we asked you at the top of the ow what you're doing up at this hour. our producer tim carter has the answers. >> robert in atlanta writes i'm awake because the trash truck shook the dumpster too enthusiastically. >> think. they put the trucks in reverse and you hear the beep, beep. garbage men are helping us get viewers. a theme here, yankees suck. i appreciate all those tweets. this one from albert mota. i've been up all night praying for a.j. burnett and my new york yankees. yes your season is in the hands of a.j. burnett. if you live near a house of worship do go light a candle sometime today. "morning joe" starts right now. i don't think they're better off than they were four years ago. they're not better off than they were before lehman's collapse, before the financial crisis, before this extraordinary

recession we're going through. i think that what we've seen is that we've been able to make steady progress to stabilize the economy, but the unemployment rate is still way too high and that's why it's so critical for us to make sure we are taking every action we can take to put people back to work. >> are you the underdog now? >> absolutely. because, you know, given the economy, there is no doubt that whatever happens on your watch -- >> you reached that point quickly. >> i don't mind. i'm used to being an underdog. >> good morning. it is tuesday, october 4th. welcome to "morning joe." look at that pretty shot. the sun has yet to come up but we're up. with us onset msnbc contributor mike barnacle. hello, mike. >> hello, mika. >> you going to be nice today? and the director of the earth institute at columbia university, dr. jeffrey sachs, who is going to play professor today. >> yes.

good morning. >> he is the author of a new book "the price of civilizization, reawakening american virtue and prosperity." >> very excited about that. also of course the incomparable, slim whitman -- >> what? >> no, the incomparable willie geist is with us today. he had more number one songs than the beatles. >> that's right. i don't get enough credit for them. look, i didn't write them but they were still number one. >> that's all that matters. the new york post. i don't follow a lot of crime stories. >> oh, okay. yeah. you know what? >> i don't follow a lot of crime stories. >> fine. >> but over the past two years i've seen the dad on tv and you feel horrible. but what a i have no idea what happened in this case but this woman is out of italy. >> probably on her way home right now. >> i tuned in yesterday probably for the first time. it is actually a fascinating case. the prosecution's case was

horrible yet she was convicted two years ago. >> because she is an american? >> it was based on the prosecutor suggesting that -- this is amanda knox. she has just found out she's freed. they swept her out of the courthouse. she is in tears. the original case was predicated on a couple of things, one that she was involved in some type of a satanic ritual, that she and another guy got together and murdered her roommate for which there was no physical evidence. but they put out this idea she was some sort of sexual deviant, that she used drugs, and killed her roommate when in fact she did not. >> apparently was watching i guess brian had it on nightly news earlier this week. that's where i guess the dna evidence didn't hold up or something. anyway, it's a fascinating story. >> it was. my daughter was glued to it. >> i don't watch those crime shows. >> well -- >> i do watch another fascinating story too. >> what do you watch? >> it's the story of an empire. >> oh, no. let's talk about jeff's book. out today. >> an empire that crushes anybody that gets in their way

with just money. just the weight of gold. >> money just solves everything. >> you know, sometimes, and mike will attest to this, mika. in april what was it they called the detroit tigers? the little engine that could. say nothing. >> okay. >> mike? >> america's team. the little engine that could. what happened last night, mike? >> well, what happened last night is rafael soriano whom the yankees obtained at an exorbitant cost came in at the 8th inning and everyone in america was saying don't throw that first pitch fastball to delmon young and he comes up. there's justin -- >> he left out the part about justin verlander shutting him down. >> striking out 11. >> throwing a hundred miles an hour on the last batter of the game, 8th inning. >> there is delmon young off soriano. >> you're telling me that the yankees spent tons of money for this pitcher and he didn't

perform? thank god my team isn't belabored. >> your team, the detroit tigers -- >> i think i can. i think i can. my team. >> and now willie indicated this probably about a half hour ago on national television, the hopes of the yankee empire, the evil empire rest on carol burnett. they'd be better off with carol burnett. >> if this were a "star wars" analogy they don't have like skywalker going. it's like barney fife going up against darth vader tonight. it would be nice, willie, if after being just absolutely abused by the fans all year in the papers if he could step up and save the yankees' season. that would be a great story. >> all of his sins of the last two years would be forgiven with one good performance tonight. get him to game five back in new york. whatever it takes. >> he has it in him to do that. >> he does. but it's a coin toss. he is either great or he's

terrible. >> mika, a couple things are happening today. i think this is a fascinating 24 hours -- 24/48 hours. a couple things are happening behind the scenes right now that i think is going to have a significant impact on this election. of course, chris christie is figuring it out. he'll probably figure it out in the next 24 hours whether he runs or not. nobody knows whether he does or not. i think he gets in and i think he gets in for the second story that is i think really significant with the political landscape and that is the shocking fall from grace that this president has with the new set of poll numbers that have come out that has the president of the united states calling himself the billion dollar underdog. >> yeah. it's pretty painful. chris christie, let's just say i think this could be a defining day for the republican field as he makes his decision. it probably will come back today i would think.

i don't think he has a lot of time. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. do you think he is getting in? >> i think he's getting in. i think there's been movement over the past three or four days. i think he's going to get in and i think he is going to do much better than people think in the south. >> that's a change because you didn't think so a few days ago. >> i did not think so a couple days ago but we'll know. i think we'll know in the next 24 hours. >> we certainly want to get to professor sachs. >> the book is out. >> it's amazing. all right. >> right now. >> stand by. we're going to tease this. >> can i just tell you? >> yeah. >> i bought three this morning on amazon. >> that was nice of you. the price of civilization. if you want to know what it is you need to buy this book on amazon.com. there you go. before we get to dr. sachs' book and his massive charts, president obama heads to texas today in support of his american jobs act and to raise money for his re-election campaign.

new poll numbers show just how tough his campaign for re-election will be. take a look at this new abc news/"the washington post" poll. it shows 55% say the republican candidate will win 2012 election while 37% feel president obama will be re-elected. now, a lot can change in the course of a year but among republicans an overwhelming 83% feel their candidate will win the white house compared to 13% for president obama. democrats, however, are a little less enthusiastic about the president's chances. 58% think he will win next year versus 33% who think a republican will be victorious. the economy remains the underlying reason for these numbers with a new cbs news poll showing 69% believe obama has not made real progress with the economy. the issue voters overwhelmingly cite is their most important issue. in that same poll, just 19% think the country is headed in the right direction, the lowest percent since president obama took office.

73% think the country is headed on the wrong track. then there's this statistic pointed out by cofounder of the no labels organization mark mckinnon in his recent daily beast article. the average consumer confidence index when a president is running for re-election wins is 95. when they lose it's 76. and today right now that number is 55. >> jeffrey sachs? >> a lot of bad numbers. >> you're an economist. a lot of bad numbers. there is one i want to key in on. the question, has the president made the economy better or worse? and we saw very high numbers saying that there's really been no difference. i think if you're an obama supporter, you would say along with bush he helped push through t.a.r.p. he had the bailout for detroit that saved tens of thousands of jobs and general motors. there is a compelling case to be made if you are a democrat.

and yet you've been skeptical from the very beginning, from the very beginning that this president was doing what needed to be done to revive the economy. >> and i have to say i really cringe when i hear the president describe himself as the underdog that way. i just don't want to hear a president talk that way period. you know, i think that they tried a lot of things that really weren't destined for much success. the claim that the president will make it's arguable that they saved the country from worse. it probably isn't enough to really make the case when the country wants something better than that. my feeling all along, joe, that basically from the beginning they went for kind of gimmickry and short-term measures, the stimulus and then another temporary tax cut and this jobs plan is another gimmick.

it's not real. >> that's not just an indictment on -- your indictment isn't just with barack obama in this book. it's with all politicians. i agree a hundred percent. they're worried about what we do to choose the numbers for the next quarter instead of the next century. >> that is exactly it. it's like the ceos twisting the numbers up for their stock options and all the rest. and we're so short-sighted and short term right now. the basic point of my book and the economics side, not the political side, is that our economy is in a new world, new world economy. we've been buffeted by the rise of china, by other massive changes, and we simply haven't taken seriously what that means for how to create good jobs, how to keep prosperity. and what do we have instead? the idea that you can turn a dial, that you can cut a tax for a year or that you can stimulate for a year or that that just gets you past a bump. but we got something more than a bump.

we have a world that's changing deeply and probably for me the most impressive part of our society in terms of understanding what's happening is that at the very top people are still doing very, very well. it's people at the bottom, people that don't have the education or the job skills to be able to compete internationally but that's not 10% anymore. that's not 20%. that's the bottom half of our society. >> let me ask you, where were you in 1973? >> 1973 in terms of what? >> just where were you? what were you doing in '73? >> i was writing a column five days a week for "the boston globe." i was making 75 bucks per column without any health insurance. >> do you know that in 1973 dr. sachs writes in his book, 1973 was the peak for the average male worker in america if you adjust the numbers and everything. that was the peak. america has been declining in terms of real wages since 1973

since you were working for "the globe" in '73, 30 what, 38 years ago. >> you know what's interesting, and just listening to jeffrey just now, people -- when you talk to people about president obama, people who support him or are inclined to support him or people who want him to succeed because he is our president, there is a sadness to their tone when they talk about him, which is not good for him. the other aspect of this presidency is that in everything around it, and it's not barack obama's fault, per se, but something is happening in this country. you can feel the unraveling of a social contract that has held us together for 200 years. >> can i challenge you on that? >> yeah. >> i don't think it's happening in america. we -- i hate to keep saying it. we have been across america for the past three or four years and just talked to thousands and

thousands of people. i don't think the problem is in america. i hate to be overly simplistic. i think the problem is in washington, d.c. in a city -- >> it is. >> -- in a city that has seen an historic failure of institutions on every front i think and jeffrey talks about this. i think the parties have been bought off. i think they are overly ideological. i think when we go out, i don't care whether we're talking to a synagogue in fort lauderdale, florida or talking in south alabama to a -- at a conservative christian church. we're stunned by the agreement of the most liberal and the most conservative saying, okay. our entitlement programs are going belly up. why are we spending $2 billion a week in wars all across the

globe? and they just take off -- why aren't the rich paying? why do we have all these loop holes? why isn't there more tax fairness? why are we depending on the federal government to grow the economy instead of trusting the private sector. there is so much agreement, mike, in america. >> it's true. >> and it is twisted in washington, d.c. >> you couldn't be more correct. you could not be more correct. but when i'm saying the social contract seems to be unraveling, ask yourself this. when you feel threatened, when you feel as if your family is threatened by either economics or the political system, what do you do? you draw inward to protect yourself. we are now protecting ourselves. >> yes. >> we're worried about the entitlement programs. we ought not to be as much as we should be worried about things that you just spoke to. fannie mae, government agency in charge of mortgages. knew about the mortgage problem since 2003. guess what? there are people who have been indicted. >> dr. sachs, this is

