>> we gave people all they need to know about our financial situation and how we live our life. >> the obvious contrast between the father and the son the transparency that was for the time, groundbreaking. the obama campaign, understandably, delights in drawing in this contrast in the character of mitt romney. what are we to ask, is he hiding. mitt romney is willing to pay the political price of continuing to stonewall. but what's most fascinating about this episode to me isn't what we know about mitt romney's tax returns but instead what we do know about george romney's. after he handed over his tax returns to "look" magazine and sitting here in 2012 in the midst of our own tax debates, you can't help but look over the details and think, holy crap that dude paid a lot of taxes. over the 12 years romney had an adjusted gross income of just

under $250,000, which is nearly $2 million in today's money and paid an annual average effective rate of 37%. 37%. compare that to what mitt romney paid, according to his two returns, an average effective rate of 15%. that's a very big difference. how would you like to have your federal income taxes dropped 22 percentage points. what's remarkable is that even though mitt romney with an average annual income over the past two years of over $22 million is 11.5 times richer than his dad was, adjusted for inflation, both in the top 0.01% of their respeckive times. think of what that means about the growth of incomes at the top over the intervening years. and despite how much richer mitt romney is than his father, he pays half as much as less of his income in taxes. george romney was a saint and his son is a lout, because

george romney happened to be a rich man when this country was committed to taxation. during most of the top years was 91%. 91%. now, it so happens that george romney declared a lot of his wages as capital gains but the capital gains rate was 25% for george romney and only 15% for mitt romney. if there's a single trend in american political economy, it's rising inequality and that hasn't been mitigated by the tax system, it's been exacerbated over time. as you can see, top marginamarg rates go like this. like water, the rate flow down. this doesn't even count the proliferation of new strategies to hide from the irs and foreign tax shelters and the like. when the president's campaign points to george romney as a model of personal virtue, no one is advocating returning to the tax policies of that era, an

era, i'll add a, that did not want for growth. the top marginal rate for those making above $250,000 rise to 39.6% and raise the top capital gains rate to 28.3%. both below what george romney paid. when mitt romney says this -- >> i want to restore to america the principals that made us the hope of the earth. >> he's not talking about the principle, one that has been preserved under barack obama and mitt romney has no interest in going back. this is the real reason that mitt romney doesn't want to do what his father did by releasing more returns. a society where the wealthy are bound to everyone else. his own taxes, from what we've seen are a snapshot of what they look like in which the wealthy have used their influence over the political parties and the party making apparatus to write rules to allow them to keep the government's hands off their

cash. a world in which they've created a rapidly growing industry of tax lawyers and accountants who make a lot of money boring through the tax code like termites. it's not a character story. elites are subject to the norms of their time. this is about the relationship of our elites to the rest of their fellow citizens and the ways it has changed over the last half century. what a society looks like when it's incapable of forcing the most powerful members to play by the same set of rules as everyone else. not a pretty picture. mitt romney is right to be embarrassed. we should all be. joining us to discuss the imperative of raising taxes on the rich, stacy where she teaches about wall street, josh bauer, columnist at "bloomberg view." jake jacobs, msnbc military

analyst and held several positions and it's great to have you all here. >> thank you. >> i'm a total cliche on this. i think we should tax the rich a lot. it's so striking to go back into that and look at that what that tax regime looked like because it is like from another planet. our tax conversation just has no relationship whatsoever to that period and that period of time is an era of great nostal jufor a lot of people in a lot of different ways and to look at a just how much he was paying. i want to read this little bit from "fortune" magazine which talks about how transformative this kind of progressive taxation was for just the lived reality of executive of the time, of folks who made a lot of money. in 1955 talking about how top executives live. the whole story is about how modest their lives are. if he is a top executive, he lives on an economic scale not

too different from that of the man on the next income rung. he may cough up as much as 75%. he owns two cars and gets along with one or two servants. in 1930, the average businessman had been buffeted by the economic storms, but he had not been battered by the income tax. so, i want to go back to that world. josh barrel, why shouldn't we? >> well, i think the economic growth that we saw in the 1950s and 1960s that people like to say, hey, look, we can do this with this income tax, you had a very specific economic reality at the time where europe destroyed itself after world war ii and we sold them a new version of everything they had broken. a lot of low-hanging economic fruit to be divided up among people and strong union strength, but, again, partly just a lot of surplus for workers to divide up with the companies that they own and the economic reality is different. different tax codes in countries around the world.

similar top rates in europe that you don't have any more. france may go back to that but you see the same pattern in taxation policy throughout the first world. we would be very different from everybody else. >> that's not necessarily true. denmark has a top rate of 78%. >> not on income general, of course. >> two things. on wages and then there's on capital gain. i want to raise them all. raise them all. but, no, i mean, i think that the other point, though, is that the decline in top rates that we've seen around the world, isn't necessarily, it's two things. not necessarily that people came to a policy conclusion that that's superior but a rise of power of the folks with a lot of money across a lot of the world who, obviously, don't want to see their taxes raised. >> the you have to have money to make money and if you're in a situation where your family has always been paying relatively lower taxes on capital gains it sets up a system where if all

you have is income and ask you pay a higher tax rate, there's no way for you to ascend to welt. you might be rich, but never wealthy in the same way because of the way the tax systems have been built over time. >> we see in polling, which is remarkable, if you ask people how we should solve our deficit, the most popular solution is always tax the rich. something like 81% like the idea of some kind of surcharge tax on incomes over $1 million and, yet, that's not going to happen politically, right, amy? >> i don't think we know what's going to happen politically. and i think these magic moments, you never know when they will come. but if you're involved with working for social change, if you're building a foundation, you never know what will happen. whoever knew that the "occupy movement" would burst on to the scene the way that it did. very interesting to look at the movements that push for these kind of issues. >> if you want change, the

change you're talking about can be executed only in the congress. so, you're quite right that you're not going to see change like that because money drives congressional elections and people who are writing checks to elect congressman and senators are not going to vote. so -- >> you put your finger on precisely the issue. >> so, if you want to fix it, if you want to fix it, the thing to do is not to rail against, not to rail against the fact that we've got an equitable tax -- >> i like railing. >> i mean, you're in charge, so, i think turn up your microphone louder. but, seriously, to make sure that we get election reform. >> right. >> i would be very careful about the sort of polling data on what's popular on the budget because the public doesn't think about the federal budget in a coherent way. you ask people about what tax rates should be. people react negatively to high figures on marginal tax rates for high incomes because they

don't know what high tax rates are and the idea of a 70 or 91% top rate would not be popular if you polled it. i think, also, the left undermines itself in this tax debate because the only, the argument as for higher taxes that you hear are exactly like the ones you're making about fairness. they don't talk about the actual need to finance government. you have barack obama out there insisting that 98% of americans shouldn't have to pay any more in taxes. if liberals can't make the argument that tax increases are necessary, republicans can come up with arguments for why you shouldn't do a specific tax -- >> a few arguments. one, you have to finance government and there's a lot of money at the top and that's one place to look. it wouldn't solve the deficit. the difference between the republican plan and the democratic plan right now between extending the bush taxes for everyone below $250,000 and ending the top. that's $28 billion in revenue. that's not an insignificant amount. that's real money.

