suzie orman is the author of a number of books that tackle the changing face of the american dream. see you. >> good to see you ali. >> you think everybody can do a little bit better? >> yeah, i look at their budget and what they were spending, and when i see almost a thousand dollars a month in car payments, i'm thinking to myself, what? so many times we get ourselves into trouble by thinking we have the monthly income to afford this, so we buy it. they are spending as much on car payments as they are on their mortgage. what is that about? and the other thing is this, now we have a problem, because if they were to foreclose on their house or leave their home, the new tax laws this year are they will owe income tax on the difference between what they owe and what they -- >> so they are stuck. >> they are stuck now. last year if they had taken some initiative and decided i'm going to get out of this situation -- i'm not going to buy [ technical difficulties ] >> and they could have done nothing. >> what do you think about the idea of going back to renting a house versus owning a hous

who better to turn to for practical solutionsing gure suze orman.'s middle class: rebuilding the dream. k news. >>> i come from a family in which my -- both my parents have started from nothing. they were raised on the streets. and they both kind of came together, and they started their own business. and they kind of lived the american dream. >> here is a statistic that i will straights the hard reality of the financial squeeze that's felt by middle class americans. the average family after paying bills for everything from food to utilities to healthcare only has $100 left at the ends of the month. so forget about saving much for college or for retirement. the u.s. government says the average family spends 33% of its income on housing, 20 % on food, and 17% on transportation. those figures have pretty much stayed the same since 2006 except for healthcare costs which have shot up 30%. these don't clue student loans or credit cards. about the sent % of all americans have some debt. how does the middle class survive under this kind of financial squeeze

suze orman. suze is out tre right now and she wants congress to make some change out there. y don't you tell us about it. >> yeah. she has gone to change.org and asking people to vote for h petition to basically force the credit reporting agencies to accept prepaid debit card information from the prepaid debit card issuers. and this is problematic for a variety reasons notwithstanding the fact suze orman is pushing an selling a prepaid debit card of their own and they're called credit reports for a reason. they're supposed to house credit obligations. prepaid debt card is not credit obligation. it is stored value card that has your own cash. gerri: i thought with the industry on this they don't want to grade or score you how you spend your mey. they want to grade or score you how you pay it back which makes a ton more sense to me. suze says, no, no. should be turned on its head. the whole world should be changed. my question to you, jon, does she want to change things because she thinks it is better for america or wants to sell more of her prepaid debit cards? >> that is ver

personal finance gure suz gure suze orman.'s middle class: rebuilding the dream. >> no doubt about it, innovation >>> i think to be middle class is to be right where the average person is, i guess. you are not starving, or you have everything you need. you don't have anything extravagant or anything super extra, but you have just what you need to live. i come from a family, in which >>> i come from a family in which my -- both my parents have started from nothing. they were raised on the streets. and they both kind of came together, and they started their own business. and they kind of lived the american dream. >> here is a statistic that i will straights the hard reality of the financial squeeze that's felt by middle class americans. the average family after paying bills for everything from food to utilities to healthcare only has $100 left at the ends of the month. so forget about saving much for college or for retirement. the u.s. government says the average family spends 33% of its income on housing, 20 % on food, and 17%

i'm suze orman, and you are watching "the suze orman show." all month, i've been giving you the building blocks to create a strong financial foundation for this nea

gerri: now before you go -- >> that is what it tells me. >> i want to tell people fees on suze orman's preapproved credit card. purchase fee, three bucks. monthly account, goes on and on. withdrawal fees at atm. 2 buck as transition. balance inquiry, dollar transaction. you get the point here. there is lot of money to be made. i think she would like to make some more. john, thanks for coming on my show. >> happy valentine's to you and stay away from prepaid debit cards. gerri: thank you, sir. more details for the bottom line concerning the massive merger of the two biggest and frankly most hated cable companies in the united states of america. we've got two of the best here to debate. john berg meyer, senior staff attorney for public knowledge, and james freeman assistant he had orfor "the wall street journal" editorial page. these two go head-to-head on this topic. gentlemen, start with you, you do not like this merger. why not? >> well, i don't like it i think when you have a company like a post-merger comcast such gatekeeper power over the cable industry and broadband industry it wo

. >> there's much more from ali, suze orman and robert schiller, a special on core presentation of america's middle class: rebuilding the dream. that's 3:00 p.m. eastern and 9:00 p.m. eastern on sunday right here on al jazeera america. we often talk about inspiration and aspiration and humanity. all of that is shown in a photograph that won the photo award showing african migrants in east africa trying to capture an inexpensive cell phone signal from nearby somalia. if they can get it they can connect and talk with relatives around the world. it's a common hub for poor migrants preparing to leave the continent as they seek a better life. this imagine was shot for "national geographic." it's just people trying to call loved ones. too many some of us think of migrants or the poor as washed out unfall with technology and alone. the reality is they aspire to a better life as much as we do. they'll use whatever tools are available, and they love their families as much as everyone else. our thanks to john stan meyer and the photo organization for the compelling reminder. that's our show for today.

