plus the future of luck. if that sounds intriguing, please, stick around. show starts right now. the area known at zone a in manhattan, in new york city, several neighborhoods are under a mandatory evacuation. >> the wind combined with the rain and with the coastal events will lead to, in the end, the hurricane of our lifetime. >> reporting from nags head, we are still getting battered as the worst is still yet to come. >> pounding the east coast with wind, rain. 20-foot waves and coastal flooding. already storm related deaths and power outages and millions for mountain storm's path. >> we are clearly now getting hammered by irene itself. >> 2 million people were ordered to evacuate in irene's path. more than 700,000 now are without power in virginia alone. >> it's the wind.

it's the rain. it is the high tide. oh -- i just got a good taste of that sand right there. cone e island's finest. >> storm flooding, in new jersey, causing saturated rivers to rise rapidly. >> if you had to put a dollar sign on it right now i think that north carolina and new jersey are in a race, unfortunately, for having the worst disaster as far as millions and possibly billions of dollars. >> yeah. i fear you're right. >> local official say some 40 houses damaged. 25 of those homes now declared a complete loss. >> but not as bad as it could have been. the big story today, dodging the bull bullet. the damage not at devastating as predicted. good monday afternoon. i'm matt miller in for dylan ratigan. i came home to the west coast to escape irene's promised wrath. at least 35 deaths blamed on that storm system in addition

historic flooding and millions of homes and businesses still without power. utility crew, scrambling to get folks back online. that's just one part of massive cleanup effort under way from north carolina to vermont. roads and bridged flooded and littered with toppled trees. irene is estimated to have left $7 billion to $13 billion in damages. joining me now, thanks for joining us, robert. >> glad to be here. >> let's start first with just some of the logistics of filing a claim. a lot of folks today assessing the damage to their homes and businesses in the aftermath of this punishing storm. what are the steps people take? what do people need to know and is flood damage covered? >> what you need to do document your losses. immediately upon returning to your property or when you venture outside for the first time, take pictures of the damage to your house inside and out. if you have any receipts and so forth for items damaged inside the house, make sure you collect

those. and what you obviously have done by that point, call your insurance company and they'll send and adjuster out right away. also, to get back to your second question, is, in fact, flood covered? no, it is not. not covered under a standard homeowners' insurance policy. many who live in these areas impacted by flood will have a policy from the national flood insurance program. >> now, robert, before i bring in someone from the "new york times," why isn't flood insurance covered with the average policy? the average person, this is what i need. is there a mysterious reason why? >> it's never been covered. original homeowners insurance policies, a century ago, covered nothing but fire and over time accumulated more and more coverages, such as wind damage, and trip and fall accidents and liability claims and so forth. but they've never covered flood, and since 1968, flood has been covered through the national flood insurance program at

subsidized prices to americans all over the country. >> okay. bring in matoka richards, welcome, financial adviser from the "new york times." >> thanks for having me. >> you've been covering the extent of this. huge estimates. $7 billion to $s 13 billion. could be an economic stimulus. what's the right way to think about the losses but also the potential economic benefits as we rebuild going forward? >> right. a lot of people often talk about that, but i don't think anyone would ever say that a natural disaster was a good thing for the economy. there's a lot in addition to the actual damage that's done on the property, as lost business time. of course, by and large it has been said irene was not -- didn't pack as big a wallop as people expected. businesses haven't been interrupted. the stock market could open normal this morning. that said, a little bit of lost business over the weekend does take its toll on the economy, and we are at a very difficult time here.

so anything that could knock consumer confidence off is a little concerning. on the other hand, there is, as you rightly point out, a stimulus and a lot of construction workers out of work because of the housing crisis. and those people may be able to get some jobs in sort of the rebuilding economy, if you will. >> now, robert, this has been one of the most serious years for hurricane damage, other property and casualty-related damage. some people say this is related to climate change and that we may be experiencing more severe weather events like this going forward. how does the insurance industry cope with something like this? this change in trend? >> the insurance industry literally keeps massive amounts of cash in the bank. we have to be prepared for what amount of doomsday scenarios before they occur. events such as hurricane katrina producings 45ds billion in insurance losses, about ten time what's we've seen from hurricane irene. events like september 11th, that's coming up, the tenth anniversary in a couple weeks.