but my argument is actually not the argument that barack obama or anyone else is making, it's that actually taxing the top and reduces inequality and the reduction of inequality -- >> stimulates economic growth. >> it's better for the society. i think you actually have a stronger, social fabric. i like the world in which the top executives get by with only one or two servants. more on that, after we take this break. i brought your stuff. you don't have to do this. yes i do. i want you to keep this. it'd be weird. take care. you too. [ sighs ] so how did it go? he's upset. [ male announcer ] spend less time at gas stations. with best in class fuel economy. it's our most innovative altima ever. ♪

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talking about progressive taxation and the fact, the fact is we've just seen part of my concern, really, about this tax debate and the reason why i think it's so important and this comparison between george romney and mitt romney gets to what you're saying about, jack, whether the political system has the capacity to do this thing. >> it doesn't.

>> it doesn't appear to. but i think that's a profound statement about the political system. forget all of these arguments. i mean, just as like a test of the capability of the legislative process to raise marginal rates, which we haven't done since clinton. right, it's been since, i guess, '93 that budget. >> marginal rate increase in the health care law. >> that's true. and capital gains tax increase of 2.81%. so, this question of whether we can do this, i think, is still remains as really core question. whether the justifications are that we need to raise revenue for the government or this fairness argument, to me, it ends up being a test of how strong our democratic system is. >> but i think it really is the failure of the left to make the positive case for government. you basically made the case for higher taxes that even if we gathered up all the money and burned it, it would still be a good thing. you believe that, but you're not

going to sell that to the public. if you want to sell tax increases, you have to do what was done in europe that the government is worth paying for and it's worth everybody paying for. when you have both political parties not making the case that government did something not worth paying for and we want the rich to have less money. that's not a winning argument. >> not for nothing that the congress is held in the lowest esteem of any institution in the united states. the public may not be the most educated bunch of people in the world, but they're not stupid and they recognize that the utility of congress doing what it has been doing and doing what it's going to do is very, very low indeed. >> your point about education and your point about messaging. this argument has been freed really badly. taxes get all lumped into. no explanation that it's only money that you make above $250,000.

all of these nuances. when people are like, i'm against higher taxations, that is a meaningless. >> you make a great point, people don't actually understand, some of them understandably don't understand the basic concept of marginal tax rate. the tax cut proposal by the president cuts taxes for everyone because everyone who makes above $250,000 pays the lower rate on the money up to $250,000. i mean, i think people don't get that like you pay in these sort of chunks. that's the way that marginal rates work. so, the idea that he's raising taxes on the rich. it's a tax cut for everyone. the question is how big a tax cut. here's the relative proposals. this says a lot. mitt romney's tax proposals and the change in efebive rates is, you know, essentially unchanged except for those at the top under barack obama and for mitt romney a huge, huge cut for the

top 1%. this has been the one thing the republican party has reliably promised and delivered on over time. they haven't shrunk government. they haven't managed to outlaw abortion at the federal level. the one thing that you can be sure republicans will do when in office is cut taxes at the top. that is the one thing that they can reliably be counted on to do. >> absolutely. >> do you agree? >> they cut taxes for everyone, which was the more irresponsible part of it. >> but, distributionably it was skewed towards the top. >> not on the income tax, but the overall tax system because if you shrink the income tax. bu, yeah, no, i think that's the republican messaging problem and the republican policy problem over the last 20 years has been this breaking of the link between taxes and spending where republicans disserved the right by convincing people that all you needed to worry about was the tax side. >> this makes a point, right? on the right, there's been a

linking of taxes and spending and on the left, on the democratic party, there's this argument of we're tax cutters, tax cutters just not for everyone. a competition of who is cutting taxes the most? >> why aren't all of you outraged at your president that you guys worked so hard -- >> did you watch this, did you watch this network and read the nation after they cut the deal that extended the bush tax cuts during the lame duck? we all went bonkers? >> you were angry about the 20% tax cuts to the wealthy and the president is saying that we can keep 80% of the bush tax cut package. >> i am outraged. but there is a cyclical element to this, too. an increase which would take money out of people's pockets is a form of austerity. from the perspective of how we're managing the economy at the current moment, it doesn't make sense to have a broad-based

tax increase across most of the population, even though i totally agree that democrats have to make ann affirmative cae for higher taxes in the future because we need to fund the government because the government all does things. oure throughout our entire lives. ♪ one a day women's 50+ is a complete multi-vitamin designed for women's health concerns as we age. ♪ it has more of seven antioxidants to support cell health. that's one a day women's 50+ healthy advantage. why should our wallets tell us what our favorite color is?

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we will. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get 10% off or up to 24 months special financing on carpet purchases with your home depot credit card. two elements of tax fairness first the rates at the top and then how progressive the system is and jack you're talking about this, that we're seeing in the mitt romney tax returns is that the system, just the rules and the ways that people with lots of assets go about paying their taxes. forget what the rates are, just in a different universe than the most people who are just filing on wages and can't have incorporated entities in the kamka cayman islands. >> they can but they don't have the kind of assets that can benefit from that kind of treatment. the culprit here is not the guy who uses them, but the culprit is the tax code. you want to make it easier to

tax people on the basis of ordinary income than write a tax code that is like that. but we don't have a tax code like that. >> but we don't have a tax code, so, an interesting debate here when we talked about the tax code complexity and the way that wealthy people can hide their money from the government. the argument that it's the code itself. they talk about tax reform and how we're going to simplify, et cetera. the tax code itself is a symptom of the concentration of power. you can simplify the tax code and if you keep the same levels of inequality, it will just get rigged, again. that is really the source of the issue here. >> i think, i don't think it necessarily would get rigged, again. if you treat absolutely everything as ordinary income and then say, even if it's -- >> you say capital gains and everything is the same. >> money comes from some place into your pocket or something that you control. >> this is a radical proposal, i would note for those watching.

