>> this is "the chris matthews show." >> ask not what your country can do for you. this wall. [captioning made possible by nbc universal] >> today a special edition, we gather our regulars to look back at the big issues in show's 11 great years. chris: hi, i'm chris matthews and this is a very special show. i've got 17 of our best and greatest of all time for this second part of our last three shows. i want to kick back this discussion to my childhood. my grandparents and most of my family lived in a work class section of north philadelphia. they had all good jobs at nearby manufacturing plants.

it was a good way to live and to make a living. and now those exact same neighborhoods have changed. the manufacturing is gone. there is no job within recent distance and there's very little hope about finding one. here's how the congressional office explains it. the bottom half of america has seen their income grow by 20. who wants to start on this very troubling question? andrea mitchell? >> i think the growing gap is the most profound problem. a certain ome to extent the problems of the 1960's and 1970's where we shouldn't row mant size that too much because of the problem of ce and gender and sexual inequality. but there are two americas as jon edwards famously said but realized in a very different way. that is the problem that even coming out of this recession as

slowly as we are we have to come to grips with. >> the a students are going to make it. but the b student, the c-plus student, you come out of a public school situation today and you've got to compete with the world. >> this is the biggest problem that we have going forward. we were a homogenous middle country by and large. for the 50 years or so after world war ii. and now -- chris: the whites were. >> yeah. but now we're no longer homogenous and there's a good aspect to that in that we have come a truly multiracial country. but there's a bad aspect in that the heart this country is beginning to fracture and panic. unless we figure out a way to find jobs for the vast middle-class of this country, it's going to be really hard to

sustain democracy. plutocrasy. the rich class didn't live so far away from the middle-class. >> you talk about living through sequestors and budget cuts and what do you spend your stimulus money when you have it, it's the education funds that get cut and they cannot get cut. because the key is education and making sure that -- that -- chris: cindy, that's probably why the p and the first lady have been talking this up about the importance of getting a good education. >> but congress does not discuss this problem. i agree. i think it is the most pressing problem the country faces at the moment. congress doesn't discuss it. i'm persuaded that most members of congress don't even understand it.

democrats tend to believe in it but don't really have programs to address it. so while out in the real america, people are struggling with this problem. you get the sense that congress is more or less divorced from the reality -- chris: it's a local thing because in this country education is probably pretty local. >> at the local level people still believe in the possibility of changing their institutions an making the institutions responsive. the dangerous thing we have here is because of the disappearance of the middle-class that you're always talking about, combined with the fact that people don't believe that corporate america or governmental america with a capital g is be trusted. they don't see a way out. they see a conspiracy in corporate america, in big government corporate america by

the middle-class. chris: you can mess around in school, get b's. a lot of us got serious about life. if you come out of a bad situation with a bad education when the time comes to grow up, it's too late. >> i think the real question is when does this become a political force nationally and the expectations so many people who are trying to go get the middle-class because there still is a middle-class in this country or it's perceived to be by lots of people that they are in the middle-class and they want to even more higher. so how does that harnessed? does the anger -- chris: is it the crime statistics? poverty statistics? what gets people aroused? >> that's the question. we're talking about. we see this as a big problem. indeed, it is. but i don't see the politicalization of it. and who is going to lead it and

how are they going to do it to force this system? joe's right -- chris: i was thinking jesse jackson used to talk a lot about education. it's better to send a kid to a good school -- >> the new -- i would submit to you that the big divide now isn't race, gender or religion, it is education. if you've got education beyond high school, if you have upward obility, we talk about the decline of marriage. birthrate hasn't changed much in 50 years. you go on and on. that's the real divide. why don't we talk about it? we've been afraid of class. we talk about race because it elps us to avoid talking about class. >> children under 18 are now children of color if you want to make an investment in education,

what it requires is that people who are on capitol hill, people who are in corporate america need to make investments into young people who don't look like them. in young people who don't share their zip code. chris: you've cut to the heart of it. taxes is another word for race because the oler white people say why should i pay for the public schools, our kids aren't going there anymore. >> you talk about k through 12 education at the lower level. that is huge thing. it's a much bigger thing. the globalization of the labor for anybody toat be middle-class successful you have to compete for high skilled jobs. manufacturing is not going to happen in america to a large extent going forward, right? you're talking about a human capital agenda, it's not just