insurers basically for those days. >> now, when you look at all the government-related causes to manage the fallout from the storm, all the preparation, the overtime, the need to shut ing things like subways and mass transit. the overtime to get them back in operation, is this going to put an undue strange or another fresh strain on state and local budgets all reeling from the economic crisis? >> and excellent question. talk about overreaction, underreaction. i don't think you can blame any particular government for quote/unquote overreacting, because people didn't know. but you're absolutely right that both local and state governments are under enormous financial strain and likely to come under more in coming months and years and this is going to be a little bit of a hit. when you look at the broader economy, most of the economists say that it's something you'll see a little bit of a blip for this week and then it will be

recovered sort of, as they say it's sort of a wash. >> robert, how about insurance premiums generally? if this is one of a series of extreme events that's now happening and taking a bigger toll on insurers does that mean premiums for all of us will rise for our normal insurance needs in the years ahead? >> insurers look at long-term trends. not only in the number of events but the severity, or cost of those events. those increasing. not just in the past year or two, in fact, overed past 30 years. part of that is due to demographics. part due to property values and a variety of other things. more people living in harm's way. 40 years ago, not many lived in florida. today they do. not as many in california, today they do and live in harm's way. places subject to wildfires. insurers cheap into account. on net, yes, this put an upward pressure on property insurance rates in emergency of the united states. >> now, is much of the dacht that you've been reporting on is it related to what robert says? part of it because there's more

businesses and more people and homes in areas that are arguably riskier to be located in than they used to be or something else? >> well, i think in this case, a part of it is that the region that was affected by irene was in the mid-atlantic about northeast, a much huger economy, a bigger population than some of the places that have previously been hit. when we talk about the scale of the damage, the economists i talk to this morning were saying on the one hand, not a severe hurricane as, say, katrina. on the other hand, louisiana is sort of a smaller part of our economy than when you combine the mid-atlantic and the northeast, which is a fairly large portion of the u.s. economy. >> now, robert, with the insurance industry having a stake in trying to minimize damage, obviously, from these awful events, is there any talk maybe this is a crazy question, of trying to invest in weather prevention technology or other creative ways that we might be able to get ahead and prevent or divert some of these awful storms when they hit such a deadly path? >> well, i think that some

scientists do try to investigate these areas. where insurers put their money, into research in terms ever making structures more resistant to such things as wind and wildfire. the industry just opened a $40 million facility in south carolina that, in fact, develops wind resistant designs in homes. tests fire resistant moving structures and sorry forth on behalf of the industry. in the same way we crash automobiles through the insurance institute for highway safety. the ins insurance for businesses and highways try to improve structures in harm's way. >> the last quick question, as we look ahead to this coming week and the next few weeks as people dig out from this mess what are the sources you talked to? what will they be looking to for reassurance business is back on track, confidence is not too wobbly after this event and more

of a blip, as you said, in terms of broadest economic impact joenchts much data is about to come out anyway. has nothing to do with irene. an allteam important jobs report coming out. as low as 30,000 new jobs out in august. not at all what we want to hear at this time of the so-called recovery. in terms of the business disruption of irene, it's a matter seeing how quickly companies that were disrupted come back online. >> thank you both for joining me today to put the fallout in perspective. >> glad to be here. up next, disaster politics. who are the biggest winners and losers? we'll ask the mega panel. also, critics question dire storm predictions that didn't pan out. after katrina, is there really such a thing as being overprepared? plus, hurricanes and earthquakes. both forces beyond our control. what happens if you're destined before birth, even, to bad luck?

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we're going to make sure everything has what they need and repairing the damage from the storm. that's going to continue in the days ahead. >> president obama cool and collected throughout the hurricane scare. compare his leadership style to, say, new jersey governor chris christie. give a listen. >> i saw some watching upstairs of people sitting on the beach in asbury park. get the hell often the beach in

asbury park and get out. you're done. it's 4:30. you've maximized your tan. get off the beach. >> well, tough love from chris christie there. who were the political winners and losers as hurricane irene stormed up the east coast? let's ask our monday mega panel. washington examiner tim carney and others. welcome, gang from across the country. nice to see you having survived the storm, all of you yourselves. christian, start with you. president obama seeming cool and collected. showing up, making states. cutting his visit to martha's vineyard a little short. how do you assess his pros and cons and whether it will help and hurt him? >> i think help him. what we've always known at president obama, he has a cool, controlled style nap works well in a crisis and i think he handled it exactly right. the fact is i think the hurricane turned out to be a little less devastating than

