middle east, the wild card is china. the news is america and iran. the chinese have their hands in two of the biggest conflicts that are happening right now in the middle east and can influence the temperature both in iran and in syria. first in syria, a major market for chinese goods and choina's deep into the oil industry, they have the leverage to both cool or escalate things in that conflict. it's one of the reasons that the world watchers say china blocked the security council resolution that condemned syria. the latest estimate now 7,500 for sure reported killed by assad in what has turned into a murderous battle and the casualties are not actually known. in iran, at least as it relates to china, there's evidence that beijing companies have for years been supplying iran with materials and technology that could contribute to their ability to build long-range missiles. that's not a hugely-new piece of information, but it's important

to bare that in mind. i want to start with the news of the day. and how much is real. with us right now, msnbc correspondent richard angle. before we get into that, there's a sequence between the united states and iran that had a water shed of some sort today. tell us what's going on. >> if you go back to president obama's speech the day before yesterday, which was an important speech, particularly in regards to iran. he talked about the need to calm things down, to stop talk about or lose talk about war. and said there was an important opportunity and still room for a diplomatic solution for the ongoing crisis with iran and there was a window for diplomacy. >> which was the president's framing two days ago. during an israeli state visit. so it was something of --

>> consequential framework. >> while the israelis are here, the president says i'm not going to come out as everyone thought i might and say we need to bomb iran or we need to make sure they don't get a weapon. he said this is not an urgent matter, meaning iran's potential nuclear program, but this is something that needs to be resolved and there is still a window for diplomacy. >> what happened today? >> the iranian supreme leader came out -- iran's supreme leader is a person, but also the office that doesn't make many public statements. it's considered above the day-to-day politics. t the. >> how frequently do they make statements? >> he says something all the time. but usually about religious matters. >> about a way to be. about culture. >> not addressing specifically other international events.

it doesn't receive foreign dignitaries. he sees himself as like the overseer. >> he's the supreme leader. >> like the president of the united states as opposed to the dean of students. >> understood. >> so he came out and welcomed president obama's statement. >> directly mentioned president obama? >> directly mentioning those statements as positive. >> why do you believe that's so consequential? >> because he doesn't do that kind of thing very often. it could signal a shift in at least considering negotiations. the fact that the iranians are now talking about giving more access to nuclear inspectors. it also comes right after an iranian election in which ahmadinejad, his position was crushed. as of now, he is a lame duck president. so you have someone who has been sidelined who is the face of the iranian regime.

the face of antagonism towards the west. wherever you drive around the united states and you see the ads on the wall that say iran must be stopped, he's the face. he's just been sidelined. and the people who are replacing him aren't anymore friendly, but they are trying to at least start an engagement. and that's significant. and this happened once before when president obama was first elected. supreme leader sent a letter congratulating him. it was sent through ahmadinejad. the response from the united states was cool, snub. the fact they are trying again now, maybe it's bluffing. but maybe it's not. >> joining the conversation now, gordon change, foreign affairs columnist for "the daily". before we get to china's ability to help cool or escalate whatever is going to happen between these other parties,

your thoughts on the rhetorical indications that richard is framing for us as an opening or a potential indication of an opening, that might be the most cautious way to frame it, for some type of political dialogue of somehow between u.s. leadership and iranian leadership that at least rhetorically this week shows variance from recent history, shall we say. >> i think the thing that's significant about it is it comes on the eve of talks with iran. which probably are going to start in a couple weeks. so it's an indication that the iranian regime is willing to talk to the west. i don't know how far they will go, but nonetheless, it is a hopeful sign. >> at the same time, your point is that the nation with a tremendous amount of leverage, both in iran and in syria, obviously is china.

give us your sense of their motives and incentives to either help escalate tensions as some may argue they have in recent weeks and what interests they may have to deescalate some of this heat? >> i think china does not want to see conflict in the middle east, but on the other hand, it would like to see the united states tied down in the persian gulf because that means we have fewer resources to deal with china eastertorial ambitions in east asia. so i think that choina is going to try to play both sides because it wants iran's help. they have a long relationship with tehran, and it's not about to give that em to please anybody else. >> fundamental anxiety, your worst fear from the u.s. perspective is there may be rhetorical opportunity. maybe this thing will cool off.