>> a very republican proposal, too, by the way. >> it's not actually. it confounds standard, standard ideological -- >> lots of studies indicate you make a lot more money for the government. i'm not sure that is a good idea, quite frnkly, because you have to be bought into the concept that the government knows how to spend money. multiply it by this amount and send it in. the people who would be violently opposed to that tax accounts and so on. >> the other people opposed to that, anyone who is going to pay more, particularly those at the top. we've seen at -- >> capital gains. >> necessarily not pay any more. a guy like romney, what does he pay? >> 15%. >> he might pay 15%, again. he might pay 12%. >> somebody has to pay more. if you want to raise the same amount of money. >> i'm not paying any more. >> this is the general's general

proposal. >> if we're going to for the argument that corporations are people, too. if we're going for radical tax reform. >> what you're suggesting is what the supreme court suggested and that is that corporations are people. >> yeah. >> therefore should be treated as people. that's radical, too. >> there are ways you can change the tax code to avoid this. you can also have what's called a progressive consumpative tax. the problem with taxing income, when you have capitol hill gai s s and taxing returns to capital will create structures that people use to avoid realizing taxable returns to capital. but it's a lot harder to hide your consumption. wealthy people have a lot of income that they don't consume in a given year. you would need quite high rates at the top that people will find eye watering and the challenging thing -- what you would find if you earned income and didn't

consume it, you wouldn't have to pay anything on it. the left gets its progressivity and you can say that the right would hate the high marginal rates and the right would hate the fact that capital income goes untaxed. >> the interesting thing here this is something that people talk about tax reform. we're going to simplify and have a big round of bipartisan tax reform and you're laughing, i think, as i do, too. the fundamental, not to sound like a broken record, but the fundamental record is a political problem. the same congress that you're talking about that is going to write those rules. the same congress that represents the same interest. the same congress that can't get rid of the carried interest loophole which allows hedge fund managers who are basically pay aing their own wages in capital gains so they can make 15% on it have been unable to close that loophole that doesn't make any terms in the deficit, but that's just a small, principle.

even warren buffett has said this and rupert murdoch has tweeted about how ridiculous it is. that same institution seems to be incapable of creating a tax code that -- >> the guys who are really , really, opposed to tax reform are not the super rich. if you have $10 billion and the day after you pay your taxes you've only got $7 billion, you still have $7 billion. the guys who really get, well, the guys who really are violently opposed to the kind of reform, which will take more money out of people's pockets and give it to the government are the people below the level of superrich and above the level of people who have -- >> upper middle class. >> upper middle class. the fact of the matter is the large majority, you can correct me if i'm wrong about this. the large majority of new jobs that are created are not created by george romney's general motors or awards corporation,

created by smaller and medium-size businesses and those are precisely the people -- >> you point to something about our tax code and creates the politics of this a little bit. lebron james and lebron james' dentist are the same from the perspective of marginal rates. that's where the lebron james' dentist is the one tipped off about the taxes because lebron james is going to find ways to not pay his taxes. how a warming planet is related to soaring food prices. [ donovan ] i hit a wall. and i thought "i can't do this, it's just too hard." then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going. go for olympic gold and go to college too.

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♪ you can't wish your way onto the podium. ♪ you can't buy it or hope for it. ♪ it's not enough to dream about it. ♪ luck didn't get me to london. i swam here. ♪ as we said before on this show, we're entering a new era, an era of hotter, stranger, more extreme weather that will impact every last aspect of our lives. something as basic as our food supply and prices at the grocery store.

we're in the midst of the worst drought in more than 50 years covering 64% of the area of the continuous 48 states, the sustained record-breaking heat and dry weather has caused corn and soybean crops to deterri deterrierate. setting an all-time high of $8.28 a bushal on friday. on the same day, soybean prices reached a record high. it's true that to some extent rising food prices are part of a general boom in commodities. second month in a row, the global land temperature was the warmest on record for that month. we're looking at our own future, a new normal that is going to radically alter farming and impact food prices. as we saw just a few years ago when spiking food prices, a world food volatility is a world of political volatility. joining at the table now to discuss is brin byrd a second

generation farmer from ohio. great to have you here. >> thank you so much. >> tell us about the farm you farm on. where in ohio is it? >> central ohio, northeast of columbus, just 30 minutes. i, we've been in farm for 16 years and my dad grew up on a farm and because of the little urban sprawl we bought a farm further out in the country. we're produce farmers. we don't do corn and soybeans, we did in our history and now we switched to produce solely. we do the csa subscriptions where people pay ahead and farm to school. we grow about 65 different types of produce. >> what are you seeing in this drought right now? i mean, how is it affecting you? >> this drought this year has really affected us. the first three plantings of our sweet corn failure. it's 20 ache aers of sweet corn and they're saying so you're really small. i said, well, that's $40,000 to our family. that's a $40,000 crop loss.

to a small farmally farm, that's a ton. we being especially a crop farm don't have the same types of insurance that commodity farmers do and we're underinsured and uninsured industry and we don't have any way of regaining those losses. >> we should note that when you say you don't grow commodities, the vast, overwhelming majority of what farms in this country do is grow commodities and large, industrial farming of things like wheat and soy and corn. there's just, to drive home the point about and the sweet corn didn't grow because it was too hot or too dry? >> it was too dry. we're about five inches behind in our rain and the heat, something people are not talking about. the drought, the lack of water, but the heat. we're extreme heat, 105, 107 days. that doesn't happen in our area of ohio and all corn and produce can only grow during very certain temperature ranges. >> i spent a lot of time reading about corn sex yesterday and i

talked to a few farmers who were walking me through, sort of a miracle if they get it together to produce the kernels. >> we were really worried the other day because we couldn't find our pollinator melons that didn't get planted correctly. the boy melons and girl melons. >> i want to show this photo of your nieces. this is poignant and adorable. standing next to the sweet corn. should be three or four fealt higher than that. that is what drought and heat look like at the individual level of someone trying to extract nutrients from the earth. >> that was planted in april. you can see on the right, the ones that have tasseled. so, once the corn's tasseled, it stops growing. >> that's as high as they're going to go. >> as high as they will go. and they won't make the ear of corn. it's just done. my brother, who is the main

producer, we just now have acres sitting completely untouched, ungrown for the rest of the year. >> when you think about what, okay, let's say this has nothing to do, this particular drought has nothing to do with the fact that we're shoving carbon into the atmosphere and it's warming the climate. but, eventually, more of these. that's just the way the physics work. what goes through your head when you think about even just the sustainability of this as an enterprise that you're going to do for your life 20 years from now what this conversation is going to look like? >> for us, everything is diversifying. we have to now, we use the unheated greenhouse structures which usda is excited about and pushing. we have one of their high tunnels and looking at other ways of growing tomatoes or something that we can kind of control better and we can irrigate and we are kind of going away from sweet corn and more towards crops that we can irrigate. >> i want to play you something which is an amazing bit of sound

from exxon. one of the big oil companies and they've spent a lot of money trying to convince people that the scientific consensus is that global warming is not true. here he is, yes, we're warming the atmosphere with our co2 emissions, but don't worry about it, we can engineer our way out of the problem. >> i'm not disputing that increasing co2 emissions will have an impact. it will have a warming impact. how large it is is what is very hard for anyone to predict. depending on how large it is, then predicts how dire the consequences are. we have spent our entire existence adapting. we will adapt to this. changes to weather patterns that crop production areas around, we'll adapt to that. it's an engineering problem. and it has engineering solutions. >> what do you, when you hear that, what is your reaction to that? seems like rex is ready to move your farm. >> he's saying we'll adapt. who is going to adapt?

the petroleum companies will adapt? farmers every year, this year we're talk ugbout the massive drought. yesterday we had the wettest year in ohio, second wettest year in history in ohio. that really affected our crops. we had a worst year last year with it being too wet. last year it got below 27 below for several days. it killed all of our berries off. we had to adapt after that to having a really wet year to this year we changed our whole csa model because last year was so wet and now it's so dry and so everything is changing every year. we're having to adapt on the ground. >> you're really making the point that we talk about global warming, but it's really a climate disruption. >> right. >> yes. >> it's not that it just gets hotter and hotter and hotter but it becomes increasingly unpredictable. >> it's extreme.