people thought and maybe, you know, had we not been on tv right now, because new york was the way new orlean was during katrina, people might have want add more emotive president. given what actually happened, i thought he handled it well. he's good in a crisis. remember, i thought he handled the bin laden stuff really well, too. >> and i want to play for you imogene, some observing obama has a tendency to sound a little samy, no matter the crisis. play that and then your reaction. >> going to take time to recover from a storm of this magnitude. >> is as experienced as anybody in responding to disasters, even of this magnitude. >> we understood, of course, the challenges faced. >> so president obama is quite big on questions of magnitude. i think, in a crisis. some say the same thing on the economic stuff as well. how do you think he did? >> no drama obama.

actually, i have to say, i was incredibly impressed by all american politicians involved. sticking my neck out here. stepped up. we obviously had christie and bloomberg here in new york and they messed up end of last year with the snowstorm. president obama was correct. far better to be overprepared than have a disaster like katrina. i think the politicians did extremely well. >> tim carney, chris christie with a kind of, his very vociferous brand of tough love. will that have gop folks salivating still for him to get into the race at a late entry because of him ordering folks off the beach? >> chris christie is the ideal of a governor from a republican perspective now. not that much of a conservative but a problem-solver. the guy that when things need to be done, does it. tells people what they need to hear. that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be a good presidential candidate or a good president.

look at a guy like rudy giuliani. the ideal mayor. chris christie in the same skill set. not the same thing you want on a national level. what you think about taxes or abortion or war might matter more. >> now, christya what do you make of mike bloomberg's performance? last christmas thought he had blown the snowmageddon. lots of complaints. how do you think he did in this one? >> they say you don't get a do-over in life. i feel this hurricane was the mayor's do-over for the storm and that does explain why new york took precautions above and beyond, and, you know, we can be monday morning quarterbacks and say, well, did the city go too far, but the down side of overpreparing is pretty low. i think new yorkers are probably saying, the man did a good job. >> imogene, a lot of folks obviously, there was overhype

nontrivial damage and death involved, folks saying you could have done this without jumping on top of the mountain and sounding the alarm quite the way we did. how do you think the media performs in all this? >> again, they actually did very well. fundamentally a hurricane was on its way, which was thought to be in the middle of new york city. we were lucky in the end by it going to the east. the "new york times," fascinating today, it's with a '92, the last great tropical storm since 1980, named and hit landfall here in america. apparently mentioned in the press, irene, 11. talking $45 billion in damage. politicians kept up, actually well done. hats off to them, quite frankly. >> my objection is not -- there was a little bit more attention than there would have been because it was coming at us. right? at washington and new york city.

when it passed over didn't destroy new york city and washington, i didn't even lose my power. biggest loss i couldn't get on the train to be up there in new york, and then it goes and has real destruction in vermont. the biggest rain and wind they've had in a short period of time in vermont. heck. we forgot about it. that's part of the reason why katrina was able to be forgotten. it was hitting down in new orleans it's not d.c. or new york. it's not when the political and media power brokers live and work and have to ride the transit. >> today, the sixth anniversary of katrina. while there are those who say, maybe the media hypes this stuff, there's a real case for saying, you just can't be too prepared for crisis of these magnitude when you saw the devastation that that city is still trying to dig out from. >> i agree, matt. but i'm more with tim on this one. i would give the politicians an a on hurricane irene, and i would give the media a b-minus. i think we were guilty of playing it a little bit too big

and what's unfortunate about that, i do think that we could have confirmed this, you know, views, critics of the media have, we are navel gazing, a problem in new york, or washington, it's a disaster for the world. the coverage tended to confirm that. >> imogene, your thoughts, six years after katrina? something that must have been, i think you were in the uk at the time. >> i was, yes. >> must have seemed shocking that in advance, an advanced western society, weren't of the wealthiest on earth, leaving so many literally stranded on rooftops? >> of course, incredibly shocking. why i think we saw the response we saw this weekend. moving forward hoping that positions, we would learn from the past. anyway, they and the media. >> tim carney, what do you make of, your thoughts on this as we remember katrina. obviously, it put a huge black mark on president bush's presidency in the eyes of the critics for really not being