but other nations, most notably china and russia, kriblt contribute to their variables. how do you view those relationships? >> china and russia have taken a position on syria, where they have taken a much harder line saying we will not support military action. we want to give the syrian government more of an opportunity to find and negotiate its settlement. they are sticking with the regime. pretty much the rest of the world wants the regime to go. the reason they are doing that has to do with self-interests. russia wants to maintain relations. they are also opposed to the general trend in the arab spring. the arab spring -- >> that's threatening to their power apparatus. >> at the end of the day, china

is a centralized state. some people call it a police sta state. russia not that dissimilar. so the idea that you can have popular resolutions support the by the united states and topple the elite bureau is not something that appeals to either of the regimes. in principle. then on the other side. they have friends in those regimes they don't want to throw under the bus, like some people criticize the united states for throwing friends under the bus. for iran, it's business interests. they have business interests with oil and natural gas and want to keep them. they want to keep them at almost any cost. >> gordon, you have the last word on this. if you were mediating the mutual interests of china and the united states in the middle east, what would be the one thing you would try to get them to agree to? >> i think the first thing we need to do is get china to stop

its commercial relationships with iran. but also stopping the sale of ballistic missiles and components and materials and proliferating nue ining nuclear technology. that threatens us in an important way. >> thank you for the reporting. >> unless you want to stop the rival between the u.s. and china. social car. >> that's the answer? there it is. thank you very much. there it is, people. you want to stop china and the united states with all this mess? social car people. let's get on it. coming up, china may be the wild card when it comes to our relations in many parts of the world, but iran is the wild card for us when it comes to what we're paying at the pump for gasoline. we'll talk to our specialist about how that's playing out for

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this bill today makes it easier for start up businesses to happen again in america. we need to be a startup country again. >> for capital formation, these bills provide all sorts of

different paths for companies to grow, for them to hire, for them to expand this economy. >> your house majority leader praising the overwhelming house passage of the so-called jobs act. not sure if it's a job act, but it's certainly a move towards modernization of our networks and the ability to raise money on them. what it really is is a bundle of six pieces of legislation that make it easier for people to raise money on the internet. moves it up to a thousand shareholders as opposed to 500 shareholders and creates a new class of companies dubbed emerging growth companies that get the benefits. all of this on the heels of tomorrow's unemployment numbers. republicans are trumpeting this so-called jobs act as an effort to bring america back. the democrats are suggesting that it is an incremental

positive, but it's nothing more than a minor fix. our mega panel is here. karen, susan, and jimmy. this is structural reform and is attractive to somebody like myself who believes in the need to access the crowd and the network in order to solve problems. so i'm inclined to look at this as a half-full scenario, susan, but i know that you're going to try to dissuade me of this. >> what i don't like is they are saying this is great for small businesses. when we define a small business, it's defined as 500 employees or less. so these members of congress are going to go home and say we helped all these small businesses. the loam business that hires maybe three to ten employees doesn't need to raise the capital limits from $5 million to $50. they are not going wow, we can

get that money. >> but the small business in a small town that wants to raise any money, a kick starter, the modern mechanisms do benefit, karen, from being able to at least avoid registration requirements when people try to do a startup on facebook. >> here's the thing though. there's two pieces. on the face of it, it's a net positive. apparently a number of the measures have been passed. they wanted to repackage it. fine. but we can't ignore the politics, which is these guys went home and got their butts kicked because they have done nothing to create jobs. it's now into 2012. they have had control of the house since 2010. instead they are doing hearings on contraception. so point being, they are trying to cover their political back sides. democrats are saying it's good, but come on. there's a huge piece of legislation that if we're really going to do this, let's really