>> i had a major proposal for this network and every network that when they do the weather, which everyone tunes in to, they want to figure out what to wear and what not to wear every day because it's getting hotter and hotter this summer that every time they shout extreme weather with those lower thirds that flash it, they also flash climate change. they also flash global warming. that no meteorologist should be certified as a meteorologist unless they understand what global climate change is about because of your farm and because of what's happening to people around this country and the droughts and the drenching rains in florida right now, many chinese have died because of drenching rains in china that they haven't seen before, like in 60 years. >> right. >> this, we have to do something about this. we're experiencing what other parts of the world, like the desertification of africa and the concern about the submersion of islands. pla we have to do something about it

and it's coming home to roost. >> and farmers in many ways the canaries in the coal mine. we're seeing what's happening to agricultural problems. i want to bring in the chief regulator of commodities and what are especially the global commodities markets right after we take a break. why not try someplace different every morning? get two times the points on dining in restaurants with chase sapphire preferred. the global ready one ? yeah, but you won't need... ♪ hajimemashite. hajimemashite. hajimemashite. you guys like football ? thank you so much. i'm stoked. you stoked ? totally. ... and he says, "under the mattress." souse le matelas. ( laughter ) why's the new guy sending me emails from paris ? paris, france ? verizon's 4g lte devices are global-ready.

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what are you waiting for? good afternoon. chase sapphire. (push button tone) this is stacy from springfield. oh woah. hello? yes. i didn't realize i'd be talking to an actual person. you don't need to press "0," i'm here. reach a person, not a prompt whenever you call chase sapphire. we're talking about climate disruption and the drought that has gripped most of the country and theffect on food prices. gary gensler, independent regulatory body that oversees commodity's markets. thank you for joining us this morning. >> if to be with you, chris. >> there are two parts to this story, which is why i want to bring you in and we have bryn on what it looks like on the ground. where we're talking about soy and corn, the spike in prices has been the fundamentals driven

by drought and then that's amplified by what seems to someone who has been following us for the last four years like a pricing system for commodities that has grown increasingly volatile and that cashes out in very real ways. when we export a lot of grain throughout had worthe world and spike and somewhere else in the world is paying more for their bread. if we're entering a period of time in which these kind of climate disruptions are more common, is there anything to be done from the regulatory side in terms of how commodity markets function that can reduce or smooth over that volatility as oppose to exaggerate it? >> well, chris, what the commodities commission ensures that these markets are free of fraud, manipulation and through something called position limits, limits the size of any one speculator's row in these markets. so, when a drought comes along, as you say, as fundamentals come along, we have to watch even more closely to ensure the

markets are working for the farmers like bryn. >> but that seems to be the issue, right? because we're getting at something elemental about how human beings interface with the planet. which is the first thing we did as people was farm and farming is volatile and we have created all sorts of ways of trying to hedge against that volatility, smooth over that volatility, yet, here it seems we're here in 2012 and the markets are, don't seem to be smoothing over the volatility. they, themselves, seem very volatile. >> but what these markets do is help farmers in corn and wheat and soy to hedge some of that risk with a product called futures and increasingly maybe even a product called swaps. but we have to make sure the speculators aren't taking in excess of spot in this market. >> can you do something for our audience? can you explain what a future is? it's a very important concept,

but for folks that aren't trading in commodities, just explain when you purchase a future, what are you doing? >> i'll give it my best. my 85-year-old mom sometimes asks me. they started 150 years ago that a farmer planting corn or wheat could say, i want to lock in the price at harvest time. if i lock in that price up in chicago on the markets, then come harvest time i'll know that i'm going to get, well these days, $8 a bushel of corn. i might just settle out for cash at harvest time. >> what does that mean? >> okay, to put it more easily, the farmer knows i'll get that $8 at harvest time regardless if i deliver the corn to some chicago grain elevator and the other side is usually a speculator. hedgers and speculators meet and they know they're going to

exchange either money or corn at $8. >> they're taking a bet, people on either side of the bet, right? you have to have someone on the other side of the bet. more on what the futures of commodity and food look like after this break. throughout ou. ♪ one a day women's 50+ is a complete multi-vitamin designed for women's health concerns as we age. ♪ it has more of seven antioxidants to support cell health. that's one a day women's 50+ healthy advantage. metamucil uses super hardworking psyllium fiber, which gels to remove unsexy waste and reduce cholesterol. taking psyllium fiber won't make you a model, but you should feel a little more super. metamucil. down with cholesterol.

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food prices in a warming planet. gary gensler and bryn bird. listening to how gary is talking about this is system works. >> we used to do commodities. my family originally did commodities 15 years ago, but we do not know. i work also for a nonprofit in d.c., so, i work around the country looking at these issues, as well. one of the parts that i see is when we're paying farmers out and we're setting these prices, aren't we limiting their versatility? their adapitation, as you were saying. farmers don't have to adapt to these climate issues, they just

grow what's going to grow. i've seen this across the country and what's happening in the dakotas, like we were saying. they used to be the largest grower of dried beans and they're growing corn and soybeans because it's a promise market. when you grow the dried beans, nos one setting the price. are we kate creating agriculture -- >> explain what the link is here because i grew up in the braupsbraupsonx, i hardly saw a tree until i was 12. >> our farm, we do not have prices set for us. we don't know what our future prices are. when we go to the farm market, if the guy across from us sets his tomatoes at $2. we have to set our tomatoes at $2. if everybody has a great tomato season, the price goes down. we're having to adapt. sweet corn didn't work for us, we're growing more tomatoes and

going to extend our season and do season extension. we're adapting to the climate and to this volatile season alaty. >> all the land around a us is also taken by other farmers. >> gary, does the current system in the way that these commodities are traded and the amount of money there is in them for wall street, as well as the actual farmers and end users, is that limiting adaptability? what do you make of what bryn's saying? >> i think for many of her products not future products to hedge that price. for corn, soy and wheat, there are. i think it helps those farmers because they can lock in a price and then focus on what they do well in tilling the field and focusing on their crops. so, she's, she has a less

ability to use these markets. >> right, but the question. if those markets are artificially reducing the, are artificially locking in a price that is harder to get in the future because of the volatility of the climate, if we're heading towards more droughts, is it locking in a kind of unsustainable vision of what we grow here in the u.s.? >> there's some of that, as you know, hedgers are meeting speculators in the marketplace. both sides are, in a sense, betting on those future droughts. >> josh? >> i think two separate issues here. one is you have this ability to hedge and also explicit government policies that are able to support prices for people that are growing corn and soybean and encourage them to do it even if the market fundamentals move away from them. when oil prices rise, you can only hedge so much. airlines have to adjust and change their business models. >> we talked about crop insurance.