hands-on or mobilizing enough forces nearly enough, quickly. six years out. what's your assessment? >> part of the problem is that the incentives still aren't right. nerd, there was incentive, especially for bloomberg and christie and for obama to go ahead and overprepare. i don't think they over-overprepared. there's such a thing as, you know, buying too much insurance or say, evacuating all of money hatt manhattan. they overprepared appropriately. are there incentives for building long-term evacuation plans? not just what we do in the case of emergency but, say, making it easier to get out of new york city, whether it's coming up with a rules of one-way traffic going both ways out the tunnels in new york. in d.c., it's also difficult sometimes to get out. do we have these long-term plans? it's not as much of an incentive for that. that doesn't reflect on a palestinian as much as little things that happen during the storm.

i still worry incentives aren't quite right to the have us really be prepared. >> i love we have a new category now of poststorm analysis, which is, appropriate overpreparation. we're going to have to -- we're going to dloing that. the panel's going to stick around. coming up, remember this question? >> you have to ask yourself one question. do i feel lucky? well, do you, punk? >> how philosopher "dirty harry" framed the deeper question behind all the shouting in washington. first, president obama refiguring his economic game and promising a grand plan for job creation, but is it too little, too late? just one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defends against occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating. with three strains of good bacteria to help balance your colon. you had me at "probiotic." [ female announcer ] phillips' colon health. fiber one. uh, forgot jack's cereal.

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a day after irene scraped across the east coast, the white house is preparing for another storm. this time ober jobs and debt. today president obama plugged his economic team naming princeton economist alan krueger to replace the departing austin

goolsby as part of his council of economic advisors. this is one week before the president prepares to roll out his new jobs plan. >> i will be laying out a series of steps congress can take immediately to put more money in the pockets of working families, to make it easier for small businesses to hire people. to put construction crews to work rebuilding our nation's roads and railways and airports, and all the other measures that can help to grow this economy. >> clearly, the administration setting its sights on job creation. frankly, americans don't believe anyone in washington will actually walk the walk. with congressional approval now at all-time lows. which ideas will help jump-start the labor market and are any politically feasible? our specialist, former o & b director alice rivlin with the brookings institute and my boss from the clinton white house from 1993 to '95.

welcome, boss. >> glad to be here, matt. >> so, alice, if you were advising the president. you've got the much touted jobs speech he'll unveil next week, what would you be urging him to do both on jobs in the near term and the deficit in the long term? >> urge him as i have been urging for some time to recognize there are two big challenges. one is creating jobs now, and investing in long-run growth. that's very important and we need to do it. especially the jobs now, and the other, which has to be done simultaneously is slowing the growth of the future deficits. we can't go on borrowing this much money. people have thought that these two challenges were contradictory. they're not at all. unless we speed up the growth of the economy, we will have bigger deficits in the future, and unless we get control of the deficit we're going to have higher interest rates and less growth. we've got to do both and this is

the poemt for tmoment for the p come out strong on both sides. >> a lot of people, myself included, alice, have been frustrated the president seems to be not thinking big enough on these dual ambitions. why do you think that is and do you think next week we'll see something different? >> i'm hopeful. i agree he has not embraced strongly -- had a couple of chances to do this. i think, actually, way back in 2009 when he was first proposing the stimulus he should have coupled that with serious deficit reduction. make very clear to the american publ public we have these two problems. we had to get the economy growing but reduce future deficits, and that could be done with medicare reform, social security reform, tax reform. he need not done those right away but made the point of suggesting at least one of them.

he had another chance last december when the simpson-bowles commission on which i served and which he appointed came forward with a major deficit reduction plan. he could have said, we've got to do this, or something like it, and we've got to do the immediate job creation at the same time. i think that's a double message that would have gotten across, and might have -- we plight hmi actually made some progress by now. >> christya has a question. >> ms. rivlin, great to hear from you. you are weren't of the people i admire the most. it's nice to hear you are hopeful, but does the president really have any economic ammunition left? if were you doing, say, alan krueger's or tim geithner's job what would you recommend given the political constraints that the president has specifically on job creation? >> i think he has a big chance now. i would recommend that he come

out strongly for a major shot in the arm for the economy. my favorite one would be the one we recommended in the domenici-rivlin bipartisan task force, namely, a full year payroll tax holiday for both the employer and the employee. they did a little bit of that in the agreement last december but not nearly enough. that would be about $650 billion in all wage earners pockets, and an incentive to businesses to hire. so i would recommend that he do that, and some infrastructure, but also embrace the grand bargain that he was discussing with speaker boehner only a few weeks ago that would have entitlement reform and tax reform that would raise more revenues over the long run. a big pack thatch wouage that w