impressive. >> this, joe, is what you said. i just want to show people. this is the income of an average full year. >> jeffrey, i'm going to help you out here. >> i just want to get this in the light. keep talking. >> and we peaked 38 years ago. >> here. go ahead. >> you talk. i hold. >> and so this is where things started to change and where we failed to recognize how the global economy was starting to hit the american economy and how we had to do something about it. now this is the result of income inequality. this is the share of income taken by the richest 1%. there's been one group that's been the winner in america. that's the very top. globalization has been good for them. stock options, investing in china, all the rest. this is 1929 the start of the great depression. highest inequality. after the new deal, world war

ii, the g.i. bill, the main stream america that really had economic growth and social stability. but since globalization and the tax cuts and the surge of power of the very richest we've reached the level of inequality. >> and 1978 when china was opened, i think that is the pivotal day. even in the 1970s we started to feel the pressure of all of this, joe. what we didn't do as a society is we didn't react to it in any sensible way. what happened is the rich got richer and then they used their political power to get tax cuts, to go for gimics, to boost their incomes, to get the cayman island tax havens. we got into a spiral where our society has become less and less fair. if you don't have a high school diploma your income has been plummeting. the only group that is

consistently having a higher income are those with advanced degrees or with bachelor's degrees. this i see all the time. when -- being at the university. if kids come from an affluent family, they can pay the tuition. they can get through. then they have an okay in the united states. but if you're coming from working class family, if you're coming from a poor family, the chance that you're going to make it all the way through college is very small. even if you make it through that great school that we visited in the bronx, the charter school for excellence, wonderful. you know what we're finding? that those wonderful schools turn out wonderful kids who then can't afford to make it through college. this is with kip, also. so you end up dropping even after all that hard work because they can't get through college. in american society today if you can't make it through college you're facing poverty, not middle class. it used to be there was a big

middle class for you. those were manufacturing jobs. that was where you work in industry. those are all abroad now. >> jeffrey, i think the part that's going to be controversial for some are your argument that taxes need to be increased significantly. >> yeah. >> talk about this next chart and why you believe we have to raise taxes. >> well, the basic point is -- i called the book "the price of civilization" because oliver wendell holmes jr. one of our great supreme court justices once said that we pay taxes to buy civilization. and in the united states right now, because of the power of the rich in the campaigns, because the fact that president obama almost every week sits down to a $35,800 a plate dinner not with poor people not with working class people not with middle class people but with america's rich, the fact that both parties have been on a campaign since the early 1980s, cut taxes for the rich, cut taxes for the

rich, to these levels, we have the rich who have walked off with the prize in this country. they have the highest concentration of wealth in history and the rest of america is struggling. that is really the problem. i think if i could find one more of these -- actually two more things to show which i think will surprise a lot of americans won't love to see what i'm about to show. but i think it's important for people to understand this arithmetic. they don't feel this way but the united states is the only high income country in the world that didn't raise the share of taxes and gnp from 1965 on ward. other countries did. as we aged, as we needed more infrastructure, as we needed to spend on science and technology, and the countries like sweden, like denmark, that i talk about,

germany and others, are right now with lower unemployment, better wages, job skills, keeping their manufacturing sector whereas we haven't paid our way and we've ended up with a huge under class, kids that can't make it through anymore. all of these gimmiics that we'r doing right now, another one-year tax cut, another stimulus, another this, another that, this isn't getting us anywhere. we're at a dead end right now unless we get serious with the underlying problems. >> first of all, you had a busy night at kinko's last night. >> yes, fabulous. >> your point about the gimmicks, when the s&p downgraded us they talked about the political climate in washington. there was a new poll out yesterday, the world economic forum said we're now fifth in competitiveness. they cited the political climate in washington. the world doesn't believe we can get things done. yesterday you had eric canter come out talking about this jobs act that you say is a gimmick. even that which doesn't do huge

things, he said it's dead. it's an all or nothing proposal. we won't do it. if they can't get together on something you say doesn't even attack the big problems in the country, what hope is there to really go after the big problems? >> the hope is actually that people know our society isn't fair and that the top is not paying the price of civilization right now. that's unfortunately why we have protests now all over the country, not just down on wall street. >> i'm going to ask you later about that. >> i was down there yesterday. quickly i'll tell you, you come away from there, people know productivity increased over the last 20 years, the most productive country in the world. workers' wages are stagnant and have been for 10 or 15 years and executive compensation, corporate ceos soared. >> that would be an unraveling contract i think. the book is "the price of civilization." dr. sachs, thanks. we'll be talking to you more about this. how to fix all of this, coming up we'll talk to starbucks ceo howard schultz, also best selling authors michael lewis

and deepak chopra and bill bennett. coming up next the top stories in the political playbook. first, here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> mika, the only person to have good news to spread out there this morning. as far as the forecast goes we are looking ideal. gorgeous weather conditions from the middle of the country are going to spread to the eastern half of the country in the days ahead. we still have to deal with some showers out there and a little bit of rain this morning but as we go throughout the next 24 hours we're going to get rid of the pesky rain in new england and then the forecast gets really nice. look how beautiful it is in the middle of the country, from indianapolis to chicago to dallas. all of that is heading to the east. here is a peek, new york city. you are going to see ideal weather into the upcoming weekend. get ready to enjoy it. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪

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time now to take a look at the morning papers at 26 past the hour. we'll begin with our parade of papers. the arkansas democrat gazette says an unexpected demand for pickup trucks gave the u.s. auto industry a 10% sales jump in september. trucks typically sell when the housing market and construction industry are strong and consumer confidence is high, which was not the case last month. >> and the new orleans times picayune, a dramatic comeback for a stadium. the louisiana super dome is being renamed. that's just not right. >> no. >> just too bad. >> we're not calling it that. >> the mercedes-benz super dome? seriously? can you find a more inappropriate name? >> kind of garish actually. >> a more inappropriate name in a more inappropriate place? i got no problems with

mercedes-benz. i just -- jeffrey sachs? >> this is a problem. >> case is closed. your case is closed. >> this is a problem. >> all about money. >> are there any limits at all? >> all right. let's continue on parade of papers and see what else we learn. "las vegas review-journal" nevada highway patrol officers say most drivers are complying with a new state law that bans texting and talking on cell phones behind the wheel. but there was one unforeseen problem. many drivers have started pulling on to the shoulders of busy highways and freeways to make calls. nevada is the ninth state to ban driving with a hand held device. time now for politico. >> why don't we pass a law? >> i like what you're going to say. >> i'm going to get a lot of people angry. >> yeah. >> i think it's just as important as air bags. >> yeah, yeah. >> i'm driving my kids around and i've got people swerving into my lanes, kids swerving

into my lanes texting. it is a greater threat i think than anything on the road right now. greater threat than alcohol even. >> yeah. >> why can't these phone makers be forced to -- >> have a slammer in the car. if the car is off the phone works. car is on? slammer goes on. >> you can't text while your car is going. >> before you get to texting how many times have you been cut off on the road with someone driving with one hand with the phone to the other ear not even looking to the left or the right? >> we need a slammer. >> why can't automobile manufacturers develop some sort of electronic ignition system that when you start it up it won't -- you phone won't work. >> i wonder how many people have to die or get maimed before this is done. >> you know who never texts when he drives? >> who is that? >> patrick gavin. >> he does. >> does he? >> yeah. >> he used to check on his cats.

he is very worried. >> patrick gavin, how you doing? >> good morning, mike. was that your tryout for the new andy rooney opening? that was pretty good. i like that. >> you'd be good at that. >> no one can replace him. >> let's talk some business here. you guys are reporting at politico democrats starting to get a little nervous about some attack ads from conservative groups like american crossroads. that's of course karl rove's group. i read in your piece and tell me if this number is right. the fund raising goal for american crossroads for this next election cycle, a quarter of a billion dollars. could that be right? >> it is right. you look at 2010 and that number was just $70 million so that's a huge increase. you look at that on top of -- actually started yesterday -- you look at five conservative groups linked to the tea party they have raised in 2010, $71 million. that is a 61% increase over the previous year so republican groups really across the board are doing phenomenally well. they're out with a $500,000 ad

today against president barack obama's jobs bill in which they are using a quote from bill clinton digging sort of the buffet clan. this is so big and so widespread and also starting very early that a lot of congressional democrats are saying there is absolutely no way that we can keep up with this kind of fund raising prowess. keep in mind also one of the reasons why they can raise $250 million is because american crossroads brought on haley barbour to help out with some fund raising, something he is very good at. >> a lot of democratic candidates saying their republican opponent isn't even what they're concerned about. it's these third party groups. dr. sachs you shook your head when you heard the number. >> the money is of course totally out of control. i don't know if we can see it here. one more prop. we got them for everything. >> do it. >> every election cycle, these are the presidential ones, the tall bars. the campaigns keep getting more expensive, more money coming in. this was the $5.5 billion

election in 2008. it's going to reach $6 billion, $7 billion now. the president by himself is trying to raise a billion dollars. sitting down with rich people every day just about and then you have citizens united, supreme court ruling which somehow has our constitutional scholars on the supreme court saying that money is speech. that could end up destroying us all. >> so the president raises a billion dollars this year and he calls himself the underdog. >> well, because he's got $250 million coming into american crossroads because the money is flowing and where are the people in all of this? that's the problem. >> patrick gavin, thanks so much for a look inside the playbook. appreciate it. >> thank you, guys. we'll let you know how mike's tryout goes for rooney's gig. >> i don't know about that. >> don't impersonate him. the other thing. we'll talk to best selling author and vanity fair contributor michael lewis about

his recent interview and bike ride with former california governor arnold schwarzenegger. michael lewis a bit later. plus hank williams jr. is yanked from his spot on monday night football after comparing president obama, you guessed it, to adolph hitler. >> that's unique. [ female announcer ] from the very first moment we arrive... we're on the move. ♪ and we don't want anything, ever, to slow us down. so it's surprising that most women aren't getting enough calcium. but thankfully, with over 25 great flavors, like strawberry cheesecake and blackberry harvest, only yoplait original gives you 50% of the daily value of calcium and vitamin d in every cup.