i'll be joined by robert reich and suze orman. >>> keat ke keystone pipeline, oil will be removed from the western canada region with or without the pipeline. the focus was only on the 770 mile northern leg, from hardesty hardesty, alberta to the united states. pipeline from alberta to the texas gulf coast. now eight more u.s. federal agencies have to weigh in on the keystone pipeline over the next 90 days. call it inspiration from perspiration,e a tipping pointn america's history! >> al jazeera america. there's more to it. it is super bowl weekend so let's talk sports and business.. the two have a lot in common. for one thing it's pretty easy to keep score both on the field and the board room, so who better to run a company than a former college football player. i'm talking about kevin plank, the ceo of under armour. the company's stock skyrocketed after an earnings report that knocked the socks off of investors. total revenues for the company for $2.3 billion. smierlings an inspiration, and perspiration. >> it begins at the beginning such a personal story for me. i was a football pla

i'll be joined by robert reich and suze orman. >>> keatkeykeystone pipeline, ol be removed from the western canada region with or without the pipeline. the focus was only on the 770 mile northern leg, from hardes hardesty, alberta to the united states. pipeline from alberta to the texas gulf coast. now eight more u.s. federal agencies have to weigh in on the keystone pipeline over the next 90 days. call it inspiration from perspiration, kevin grew in his grandmother's basement so into a multimillion dollar corporation. so he may not known exactly what to do, but end the crisis. we have also heard from the russians in form of one of the president's senior aids. he has told the if the that he could lose power here, if he doesn't quash the rebellion. so very different messages from very different sides. reflecting the kind of tug of war between east and west over ukraine. all of the violence there >> lisa fletcher here now with what's next on the stream. the massive number of laws on the books. >> right ali, 4500 bills a good number of which overlap. >> which makes you wonder if we have too ma

robert shiller, suze orman, the financial guru, we're going otalk about the middle class, why they'reueezed but more importantly tony how we fix it. this is the beginning of a year long conversation that we're all having, this entire channel is going to have. we're also talking to as we always do on this show, people with real world pressure in their lives. sabino family of new york, the mamaddox family of oregon. we want to be able to tell you what's going on with the middle class. >> i was going to end it here but here's the other doggone thing, when i listen to you talk about the factors that lead to the squeeze of the middle class, everyone knows about it happens but leads me to wonder how important is the middle class? if it is really important, there are people working on this right? >> it's crucial. the most all of history every successful economy have a robust middle class. they do two things, they buy the stuff that we build and produce so you can have jobs and they pay the taxes our government needs. the rich are you can get the more taxes can you avoid. if you earn $10 mill

teamsters union president james hoff fa and suze orman, it's a mixed bag but worth watching john. >> you can watch right here al jazeera america 7 eastern and again 10 eastern monday. >>> beaten abused and forced to work up to 18 hours a day. we'll tell it where it's happening. plus drinking to death. what's killing many russian men. >> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. a busy friday night and lots to cover this half hour. a drinking problem in russia and why so many men in that country are dying, young. plus, a great environmental fight over dirt being dumped into australia's great barrier reef. and betting on the super bowl. the high stakes wager between art museums in denver and seattle to show their team pride. butter first a look at today's top stories. new allegations in the george washington bridge scammed. a port official, a friend of christie says through his lawyer that the governor knew about the closures as they happened and says there's evidence to prove it. the governor denied the statement and said he had no knowledge of the lane cl

. >> coming up on "the suze orman show"...o make the most out of your dividends that your investments are paying you. also... why is this ruining your marriage? that is what you said in your e-mail -- this house is ruining your marriage. why? >> we hate the house, and we constantly fight about it. >> and you ask me, "can i afford it?" it's $300, as i am looking on my screen here, that you want to spend on these professional headshots. paige, do you have a gut feeling if i'm going to approve or deny you? >> little bit.

orman by the sea, holly hill, these are all areas in the heavy rain. this top one is moving pretty much to the north. this thunderstorm cell you see at daytona beach speedway developed about a half hour ago and has been sliding to the northeast. for the most part when that leaves the area, we're watching the larger cluster just to the north. we've got a sea breeze right now feeding the storm. it is almost on the beach and off the coastline. so if we can wait just about another 45 minutes, we should be in the clear. however, the warning, which includes daytona beach, is in effect, fredricka, until 4:00 p.m. quarter of a million people are at this stadium. we'll be watching this one close. >> that's a lot of people, potentially vulnerable situation. keep us posted on that. thanks so much, tom. >>> let's talk sports in another direction. jason collins could make history tonight on the basketball dmoert los angeles. the brooklyn nets are about to sign collins, making him the first openly gay player in a major pro sports league. the 35-year-old came out las

. >> coming up on "the suze orman show"... are you a transactor or a revolver?'ll tell you what they mean and why you need to know. also... there were all these little red flags, natalie, that were going up. >> yeah. >> he wanted the money as soon as your father died. he made his money being a poker player. right after you're engaged, now he asked you for the money again. >> it was one of those things that you don't really believe yourself feeling. it's like, "no, i'm going crazy. that's not really what's happening." >> and you ask me, "can i afford it?" >> my wife and i are looking to buy two recumbent tadpole bicycles. our home is owned outright. we just have a car loan. my wife has a lease on a car.