do it. >> on the jobs front. >> that's right. >> you know, go ahead, jimmy. what are you thinking? >> i don't think that congress or the white house create jobs. i think that -- >> hold on a second. let me ask you a question. do you think people raise money in public to form capital to create businesses that create jobs? >> yes. >> does congress control the terms upon which you can raise money? >> yes, but to susan's point, i don't know of a single small. business with 12 employees that this will actually help. i'm not saying this is bad. i like what they did. it's great. second it to the senate. it's great. they have passed six bills as one two years after being in charge. >> we'll see. >> absolutely. that's exactly right. but government doesn't create jobs. they create the environment for jobs. and if that's what they have done here and is succeeding, then i will applaud them for

that. i don't care what party does that. >> guess who fought hard for this? the banks. they lobbied like crazy. >> listen. one of our favorite things, obviously, is we sort of know that everybody knows that congress's approval rating is at 10%. just to emphasize that a little more clearly, 13% of americans approve of north korea. that's a real number. >> i knew you were going somewhere like that. >> so 10% for congress. 13% for north korea. now there's a new thing that's come out that you have folks in congress saying, this job sucks. we suck. i have to get out of here. why do they say it? because they don't make policy anymore. they can't earmark money for communities back home the way

they used to. they say they are hated by anyone that comes near them. they say they spend too much time fundraising. they say all the things that we say that suck about them. they say it sucks too. i could argue that this is a good sign. we're on the same page. >> one more number. 20% of americans think aliens walk among us. >> so that's twice as many as the approval of congress. >> that's right. just to put that in perspective. here's the problem i have with this. do something about it. don't just get out. i have friends who are republicans who hem and hau who think that the tea partiers have taken over. stand up to them and do something rather than saying i'm

going to take my vote and go home. we're seeing super pacs giving to congressional races because they know they can win in the gerrymandered districts. so we're seeing it repeat on the house and senate. we have to pay attention to those races as well. >> there has to be a component that's valid to advocate reform. the narrative is the need to reform. >> it's now turning out to be not such a good gig. i don't think holding elected office should be considered a gig. people have to decide if they want to run for office. this is going to be hard work. they are going to have to learn how to get things done by compromising. >> at a time when there's a lot to be done. and it's a stressful time. it's not like going under the bridge of the ship when it's

smooth seas. >> every day you walk into your office and i would say a super majority of probably everyone there likes you. and you like them. okay. >> only those who speak to me. >> but think about it like this. if every day you walked into the office and half the people you work with hate your guts. that would suck. and it's no wonder that they are miserable and they don't like their jobs. by the way, who are they going to blame? they should blame themselves. when you spend 75% of your day raising money and not actually talking to your colleagues, but instead dolling for dollars and going to committee hearings and being told what your talking points are. >> and abandoning our views -- >> and even saying let's figure out if we can't get these ten

things done, what are the two things we can get done because at least that's a step forward. >> like the super pack transparency legislation immediately, which is maybe the lowest hanging fruit in the history of politics. the panel stays. next up here, your pain, whose gain? who stands to profit from this particular issue. ♪

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some nail -- 50 cents per gallon of gas. >> the group has been ongoing and looking to see if there are appropriate manipulations of the market. >> interestingly, our attorney

general who still refuses to investigate the heist in the history of the world being perpetrated by the banking system, he is looking into the public market speculation around the price of oil that oddly has moved higher in saber rattling. imagine that! oil amid-fears about war with iran, $106 a barrel today. soring 40% since october. yet making good for political football. families across the country feel the squeeze at the pump, which is why this price is so uniquely politically interesting for the folks who get involved with. and even at $5 a gallon, our government subsidizes the true cost by the tune of 75% or higher when you look at the cost of military security and environmental damage. our specialist is dan gross, economic editor, who has looked