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all right. time for some baseball. red sox fans clapping slowly, gleefully. the yankees and tigers tied at one game appeaiece. sabathia the best the yankees have. justin verlander the best baseball has on the mound. game one cut short because of rain. they recovered quickly in the fifth. verlander settles down. the score was 2-2 at that point. russell martin goes down swinging. brett gardner frozen by breaking ball. verlander went eight innings and struck out 11 but in the seventh the yankees break through, down 4-2. brett gardner with a huge two-out double into the gap in left center. two runs scored. yankees tie the game at four but right in the bottom of the very

same inning delmon young hits a fastball off rafael soriano into the right field seats. 5-4, tigers there. >> willie, that was a good pitch. >> you know, it was a way. not bad. in the ninth. two outs. detroit closer jose valverde blows one by derek jeter to end the game. detroit wins the game, 5-4. you're right, john smoltz called that immediately. don't throw in the fastball. tonight at 8:37 the yankees rest their season hopes on one a.j. burnett. of course, a must win game for rick porcello. >> talk about smokltz, he is tremendous as an analyst. when delmon young got into the box smoltz said on air don't throw this guy a first pitch fastball. soriano threw him a first pitch fastball. >> literally one second later. >> amazing. >> you know, another great game, i got home in time last night to see the last two innings of the

texans' game. wow. >> that was a good game. >> what a great game. >> that was a great game. earlier in the day the game joe is talking about rangers and rays game three in the seventh catcher mike napoli a two-run home run to left center. that capped a four-run inning for the rangers. the rays scrap back to make it 4-3. that was the way it ended. they couldn't complete the comeback. texas wins, 4-3. game four now in tampa at 2:07 p.m. eastern time. the rangers can wrap up the series. also a couple games in the national league. phillies and cardinals tied at a game each. that series back in st. louis now. and the late game, milwaukee can sweep the diamondbacks in arizona. >> how good are the brewers? >> brewers are good. >> very good. they are very good, joe. prince fielder, pretty good pitching, great reliever. very good club. >> good town too. konchts th >> could they push the phillies to the wall? >> sure. >> they could. >> milwaukee is a fabulous town. >> great town. football last night colts and bucs playing espn's monday night

game. if you've been watching football or mondays for the last 20 years you noticed last night this was missing from the broadcast. last night the theme song known casually as "are you ready for some football" by hank williams jr. has appeared before monday night football for 20 years, was yanked off the air by espn. >> really. why? >> because hank williams jr. compared president obama earlier in the day on a news program to adolph hitler. >> okay. >> you remember the golf game they had, ladies and gentlemen? >> yeah. >> remember the golf game? that was one of the biggest political mistakes ever. >> you mean when john boehner played golf with president obama? >> oh, yeah. yeah. and biden and kasich, yeah. mm-hmm. >> what did you not like about it? it seems to be a pivotal moment for you. >> come on. come on. that would be like hitler playing golf with netanyahu.

okay? >> okay. >> not hardly. i'm glad you don't, brother, because a lot of people do. they're the enemy. >> who is the enemy? >> obama and biden. are you kidding? the three stooges. >> roll tide. >> what was that hat he was wearing, joe? >> i think that was an auburn hat. >> was it? >> yeah. roll tide. >> was he with you at the institute for -- >> is that the price of civilization? >> so espn -- >> oh, my lord. >> espn was watching that interview and said, hank williams jr. is not an espn employee. we recognize that he is closely linked to our company. we are extremely disappointed with his comments achlts. as a result we've pulled the open from the broadcast. >> i'm just trying to figure out, willie, how could that guy from the south be a california angels fan with that baseball cap? >> we have his statement?

go back to the statement. he tried to explain himself. go back. my analogy says hank williams jr. was extreme but it was meant to make a point. i was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me, how ludicrous that pairing was, the golf pairing. they're polar op sits and made no sense. they don't see eye to eye and never will. i have always respected the office of the president. >> sure didn't sound like it. >> if that's him respecting the office of the president i hate to see it when he gets rough on them. >> is he going to join us at the game in tuscaloosa on saturday? >> he's an angels fan. that was angels. tell you. >> roll tide. >> you don't see a lot of vandy. >> good lord. >> mika's opinion pages. the bucs beat the colts in the game last night. >> who cares?

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about me probably polls pretty well. >> he basically says in new jersey he brought people together which you haven't been able to do in washington. >> well, i'm not sure folks in new jersey would necessarily agree with that. >> all right. >> hold it one second. do we have it? i don't know if we have it yet but we have breaking news. this is important. let's go over to willie geist. what do you have? >> we're getting viewer e-mails. we may have prematurely -- >> alabama may be off the hook. >> prematurely indicted alabama some viewers suggesting that is an atlanta braves hat. not university of alabama. >> let's take it down. yes. that is a braves cap. take it down. take it down, t.j.! take the picture down! yes. >> i think i'll stand by my original report. >> that was a rays cap, two tone braves cap. >> you know there is a setup. you just wanted me to show a freeze. >> listen to the viewers. >> the viewers are setting me up here. >> yes, they are. >> it's either an angels or a --

you know what? australia i think is in the rugby world cup finals. >> a huge rugby fan. >> probably a big rugby guy. whew. >> time now for the must read opinion pages. >> is funny. you said let's get bosefis up. who? >> one of them is yours. we'll start with "the washington post." it's richard coen. chris christie's temper. there's going to be a decision i think very soon about chris christie so we may as well engage in another conversation about this. looking at both sides of this, chris christie is a keenly intelligent man who has the smarts and confidence to attract really good people as aides but he's been governor for less than two years, one inexperienced politician per decade in the white house is enough and already he has exhibited the tells of grandiosity and implaquable certainty. washington's problem now is too many politicians think they have the lock on the truth. the town oozes belligerence and

pettiness. those are qualities christie has in abundance. american politics now is a china shop. the last thing it needs is a bull like christie. >> you know, this is my biggest concern with chris christie is this line right here. one inexperienced politician per decade in the white house is enough. mike? >> yeah? >> let's -- i think most of the preside president's -- he just wasn't ready for this job. he did not have the experience to run the biggest, most complex country on the planet, and the question is does a two-year governor from new jersey have any more experience? >> i think that aspect of this presidency, of president obama's tenure, works against chris christie. the neophyte in national politics. jeffrey and i were talking about this earlier. again, people who are sympathetic to president obama, it should be all of us because he is our president, and people who voted for him and strongly support him with contributions, you get the sense that they look at him and they go, nice try,

but it didn't work. >> dr. sachs? >> i don't think the governor is ready and i think the pressures of the campaign would show it pretty quickly. i think mitt romney is likely to be the nominee because he's been through this and he's remaining calm and he's going to turn out to be pretty formidible candidate, i think. >> i wonder if the conversation needs him and if some people -- i feel like richard cohen just doesn't want the republicans to have a chance but i could be wrong. why america needs chris christie. >> i don't think that's a fair thing to say. >> putting him in the conversation i think does help the republicans raise their game. i really do. >> i don't think so or else i wouldn't have written about it. >> exactly. here is from politico. like romney obama seems to take great pride in his efforts to be all things to all people. christie, on the other hand, just doesn't give a damn. will that unique strategy work in 2012? maybe not. but you can be sure that facing christie in a primary fight will

make romney a better candidate in the general election just like a rough-and-tumble general election battle between christie and obama would make the latter a better president over the next four years. in the end, america needs a candidate like chris christie on the national stage. it's time to raise the game. this conversation we were having about this after the show yesterday. >> jeffrey, the point is, there would be a clear distinction, i think. we probably would stop talking about hpv vaccinations and tiffany credit lines and this silliness. chris christie is a lightning rod and i think it would smoke a lot of people out. >> this is going to be a campaign with a difference this time around because we're at a crossroads and so there are going to be different visions of the future of the country. >> all right. >> which candidates can adopt yours? >> well, somebody better buy it or we're not going to have one. >> news you can't use is next.

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oh, yes. please tell me it's time, willie. >> time for the news you can't use. last night we got a glimpse of how late night talk show hosts are handling the whole rick perry hunting camp story. jon stewart came out and played the offending word over and over again, said it over and over again. >> who did? >> jon stewart. we'll spare you that one at this early hour. >> thank you.

>> steven colbert, though, danced around it. >> "the washington post" reports that the rick perry family hunting camp once had a racially charged name. you see, the hunting camp was evidently called -- whew -- okay. how do i put this? okay. okay. okay. you know what? somebody help me out here. >> i know that you reframe from saying that word so i'm going to say what the word was on the rock. the name was place was called [ bleep ]. >> thank you. i say, it is much ado about nothing. many presidents have vacationed at questionably named resorts. for instance, chester a. arthur spent all his summers at

thieving chinaman springs. and richard nixon used to go fly fishing at jews control the media creek. even barack obama spends a lot of time at camp david, which until recently, only admitted white presidents. >> well done by steven colbert. jon stewart said the word over and over. he played clips of people saying it over and over again. we added the bleep of herman cain. >> tell me, when did you go to thieving chinaman creek? >> a nice little retreat. painted over that rock a long time ago for the record. >> a great question. seriously why didn't they just take the rock away? he's got no defense. and he knows it. >> it was back in the '80s and i thought at first the 1880s? >> it was the '80s. everybody was saying it. actually they weren't. >> willie, did you notice they're bringing back arrested development? >> yes. >> very important.

>> another season and the movie we're told. confirmed by jason bateman and everybody else. >> seriously, jason bateman. >> hilarious. >> i saw him over the weekend in what was that, some romantic comedy with jennifer aniston. he is such a great actor. >> he's good. >> never better than on "arrested development." >> a good show. >> so amazing. >> those guys are great. >> coming back for another season. still ahead starbucks ceo howard schultz will be here with his plan to get the economy moving and people back to work. first, best selling author michael lewis, also howard fineman. keep it on "morning joe." [ female announcer ] starbucks via® is planted the same... ♪ ...harvested the same... ♪ ...and roasted the same as our other premium coffees. ♪ it only makes sense it would taste the same. so, try it for yourself.

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hi. mr. shot? it's peter brand. i apologize for putting you on hold earlier. billy asked me to call you back. he is on another line. billy says he needs $225,000 for ricardo rinko. please. yes. i added the please at the end. okay. let me -- hold on one second please. >> tell him i'll pay for one when i get the money. >> so billy says he'll pay for rinko himself but when he sells him for more money next year he's keeping the profit.

okay. thank you very much. we'll call you back. thank you. come on! come on! >> that's great. there is a reason for that. what a beautiful morning shot. welcome back to "morning joe." dr. jeffrey sachs is still with us. joining us, best selling author michael lewis out now with his new book, bommerang, travels in the new third world. also with us msnbc political analyst and huffington post media group editorial director howard fineman joining the table this morning. >> big day. today is his son's birthday and your son's hero is? >> michael lewis. >> not me but michael lewis. here is a picture of him. >> oh, that's cute. >> i can do better. >> i had it in my wallet. that's all i could do. >> that's great. >> happy birthday, nick. he's out there watching in st. louis. he is not awake i can assure you.

>> okay. >> he has studied money ball. he is an athlete. captain of his, if i may say so captain of the football and baseball teams at the noted athletic power house in washington. >> sweet. >> yes. >> nice. >> he studied money ball. he studied blind side for the sciences of the sports and for great writing. >> it's amazing. i am shocked michael lewis came on and we almost got him to say what an author never says. >> mm-hmm. >> the movie is better than the book. you're just thrilled with how the movie -- >> it's funny. scenes like that which look pure invention, they came right from life. this is what this general manager did. he was swapping players as if they were commodities in a market. >> you know, the fascinating thing is a lot of baseball purists love to scoff at the billy bean story. they go, well he's never won the world series, but teams that have won the world series went to school on what billy bean did

with nothing. so if you're theo and they're shoveling tons of money at you and you learn from billy bean, you get the best of both worlds. >> it's amazing you can just say theo and assume everybody knows who you're talking about. the gm of the boston red sox. >> right. but he is a disciple of billy bean. >> no question. and while there is a new -- essentially what's happened is this isn't just baseball but sports generally has been intellectualized and has been a new kind of person who runs the sports team. previously it was someone who had played the sport. billy bean introduced these annal itics to the sport in a new fresh way and he's changed it. it's the way, he has said he couldn't get hired to run a team now. i mean, there's a huge culture shift. and the book, the story is always -- well, look, the story was threatening to people in baseball. >> right.