the deficit down over the next years by accumulative a few billion dollars. >> none are in his control. will the republicans play ball? >> i don't know. i hope so. one wouldn't think so, because the debt ceiling fight was so partisan and so bitter, and they were obstructing everything, and saying they wouldn't vote for anything that had tax increases in it. however, i think the country is absolutely disgusted with this gridlock and has shown that, and this new committee created by the debt ceiling agreement has extraordinary powers. if the president and the speaker and the leadership get behind a grand bargain with the near-term stimulus i was talking about, they could get it done. >> tim carney has a question.

>> i wonder whether short-term stimulus and all the stuff you talked about to fix things in the short term, how much we can do that without long-term harm? we talked about the national debt. we don't talk about individual debt numbers, individual savings rates. people aren't saving enough. not paying down their debt very much. i see savings as the root of economic growth and prosperity growing, but you and so many other commits seem to think what we need, people to spend more and borrow more. do you see individual saving as part of economic growth? >> no. you're misreading me. i think it's a good thing that right now actually people are paying down their debts. >> okay. >> and that's one of the reasons the economy isn't growing faster, that people quite rightly are saving and they're being very cautious. but in the short run for the next year or so, i believe that, bring more money into wage earners' pockets as you would with the payroll tax holiday

will help growth and -- if they use some of it for paying down their debts, that's fine, too, but we need to get the economy growing again, and we will have much too high unemployment if we don't do something right now. >> imogene has a quick question. >> i do. i was wondering what you meant about appointments today? what is he bringing to the table? >> alan krueger is terrific. i worked with him in the clinton administration, and he has a very good reputation among economists. he's not -- not flashy, but he's very, very competent and what he brings to the table is a lifetime of work on legra markets and very good knowledge on how the economy operates. i can't think of a better choice at this moment. >> alice rivlin, we'll leave it

there for the day. glad you are thinking big and urging the kind of short term and long term thing on the order of magnitude much bigger than i fear the president's going to end up adopting. for the next week, at least, i'll be hopeful as you are. thanks for joining me today, alice. and thanks as always to our mega panel with mega weather and economic insights. tim carney, imogene and crist i cristian. >> thank you. coming up, american innovation saying surf's up.

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most thought bearing down, most awaiting the storm swells. from the outer banks to mon tok, new york, waves reached upwards

of 50 feet. there may be a new safety device throughout for those willing to brave the biggest waves. introduces the v-1. a wet suit with an inflatable bag built into your back. liking a reverse parachute for surfers, easy to use. pull the rip cord leak you would on an airplane life vest and a co2 cartridge inflates raise ug to the surface. the idea came from surfing legend shane dorian who reached out to those making wet suits after being pushed 25 feet below the surface and nearly drowned. shane hopes it will become an industry standard. no word yet whether fema will issue these to first responders and affected citizens the next time irene-style flooding looks imminent. next on the "dr show" everyone know what's a regular lottery is. how did you do in the pre-birth lottery somewhere and what's that got to do with all the

shouting in washington? the surprisingly deep answer, just ahead.

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the prooep birth lottery. the way a person's inherited looks, brains, wealth, talent, or lack thereof do so much to shape our lives. the question how we as a a question should react to these forces as well as good or bad luck in the pre-birth lottery lays in the shadow of what we hear in washington. is common ground possible? joining me in this great debate, arthur brooks, the president of the american enterprise institute and author of "the battle: the fight between free enterprise and big government will shape america's future." welcome, arthur. >> hi, matt. how are you? >> good. lincoln and douglas had hours to do their debates back in the day. tv time's a little tighter. we'll have to make a good start on this. >> all right. >> tell us how you see the mega debate shaping up between conservatives and the kind of left or center left in this era? >> well, these days the moral

movement we are experiencing is, of course, the tea party movement, which actually sees the forces that are fighting against, or have fought politically against the pris traditional free enterprise, that characterizes our country under the ideas of our founders and under the ideas of our ancestors who came here to this country not for a better system but for redistribution, the very freedom to earn their success. the way i see it and the way most americans see it, perhaps the way you see it, too, a battle between people who want free enterprise as a cultural matter and those who bridal against it for which you have sympathy saying that it goes beyond american culture. something we have to deal with in terms of policy. >> here's, arthur, where i think, my view is that, to cast it so starkly as reenterprise versus big government is a false choice. a card of cardboard cheese.