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♪ hello from new york, i'm chris hayes. bryn bird farming advocate and amy goodwin and josh of bloomberg view and joining us by satellite gary gensler. how have the commodity's markets changed. they changed a lot in the last ten years, a huge amount of money porured into those market and how to they change and how do you hope they change in the last ten years? >> they change by more financial actors, pension funds and index investors and more speculators in the market. how i hope they change in the

next ten years, they're more transparent and large market that was at the heart of the crisis, swaps gets regulated and is safer for america and more transparent for the users of the products. >> josh, you just asked a question during the break about why you can't, i want you to repeat that question even though we had the conversation because i would like to bring in the viewers on it. >> why you have a future's market in corn and soybeans and you can't have it in tomatoes and the other crops that you do. >> you did a great job explaining it. >> for things like corn and soybean, this is a bushels of corn and where something like tomatoes they're not fungible and you also have storage problems with them. but storing tomatoes is very difficult. so, the thing about having futures and i'm going to pay you this today for delivery six months from now, you need to

have clarity on how much that delivery will look like. basically that there is a consistent standard across time. >> so, the combination of this volatility and the way that the u.s. crop support system works is a huge disincentive to do what you are doing. >> right. >> and yet you're doing what you're doing. >> people ask us all the time. i sit there sometimes and wonder what is my brother, the main producer. like sacrificing every day in the fields and at the end of the day, having this huge crop loss. but the biggest thing is you love it, you end up loving fa farming and you go out there every day and want to create produce and create food for individuals. we did the csa as and every week we feed 215 families and that's kind of why we do it. but it is hard and it is volatile and taking a lot of adapitation right now. >> i asked you before why you don't grow soybeans but talk about the other reason and this

involves corporate control on agriculture. >> i mean, a big part of why i know that a lot of people aren't growing commodities does have to do with corporate control on our seed stock and our growing practices any more. it's really hard to get nongmo seeds. this year they also had the first consumer ready gmo, but it was -- >> genetically modified. but a bt sweet corn. a sweet corn that you can grow now. and that did raise a lot of flags with a lot of our customers and a lot of patrons who have been with us for years asking us if we're going to start growing this bt resistant sweet corn and, you know, we are choosing not to. we really believe in the genetic variably that is needed in this climate condition. that's the huge part, we need genetic variably in our seeds to overcome this climate change. >> why does it happen?

>> for us, right now we're trying to find seeds that are more resistant to heat. knowing there are seeds out there. with my work with real coalition week in oklahoma last year we are with tribal communities and they brought seeds to a dinner and we exchanged them with each other and took them back to our areas and we're all growing them. they had the drought and they lost a lot of their seeds and we then had to call all of our friends and say, can you save those and bring them back and it's kind of neat to see how we were working as a community to overcome like this -- and i was saying that to you. last year oklahoma one day they had the biggest drought and then the next day a tornado, flash flood. >> we have these extremely high corn prices this is likely to be the largest corn harvest in the

united states. partly because we're growing more corn before the failures start but we have much better adaptability than we did. so the farming industry can be more, more adaptable to climate change than it used to be. but if you have government policies that basically ensure farmers against losses, then they have less of a reason to adjust to the fact that the climate is changing. they can expect the government to cut them a check if things go bad. >> i just want to ask, gary, if it's true we're still going to have the third largest corn yield. if that's the projection, are you confident that the price, the price on these commodities the market is finding is the true price and it is not being driven by, let's say irrational -- irrational anxiety about weather conditions. >> well, chris, we're not a price-setting agency. but i tell you what will give us more confidence if government policy would fund our agency. there are some in congress that

want to cut our funding. >> no, i mean this. it wouldn't make sense in the middle of a drought to cult the funding of the commodity future trading. >> who wants to cut your funding? >> a lot of people who want to because of the wall street reform efforts. we're pressing ahead. 8 million americans lost their jobs, they're trying to get in place reform and there are some that would prefer not. >> but, name the some. lots of people in washington. who wants to cut your funding? >> the house of representatives have considered that for two straight years. cutting us. but we've made some progress but we're overseeing a market five times the size that we used to oversee in corn and wheat and oil and then we add the swaps market, the credit derivative swaps and so forth on top of it. we really need to have effective funding and cops on the beat. >> can you remind me, gary, is it still overseen by the agricultural committees in congress? >> yes, the house and senate

agriculture committee but the appropriations deal with our funding. >> this is something that really strikes me and there was a comment that gary made earlier, we need to make sure this market works for farmers. we need to make it works for consumers of food. this is great for farmers, corn prices -- >> great for commodity farmers. >> great for huge, industrial,ingindustrial, ingagricu agricultural. >> the prices have gone through the roof. we want oversight of an agency to see low food prices as a good thing, which is not necsarily true when you have the interests of the agricultural industry at heart rather than the interests of consumers. >> you don't see local food price as a good thing? >> no, definitely not. >> i should note, this distinction used to be the political central axis in politics. if you go back to 1890 one side that people were producing food and on the other side, folks in urban centers who were eating

and hoping to eat and this was the dividing line of coalition of politics, largely because of the degree of which because food as a percentage of income it just figures less and less in people's household burgets. at the same time, we have 45 million americans on food stamps in the midst of the wake of this crisis. >> we don't want to talk about aspirational eating. >> and, so, there is this question in this place where this price really makes a difference. here's, where we saw what happened to food prices globally in 2007, 2008 was the last time we had a huge spike, that created unrest across the world. i mean -- >> that was particularly in rice and wheat. >> rice and wheat. that's one of the distinction some analysts are making what's going on right now. the crops that you're seeing masses increases on on a price basis on the same fundamental food crops that sparked a lot of

the uprisings in 2007, 2008. >> because wheat is so important to people's bread. >> soybeans are going to have an effect in china because soybeans are used to feed their livestock. >> this fall we're going to see meat prices go up. >> russia stopped exporting wheat -- >> stopped exporting wheat a number of times. this is something they have done. look, we're going to do this. sometimes for political reasons. >> which had a huge effect on iran. >> gary, i want to thank you for joining us and i want to extract from you a promise that you'll return to the table here in new york next time you're here and we can talk about the libor scandal, and what happened at the broker dealer paragreen in which it seems that there is possibly up to $200 million missing in a customer's money. i want to have you back at the table next time you're in new york to talk about that. >> look forward to it, chris. >> thank you, gary gensler.

bryn bird, i cannot thank you enough. i learned so much from you this morning. will america intervene in yet another conflict in the middle east? that's up next. the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. juicy brats grilled up on a thursday. the perfect use of the 7th inning stretch. get that great taste anytime with kingsford match light charcoal. trick question. i love everything about this country! including prilosec otc.