fixing k through 12, it's about junior colleges and higher education. where does the money come from for that? the question always strikes hard -- it makes me crazy when you hear democrat who is do not want to think about entitlement reform. the only way you're going to help a human fund agenda is have that social economic ability is to find big chunks of money and democrats have not faced up to that. chris: if you look at the most recent presidents, it's amazing the quality of their education. they're almost all hivey leaguers. have america-tocracsy. >> 11 years ago we didn't check our groceries, people didn't drive our trucks. machines are going to do these jobs that are at the lower end now. they will do everything. they'll do your medical procedures. many things are going to be done by machines 11 years from now

that people are doing today. and for those people who are looking for those kinds of jobs with a lower set of skills in many cases those jobs won't be here. that's' what worries me. >> i think one thing we're leaving out of the conversation is the adaptability of the american economy. this is the country that people come from diverse culture, overseas believing that they could make a fortune and so often they do. and that is still an american strength. you know, as i travel the world, i see countrys that can't make that adjustment, that can't adjust to new technologies. >> i've never seen a time where more people in this country felt the system was rigged against them. i agree with what you are saying. chris: are we stratusfied. >> i say that america has opportunities and people feel that -- chris: do you think there's

something stuck in the system -- for the working to upper middle? >> we're a nation of self-starters. i agree that the immigrants are always recharging that restarting and real lism about the global economy. when you talk to people they feel that i haven't seen in a long, long time. that the big powers, big corporations and yes, big government are not on their side. chris: we'll be right back. geoff: i'm the kind of guy who doesn't like being sold to. the last thing i want is to feel like someone is giving me a sales pitch, especially when it comes to my investments. you want a broker you can trust. a lot of guys at the other firms seemed more focused on selling than their clients. that's why i stopped working at my old brokerage and became a financial consultant with charles schwab. avo: what kind of financial consultant are you looking for? talk to us today.

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chris: welcome back. let's continue that conversation. there used be that america was an efficient society and it's not so equitable. we do have vast opportunities to move up the chain.

is it easier to make it at the top than it is in europe? >> it's actually getting easier in europe. my troubling thought is that education could make it worse. we're in a situation where even amongst the educated it's a very small few going to realize the gains and real achievements of the global economy. it's the 1.1%. that's a function of technology and, indeed, educational change and global change. i don't think there is an answer to this. think -- i think there is no answer except maybe wait 30 years. because i don't think education is going to retool america. this is a pressure of winning the cold war. we are living with the consequences of our victory and it is killing us. >> we have had a seismic shift in the western global economy where we have moved away from brawn and we have moved

increasingly to brains. if you are 55 years old and you are working in a factory, the chances of you finding another job in a post manufacturing job are pretty slim. and that's not going to change. with the cost of education in this country being so astronomically high we are going to have fewer and fupper upper class people that are going to be able to afford education. chris: i know you ambitions as a wonderful mother should, do you think of the kids having to compete with the indians, the brazilians? >> sure, they're in college with those kids. absolutely, very smart kids. i wanted to say something about government and the sequestor that gloria mentioned because this is very vivid. when the sequestor came, the across the board budget cuts, congress started screaming because of the delays in planes because of the f.a.a. cuts and

those were restored pretty quickly. but guess what has not been restored, were the cuts on head start. chris: minorities have votes, poor people vo votes. why don't those votes count? why don't they respond to that squeaky well. are they locked into big citys? >> because of gerrymandering. you know, the poor -- i meanings the poor are lock into the congressional black caucus, the congressional hispanic caucus. when you talk about the political gridlock in this country and the difficulty in talking about this very profound issue, you are locked in by two things. gerrymandering and megaphones. you have very big megaphones on the left. chris: i know the president reads you and all because we all