>> it cost people jobs. and people were looking for ways to attack it. but it's a little hard to argue with finding better ways to do your business. >> everybody followed him. everybody -- everybody has followed him. and, unfortunately, he is still doing the same thing on a team that's still not giving him the money to do what teams in big markets can do. >> well, they don't have the money. >> they just don't have the money. let's talk about bommerang. and you raise a remarkable question here. after september 15th, 2008, a lot of us were comforted by the fact that governments were big enough to bail out institutions that were too big to fail but you asked the really frightening question. what happens when there's nobody left to bail out those big governments? >> right. well, the governments essentially -- this story started when i was working on the big story and i was talking to my hedge fund manager who had made a bunch of money betting against the sub prime mortgage market. by the time i saw him in 2008 he

had moved on to what he thought was the next thing and he thought, he essentially totalled up the banking assets in big western countries and he had assumed that the banking assets were now backed by the governments because the governments had come in and basically said these banks are too big to fail. he layered them on top with the government, the government debts and said, can the governments actually afford their banks? you go from country to country and the answer is different. and it is this great question. what happens when the governments aren't credible anymore? i mean, a banking system is already an act of faith. a lot of that faith right now is coming from governments and the governments are now in precarious positions. >> and, mika, we like talking about greece, keeping it far away from us. but we can talk about california. >> we could. he's got a great vanity fair article about that which i want to get to but just explain what is the new third world now. >> well, it's this idea that

you've got problems. i mean, in my neighborhood in california you've got problems and you can't imagine it exists in an affluent society. radical cuts in services in response to inadequate revenues. and cities in bankruptcy. but the thing that attracted me to the story in the first place was if you go from culture to culture, this financial event we're living through, it really is kind of act two of the financial crisis that began three years ago has played ifself out very differently in each place. that it is not one story. it's a series of regional stories. in this country the story is peculiar for a couple of reasons but the financial end of the story, you can see just by the way markets have responded to recent news, s&p downgrades the u.s. treasury and there is a flight to treasuries. the u.s. government is not yet

in the position that greece is in where a risk of a rise in interest rates that they will pay will cause the vicious cycle that will spiral them into default. however, locals, local governments, municipalities especially, are in a very precarious position. >> right. >> meredith whitney a wall street analyst goes on "60 minutes" and starts just talking about the possibility of some defaults and the markets panic and spook. in the same way that the market for european government debt gets spooked when anyone goes on tv. you can see sort of the pressure point in u.s. finance. it's not at the level of the u.s. government. it's much lower down. >> right. >> dr. sachs? >> we walked into this basically in the '80s and '90s by this deregulation mode again both political parties. this isn't a partisan thing. bill clinton was the leader of the financial deregulation to

build giant banks that got completely out of control. larry summers fought any kind of regulation of the derivatives market so those credit default swaps, which are behind a lot of the 2008 collapse grew from nothing to $60 trillion of outstanding credit default swaps in just a few years in the past decade. we let this happen and people who know something about finance warned you don't deregulate. that's what we learned at the great depression. >> right. >> that's why we put in the s.e.c., why we put in the fdic. why we put in glass/steagall and then we walked back on all of that because powerful financial interests combined with powerful politicians and said, we're, you know, going to take this for all it's worth. >> what i wonder is where is the billy bean for this? in other words, we're the last

rug that everything can be swept under. >> right. >> meaning the federal government. >> and i don't think we can sustain that forever. i'm not sure whether michael agrees or not with that. but thank god we're still that place where everybody can have confidence of last resort. but it seems to me just as -- not to stretch here but just as in baseball where people figured out that old habits were making the game antique and there was a new way to play it, is there some way we can think through what we need to do to make sure that we don't lose that role? because nobody else can play it in this global society. i still don't think anybody else can play it can they, michael? can anybody? >> play the role of the united states? >> yes, yes. >> in europe germany kind of plays the same sort of role. if the source of confidence in the last resort but the question is do the germans actually want to play that role? >> right. >> and it's -- the comparison with industry, with the baseball industry, is interesting because the baseball industry, you can

actually see progress there. you can see people finding better ways to do their business. >> right. >> but you see a level of government is back sliding. >> yes. >> you know, government seems to being delivered worse or handled worse and the relationship, the thing that's so poisonous, and you see it most extremely in the state of california, is that you have -- we're in this situation where essentially all big fiscal decisions are made by the people directly. i mean, it's as close to government direct democracy as you can get. it's a -- and yet the people hate their democracy. >> yeah. >> it's a machine -- the california government is a machine for generating contempt for elected officials. but getting people into positions of authority, but not really very much real authority and then blaming them for the fact that the real problem is cultural. the people are getting what they want. they want services and they

don't want to pay for them. >> that's really the point. california got itself into this bind by making it impossible to raise taxes to pay for the services and that's what we have at the national level also. that goes back to joe's hero, you know, ronald reagan, and that era, right? >> everybody's gained this but -- >> i'm not going to let you two guys get together because i don't blame reagan for everything. why don't you go back to howard jarvis in '78? >> exactly. >> i want to follow up on the billy bean reference. here's the problem with the situation with the financial crisis not only locally and on wall street but worldwide. the billy beans? the billy beans aren't on our side. the billy beans, the guys and the women that have figured this stuff out, they'y're running hee funds in dallas, texas, in manhattan. the billy beans are the billionaires that are getting richer and richer because they figured it out. they're not regulators getting

paid $111,000 at the s.e.c. in washington, d.c. >> boy, that is so true. >> they're making billions and billions. >> okay. it is very true that the nature of our financial industry has become a kind of curse i think that when pay -- when pay started to really skyrocket on wall street and this goes back, this is a culture shift that goes back 30 years, 25 or 30 years. the industry gets harder and harder to regulate. the regulators get easier and easier to capture because the difference between the caliber of the person who is doing the finance and the caliber of person who is doing the regulating grows. >> and the money that they can pay. >> and also the people who are regulators want to be in the industry. so it is very hard to provide an effective check to an industry that has become so lucrative. >> you want to make a hundred thousand dollars with your knowledge doing public good or do you want to make $1.5 billion a year? >> we're what they used to call

the dollar a year men now women. >> in other words the traditional public service where you get out of the industry you were in. you completely severed your ties to it. you came and helped the government keep up with the business that you made your money in. >> dwight eisenhower. there are absolutely people who -- when lehman brothers went down there were people who answered that call. i think that's sort of what happens in this society. we have to get to a point of real crisis before anything gets done before people get serious about it. and -- but it's not that those people don't exist. it's not that there aren't good people on wall street. does feel like the system is a little screwed up. >> but if you take ron -- if you take the new book "confidence men" seriously, basically what ron -- what ron suskind is saying. >> right. >> is that when this moment happened the new president, president obama, pretty much was surrounded by all of the senior, nonregulators from the previous

clinton administration. >> surrounded by wall street. >> he wasn't surrounded by the cutting edge billy beans of the investment world who then came in and said, look, mr. president, we've seen it from the inside. here's what needs to be done. >> right. >> he was surrounded by lawrence summers and timothy geithner. >> you know what it is going to take a lot of those people, those hedge fund people. you say dollar a year people like eisenhower filled his cabinet. when he got elected eisenhower didn't know anybody. he told his people, i don't want friends on my cabinet. they went out and got the leaders of industry. he said, eisenhower said i don't want somebody working in my administration if they can afford to work in my administration. and that was alluding exactly to what you were saying. >> i heard joe on a panel yesterday. he is developing a major new wave of ike nostalgia. it's beginning here. it's beginning at this table. it's going to sweep the country. >> there was a lot of --

>> competence is actually an under valued asset in government service and i get it. >> it was a lovely panel with arianna as well. go ahead. >> go ahead, michael. it's just we have this industry at the heart of our economic system that -- whose interests are different from the public interests. and the problem is that's sort of been forgotten. and you see it, you know what's interesting is you see the fingerprints of our financial culture all over this european crisis. greece to get into the euro, disguise its level of indebtedness by doing the phony transactions with goldman sachs. >> absolutely. >> merrill lynch has people generating skeptical reports about irish banks that they, when they find out the reports about the new -- merrill lynch fires the analyst being critical about the irish banks. the institutions have in some way lost their way.

and they've had a really pernicious effect on our relations with the rest of the world. you talk to german bankers and they are scathing about our american behavior in the sub prime bubble. they got sold lots of stuff by american investment bankers who they think lied to them. and they say now why should we be listening to you people? >> exactly. >> and in previous generations after the war they trusted us on economic -- >> yes. >> we helped rebuild their economies and then this happened. >> we can look on different levels as to how we got here. you had an interview with arnold schwarzenegger, governor schwarzenegger, and in part of what you write you talk, he talks about that uh-oh moment where all of a sudden he realizes that they're about $300 million short. describe what you learned from him and what he takes away from his experience. >> first off, he's a great character. you know, you think of him, i think people bring so much baggage to him but the thing

that was interesting to me is he answered -- he was the fantasy that someone who is basically independent minded rolls into the governor's office in california and all problems will be solved. >> interesting. >> and he thought when he got there that essentially if the government didn't function he would go directly to the people and the people would listen. and then he tried to put measures on the ballot that actually challenged the way things were done. free public services for all kind of thing. and essentially grafting in the public sector. he's shot down at the ballot box. he realized in fact people were getting what they wanted. and governing the state was going to be a much different -- >> free services. no price for civilization to follow up. they want the services. they don't want to pay for it. >> and i think that what he walked into was essentially a

side where the civic bonds are frayed and the sense of kind of common purpose has frayed a bit than it is a consequence of actually good things. we are living through this basically unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. people have gotten a little soft. >> but it's also a consequence -- >> is that okay to say? >> absolutely. >> it's also a consequence of not being honest with ourselves. i mean, we've taken the easy road and nobody is being honest. >> yeah. >> leaders are finding it very difficult to be honest with themselves or with the people. and the moment they are honest, even though we celebrate brutal honesty and candor as we try to entice chris christie into the race, people don't really want it. >> i even think our president suffers from a little bit of that because i think he does try to be honest about the state of our society and the divisions that are in it and then he gets torn to shreds for it. so sort of a no win situation. >> just terrible. you know, if the media would

only treat barack obama as fairly -- >> stop it. >> -- as they treated george w. bush. >> look. >> this country would be a better place. it's just not fair. why does the media pick on this president? >> i think they are. >> it's unprecedented isn't it? >> i think they are. >> michael, who is going to play your lead character in bommerang? you think you can get brad pitt, george clooney? >> i've got to -- if i don't shut down this movie machine people will stop reading the books and just wait for the movie. >> to go the movies. >> put the wrench in this one. >> they make great movies. "the blind side" people still talk about. >> really quickly the "occupy wall street protests --"? >> they have a point. they just have to figure out what it is. >> that's perfect. i love it. >> you just summed it up. that's really good. michael lewis, thank you. the book is "bommerang, travels in the new third world." howard fineman, thank you as well. >> thank you. happy birthday to your son. >> nick fineman. >> wake up, nick.