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mitt romney is going to israel this week amid one of the most intense periods of violence the start of the air ab spring. the violence in syria where anti'government groups are fighting a battle with assad has escalate under to a civil war. on wednesday, rebels detonated a bomb in damascus that killed several of assad's top lieutenants, including his defense minister and brother-in-law and this morning there are reports that government forces have been bombarding neighborhood in damascus with helicopter guns p

gunships and tanks. the stakes are incredibly high. the white house has warned the assad regime that it will be held accountable for the stockpile of chemical weapons. one of the largest and most advanced in the middle east. here's low leon panetta summed up the conflict on wednesday. >> this is a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control. >> on thursday, the u.n. security council failed for a third time to agree on basic sanctions after vetoes by china and russia. here's susan rice the u.n. ambassador after the vote. >> it is a rapidly deteriorating conflict that is costing hundreds of lives each day and that threatens to engulf the region in a wider war. we and others increasingly will have no choice but to look to partnerships and actions outside of this council to protect the syrian people. >> joining us now at the table are former syrian brigadier

general who resigned in 1989 and founder of the national alliance for syria, colonel jack jacobs military analyst is back at the table, as well. gentlemen, really wonderful to have you here. let's start here with the first question, which is, we had seen in the last week a variety of dramatic escalation of the capabilities of the rebels. what does this say about the tenuousness of the regime's hold on power? are we going to see the fall of assad soon, which is the question everyone is asking. >> let me give you first and important the revolution in syria. first of all, the syrian revolution went through three visits. first visit six months. it was completely peaceful demonstration. >> not violent, march 2011.

not one stone thrown on the regime forces and 10,000 people were killed in this peaceful demonstration and we saw hundreds of thousands of syrian people demonstrating, singing and dancing in the squares of the cities. now, the second phase happened when the defection start and establish of the free syrian army which was joined later on by civilians who went to fight the regime. i call them under one umbrella the freedom fighter of syrian. this took six, seven months and a defensive strategy and it was committed by the fsa and the freedom fighters to defend the civilians in their homes and in their cities. now, we are entering the third phase, which is the strategy has changed from defensive strategy to offensive strategy and we mark that change by that incident happened in the very important headquarter of the national security of the syrian

regime. >> this is a bomb that went off that killed four top security officials. that was the most striking of all the sort of forward action that we've seen. >> including assad's broth brother-in-law. the question is, though, in terms of military capability, where we are right now, the free syrian army does not have the military capability just at the military level to defeat the regime. is that not the case? >> sure. i think just one thing to note is that this is from day one a popular resistance. a popular uprising. so, when we break down the three phases, we must understand that from civil resistance perspective, the population rising up. when we talk about the free syrian army, the factors in the army finding their role in the revolution. so, where we are today in terms of the last week, we found that the battle for the damascus isn't necessarily about holding

ground. it's about showing the rest of the country symbolically that the regime no longer controls, not only the capital, but anywhere of syria. >> can the free syrian army beat assad forces without continuing to demonstrate its capability to insinuate itself into places like damascus and, therefore, cause further defections from the forces. is that possible? or are these people going to stick with assad until the very end? >> let me jump to this question. first of all, eventually, and this is a matter of fact the regime would collapse and go. >> just a matter of time. >> a matter of time, but this will cause the syrian people thousands of thousands of lives. a very confirm number that 25,000 syrian people were killed and double this number missing since more than six, seven months and we don't know anything about them. most likely, most of them, if

not all of them already killed and dumped in mass graves. now, the power of balance between the freedom fighters and the regime is the regime. he had the medicine, the airplane a, the helicopter, everything. he cannot use it -- >> let's talk about that in a second. >> i'll talk about that later on, that's a completely different issue. the freedom fighters have three things the regime lacks completely. zero. first of all, the will for sacrifice. they proved that by sacrificing thousands of people. second, the belief in course and the courage, these very important mental factors, moral factors, but they are, we count them when we analyze the balance of power. >> there is a psychological dimension of this, which is important. demonstrating the weakness of

the regime becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because you want the people who are protecting the regime to read the writing on the wall and make a calculated self-interest that they no longer will benefit in the future from standing by assad and, ultimately, come over to the side of the rebels. i want you to talk about that and i want to talk about chemical weapons and i really want to talk about who the freedom fighters are because we have watched a variety of uprisings in the region where after it was all over, the world was asking exactly who just took control of this country. ♪ atmix of energies.ve the world needs a broader that's why we're supplying natural gas to generate cleaner electricity... that has around 50% fewer co2 emissions than coal. and it's also why, with our partner in brazil, shell is producing ethanol - a biofuel made from renewable sugarcane. >>a minute, mom!

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alienated people and held on the power through authoritarian means and who is the free syrian army? if it's the case that the fall of the regime is inevitable and happens at a basis to folks that are describing assad. what does the day after look like? who has the guns? who has the power? who are the folks that have the resist instance. >> we should look at the rezstanrezst an ance. it's grounded in the local committee and the activists on the ground who have been pushing from day one a civil resistance agenda that has been supplemented as people have found their role in the revolution, such as defectors from the army who what do defectors in the army do? defend and support the protesters, defend the revolution as the brigadier general earlier said, basically, that has now shifted from a

defensive approach to more of an attack approach in damascus in the second city, which is actually where we should be discussing and focusing on now because that is a clear strategy, not necessarily to retain ground to create symbolism in damascus, but to retain ground and create a separation of the country. >> again, let's say the assad regime falls why we're on air, let's say he flees the country right now while we're on air, what happens? >> every town, every locale, every district is organized both from a civil perspentive, meaning activists who coordinate the activities in that area and military councils on the ground. >> these are the national leaders. these are the national leaders. the syrians local up who have been from day one coordinating the activities of this revolution. >> you're talking if the syrian government goes down right now, today, you're talking about government by a soviet of some kind? a committee, aren't there any

national or potential national leaders among these localities? >> these are, these are our national leaders because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist. >> i'm not saying, the real question is, is there one or more national leaders who is actually going to be able to exert leadership and formulate form a national government? the answer to that, what you're suggesting, if the answer to that is no, then if the united states or anybody else supports the free syrian army, we don't know what the result is. >> we have to give time for the revolution to bear fruit. you have to understand that after 40 years, this regime has been in power and they have done everything in their power -- >> destroy civil society. what we've learned in the last year and a half the syrian people are reclaiming that and that's what we're doing right now on the ground, bottoms up. >> general, i have a question. after the killing of the four inner circle of assad, do you see something like happening, like happening in 1982, when you