into the winners and losers in the party when it comes to the mu up in energy. before we get to your analysis, how are we to interpret our attorney general and the speculation? my recall is there's a speculative financial market that is exercised in public and has a high degree of volatility based on whether there's disruptions. >> they may as well investigate the price of wheat. all the political conversation about gas prices, both those attacking saying the president is responsible, this is what he wants, and the pushback saying we're going it look into those. we'll get to the bottom of this. if only we can get the chinese to stop driving. >> richard angle solved this earlier. he said the solar car solves all

our problems. >> when that comes out, and produced at 80 million units a year, fine. >> you were making a broader point, which was the price of oil is the price of oil. >> it is what it is. yes, people are speculating including the oil companies. if you're a refiner, you have to hedge. you're familiar with this stuff. there are distributors that have to hedge. so underlying it all, the global economy is expanding. car sales are growing 30% a year in china and they put gasoline into them. >> susan, i feel like the oil markets and energy markets when it comes to political culture and pop media culture, that the energy markets is probably the second-least understood thing in the halls of washington and in the broader media after the banks. so nobody understands what you're talking about. but when you talk about oil prices, you have more understanding, which leads to

the opportunity for a huge political football. is that unfair? >> absolutely because people go every day to fill up their car. >> that's all they know. >> when they go to the banks, if they notice there's an atm fee, that's when they start paying attention to the banks. it has nothing to do with the underlying problems. but my question for you is, i heard you once mention that now we're more better prepared to brunt this cost, we won't feel as t as much? >> compared to 2008. 2011 we produce more crude oil in this country than in any year since 2002. in north dakota, there's a full on oil boom. we're exporting refined products. we're driving less and the rest of the world is driving more. 2011 was the first year we were a net exporter of crude oil products. >> before you get too excited though, oil prices apply to

every barrel of oil. >> sure. but it means more money we're spending is staying on our shores. it you're in north dakota, the housing market -- >> we have had people from north dakota on the show. it's amazing. >> the unemployment rate is 3%. that's a big difference from a few years ago. and the second difference is the car industry. we sell 40,000 cars a day. i was just in toledo at a chrysler plant where they are running full out. this used to be bad because all they did was sell, uvs and pickups. u.s. car makers are better set up to deal with changing consumer behavior. >> instead of losing money in the oil shock like with suvs, gm can make money in the oil shock

by getting new customers. >> and what that means is every day 40,000 people are getting new cars. there are new cars getting better mileage. some 30% better than the one they turned in. which means a 30% increase in the price of gas has a zero impact on that person. >> which that comes through domestic production and significant upgrades in the burn rate by increased efficiency on everything you do. we're in a better posture for both. >> and you think about corporate users. walmart have increased efficiency 25% in the last five years. i couldn't get a taxi, so i walked. i'm emitting carbon now by speaking, but 30% of the taxis are hybrids in new york. that was not the case four years ago. so in a range of ways, more people are insulate d.

there are a lot of people who are going to suffer. if i have to drive a long distance. >> farmers. agriculture takes a hit as well. city dwellers don't care. >> it's less of a shock than it used to be. with each passing month, that's more of the case. >> karen? >> here is my question. this feels like another example of it's easy politically, and i admit democrats do it. the talking points that i'm hearing now from the republicans aimed at president obama. i have files of the same talking points to be levelled against president bush. but the problem seems to be kind of to what you were just talking about. we need to be having a more comprehensive conversation. it's easy to attack the president what he said if people had to pay the real price, then you know, maybe they would be quicker to get off of oil. so how do we have a conversation? even if we got gas prices down, that's not going to solve the

fundamental problem. >> i think the deal is -- the rules are if you're an office, you own it. we have seen that in the the last 20 years. cut both ways. both parties. i don't think -- >> it's hard to escape. >> you can't say now we'll change the rules. i think on a policy level, you know, which as you discuss every day, is so influenced by lobbying. you look to the private sector. these are the people who have said, we have high fixed costs. if you own a trucking fleet or taxi fleet, you have to do something about it. the government isn't going to. what we have seen is all types of innovation. >> just efficiency engineering every way possible. >> there was a thing about putting wing lets. increases fuel efficiency 3-7%. that will become standard. when high prices persist, these things become standard. >> or the lightbulb that we