coming up, best selling author deepak chopra will be here, also radio talk show host bill bennett and up next starbucks ceo howard schultz is here to reveal his company's latest initiative to help communities in need. you're watching "morning joe." brewed by starbucks. ♪♪ [ female announcer ] the road is not exactly a place of intelligence. highway maintenance is underfunded, costing drivers $67 billion a year, and countless tires. which drivers never actually check because they're busy, checking email. this is why we engineered a car that makes 2,000 decisions every second. the new audi a6 is here. the road is now an intelligent place. ♪

welcome back to "morning joe." 24 past the hour. look at that pretty shot of the sun coming up over new york city. >> the upper west side. >> this morning starbucks is introducing a new community model in two neighborhoods, harlem and crenshaw, los angeles, where organizations will share in the profits of a store in each community. joining us now from harlem is the chairman and ceo of starbucks, howard schultz. and of course starbucks we should mention if you didn't already know is a proud sponsor of "morning joe." howard, good morning. tell us about this new project. >> good morning, mika.

well, i think there's no getting around the fact that as a result of the federal deficit and budget cuts at the state level that organizations like the development corporation and l.a. urban league are facing deficits in their ability to raise money and serve the community. we've had stores in these communities for over a decade and as a result of the heroic efforts of these two organizations, who do so much around education, health services, the homeless, we are partnering with these organizations to at least give them a hundred thousand dollars a year from the profits of each store and i think most importantly trying to demonstrate to other business leaders that we can't wait for washington, that businesses and business leaders are going to have to step up and demonstrate that profitability as a sole objective is a pretty shallow goal and, in fact, it's good business to balance profitability with a social

conscience. >> howard, it's willie. good morning. good to see you again. the other initiative you're working on is create jobs for the usa where customers who go into any starbucks store can donate $5 and that will create $35 worth of financing community business lending. this is a theme between these two initiatives now that you've really been talking about for several months which is that we can't sit as you just said and wait for washington. what was the moment if you can think back to it where you said, enough. i'm not going to sit and wait for washington. i've seen enough. i've got to do something. >> well, i think, willie, the situation in america today, unfortunately, is we have a crisis of confidence and the cloud over the country i think began as a result of the debt ceiling debacle with 9.1% unemployment coupled with the fact that small businesses are the engine for employment opportunities in this country and they can't get access to credit. we began at starbucks to kind of get underneath the hood and

understand, could we create this wrist band and as an opportunity create donations in our stores with the millions of people that come in our stores and as a result of that filter millions of dollars back into the community with community lending organizations not unlike micro financing in the developing world and as a result of that i think that we will be a catalyst to create jobs across america and once and for all provide small businesses and start up businesses with access to cash and credit that they've been unable to get from the banks. >> howard, what -- >> i think the answer to your -- go ahead, joe. >> i was going to follow up on willie's question and just ask what's wrong with washington, d.c.? what's wrong? >> well, i think, you know, i don't want to in any way criticize the president or one party versus the other but as you and i have discussed, there clearly is a situation in which ideology and re-election is the

lens in which people are seeing their role and responsibility. i look at that and i see a crisis of leadership in the country and as i said thon this show before i beg the people in washington to literally put their feet in the shoes of americans and understand that the access to the american dream and people feel unrepresented and we've got to get washington to understand that we no longer have a crisis, we have an emergency, and a sense of urgency that needs to be addressed not in 14 months but today. >> mike is here and he is sober so this is a very special morning. >> well, i'm not sure about that. >> hey, howard, we were talking earlier about, you know, some people, me included, think there has been a weakening of the strands of a social contract that used to tie us together as a nation. and as the economy has tanked and as you're correct, as the debt ceiling debate dragged on during the summer and people saw

how polarized the government is, people tend to withdraw into themselves and do very little about the problems like unemployment and in washington they're only interested in their own employment every two or six years. so what are your thoughts on the social contract that does bind us together, that programs like this do help in terms of reach out efforts to people in their own communities? ought we not to concentrate on that stuff? >> yeah. >> well, i think the one thing that perhaps gets lost in all of this is that there are heroic people doing heroic things throughout america. and like the development corporation, the l.a. urban league, and there are thousands of others. however, the pressure on these organizations today, because of the state budget cuts for social services, are significant. the social contract that you talked about is we need both washington and the private sector to understand that this is a moment in time when there has to be cooperation between

business and government and we have to remove the crisis of confidence that exists in this country. and that has to come from political will and political courage to address the issues. and if i could bring up one thing, this will be a little long winded and stop me if i don't have the time. over the weekend, for some reason, i found myself reading the marshall plan, which was 1945, 1946. and just think of the pressure on harry truman and secretary marshall to convince the country and a republican congress to fund the rebuilding of europe and germany after the war. now, if we were able to do that and there was political courage and political will for the marshall plan after we lost tens of thousands of men and women who fought and died for that war and we rebuilt that entire continent, tell me why we can't find the political courage and will to create the analog for

something like the marshall plan to address the domestic agenda and america. i mean, this is a stunning lack of leadership and courage throughout washington and enough is enough. >> you're exactly -- howard, we couldn't agree more. we actually rebuilt the cities and the industries of our enemies and we did it because, as you said, truman and marshall and our leaders in 1945, 1946, 1947 knew it was in america's best interests. and the question is, when is everybody going to understand that instead of rebuilding other countries that we're fighting, we need to rebuild this country? it's a great point that you make. >> in addition, howard just pointed out with the marshall plan he is absolutely correct, during that same period of time the congress passed the g.i. bill, passed the va loans so people returning from fighting wars could buy homes. we couldn't get any of that

through congress today. >> what if we took the hundred milli million we spent this year in afghanistan and put it into the communities. a hundred billion. >> howard, go ahead. >> well, i'm just going to say, i think if we could use that as a litmus test to demonstrate that that was a republican congress, that was a democratic president, we have significant issues we need to address and we need cooperation on both parties and compromise to get it done. >> you know, we're really excited, howard, also about the partnership that we've had from the very beginning, very excited about going down to new orleans with you and your team, going to crenshaw high school with you and your team this past weekend. being in the bronx. and also the initiative that we launched with starbucks. if you could just briefly tell everybody about donors choose and morning joe and starbucks hwan we're doing to try to help education in america.

>> absolutely. well, i want to thank the entire show at "morning joe" and especially you and mika and willie for donating your time and recognizing that it's not just about ratings, about doing the right thing. what we're doing together is we created the "morning joe" coffee. there is a sticker on there for $5 coupon with regard to donors choose. donors choose is an extraordinary organization where our customers can take a $5 credit and as a result of that direct that money to their school, a program of any kind in the country, and donors choose will facilitate that. it's a great partnership of leveraging the assets of "morning joe" starbucks and donors choose to benefit those kids throughout the country who are being left behind. >> all right. >> howard schultz, ceo of starbucks, starbucks our sponsor not afraid to say starbucks doing great things stepping in where there is a need in our country. howard, thank you very much. >> thanks, howard. >> thank you.

thank you for everything you're doing. you're making a big difference. we appreciate it. up next what did they know and when did they know it? did the white house ignore warnings that may have saved taxpayers $500 million? the story is next. we'll be right back. yesterday doesn't win. big doesn't win. titles corner offices don't win. what wins? original wins. fresh wins. smart wins. the world's most dynamic companies know what wins in business today. maybe that's why so many choose to work with us.

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a live look at the white house as the sun comes up over washington. michael, behave. >> i am. >> we have new e-mails. >> from harlem and -- >> new e-mails? >> e-mails? what? >> yeah. we have new e-mails. >> not my e-mail. >> no, no. >> is anybody attempting -- willie? >> you're good. >> lord, i hope not. >> all right. just zip it. >> whose e-mails? >> new e-mails providing further evidence that the obama administration ignored concerns surrounding the $520 million government loan to the now bankrupt solar panel

manufacturer solyndra. two days before the president's visit to the plant in 2010 a democratic campaign contributor reportedly wrote to senior white house adviser valerie jarrett in an attempt to talk them out of making the grant. part of the e-mail said quote i just want to help protect the president from anything that could result in negative or unfair press. the president should be careful about unrealistic/optimistic forecasts that could haunt him in the next 18 months if solyndra hits the wall, files for bankruptcy, etcetera. 685 pages of white house documents have been gathered as part of a congressional investigation. in an interview yesterday, president obama addressed the warnings on solyndra. >> hindsight is always 20/20. it went through the regular review process and people felt this was a good bet, but the fact of the matter is if we don't get behind clean energy, if we don't get behind advanced battery manufacturing, if we're not the ones who are creating

the cars of the future, then we're not going to be able to make stuff here in the united states of america. >> willie, hindsight is 20/20. >> well that e-mail was in real time. that wasn't hindsight. that was may 24th, 2010, two days before the president went to solyndra. >> before he went out there. >> that was not hindsight. that was foresight i think we call that. >> foresight not hindsight. mike? i'm not good with english but that's -- >> yeah. that's not hindsight. >> i think willie nailed it. >> jeffrey sachs, what do you think about this? >> i think that this is another piece of the problem that first there was no energy plan to put something like this into a broader frame work and, second, this is money in politics so the two together, the president is right that we need to have this kind of industry developed but we need to do it in a sensible way. and we could. >> they were rushing just like you said. with the stimulus, there was no plan. >> exactly. >> they threw everything against the wall. >> there are much better policies for doing this kind of

thing and you need a frame work to do it. >> coming up, best selling author and spiritual leader deepak chopra joins us next onset. ♪

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anncr: there's an easier way to save. teen: whatever. ncr: 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. welcome back to "morning joe." 44 past the hour. how did it end, joe? >> i don't really want to get into it now. >> joe, where does life come from? >> that's an easy question. i don't want to kill hamlet in the first half. our guests have written a book about it. >> yes they have. >> they're kind of proud about it. i will try to let them go. >> the new book is called "war of the world views, science

versus spirituality." we have spiritual leader deepak chopra and cal tech leonard mlodinow. is that the way your father says it? or mlodinow as we say in america here. very good to have you both on the show. i love the idea of sort of the battle of the world views which is what we have on the set in a political or ideological sense at times but you look at spirituality versus science and some of those fundamental questions, why did you guys embark upon doing this together? deepak? >> i was at a debate with the skeptic society believe it or not there is such a society. when you call them up on the phone they say, "skeptics, may we help you?" and my tendency of course to say, i don't believe you. you know, i was at a debate at cal tech. >> and i didn't believe you. >> and he didn't believe me. he challenged me. >> there you go.