were a general for his father, for assad. >> yes. >> what was your involvement then and do you see this happening now? >> first of all, i was as the last ten years of my military career in damascus, i was completely away in any military activities. at the time, i immediately after the incident applied for resignation, which i couldn't get it until 1989. >> how many people did he kill then? >> the estimates it varies between 25 to 47. but, you know -- >> thousand. >> thousand. >> so, all of us have lost people from hama and the general's distinction is correct. it's 40,000 plus. even the regime brag about -- >> this is a massacre that happened in 1982. >> the most important thing because i was there, i was there in the military and i know so many people and military people from inside and most of the

killing, 90% not in a struggle, not in a fight, not in the streets, they went to homes. home by home killing every male over 15 years old. home by home. and in neighborhoods away from where they broke up neighborhood had nothing to do with what happened in hamas in 1982, but they killed everybody. >> this, this brings me to another concern that people have. and these questions are not, i'm not trying to insinuate this. >> i have to have -- >> but before you do that, you brought up the massacre and the country is essentially 80% sunni and 10% christian. more or less. >> 70%. >> 70%. >> 15% christian and 5% the rest. >> so, there's a concern that of in the fall, in the wake of a fall of the assad regime of reprisal killings because there has been a sectarian dimension

to the assad rule and small minority and there is, there is concern, i think, among folks that i talked to that i have been reporting on about something that looks like iraq's circuit 2004, 2005 in which you had death squads and tremendous sectarian violence. i would like you to address that. >> about talking about what happened after or before the regime. first of all, let's make it clear, we, syrian people, will face dark days and dark times and chaos and unrest after the fall of the regime more difficult, 100 times than what we are facing right now. this is the nature of the illusion. so, this is, we cannot say that after the fall of the regime immediately we maintain the stability and security and this would be a huge procedure, very long proermscedure. now, your question is what might

happen, yes. i believe there will be a very much individual incident of revenge. but the syrian people get back and go to the same attitude when they lived together for thousands of years and this will stop. it will happen, but individually, not on a large scale. >> do you think that, is that your sense and do the local, if the organizing happening at the local level that you have been talking about. these local counsels that have been the pillars of the resistance, are those multi-sectarian? "b," boo they have enough organizational control to stop the reprisal killings that people are worried about? >> this brings us to the aims and the revolution from day one. which is to set up society based on plurallism. to make sure everybody has representation and everybody has the opportunity in syria as

we've seen in other nations. yes, the people on the ground have done everything they can to convey this message. from day one, alternatively, the regime succeeds by breathing sectarian hatred. what they've done from day one, investigate a sectarian response from everyone. that's why they go into places like hama and holmes and mosques and that's why they burn down mosques and using it as a tool of war and doing it to instigate a, they are using loyalists who are close and may hail from the same sect as the president does, as the regime does, to convey these acts. so, he's trying to create a situation where he is inseparable from the rest of his community. >> i want to talk about what role the international community is playing. what role it should play and what role as us as citizens of the united states should be playing, right after we take a break. as part of a heart healthy diet. that's true.

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brigadier general and you left in 1989. i want to talk about this question of intervention, or not intervention because that ends up being this very narrow conversation we have in the u.s., but just more broadly the international response. you wanted to talk about this. you wanted to add one more point about the point of the structure of what the free syrian army and the resistance is. >> first of all, this defection started after six months of the revolution and it created groups and individual groups everywhere in syria, smaller group, bigger group, something like that. have no weapons except the weapons they took with them when they defected and then rapidly, the civilians in syria start to join these groups and to compose their own groups. in syria every single citizen has to pass through the military service. this basic knowledge of military training is available to every syrian. so now we have so many groups inside syria.

i admit, we don't have a structure of an army, even the leadership and the borders of turkey they are not controlling anything except like 15% of the freedom fighters. during the last three, four months and i worked in that hardly, we start to compose what you call it military concept in every department. syria is 14 departments. department like -- >> like a state. >> a province. a province. so, there is like military consul -- >> a structure is being erected. >> but we are going to have eventually and very soon one command, one leadership for the whole freedom fighter. >> so, there have been efforts in the u.n. for sanctions and there's been calls for arming the rebels. i want to play john mccain, u.s. senator from arizona because i'm sure whenever there's a problem in the world, arming the rebels is his solution. take a look.

>> set up a safe zone and together provide arms and equipment to the resistance fighters. >> we can help facilitate weapons to get to the hands of the libyan military, those who are fighting against gadhafi. >> the administration has done nothing. we should help them with arms. >> if not strategic air strikes as a viable option, what if any military option would you think realistic and plausible? >> arming the bosnians and recognizing that training has also got to be part of that. >> kind of arming the rebels greatest hits from john mccain and the reason i'm playing that, frankly, as someone who is extremely skeptical of u.s. military intervention, particularly in the wake of what we have seen in the u.s. and the region over the ralast ten year which hasn't come out particularly well and i'm sitting across from you, gentlemen, who is telling a

story of what is an incredibly violent regime, this question of arm as, whether arm as or money should be flowing from the united states and the international community. i'd like to get your sense of that. >> first of all, to create the situation, we have a stalled situation in syria, very tragic. there is a regime that will not stop killing people, no matter what. people decided to fight this regime, also no matter what. both sides are -- >> they will not. >> go to the point of no return. what we do, the only solution is to have an international and military intervention in syria. i called for that since more than nine months. i went everywhere in the world. >> do you think there should be an international military intervention? >> i think the united states government will do everything in their ability to avoid such a situation. we've seen that from -- >> if there is going to be or not. we're talking about the need. >> i also want to get his

opinion. >> my opinion is that it won't happen because it's not in the interest of the united states to intervene in this manner. so, whether there's a need or not, yes, there's a need to support the armed resistance in syria, period. people need the weapons so that they can defend their families, their areas and their regions from the regime, but that is not the reality politically of what's going on in the united states now. >> i don't think it is going to happen. we talked about the election and nothing will happen until after the election, but, yet, again, i'm not talking if there will be or not. i am talking about -- >> you're saying there should be. should be or not because this is the beauty of the united states of america as a leader of the free world. this is a duty. this is not a privilege or not a charity. they have to do that, but, unfortunately, mr. obama is busy right now. >> unilaterally do that, not now. >> i'm not talking -- i said several times.

four countries can do that. united states, united kingdom and france and turkey. turkey because it has like 850 -- >> but the same day after question extends. look, i understand why you would call for this. i completely understand and, obviously, we're coming from extremely different places in this conversation. but the day after question which we see as the day after in iraq and the day after in afghanis n afghanistan. do you want an occupying force? >> and, yet, i ask for the simplest option of intervention and that is what i discussed with senator mccain when i met him. i said just an air missile strike. got to get every important location for the security and intelligence agency and the military and the republican. just that without the need to sacrifice one life. >> i don't think you can talk

about syria without talking about the rest of the area. without talking, for example, iran, china, russia, the forces, the united states that are negotiating at the united nations right now. if military was not an option, if you said, we take that off the table, i think the u.s. would have a very different approach in how it deals with russia, russia extremely angry about what happened in libya. we'd have a different approach in how it deals, it will not deal with iran on this issue. iran an ally of syria. and if we said that diplomacy is the only way to deal with this, you may have a very different -- >> we have to take a break. home of the brave. ♪ it's where fear goes unwelcomed... ♪ and certain men... find a way to rise above. this is the land of giants.