know he reads -- >> he memorizes it. chris: i think he gets it laminated. this question -- it's the big question. think race will be the san anreas fault. you can pick out any clothes you want for men, it's there. you don't have to talk to some tailor. it's done. but for the people working at the textile industry, they have to pay the price. so many things are working for this country where working class people could get a job right out of high school. is globalization good for us? >> living standards are going up. i want to go back. the difficult is we've got these gigantic problems, family breakdown, social seg mentation which are bigger than any party. when you will have a policy,

like head start. head start is not an effective policy. it doesn't produce the results we want it to. >> it doesn't get kids ready for first grade? >> it does -- if i could just finish one point. >> head start does not work. >> right. the point i would make is we've got these gigantic problems and we don't have obvious agendas or solutions to them. so we're trying to fiddle out little things that will cumulative make a difference. >> you know, you david talked about the adaptability and creativity and innovation of america to change. the problem that i see though is with trying to close our borders. we're trying to keep the smart kids from india and brazil out. we let them be educated and go back to their country -- that's the fault line. >> what about the politicians here? can i just say to john's point -- >> that's the immigration debate. >> that's right. but they do not say this is our

priority. let's -- let a politician come out and say let's raise the retirement age a couple of years so maybe with we can pay for some things like education? chris: kelly, do they argue like in on capitol hill? >> there needs to be a lobby for that because the lobbyists have such a force. when they restore the airline spnding that was in part because of the travel industry that came in and said we've got to make those cuts, take those back. one of the things is also a vision of what would be possible hen we talk about changing immigration so you have the high performing students be able to stay. orentrepreneurial city will stay here. i grew up in ohio and there isn't a sense -- chris: why can't we produce those really smart kids we're

trying to keep back from their own countries? >> that's the big question. within the immigration reform conversation one of the real driving forces is a way to bring in high skilled workers. so clearly we have jobs that could elevate that middle-class. but we've got to educate them first. andrew may be right. it may take 30 years. chris: i wish congress were sitting here. what makes a sleep number store different? you walk into a conventional mattress store,

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chris: welcome back for the shorte segment. i wan quick answer. we'veer elect -- we'veer leblinged our first african-american president. has that changed race relations in this country? >> i think it has. you can't always pinpoint the role that it played in policy decision in the way that people react to barack obama. and it's interesting because barack obama will be remembered as america's first black president. but in terms of how we think about race, he introduces a lot of things. he's also urban although he came from hawaii. he is someone who makings us think about identity also not just race. >> the race relations in this country change and so we were able to elect barack obama. when i was a kid it was a binary thing, it was blacks and whites. now we have a whole array of different races who are in play in this country. you see interracial couples of

every imaginable sort. the white right-wing fringe. there's that kind of stupid stuff. are polls show whites more pessimistic. blacks are more optimistic. there's a shift. and we're talking about blue collar whites. there's a class difference and educational difference. chris: has things changed? >> gosh i i think in some way people who were predisposed towards a racial nation are more so. and those people who are probably not so inclined have become more entrenched in what we identify as racial bias. but for the most part i would think that the country has changed in a positive way.

you talk about the french people, the birthers. the good news is they are considered the french people. >> i do think that the virulence of the anti-obama hatred online and in the blog sphere, that fringe is so deeply racially motivated. so i think there still is a really very element. and it spread violently. nonmouse. unanimous >> -- but it's anonymous. >> hate is ugly. >> i think when we look at this 20 years from now when this group gets back together at some point we're going to look back and say -- the president's a marker of a big demographic transformation that is happening in the country. he became president because the country had changed a lot. if it wasn't for the hispanic population, the asian

population, he never would have gotten elected. when the country is majority-minority, the racial attitude in this country will be thoroughly transformed. >> it's multy racial. and it's going from checkers to

chris: that's all for today. this great group is back next week for more as we celebrate our 11 years on the air. see you here next week.

>> hi everyone, welcome to "on the money," i'm maria bartiromo, coming to you from outside the new york stock exchange in a beautiful day. the market hits new highs after calming words from big ben. and earnings season kicks off, more room to run for stocks or trouble ahead, interest rates on the rise, will it slow down the recovery in real estate and is it too late to buy. and i will go for a ride and take my bike and talk bike sharing in the big apple. "on the money" begins right now. >> this is america's number one financial news program. "on the money," now, maria