>> about my physics. he offered to teach me physics. and that's how the project got started. >> we started talking physics but as we started talking physics deepak tried to teach me and started to teach me about his world view and he ended up debating each other more than we did studying with each other. >> you corrected my physics mostly. >> we did talk -- >> so what's the result? what is the result in the form of this book? what do we find when we get in the middle of the debate? >> i think we disagree more than ever before. you know, i believe that life has a divine source, that life comes from life. i believe that consciousness is primary, that we don't see nature as it is. we see nature and the cosmos as exposed to the human nervous system and the questions we ask, not as it is. because the only universe we

know is the human earth, universe. if there is a universe outside of the human consciousness it is irrelevant. >> well, i believe in looking at the only universe that we know or can know and that's the universe that we do experience and so i think the real question is knowledge and how we attain it. and thousands of years ago people made up all sorts of stories to explain the eclipses, the tides and earthquakes, and religions had their views of how the world came to be and later as philosophy grew as a subject people started to inject reason and logical thinking into their world views. but now for the last few hundred years we've had the scientific method which gives us a way of coming up with ideas of how the world operates and what's behind it that we can test and that we can verify. and so i believe that the best way to know about the world is to use a scientific method and not the more philosophical methods that deepak uses. >> in the book, leonard acknowledges that science cannot

say, cannot say and will not say that god is an illusion. he acknowledges that science cannot say what the meaning of life is. he acknowledges in the book that science cannot say why there are physical laws or why the universe owe base theobeys thes physical laws. >> he is a trial lawyer. i feel your pain. >> but all he has is opening and closing arguments. there is no evidence in between. that's what i say science brings us is the evidence. science requires the evidence. >> can, though, and i ask this, by the way, i do agree, science does not and, you know, in the grand design which i wrote with steven hawking we got a lot of publicity because we said we don't need god to create the universe. it is very important to realize we did not say and science cannot say that god did not create the universe or we don't say there is no god. >> it is an agnostic view. >> right.

>> basically not your job. >> thank you. tell him. >> exactly. >> it is my job but it's not my job -- >> let me ask this, deepak. can science and faith co-exist together? >> i do because faith asks other questions. >> as long as you're right. >> why am i here? what's the meaning and purpose of my life? do i have a soul? does god exist? what is the meaning of death? how do i increase my capacity for love and compassion and joy and equanimity. science can't tell me that. i can only tell that by exploring my own self. if i don't, the scientific world view for me is incomplete. >> i've got to say, you've been a man of peace but you seem awfully combative this morning. >> yes. yes. >> let me ask you the same question. >> i'm serious. >> can science and faith co-exist? if there is a scientist you work next to and let's say he is an evangelical or orthodox jew do

you think less of him? do you think he clings to superstition to get him through the night so he doesn't wake up at 3:00 in the morning and go oh, my god is this all there is? >> i'll tell you a story. when i was a graduate student at berkeley i was walking down the hallway and one of the professors had his door open and on the black board i i saw the first passage of the bible. which i having studied he brew for so many years could actually read and recognize. i went in. we had a nice discussion about the biblical origins of the universe. there's no conflicts there. there's a world of objective reality and what we see, the laws of nature. then there's a world of faith and a world of philosophy, what's behind everything. the only time that there's a conflict is when you really say you take the stories literally or try and use as sometimes deepak does your philosophical ideas to tell scientists what they should be finding. >> there are very famous

physicists, many of them. charlestow towns. >> i'm a little surprised how sharp you're putting the division. the way the dalai lama has put it has impressed me and a lot of people. first he said buddhism had a lot of ideas about psychology, about the way the mind works. now the neuroscientists are verifying and able to test. but he also said, look, buddhism has to be consistent with science. and if scientists prove something and buddhism says something else, the dalai lama says we have to change buddhism. because we can't have it apart. this has to be part of the natural world. buddhism, he says, is part of a philosophy of understanding how we live in that natural world, not in a conflict with science. i'm a little bit surprised how sharp you're posing the distinction. >> i think the basic difference between leonard and i is that leonard thinks there's a universe out there which is independent of an observer.

i believe that the observer is part of the observation until we have asked ourselves who's looking, you know. we have an incomplete world view. now, buddhism talks about interdependent corizing, as you know. it doesn't look at the individual as separate from nature. it looks as the individual as actually an activity of nature. here is science. i'm here. i'm the observed. that's the observed. i'm somehow outside the universe observing it from some vantage point and it exists independently of me. that's the basic fill lphilosop disagreement. >> leonard, are you on the east coast much. >> occasionally. >> let's get you guys back. i would love -- i would love to continue this. >> by the way, we've bonded spiritually. >> this is a new deepak. i like it, too. i have to say. >> i'm taking -- >> yes. the book is "war of the

worldviews." deepak chopra and leonard mlodinow. can i say it that way? >> say it the way touyou want t say it. >> thank you very much. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. executor of efficiency. you can spot an amateur from a mile away... while going shoeless and metal-free in seconds. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go.

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somebody, get her a pony! [ female announcer ] the travelocity guarantee. from the price to the room to the trip you'll never roam alone. i don't think they're better off than they were four years ago. they're not better off than they were before lehman's collapsed, before the financial crisis, before this extraordinary recession that we're going through. i think that what we've seen is that we've been able to make steady progress to stabilize the economy. but the unemployment rate is still way too high. and that's why it's so critical

for us to make sure that we are taking every action we can take to put people back to work. >> are you the underdog now? >> absolutely. because, you know, given the economy, there's no doubt that, you know, whatever happens on your watch -- >> you embrace that pretty quickly. >> i don't mind. i'm used to being an underdog. >> good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast. as you take a live look at new york city, welcome back to "morning joe." back with us onset we have mike barnicle and dr. jeffrey sachs. dr. sachs is the author of the new book "the price of civilization: reawakening american virtue and prosperitpr" >> he's got a lot of charts. willie and i are easily impressed by charts. mika, a couple things are happening today. i think this is a fascinating 24 hours. 24, 48 hours. a couple things are happening behind the scenes right now that

i think is going to have a significant impact on this election. of course, chris christie is figuring it out. he'll probably figure out in the next 24 hours whether he runs or not. nobody knows whether he does or not. i think he gets in. and i think he gets in for the second story that is, i think, really significant with the political landscape. and that is the shocking fall from grace that this president has with the new set of poll numbers that have come out. that has the president of the united states calling himself the billion dollar underdog. >> yeah. it's pretty painful. chris christie, let's just say i think this could be a defining day for the republican field as he makes his decision. it probably will come down to that, i would think. i don't think he has a lot of time. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. do you think he's getting in? >> i think he's going to get in. i think there's been movement over the past three or four days. i think he's going to get in.

and i think he's going to do much better than people -- than people think in the south. >> that's a change. you didn't think so -- >> i did not think so kaa coupl days ago. but we'll know. >> we certainly want to get to professor sachs. >> the book is out. >> it's amazing. stand by. we're going to tease it. >> can i just tell you? >> yeah. >> i bought three this morning on amazon. >> that's nice of you. i might buy a few. "the price of civilization." if you want to know what it is, you need to buy this book on amazon.com. there you go. before we get to dr. sachs' book and his massive charts. >> he has massive charts. >> president obama heads to texas today in support of his americans jobs act and to raise money for his re-election campaign. new poll numbers show just how tough his campaign for re-election will be. take a look at this new abc news "washington post" poll that shows 55% say the republican candidate will win the 2012

election while 37% feel president obama will be reelected. a lot can change in the course of a year. among republicans an overwhelming 83% feel their candidate will win the white house compared to 13% for president obama. democrats, however, are a little less enthusiastic about the president president's chances. 58% think he'll win versus 33% who think a republican will be victorious. the economy remains the underlying reason for these numbers with a new cbs news poll showing 69% believe obama has not made real progress with the economy. the issue voters overwhelmingly site is their moas their most i issue. in the same poll just 19% think the country is headed in the right direction. the lowest percent since president obama took office. 73% think the country is headed on the wrong track. then there's this statistic pointed out by cofounder of the no labels organization, mark mackinnon in his recent daily beast article.

the average consumer confidence index when a president is running for re-election wins is 95%. when they lose is 76%. today right now that number is 55%. >> jeffrey sachs? >> that's a lot of bad numbers. >> you're an economist. a lot of bad numbers. there's one i want to key in on. the question has the president made the economy better or worse? we saw very high numbers saying that there's really been no difference. i think if you're an obama supporter, you would say along with bush he helped push through t.a.r.p. he -- he had the bailout for detroit that saved tens of thousands of jobs in general motors. there is a compelling case to be made if you are a democrat. yet you've been skeptical from the very beginning. from the very beginning that this president was doing what needed to be done to revive the economy. >> i have to say i really cringe

when i hear the president describe himself as the underdog that way. i just don't want to hear a president talk that way, period. i think they tried a lot of things that really weren't destined for much success. the claim that the president will make, it's arguable that they saved the country from worse. it probably isn't enough to really make the case when the country wants something better than that. my feeling has been all along, joe, that basically from the beginning, they went for kind of gimmickry and short-term measures. the stimulus and then another temporary tax cut and this jobs plan is another gimmick. it's not real. >> but that's not just an indictment on -- your indictment isn't just with barack obama in this book. it's with all politicians. i agree with you 100%. they're worried about what we do

to juice the numbers for the next quarter instead of the next century. >> that's exactly it. it's like the ceos twisting the numbers up for stock options and all the rest of it. we're so shortsighted and short term right now. the basic point of my book on the economic side, not the political side, is that our economy is in a new world. new world economy. we've been buffetted by the rise of china, by other massive changes. and we simply haven't taken seriously what that means for how to create good jobs, how to keep prosperity. what do we have instead? the idea that you can turn a dial, that you can cut a tax for a year, that you can stimulate for a year, that that just gets you past the bump. but we've got something more than a bump. we have a world that's changing deeply and probably for me the most impressive part of our society in terms of understanding what's happening is that at the very top, people are still doing very, very well.

it's people at the bottom, people that don't have the education or the job skills to be able to compete internationally. but that's not 10% anymore. that's not 20%. that's the bottom half of our society. >> the bottom half. mike, let me ask you. where were you in 1973? >> 1973 in terms of what? >> just where were you? what were you doing in '73. >> i was writing a column five days a week for "the boston globe." i was making 75 bucks per column without any health insurance. >> do you know that in 1973 dr. sachs writes in his book, 1973 was the peak for -- for the average male worker in america if you adjust the numbers and everything. that was the peak. america has been declining in terms of real wages since 1973. since you were working for the globe in '73 30 what? 38 years ago. >> you know, it's interesting. just listening to jeffrey just now, people -- when you talk to

people about president obama, people who support him or are inclined to support him or people who want him to succeed because he is our president, there's a sadness to their tone. >> yeah. >> when they talk about him. which is not good for him. the other aspect of this presidency is that -- and everything around it. and it's not barack obama's fault, per se. but something is happening in this country. you can feel the unraveling of a social contract that has held us together for 200 years. >> can i -- can i challenge you on that? >> yeah. >> i don't think it's happening in america. we -- i hate to keep saying it. we have been across america for the past three or four years, and just talked to thousands and thousands of people. i don't think the problem is in america. i hate to be overly simplistic. i think the problem is in washington, d.c., in a city --