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>> i don't think we should go that far. i don't think at this point it calls for that type of military intervention on our part. >> on this issue, you're with the obama administration, basically, and not with john mccain? >> probably correct. if we do just stipulate the matter of the international concerns about russia and china that there is not going to be that kind of intervention, which is what you were saying before, what is your view path forward? is there a stipping point of momentum that folks are organizing want to see or are we headed towards something that looks a lot more like a stalemate with different areas being held with different parts of the regime? >> i think what we've seen in the last week is that we've shown, the resistance has shown that assad no longer controls

the capital and no longer has the ability to control all elements of the country. what we are seeing as of yesterday is an offensive in the north second city and that is an extremely critical battleground because that is all about strategically splitting the country in two. now, you had mentioned safe zones, et cetera. the syrian people on their own with limited support, with no help from the outside have created their own zones and are attempting to create a safe zone for operations to create the revolution and finish the job for themselves at this current moment. >> is that your sense of how this is going, as well, in terms of what we look for in the next month if there is no forthcoming intervention in military terms? >> of course. if there is no forthcoming intervention, it will take more time. it will cost more lives. i agree with sarab just said, but this is very important issue

tie why the intervention is necessary. first of all, all the consequences of the u.s. war of the intervention, like they said it might trigger the civil war or the sectarian civil war and the separation of arm as and the establishment of militia entering. all these worries and consequences can easily be zero if this intervention happened like four, five months ago. now, still, there's a time. but the more we deal with intervention, the more these consequences and worries will grow larger and bigger. >> gentlemen, thank you very much. i appreciate it. what we should know for the news week ahead, coming up next. ♪

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in a study of census data, the unemployment law projects found that low-wage workers are employed by large businesses with over 100 employees and surveying the they found the overwhelming majority have covered from recession with nearly 80% having profitable for the last three years. you should also note they have executive compensation average aing $9.4 million a year. the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 and, according to nelp more than $10 today if it was adjusted every year since 1968 using the consumer price index as a basis. something about inequality that didn't increase the big bad government or the debt raising the minimum wage significantly would be one way to do it. to allow a vote on a bill that would require businesses to

give their employees paid sick leave. you should know, mrs. stinem has signed a letter along with 200 influential and notable women urging her to bring the measure up for a vote, but quinn says he has no plans to do so. opponents of the bill says it will hurt small business but a 2011 study by the institute for women's policy institute. the first city in the nation to implement paid sick leave 6 out of 7 employees did not report profitability. national democrats are prepared to let all the bush tax cuts expire on january 1st of next year and a bill to reinstate those tax cuts on become below $250,000 a year. despite what you might hear, definitely such tax cuts would be tax cuts for the richest earners since they would enjoy the low marginal rates. republicans want the entire tax cuts extended, including for top

earners at an additional cost to the budget $28 billion just next year. tax rates for top earners are among the lowest they've since since the roaring '20s and mitt romney and the republican party are reducing them even more. while mitt romney restoring america to its former glory, he leaves out that vision to top tax rates paid by his father. i want to find out what my guests think you should know for the week coming up. >> on monday the ncaa are taking. just this morning they're tearing down the statue of joe paterno, but what we have known for decades, fundamentally abusive institution that is built on extracting free labor out of football and basketball athletes and what we should be taking from this is a broad reevaluation of college athletics and why we have this essentially for-profit activity operating under the auspices of

universities. >> this year has been remarkable. taylor branch of the civil rights trilogy wrote an amazing piece called "the cartel" which is and you wrote a piece for "bloomberg view" just get rid of college football. >> what is amazing about the ncaa not only forced the wages of their employees down to zero but convinced people this would be moral. >> the international aids conference is beginning in washington, d.c. tens of thousands of people are gathering and a major march calling we can end aids. occupying the roots of hiv and people are calling for lifting of the federal ban for syringe exchange and taxing wall street, the global 1% to stop cuts to aids services worldwide, ensuring full access to

reproductive services around the world and demanding overall that lives and health are prioriti d prioritized. >> you should know if you're hiv positive you can't get into the united states to go to that conference and, separately, washington state is going to announce voter registration via facebook which could have interesting effects on the obama campaign which can use social media very effectively. >> it got left on the cutting room floor. >> the last segment about syria and the statements by the syrians not withstanding about the unity of the revolution against assad, really, we should know there are really two wars taking place in syria right now. one is a sectarian fight and the other one is a fight between the establishment as it is and islamic revolutionaries and what syria is going to look like

after that remains to be seen in the united states. should be very, very weary about putting its foot into boiling water. we have been burned before and we will be burned, again, if we tried. >> just the more you look at it, the more complicated it seems. want to thank my guests today. josh barro and amy goodwin and jack jacobs, thank you, all. a quick programming note, msnbc will have special coverage of the colorado shooting, chris jansing is anchoring live from aurora, colorado. our program will be on hiatus. "up with chris hayes" will return on saturday, august 1 1th and then resume our regular schedule on august 18th. talking about sports and

politic. we'll see you, again, on august 11th. we'll miss you. [ man ] ever year, sophia and i use the points we earn with our citi thankyou card for a relaxing vacation. ♪ sometimes, we go for a ride in the park. maybe do a little sightseeing. or, get some fresh air. but this summer, we used our thank youpoints to just hang out with a few friends in london. [ male announcer ] the citi thankyou visa card. redeem the points you've earned to travel with no restrictions. rewarding you, every step of the way.

redeem the points you've earned to travel with no restrictions. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination...

and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. this morning, sports politics and a long awaited decision about the statue of joe paterno at penn state university. plus, what does african-american mean for africa, if you're american? this week, we lost the legendary silva, but she leaves a legacy for a whole new generation of chefs, first, the latest on the tragedy in colorado and how it affects us all. good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. today, president barack obama will travel to aurora, colorado to meet with the grieving families of the victims of a shooting street that turned a

midnight screening of "the dark knight rises" into a horrific tragedy. 26 victims remain hospitalized this morning. 9 in critical condition. the suspect, 24-year-old james holmes, a former neuroscience graduate student, is being held in solitary confinement, while he awaits a court appearance in the county on monday. yesterday, federal and local authorities disarmed the explosives rigged inside holmes' apartment, designed to kill whomever entered it. police have allowed residents evacuated from surrounding homes to return. let's get the latest from kristen dahlgren from aurora. good morning, kristen. >> reporter: good morning, melissa. you can see holmes' apartment behind me here, the one on the third floor there with windows broken out by authorities. as they were disarming those bombs. his building is still roped off. unclear when residents will be able to return. but as you said, in four