e choice. even ronald reagan wanted to give more income to the working poor. milton friedman, the godfather of conservative economics was a inventer of that idea. so there's a long tradition on the conservative side of agreeing that we ought to have equal opportunity if we're going to have a society based on merit which i know you care about deeply but a decent minimum for citizens of a wealthy nation like the united states and it's something conservatives in the past as well as liberals tended to agree on. isn't that the case? >> you're completely right. the choice is between free enterprise and government and we have to decide how big is too big? few in the united states believe there should be no social -- i believe one of the intellectual godfathers of modern conservative economics one of the legitimate functions is government, establish a minimum basic safety net.

what we need to argue over is when we're getting past the minimum that will take away incentives for people to behave entrepreneurially and do more harm to the system than good. i have top agree. we want equal opportunity and a minimum basic safety net. we're arguing over greed at this point. >> here's my problem with the current republican position on what the minimum is. i listen to the republican argument, sounds to me like the conservative view of the decent minimum is you're luck toy be in america. lucky to have a job and lucky to have the emergency room. and i would like to see a decent min nam said, you know, full-time workers should get $10 an hour and basic health coverage, not putting the full burden on that of employers, because that creates incentive problems you're talking about. as a society we ought to agree as a wealthy nation something like that is a decent minimum. do you understand why, when i hear the conservative side i describe, that doesn't ring as american values to me?

>> it doesn't to you. once again, what we're disagreeing on is what the bake minimum should be. you said something important. i agree with. sorry we're not disagreeing quite enough but we'll try to make the most of it in the remaining minutes. you said that, if -- we shouldn't place the entire burden on employers, for example, if we have a higher minimum wage. you in fact are quite correct that we can't place the burden on employers because they're do things like lay people off, and you can't prohibit that either. if you want to do something that actually pays people more, it's got to cost the taxpayers more. that's disproportionately going to be a burden falling on entrepreneurs. if you think that's legitimate, a worthy cost for us to bear as society, you don't think that's going to create more problems than is solves, then be my guest. i would say that i think most americans actually disagree with that point of view, and we have a lot of public opinion polling suggesting that the government intervention that actually tries

to do these things is leading people to be quite separated emotionally from the government that's supposed to represent them. >> yeah, but i guess i have a different view, arthur. i realize this is the beginning of a longer debate. hopefully we can continue, but if you've got so many more forces outside the control of individuals buffeting them economically, giving globalization, the rise of china and india, i think we'll see more and more folks high other than the income scale feeling their own economic destiny is out of their control and the idea that government not in some radical socialist way, the right is mirroring it. honoring conservative values would make sure we have a basic economic security, certainly some kind of basic health security so we don't have the shame of people going bankrupt in a wealthy country like the u.s., because they get ill. there are ways to do that that are economically rational i think business leaders and conservatives like the aei i

think should support. >> there are a lot of things we should support that are equal opportunity policies and that's exactly the role of government as far as i'm concerned. the concern that i have, approximately 70% of americans agree with me on at this point, that the current government and indeed republican governments before this current democratic administration are going not towards the equalization of opportunity but the equalization of outcomes and that's something that really does a lot of violence to the aunt tra praur neural system. i believe strongly the role of government, weren't of the role, give people a really good education, we spend our money creating school systems that are not created to help adults like administrators and teachers unions but created actually to help students. and we need more entrepreneurship in more places including underare privileged areas and furthermore, a minimum safety net. you and i agree. we simply, i suspect, disagree on the degree that the minimum safety net would provide. >> right. we'll come back another time and

talk why republicans have to be willing to invest a lot more in teacher pay in exchange for some of the changes from the union practices i understand and obstacle if we get the kind of teachers we freed in the 21st century. philosophically, one of the biggest bedrock differences between the conservative side and liberal side of the spectrum is a view of the pre-birth lottery and what it means. curious, as a pech matter, when you think, which matters more in terms of where someone like you ended up in life? head of a leadership institution like aei? is it the inherited health, wealth, talent, brain, et said ra, or something like individual effort, hard work or personal achievement? i realize there's some of both in any life, but do you give the pre-birth lottery a lot of credit for your own success personally? >> i give my parents a lot of credit. >> that's a pre-birth lottery. >> well, i don't know. because it depends whether or not it's nature or nurture. but my parents were a little mixed up politically. mostly agreed with you, i think,