>> it is. >> in a city that has seen a historic failure of institutions on every front. and jeffrey talks about that is. i think the parties have been bought off. i think they are overly ideological. i think when we go out, i don't care whether we're talking to a synagogue in ft. lauderdale, florida, or talking in south alabama to a conservative -- at a conservative christian church. we're stunned by the agreement of -- of the most liberal and the most conservative saying, okay, our entitlement programs are going belly up. why are we spending $2 billion a week in wars all across the globe. they just tick off the list. why aren't the rich paying? why do we have all of these loophol loopholes? why isn't there more tax fairness? why are we depending on the federal government to grow the economy instead of trusting the private sector? i mean, there is so much

agreement, mike, in america. and it is twisted in washington, d.c. >> you couldn't be more correct. you could not be more correct. but when i'm saying that the social contract seems to be unraveling, ask yourself this. when you feel threatened, when you feel as though your family is threatened by either economics or the political system, what do you do? you draw inward to protect yourself. we are now protecting ourselves. we're worried about the entitlement purpose. we ought not to be worried about the entitlement programs as much as we should be worried about things you just spoke to. fannie mae. government agency in charge of mortgages. knew about the mortgage problem since 2003. >> guess what? their people have been indicted. >> dr. sachs. >> excuse me. this is impressive. >> this, joe, is what you said. i just want to show people, this is the income of an average four-year -- >> jeffrey, i'm going to help

you out here. i just want to get this in the light. keep talking. >> we peaked 38 years ago. >> let's get this up in the light a little bit. i'm going to bring this up here. you talk, i hold. >> so this is where things started to change and where we failed to recognize how the global economy was starting to hit the american economy and how we had to do something about it. now, this is the result of income inequality. this is the share of income taken by the richest 1%. there's been one group that's been the winner in america. that's the very top. globalization has been good for them. stock options, investing in china and all the rest. this is 1929, the start of the great depression. highest inequality. after the new deal, world war ii, the gi bill, the mainstream america that really had economic growth and social stability. but then since globalization and since the tax cuts and the surge

of power of the very richest, we've reached the level of inequality at the highest since the great depression. >> 197 when china was opened? >> i think that's the pivotal date. even in the 1970s we started to feel the pressure of all of this, joe. what we didn't do as a society is we didn't react to it in any sensible way. what happened is the rich got richer and then they used their political power to get tax cuts, to go for gimmicks, to boost their incomes, to get the cayman island tax havens. so we got into a spiral where our society has become less and less fair. if you don't have a high school diploma, your income has been plummeting. the only group that is consistently having a higher income are those with advanced degrees or with bachelor's degrees. this i see all the time. being at a university.

if kids come from an affluent family, they can pay the tuition. they can get through. then they have it okay in the united states. but if you're coming from working class family, if you're coming from a poor family, the chance that you're going to make it all the way through college is very small. even if you make it through that great school that we visited in the bronx, the charter school for excellence, wonderful. you know what we're finding? those wonderful schools turn out wonderful kids who then can't afford to make it through college. so you end up dropping, even after all that hard work because they can't get through college. and in american society today if you can't make it through college, you're facing poverty. not middle class it used to be. there was a big middle class for you. those were manufacturing jobs. that was where you work in industry. those are all abroad now. >> jeffrey, i think the part that's going to be controversial for some, your argument that

taxes need to be increased significantly, talk about this next chart and why you believe we have to raise taxes? >> well, the basic point is -- i call the book "the price of civilization" because oliver wendell holmes jr., one of our great supreme court justices once said we pay taxes to buy civilization. and in the united states right now because of the power of the rich in the campaigns, because the fact that president obama almost every week sits down to a $35,800 a plate dinner, not with poor people, not with working class people, middle class people, but with rich, the fact that both parties have been on a campaign since the early 1980s, cut taxes for the rich, cut taxes for the rich, to these levels, we have the rich who have walked off with the prize in this country. they have the highest concentration of wealth and income in history. and the rest of america is

struggling. and that's really the problem. i think that if i could find one more of these -- actually, two more things to show, which i think will surprise a lot of americans will love to see what i'm about to show. but i think it's important for people to understand this arithmetic. they don't feel this way. but the united states is the only high income country in the world that didn't raise the share of taxes and gnp from 1965 onward. other countries did. as we aged, as we needed more infrastructure, as we needed to spend on science and technology. and the countries like sweden, like denmark that i talk about, germany and others, are right now with lower unemployment, better wages, job skills, keeping their manufacturing sector. whereas we haven't paid our way.

we've ended up with a huge underclass. kids that can't make it through anymore. and all of these gimmicks that we're doing right now, another one-year tax cut, another stimulus, another this, another that, this isn't getting us anywhere. we're at a dead end right now unless we get serious with the underlying problems. coming up next wk nationally syndicated talk radio host bill bennett joins the conversation. also, a dramatic new celebrity path campaign by bono's one organization will be debuted right here on "morning joe." we'll talk to former "time" magazine deputy editor and new ceo of one campaign, michael elliott. first, here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> we have so much nice weather. the one inspection north of boston. we've had reports of flooding this morning. as much as 6 inches has fallen. they're skacanceling school. the coastline of maine is not

pretty either. this storm system will exit during the day today and later on tonight. dry new york city southwards today. then the warmth will move in. a beautiful day today in the middle of the country. it's been very nice. that warm weather is heading to the eastern seaboard. enjoy the 80s from minneapolis to dallas. the west coast is the travel trouble spot over the next couple days. pretty big storm will be moving in there. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. look, every day we're using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. where's it going to come from? ♪ that's why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what's it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we've got to be smart about this. it's a smart way to go. ♪

we want to check in on andy's first night of retirement to see how he was doing. seems like he still has a lot he needs to say. just take a look.

>> domino's, how can i help you? >> hi. i'd like to order a large cheese piz pizza, please. >> okay. >> why do they call it cheese pizza anyway? it's got sauce on it. >> 911, what's your emergency? >> what's the significance of the number 911? why not just 111? or even 1? i think more things ought to be made out of wood. since when are cupcakes such a big [ bleep ] deal. and what is this lady gaga. the only thing i want coming out of an egg is an omelet. and if you ever see me out to dinner, leave me the [ bleep ] alone. >> okay. 22 past the hour. joining us now, host of the nationally broadcast radio show, bill bennett's "morning in america." bill bennett joins us. bill's out with a new book. "the book of man: readings on the path to manhood." very good to have you back on the show.

>> nice to be back. >> fellow williams alum. >> fellow williams alum. >> 19 -- what year did you graduate? >> '65. >> '65 was a good year. let's take a look. >> oh, man, look at that. >> see, some embarrassing photos of people at a party. just show 20 years old and it's embarrassing. >> good looking guy. jutted jaw looking into the future. >> jutted jaw. >> offensive tackle. >> were you on the football team? >> we beat amhurst. >> do you go back and watch? >> no. i'm an embarrassment to williams. the only way i come back is if a really conservative alum nis dies. he leaves a fortune. i want a conservative speaker. then they invite me up and surround me. >> they've only had two

conservatives. >> yeah. >> no bicentennial medal for you? >> let me ask you -- it's the truth. i know -- i won't even get into it. this happens so much at lead institutions that are supposed to be so open minded. a good friend of mine was the first conservative editor of the harvard crimson. and they didn't want to give it to him. but he was so clearly superior to everybody else they had to. but they gave him for the first time in the history of the harvard crimson a minder. somebody that would look at everything he did ahead of time. >> a minder. >> seriously, for these -- but we don't speak of williams that way because, mika, you are going to open -- there's going to be an opening, a detente.

and you are going to -- >> i will bridge it. >> -- walk bill bennett through the front of whatever institution. we need a -- >> i need one. when i went back that last time, i'll tell you how long ago it was. due dukakis versus bush. they found out there were two faculty members supporting bush. >> they're gone. >> i went up there -- seriously. we went up there election night to talk. i've got to tell you, seriously, i was only pelted by three tomatoes. >> that's just not true. >> it's not true at all. >> the kids are good. >> the kids are great. i've got to tell you also the administration, we talked to them. you will see a completely different attitude. >> i look forward to my honorary degree. >> i'll take you on a trip down memory lane. now let's talk about the book. >> let's talk about "the book of

man." >> for the first time in history, women, women are coming into adulthood with more achievement, more education, more ambition than men. this is a sea change. this is a very big deal. a lot of data in the book, in the introduction, a lot of stories, tales, models, descriptions, profiles of people in the body of the book. but maybe the best evidence is the reaction of women. talk to women in their 20s and say tell me about men your age, men in their 20s, early 20s, mid-20s. you get very interesting reactions. we thought -- we thought almost forever that with the decline of marriage this would hurt women more than men. it's hurt men more than women. men need that structure to behave themselves. >> to thrive. >> to thrive. to make more money. to be responsible. we used to have expectations of men that they would have to do certain things, develop certain habits, so that they could take care of children, be good husbands, good fathers.

not clear they're needed anymore because of these women. they are so strong. they said, you go, girl. they went. and they are doing it. >> it ends up that what people like mika have long suspected in many ways, men are the weaker sex. without the structure -- >> i think they are without the structure. >> without the structure they don't thrive too often. mika, you've actually talked about this so much that -- about men and what's happened to manhood over the past 15, 20 years where you take a guy like your dad that came out of poland. left right before the warsaw uprising. came -- went to canada first. came to america. built himself. but there was a whole generation of men like that. where are they now? >> that's the question we were asking actually for an article you were working on as well, willie. i think you bring up a good point. i'm fascinated by the insight that you bring to the table on what the decline of marriage, the impact on men and women.

