jeffrey sachs. we also have msnbc political analyst former democratic congressman harold ford jr. >> boy, mika, we have so much to talk about today. we've been talking about the elections last night. >> ohio. >> a big setback for republicans. >> absolutely. >> virginia, positive for republicans. you talk about berlusconi all the way across the seas. jeffrey sachs giving us a big thumbs up. >> wasn't it a long time ago? >> about 17 years. >> oh, come on now. >> also, the elections in -- the republicans came forward with an offer to increase taxes yesterday, increase revenue to the federal government. that is a first step. that hasn't happened in about 17 years. >> that's a new one. >> that is a new one. and chuck schumer was on our show yesterday and said something that got them fighting on capitol hill. >> yep. >> he said this supercommittee was doomed to fail. >> i still hope it's not. can we say that? >>> one year ahead of the 2012 presidential elections, there was another important election night

i agree with jeffrey sachs.e matter, which is the corruption of lobbyists, the impossibility to get a fair shake, if you're a young guy or woman trying to make it in the world. the bad debt and bad faith and impunity, the culture of immunity that surrounds a lot of people with a lot of money. >> you recall may 1970 here in new york, and the so-called hard hat protests, which erupted on wall street, and you'll remember it seemed to combine everything from blue-collar workers to hippies and people who equally were protesting against war, against all kinds of things. and of course, four students were killed at penn state, just days earlier. just take us through those 1970s protests, and how you think they may relate to what's going on today. >> well, the hard hat riots, as they were called, at a point, it was the first riot held from the third floor. you know, where people were throwing bolts down on the protesters. there was a real element of class involved, that it was the last gasp of a certain kind of new york,

mark haleprin and jeffrey sachs at the table, joining the table, andy serwer.ks? what a coincidence. it's good to have you onboard. we'll talk to you about the super committee. it didn't go so well. we tried to lead with newt gingrich last hour and -- >> i thought it went fine. >> why do they call it a super committee anymore? they've lost that. it's the not so super committee. it's the lame committee. let's stop calling it that. >> yeah. okay. after months of deliberations, you might be right, andy. the super committee appears to be ready to accept failure with a semiimpo self-imposed deadlin away, lawmakers on both sides admit that any hope for agreement is slipping away. since the beginning, the deadlock has come down to huge sticking points. democrats blame republicans for being inflexible on taxes and republicans blast democrats for not accepting major changes to medicare and social security. literally what has changed? nothing. if the super committee can't come to a consensus, automatic spending cuts will kick in, $1.2 trillion over ten years to military

. >>> my book of the week is "the price of civilization" by frequent "gps" guest jeffrey sachs, an economistniversity, sachs spends much of his time advising emerging nations around the world as to how to solve their economic troubles. here he directs his advice at the united states, his homeland. he puts forth his ideas about what ails us and his prescriptions for how we can recover. even if you don't agree with it, you will find it very thought-provoking. >>> now for the "last look." looking at how europe's leaders are failing to fix their debt crisis, you might be thinking, hey, even i can do a better job. well, there's a game to put that to the test. it's on the web site of the european central bank. in economia, the monetary policy game, you at the controls of the european central bank. at each step, you have to decide whether to raise the key interest rate, lower it, or keep it where it is. the aim is to keep inflation at 2% or slightly lower. you have a team of advisers and all kinds of data to help you along. even with all that, it's not so easy. you, too, could end up bankrupting eu

we can take the works of a jeffrey sachs, we can take the work of a mr. spens who talks about infrastructure investment, we can find this long-term cuts of $1 trillion leaving out medicare and social security and medicaid and we can find them in a way that talks about bush tax cuts but has a thoughtful way of looking at tax reform and then we can put our vision forward that includes making it in america. my friends, we make defense products in america. i don't want to be a war promoter, i want our troops home, but i believe in military preparedness. those are jobs. we have a year to do it. we can throw off the shackles of partisanship and thoughtfully put forward a legislative initiative which the president will not veto if there is a plan that includes revenue -- excuse me, deficit reduction. don't be afraid of doing our job. so, i'm willing to say we have been given an opportunity, just like my cugers are being given an opportunity for a championship this coming weekend at the university of houston, which will by the way create a lot of revenue with fol

trend lines of the middle class going like this, if you can see a trend going back to 1973 as jeffrey sachs says in his book, it says the average income for men has been falling since 1973. and we say men because you -- there weren't as many women in the workforce at the time. our average wage has been falling since 1973, and yes, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the rich have been getting richer under republican presidents and democratic presidents, and then republican presidents, and now again democratic presidents. under the last two years, the rich on wall street have gotten richer faster than ever before and the chart just showed it. so this isn't a republican or democratic issue, it's really not. this is a middle class issue. >> and there were two factors that created the post war prosperity, post world war ii prosperity in the country that can be recovered. one was a public education system that worked for a lot more people than it works for now. access to college with the gi bill. and the other was a sense that there was a role for public money to be spe

. >> jeffrey sachs brought you up last week talking about how you were a skeptic, climate skeptic.or it, but you didn't -- a funny thing happened on the way. >> well, i never believed there was no climate change, i simply felt that some of the other skeptics had raised valid issues that required addressing. >> what did you find? >> well, we studied four different effects that people thought might have affected the previous claims of global warming. one of them is whether heating of cities contributed unfairly to the estimate. cities do heat more. but that's not because of the greenhouse effects. so you don't want to include that in when you measure global warming. there are issues of whether they had treated the data fairly. they used only 20% of the data at most. and there were worries they had somehow selected the data in such a way that it would increase the effect. so we studied these and several other effects. >> what was your conclusion? >> our conclusion was that none of these effects actually had altered the data. it wasn't clear to me that this would be the answer. and so,

we had jeffrey sachs on and other people that travel the world, they all tell us they go into the boardroomsymore. has the united states lost their perch as the most powerful country? >> this is -- this is our second year doing our soft power survey and, in fact, we changed the metrics a little bit, so we added some new elements. one of the things we added this year was -- >> by the way, we're talking shorthand. define soft power first. >> well, it's -- my definition is those basic assets which make you more attractive. to be able to get your way through more attractive and friendly means. and so that can be, you know, the power of your business brand, your cultural exports, you know, the strength of your cultural or educational institutions. and what we did is we looked at -- we reached, last year was a tie between our neighbors in france and the uk, it was a joint tie. but this year partly because we placed business -- the business emphasis which was higher up the ranking, america won this year. but i think you're absolutely right. i think there is a problem i think when you pinball around