but were great parents and agreed education is a wonderful thing. loved each other and brought me up in a household with really good values. whether that's nature or nurture, i got luck any that way. some aren't as lky and i'm absolutely willing to devote public and charitable sources to try to help the values gap we see, the culture good we see that holds so many people back. >> arthur brooks, we have to leave it there. i count parents as luck, obviously. you can't take credit or be blamed for what womb you happen to come out of. congratulations on your good luck. i feel luck toy have you join me in the segment and look forward to continuing the conversation. >> thank yous matt. anytime, great to with you. coming up on "hardball." storm politic. where's the disaster aid coming from and will anyone in washington fight the pundits. first, what natural disasters like irene and katrina tell us about man-made disaster?

keli goff with other "daily rant" is next. by a heart valve problem. today we have pradaxa to reduce the risk of a stroke caused by a clot. in a clinical trial, pradaxa 150 mg reduced stroke risk 35% more than warfarin. and with pradaxa, there's no need for those regular blood tests. pradaxa is progress. pradaxa can cause serious, sometimes fatal, bleeding. don't take pradaxa if you have abnormal bleeding, and seek immediate medical care for unexpected signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. pradaxa may increase your bleeding risk if you're 75 or older, have kidney problems or a bleeding condition, like stomach ulcers. or if you take aspirin products, nsaids, or blood thinners. tell your doctor about all medicines you take, any planned medical or dental procedures, and don't stop taking pradaxa without your doctor's approval, as stopping may increase your stroke risk. other side effects include indigestion, stomach pain, upset, or burning.

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kelly gofr's turn to deliver our "daily rant." take it away. >> thanks, matt. six years ago hurricane katrina reminded us in the greatest country in the world class status can be a matter of life or death. it's no coincidence those devastated the most by katrina were those who had the least. those with the fewest resources were the ones with the fewest options when it came time tom evacuate. i've lost count how many i knew personally who said i have a tough time feeling sorry for people told to evacuate and chose not to. but life especially for the 43.6 million americans living in

poverty is not that simple. when i first heard that thanks to hurricane katrina i was required to evacuate my home i began thinking about my options. whether or not i should take the opportunity to hop on a plane or train and visit friends or family out of state. or spend practically the same amount to stay close to home in a hotel. i calculated how much these options could cost me and for how long and then realized how easy it is for someone like me, who is not rich, but who has options to weather an unexpected storm. both literally and figuratively. easy for me in a way that is not easy for someone who not only can't afford a hotel or plane ticket but can't even afford a taxicab to get an elderly relative or multiple small children to an evacuation center. easy for knee in a way it's not easy for someone who feared losing a job that's barely keeping his family afloat if he headed om early to pack up belongings in order to evacuate.

returning to find a pond of floating furniture where my home used to be i spent much of the last day or so counting my many blessings because i know regardless of what happens, ultimately, i more americans sho say the same thing and mean it. but in the six years since katrina, the number of americans living in poverty has increased by almost 6 million. that means if any area had another katrina, so positive speak, despite president bush or browny, there would be residents living in poverty. it's six years from now, 6 million more of them, that will be a tragedy far greater than any international dafr because it's a tragedy that is man-made and, therefore, one we would all be responsible for. >> keli goff, well done. and this gets to what i was just talking about with orth earthur brooks. i don't understand why the conservative side is so

resistant to the idea the inequities in our society are so great the options available, not that you're the top of society, on "the daily rundown" you are, though, the options available for those struggling and the rise in poverty we're seeing at the bottom cries out for government action where we can do something collectively. it's not going to mean the end of capitalism or the slippery slope to sweden. what don't these folks get? >> i don't know what friends like our buddy ron paul seem to not understand. all of us can use a helping hand every now and then. despite the myths, in our country not everyone starts on an equal playing field. i almost feel we'd be better off if some other countries, england, for instance, they'll admit you don't start on an equal playing field. the challenge for us, we want to pretend that's the case here. i almost think be more cathartic if we admit we don't start on an equal playing field. becoming oprah winfrey, opr