because you definitely think that it would have the opposite effect. >> you would. you would. well, what happens is women end up, as they say, holding the bag. having the children. taking care of the children. but they cope. you've seen these commercials -- >> they do just fine. >> seen these commercials where the girl is studying late at night, taking the train and the trolley, getting her degree from one of the for-profit institutions. those are the commercials aimed at a lot of young women. the commercials for men that i'm watching on football, that's the second unmanly thing you did today. it's very much on men's minds. what does it mean to be a man. they're confused. we used to have a coherent set of signals we sent to men. we don't have them anymore. in 1970, 80% of men 25 to 29 were married. now it's 40%. obviously that's going to be a similar number for women. but the effects on men are much

more -- >> men who are not married, are no longer married, fair worse than women? >> yes. right now they are. right now they are fairing worse. educationally there's a rumor around -- i think this is probably based on some fact. that the most elite institutions, your institutions, the ivy league institutions, they've got to put a thumb on the scale to get an equal number of buy buoys in. if you do it just on application strength, women overpower. >> let's be specific about what's missing. you say there's certain habits we used to instill in men that aren't there anymore. what are they? >> industriousness. value of work. commitment. i think religion has played an important part in the lives of men keeping them under check. i think those are the three main things. dana patrick moynahan, the guy who introduced me to my first job in government said

everywhere there is a universal in every culture. you cannot raise boys to manhood without men being there telling them that manhood is not machoness. it's not being a tough guy. it's persevering. it's honoring your commitments. it's spending your time in a worthwhile way. story after story that i've gotten, they have good jobs. they're making decent money. she moves out because it's video games all night. interesting statistic. men 18 to 35 play 2 1/2 hours of video games a day. more than boys 12 to 17. look, i'm a guy. left to myself without somebody pushing me, some nun, some priest, some mother, some father, some boss, you know, i tend to -- gravity, you know. i tend to go in the other direction. we need to be brought up. >> i said "call of duty" is hard

to walk away from. my wife takes the xbox out of the house. >> we need work. >> we need work. l let -- >> let me ask you about that. class of '65, williams college. so if you're a certain age and you look at your wife, you grew up when the street, the city that you lived in, the block that you lived on, the spine of all three -- the city, the state, the block -- were men. maybe it was the war. and maybe it was the product of the depression. now fast forward all these years, and you see men sometimes, many times, the stability in the family is the wife. it's the woman. >> absolutely. >> how much does the economy factor into this? guys fearing losing their jobs and thus their identity, who they are. how much of that is there? >> the economy certainly explains part of what we're in now. but the interest in getting a job, wanting to get a job as a way of fulfilling yourself,

understanding that work defines you, is something a boy has to learn. it doesn't come in his genes. what's missing in a lot of those neighborhoods now, unprecedented numbers, are fathers. they're not there. i just talked to tavis smiley. he and i disagree on a million things. he just did this poverty tour with cornell west. i said, what did you find out? he said the boys need men. men aren't there. i was raised by a single mom, my brother and i. you know, my brother, he's, you know, people say to us which one of you is adopted, you know. >> he's a lawyer. >> yeah. he's a lawyer. a very good lawyer. she knew she had to get good men in our lives. we didn't have a father around. coaches. teachers. others. you need to learn. you need to learn. you need to have it in front of you. boys don't have it in front of them. it's more damaging for the boys not to have fathers, so all the evidence suggests, than the girls. >> it's very interesting. you talk about how men need marriage. need a structure. now, i can -- i was talking about this the other day.

my reputation was -- in high school, in college, was being lazy, playing music, going to the beach, being a bum. you know, people would see me in my late 20s and say what happened to you? because i completely shifted. and i started working around the clock. and i have been working around the clock for, you know, 20, 25 years. i can point to the date where my life changed. it was the morning my first son -- i say this because you know it, mike, because you've got seven kids. the second my first son was born, and i looked at him, i said, i got to go to law school. i got to straighten up. i got to provide. and if that's not there, if that weren't there, i would be playing music and video games. >> it clicked on for you. >> it clicked on. >> but it doesn't click on for every man. it doesn't click on anymore. there are lots of men who father children, as you know, and just think it's not their issue, not their problem. >> tavis smiley said boys need

men. it sounds like to me what you're saying is men need women. >> men need women. and women need men, too. >> not so much. >> yeah, they do. these data, all these numbers, the women have seen it, feminists have seen it, they're not happy about it. they want men, too. >> okay. i agree. >> you agree. >> i agree. you all are adorable. you all are so useful. >> let me tell you something, mika every day complains, seriously. >> what do i complain about? >> about the lack of real men in business, in communities, in schools. you talk about that all the time. this book was written for me. >> it is "the book of man." bill bennett. men need women. up next, we'll debut the provocative ad campaign by bono's one organization. and we'll talk to president and ceo michael elliott, when we come back.

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[ bleep ]. >> [ bleep ]. >> [ bleep ]. >> [ bleep ]. >> famine is the real obscenity. >> famine. >> famine. >> famine. >> 30,000 three have died in

just three months. >> 30,000. >> in three months. >> 12 million -- >> men, women and children -- >> are on the brink. >> in 2011? >> really? >> are you [ bleep ] kidding me? >> we know how to stop this. >> we know how to stop this. >> we know how to stop this. >> early warning systems. >> better irrigation. >> peace and security. >> drought is an act of nature. >> famine is manmade. >> famine is manmade. >> famine is manmade. >> go to one.org. >> let's put a [ bleep ] end to famine. >> that was the new celebrity packed psa from one, the organization led by u2's bono, dedicated to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. particularly in africa. joining us now from washington, the president and ceo of one, michael elliott. michael, good to see you in your new role. although we miss you from "time" as well. it's great to have you back.

first of all, tell us about the ad campaign. >> well, this is part of a broader campaign that we're launching today, mika, which -- which tries to link the short-term, incredibly urgent need to do something about the famine in the horn of africa which has already killed 30,000 people in three months. but to link that to a much broader, longer term campaign to invest in agricultural productivity in africa. long term the only way that we can really put an end to famine is if we have new seeds, we have new irrigation systems. we really invest in what can be an incredibly productive sector in africa, which will benefit us all. but in the short term, i think we have an obligation to do something to try and prevent people from dying from wub of the worst natural disasters we've seen in many years. >> it's a provocative ad. provocative ad campaign. >> it's being premiered right here. >> fascinating.

barbara and jenna bush were in it. mike huckabee and other republicans that you don't usually see associated with these type of ads. it's usually progressive activists. this really did -- this really does span both sides of the aisle. >> yeah. joe, we -- we at one make a -- pride ourselves on being bipartisan in the way that we do our advocacy and campaigning. and we were fortunate enough to have absolutely extraordinary contributions for which we're tremendously grateful. i'd like to thank everyone who helped us with this. from people like the bush daughters and mike huckabee. we're very, very grateful to all of them. >> front story on "new york times," foreign aid being slashed in washington, d.c. a great challenge. >> the money is gone. michael, it seems like every once in a while we get these flash points. we hear about them for a week or two. whether it's bono bringing them to our attention or george

clooney as he's done on these shows. sadly they seem to fade from the public conscience. what to we do to keep this front of mind so we can make real progress. >> i think what we have to do, willie, it's an absolutely great point. i saw that piece "new york times" in the when i woke up this morning. i think what we have to do is keep the pressure on on all fronts. not just in the u.s., incidentally. one of the things about this campaign is that increasingly you're seeing african activists, too, many of whom we're working with put pressure on their own governments to invest in agriculture, too. this isn't just a u.s. thing. but organizations like ours and many others who are doing wonderful work on the ground in africa, which isn't what we do, need to keep up pressure, to talk to churches, talk to faith groups, talk to colleges, talk to their congressmen and make sure that one understands both the short term and the long term urgency of doing something. >> michael, what about domestic pressure here on programs like this. as valuable and necessary as they are, you do have people

here in this country who say, hey, we have people starving to death, malnourished in this country. >> mike, there's absolutely no doubt about that. and, you know, i think anyone in the sort of position that i am or that we are, you know, has to be extraordinarily sensitive to the fact that these are very, very hard times for lots of people. i was sitting in the green room here in washington watching the terrific segment you were all doing with jeff sachs just a few minutes ago. but really there is something of a moral imperative, i think, when you have kids, little kids, kind of dying. in 2011. when you have children having to -- when you have mothers having to kind of walk for days to get to feeding centers. i always remember that in world war i when little belgian children were starving, a rock grid republican like herbert hoover rolled up his sleeves and made sure that american aid got there to save people. that was a kind of moral choice of the sort that i think we can still make.

>> i love it. michael elliott, thank you. >> thank you, michael, for being with us. thank you for your great work. if you don't mind just for one second, let's turn the page to the sports section. >> uh-oh. >> you know what i'm going to ask you. you know, the season starts with such promise. i'm thinking king kenny is going to take us to the 19th title. then we go to stoke and lose 2-1. then north londed and get hammered 4-0. look into the crystal ball. what does it show for liverpool. >> joe, i'll tell you this. if you tweet about our video, i'm going to wear a university of alabama shirt to the liverpool united game. how is that? >> okay. >> that's a deal. >> that is a big deal. >> michael elliott, thank you. >> i will be there. >> go to one.org for more information, by the way. up next, a look at wall street futures ahead of bernanke's testimony today. business before the bell is next.

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lett get a quick check on business before the bell. ben bernanke, gentle ben, going to have a meeting. what's the import of that on the markets? >> ben bernanke speaking at 10:00 this morning. but i don't think anybody feels he's going to be able to turn things around this morning, joe. in 45 minutes we'll open down here. we're going to open in bear market territory. that means the s&p certainly will be down 20% from its highs. still a lot of concern about what's happening in europe. inevitably suspicions that might impact the american banks here. we've got two household names denying bankruptcy. kodak and amr, the parent of american airlines. at 11:00 this morning -- i beg your pardon. 1:00 this afternoon the iphone 5 is going to be launched by apple. incredibly thin, joe. one gigabyte of ram we think. and voice control so you can say

to it, text mika to tell her she's great, sure enough, the iphone 5 will do exactly that. >> i don't know if i'd ever do that. but it's a good option to always have in your pocket, simon. >> never know when you might need it. >> it's amazing what apple does. compare and contrast apple with kodak. mike, you remember just like i remember in the '70s, kodak had a monopoly. you hear somebody say that kodak -- i'm serious. somebody says kodak may go bankrupt? it's jarring. >> but should it be? remember the word polaroid? gone. >> simon, thank you for the idea. >> simon, it was a great idea. mika thanks you for zblit i'll do it, mika. i'll buy one and do it for you. >> is that the only thing the phone will text. >> that's all it does. for people that don't know somebody named mika, it seems to be an app that you just don't need. just saying. the praise mika app. i'm just saying, that's all. up next, a morning joe

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there was some football last night. colts and bucs played the monday night game. >> he's talking football. you're not talking football. you're not talking football.

>> if you've been watching monday night football over the last 20 years -- >> this is not about monday night football. not about hank williams. >> there was something missing from the top of the show. ♪ are you ready for some football ♪ >> last night hank william jr.'s theme song, the one you've seen for the past few years, was pulled from the air. why? hank williams jr. was on tv earlier in the day yesterday comparing president obama to hitler. >> do you remember the golf game they had, ladies and gentlemen? remember the golf game? that was one of the biggest political mistakes ever. >> you mean when john boehner played golf with president obama? >> oh, yeah. yeah. and biden and kasich. uh-huh. >> what did you not like about it? it seems to be a really pivotal moment for you. >> come on. come on. that would be like hitler playing golf with netanyahu. okay? not hardly. >> i don't understand the

analogy, actually. >> i'm glad you don't, brother, because a lot of people do. they're the enemy. they're the enemy. >> who's the enemy? >> obama! and biden! are you kidding? the three stooges. >> espn heard that, got rid of his segment. hank williams came on and said it was misconstrued. >> i want to know how that ended. >> joe on your side. >> keeping them honest. investigation into which hat hank williams was using. we reported earlier it was a university of alabama hat. some of you have e-mailed to say it's actually an atlanta braves hat. >> it's a braves hat. >> here's the braves. can we see? >> very clearly a braves -- >> roll tide from the right. >> very seriously, somebody's in trouble. >> let's zero in on that flourish at the top of the a. looks very similar. >> stop it! this entire segment -- you know,

just a knock to the southern man. to attack university of alabama graduates. >> only ones who compare the president to hitler. ♪ ♪

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rather take a chance losing with a 20-year-old. welcome back to "morning joe." talking baseball. willie, what tid you learn today? >> the season of my new york yankees rests on the heavily