george packer, everybody.

my guest, my guest tonight george packer, he is author of "the unwinding" the nonvision fiction book about america on the verge of dystopian could lapts. -- collapse. (laughter) i hope they have-- but first it seems like only yesterday that barack hussein obama began his second term as president with high hopes. but now just four months later he finds himself mired in an index caseable downward fall where the only congressional action can count on is punitive in nature. he has entered into a three and a half year race of [bleep] (laughter) his only hope, the media. (laughter) with the attention span of a concussed goldfish. more of a problem than would you think for goldfish. it's not the bowl as much as sometimes the threshure chest they can run into. >> the race for 2016 already heating up. >> the race for 2016. >> 12016. >> 2016. >> 2016. >> fast approaching. >> there's still almost a thousand days before the first vote in the 2016 contest. >> jon: squirrel! squirrel! yes, a thousand days until the first primary votes and while anything can happen, they're pretty sure they know wh

joining us on set is the "new yorker's" george packer, author of "the unwinding."re we started, i think this is such an important story. one that is largely untold in the national media. which is -- the unwinding, the defraying of the american social context and how we have gotten to the place we are now in, where the bottom 90% had their income grow by $59 from 1966 to 2011. the top 10% saw income gains of $116,000. we talk about the takers and the makers in society. and yet this is actually the narrative. >> you're talking about inequality and it's, it's a central problem and it's so vast and it affects so many parts of our life and our culture that you almost can't even get your hands on it. it's everywhere and yet it's sort of invisible in the sense that it's just, in the air we breathe now. there have been a lot of books written about inequality and about the decline of the middle class, the industrialization, the rise of the information economy. i wanted to create a portrait, not an argument. we know the argue md. i wanted to tell a story that would have this

and i remember one book that struck prme was george packer's "the assassin's gate," about iraq where he makes the point that there was a lack of emotional connection with that war. that was not the case in world war ii. everybody had skin in the game. >> right, right. that's exactly right. yeah in 1944, we were a country of 140 million, we have 16.1 million in uniform. everyone has someone they love in harm's way. everyone does have skin in the game. contrast that to 2013, a country of 313 million. there are about 2 million in uniform, if you count the guard and reserve. almost no one has someone they love in harm's way, almost no one has skin in the game in that same sense. so, i think that there's quite a difference between the republic's relationship with its armed forces now versus 70 years ago. >> and how would our military leaders have stood up to the modern spotlight, both in terms of how well the war would prosecuted, and of course, just their personalities, their personal foilabilities, excesses of war, you know, the kinds of things that you write about as our soldiers march

called the unwinding, the inner history of the new america, please welcome back to the program george packer. (applause) >> jon: thank you so much for joining us again. i say this by george, you've done it again. the unwinding, what's so centring, i think, about the book not just that they are great stories but the way that you tell them, you sort of follow over a period of years, a cast of characters that we get to know. it's a nonfiction book that reads like a documentary film in some regard. you follow it with an almost documentary dramatic structure. >> i wanted to create a portrait of america which was a kind of ambitious thing to do. >> over the course of 30 years, a generation. our adult lifetime, yours and mine. and to do that i felt i had to have both a range of people from different parts of the country, from centers of power like washington, wall street, silicon valley but also people from the forgotten places like there's a woman from youngstown, ohio, in this book, from rural north carolina, the-- areas of tampa are in the book. and the story follows them all over the course of

with us is george packer.r history of a new america and you talk about how everything could fall apart at the seams. set up the problem, first of all. >> this book is a portrait of the country over the last generation through stories of famous americans and americans no one has heard of. my sense is there was a deal that prevailed in this country for half century which is everyone had equal opportunity and a place and that circle had to widen because it didn't include a lot of americans throughout that period. what has happened, it seems to me the institutions that supported ordinary americans and their aspirations have eroded over the last generation, the period covered by the book. and the characters in the book find themselves more and more on their own as they try to realize their dream. as if the deal between elites and ordinary people in this country is off. >> we have talked about a lot in the show the disparity in the country between rich and extremely poor. >> income inequality, we talk about it a lot

think seriously and deeply about foreign policy, whether the pundit or journalistic side like george packer, who writes for the new yorker, the george -- valis in a sr. the george canon of u.s. policy in the middle east. a renown scholar but practitioner insider who served two years in the obama administration delivers a smart, sharp, sober, fast-paced and riftding critique of the policies. ann marie slaughter, a wakeup call by a deeply knowledgeable scholar. anyone interested in the middle east and china or the future of american policy should read it. having said that praise to you -- (laughs) -- tell us what you think we ought to be doing. >> well, i think we ought to take rol in the wod and particularly the middle east i think is very critical not only because we spend a decade there and made the middle east essentially the marketer for our global role but i think also many other countries around the world in asia, for instance, where we want to focus are looking athe way we are approaching the middle east, the way we are watching our hands of it, treating this crises as indicator of th

back in new york city tomorrow when i'm joined by dan raptor, bob herbert, the "new yorker's" george packerast today will focus on severe weather. we're expecting another widespread outbreak, including tornadoes. and airport delays could be widespread later this evening. as the storms could be anywhere from wisconsin, to michigan, chicago, all the way down through st. louis, kansas city, and the greatest threat of tornadoes later today, eastern oklahoma, into the ozarks later on tonight. hoo-hoo...hoo-hoo. hoo-hoo hoo. sir... i'll get it together i promise... heeheehee. jimmy: ronny, how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? ronny:i'd say happier than the pillsbury doughboy on his way to a baking convention. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. as soon as you feel it, weigh you down? try miralax. it works differently than other laxatives. it draws water into your colon to unblock your system naturally. don't wait to feel great. miralax. take the miralax pledge to feel better sooner. get a reward like a beauty treatment, a d

george packer, staff writer for the new yorker examines u.s. history over the last three decades and argues that the country and its institutions are coming the part in the unwinding, an inner history of the new america. jessye norman, conservative member of the british parliament recounts the life and achievements of 18th-century irish philosopher and statesman and edmund burke in edmund burke, the first conservative. look for these titles in bookstores this coming we can't watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and on booktv.org. >> there is no bird been processed food industry needs more than a prediction. i tried to use it sparingly because they can rather convincingly argues that there are some differences between food craving and narcotics cravings, certain technical thresholds. however, when they talk about the allure of their foods their language can be so revealing, they use words like cray ofab , ofable,able. >> sold sugar that is our online book collection this month bill was more video of michael moss at booktv.org and f