discovered in texas. it gez for 30 years. jimmy, you get the last word. it sounds like we're on the verge of an energy renaissance around here. >> to that question, dan, good to see you. we know we're pumping more. we're drilling more. we're exporting our refined gas. right? it costs what it costs right now. why? americans hate it. they want to know why. can you tell us why? >> the price of crude is very high. that $106 barrel price, that's west texas crude. everybody on the east coast where a lot of people live, we don't pay that. we pay closer to the london price, which is $125, which is even more. so it's a combination of instability. the fact on the east coast, it's benchmarked to the european price, which is more. and the fact that demand is high.

>> and the fact that there's speculation in the context of saber rattling in the persian gulf. which you can't say it doesn't exist. you would look at what's going on in the middle east. >> the other issue is that gas consumption has fallen in this country for each of the last five years. people are driving less. they are riding subways more. that means some refinery capacity has been shut down. we used to have a lot of refinery to pump all that out. so that means supply of refined product is tight, which means that push of the price up for the end user to too. >> it points to burn rate. i am also really encouraged, and i didn't think about this, that the auto makers unlike last time are pushing to make money from the demand cycle on the

efficiency as opposed to getting annihilated by it. >> this time it's going to push them to bigger dif vends. up next, thanks to the panel. rolling in the deep. a ground breaking act by a ground breaking film maker preparing to dive to the very deepest part of the ocean. details of an amazing expedition right after this. look! the phillips' lady!

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as we do across the board. now he's pushing it to new limits seeking to explore the deepest depths of our oceans. in fact, on tuesday of this week, two days ago, the film maker dove deeper than any human ever in a solo mission on a submarine. he went 5.1 miles down in a submarine. it was a test run for his attempt to reach the deepest point on our planet, at least above the crust. the mission set for the challenger deep is in the marianas trench. if you chopped off mount everest at sea level and lifted it with a helicopter, and then dropped it into the pacific ocean, the depth to which mr. cameron is targeting would still provide a mile of water above the peak of

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proving once again that once you are awake, anything is possible. straight ahead here, the hot cripple. how broke season our health care system? well, we're about to give you an anecdote that may make it a little worse than you may think it is. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe?

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a guy with purple hair said, that is so cool. it's not often you see a hot cripple. >> hot cripple. that's the name of our next guest's award-winning one-woman show. it's a firsthand account of an exmodel, turned actress, turned waitress, turned sole in the middle of a painful experience in a health care system that was remarkably expensive, in fact brutally so and frequently unresponsive. she was struck by a car, severely injured, but uninsured when it occurred and she learned about the ugly side about our health care system. something that too many in this country can relate to. a new report revealing one in five americans live in a home where they are struggling to pay

medical bills. we know that monopolies and these sorts of structures make it easy to charge big dollars. here in the flesh is a recovered hor began -- horman gorman. thanks for joining us. we offered a little insight into the story, but what do you think people need to understand about your experience so they can learn from it themselves? >> my experience is you said, i was hit by a car. they slammed on the brakes and i went flying. i was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. only once they found out i didn't have health insurance, i was basically ignored. i had to beg for a cat scan of my head. a man in the bed next to me who only fainted during dinner and his cat scan was fine and was

kept overnight for observation and i was released with a neck brace and a good luck. >> you were aware at that point that the reason he got the cat scan and you didn't? >> it hit me with almost as much force as the car. >> how was it so aimportant to you in the hospital? >> the man was in the bed next to me and he was rushed up to cat scan and x-ray. and i was waiting once they found out. >> walk us through the next months of your experience. >> the next few months, no doctor would see me until i found a lawyer to be covered by something called no fault, which covers people hurt in accident. >> which is related to car insurance and not health insuran insurance. >> so i had to do that. the severe condition that i was in. >> so in order to get further medical condition, you had to go through the car insurance bureaucracy to get the authority

