewed way. at the worse the middle class in the u.s. is about the same as europe and japan. if you really dig into the data which i do in the book, i think you make the argument that they are substantially better off in europe and japan. >> but we're not talking about europe and japan.

we're obviously talking about america. and in america, the middle class has, their income has not grown to the same proportion as that very rich investor class. and i think i take issue with the idea that they are facing risk because it strikes me like the example of let's say the guy at lehman, the company went brupted and he walked away with, and i am not obviously an economist, i think the word is a [bleep] load of money. so what is the risk that, you work at bain capital. you guys have done some nice things. even companies that you took over that went bankrupt you still got paid. you still got your service fee. you still got your bid. so what risk are these bankers taking. it seems to me the real ris something the guy who works in a coal mine his whole life suffers from a debilitating health disease puts his hard-earned money into a pension fund that some guy on wall street

decides to gamble with on securitization, loses it, he goes bust and that guy walks away with tens of millions of dollars. so how does that-- (cheers and applause) >> jon: how does tha that-- appropriate? >> i'm not quite clear sure where to start because there's a lot of questions embedded in that question. >> jon: let me ask you this. is it all wrong? am i completely off the mark here? >> i think that you have spun it in a way that glosses over very important issues, yeah. >> that will be hard to explain in-- . >> jon: okay, all right, that's fair. let's do this. do you have some time. >> sure, i will stay here all night. >> jon: because i don't want to demagogue it, and that was slightly demagogue although i will say this, i don't think that is spin. i think that's real. >> i think it's very important. you can hear the audience f you don't explain this, you haven't explained. >> jon: go to commercial, we'll come back. we'll explain. you can explain the whole thing and we'll break down what about that is

misrepresented. >> sure. >> jon: and that will give you a chance, all right. unintended consequences, is on the book shelves now. he can going to explain. >> burn this book. >> jon: no, don't burn this book. edward conard, we'll be riri do you see it ? there it is ! there it is ! where ? where ? it's getting away ! where is it ? it's gone. we'll find it. any day can be an adventure. that's why we got a subaru. love wherever the road takes you. wow, there it is.

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>> jon: here it is, your moment of zen. >> standards which send senator obama laid out or the standards expressed captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> tosh.0 features videos from the internet. we discourage anyone from attempting these. enjoy! [laughter]