to basically say you can pay for health care and then they would do it? >> right. but then they can cut you off at any time, which they ended up doing. i mean, my injuries were five herniated disks, two torn ligaments in my knee, a chunk off the back of my kneecap, and i had a head injury. so my short-term memory was shot for two years. i had vision problems, balance problems, and constant pain. >> so with the benefit of your experience in the american health care system, what do i need to know? what does our audience need to know? what do we have to understand for those who have not had the experience you had and would fear the experience you described, as i'm sure you would having not had it. what do we need to know about our health care system that we don't understand so we can do a

better job targeting the way it works? >> well the way things stand now, you don't want to get sick or injured in this country. and a lot of people can't afford insurance. that's the reason i didn't have insurance. because between rent and eating, i couldn't afford it. a lot of people fall into that category. and you know -- >> so the interesting thing though is you have taken one of the larger piles of lemons that i have ever heard in my life and have been working out there in search of lemonade. you have a successful one-woman play that's to great acclaim. now you have written this book. "hot cripple." what has the impact for you been in being able to have the privilege to share your story? >> the response has been great so far. just people contacting me and

saying, thank you for telling what i've been going through. thank you for talking about this because a lot of people don't talk about it. health care and welfare. so it's been good. it's definitely been ka thardic. i realized it's not just my story. it's the story of millions of americans that are experiencing it. >> and that is why i know we were excited to have a visit with you and anxious to support your ability to tell this story because we do know this really represents a shameful and embarrassing component of american culture that as partially repaired. thank you very much. the author of "hot cripple." coming up on "hardball,"

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tomorrow we'll get the jobs report. looking at a culture of innovation must be part of any plan, not only to create the 30 million jobs we need, but to solve the problems that plague us from health care to community health. but establishing that new culture can be a small and

sometimes a big risk. the question for all of us is how do we strengthen our own psyches to begin to open ourselves to this new culture of not knowing as opposed to pretending to know so we can release the culture of innovation that we all claim that we aspired to. who better to ask than our resident therapist. it's easy to say you want to do anything. it's scarier to take the first step. in this case, admitting that you don't know, which is the first step of any innovator. because it's only in not knowing that innovation becomes possible. being afraid seems to be where we run into a lot of cultural issues around political leaders. people don't like to feel like they don't know even though the best innovators have a history of not knowing.

i'm interested in the transition to the more awakened state. >> first of all, necessity is the mother of intervention. it's also the mother of innovation. we don't have a choice but to innovate. so if we don't have a choice in society but to innovate, we have to strengthen our reasoning skills. and innovation is not a sprint. it's a marathon. we engage with the powerful and the wealthy to try to get our inventions turned into innovations. turned in selling it to the marketplace. it's a fine balance. it's a balance between risk taking and sort of common sense. part of that is the journey. i don't want to be a snob, but part of that is what college teaches us. we have to learn to trust our own ideas, but also listen to professors and sort of negotiate

the two. >> the place that seems to be the -- two of the cultures that struck me as the best at this is austin, texas, and northern california. where they don't do a lot of fighting because they know they don't know. and they do do an increasingly large amount of innovating because they don't know. what is it about those cultures that we can learn? >> those cultures are not afraid to learn from others. they are not afraid to sit at a desk and say i don't know this information. teach me. that doesn't make me less. it doesn't make me foolish. they think the opposite. they think their job is to gather as much resources from as many sources as possible and from that. create something anew. >> that's a very specific culture that says i'm not afraid. that's not just austin, texas.

although it's one of the great american beacons for that culture. how do you get people to take that first step, which is always the hardest thing? >> first of all, to take the first accept step, i try to surround myself with people who have a high intellect and place emphasis on integrity. i don't want to jump into business with someone who has their knead the clouds who is thinking of a crazy idea that has a good principle at its core, but it has no foundation. i'm open to all sources. i also balance what i learned as a kid with the peers. so it's an intricate dance. >> it it goes to the personal values and professional values should match. >> it should be completely aligned. >> then the risk makes