richard kelly is joining us. welcome. >> good morning. >> let's start quickly with the impact of the storm bigger than anyone first thought. what impact will have from a macro point of view? >> the estimates always get revised up about so it still may be slightly meer. but even $30 billion to $50 billion puts you at gdp. and then that does not include the fact that there is some sort of rebuilding that you for being tore in. >> is it fair to say the bigger the drop, the bigger the bounce back or is that not always true? >> it's not always true. it depends how much of a long term impact there have been. we can go back to katrina which was the largest destruction where the actual costs were around $150 billion. >> you can go to our website to find out why new york is looking a lot leak amsterdam fp has something to do with bicycles. and you can tune in tonight at 8:00 p.m. for hurricane sandy coming together, a benefit concert to aid victims of the storm. hosted by matt lauer. the concert will feature performances

already being mainstreamed by the men you your talking about with richard wolffe a few minutes ago, john mccain, mccain, graham, kelly ayotte, replaced lieberman now as the third -- >> what do we compare this to, this secession movement, to anything in american history? other than the civil war? i mean, this is new territory, isn't it? >> yeah, yeah. it's totally new territory. half of me wants to say, let texas go, let texas be a republic of texas and they'll soon find out what's involved. for starters, they'll have to impose an income tax on people. which they don't now. >> yeah. >> and let them pay for their own social security. let them pay for their own medicare. let them see what it's like. fine. >> all right. michael tomasky. great to have you with us tonight. thanks so much. >> my pleasure. >>> tomorrow night on "the ed show," the post office. why is the post office in your town closing? what did they do wrong? that's tomorrow night on "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. the rachel maddow show begins right now.

kelly reilly from the movie "flight." "starting point" begins right now. welcome back, everybody. our team this morning, richards with us. economics editor at the economist. will cain is a columnist at the blaze.com. john berman is with us, helping us out with news. christine romans is sticking around, helping us out with business. fiscal cliff, 46 days and counting, we'll fall off the fiscal cliff. although some people have talked about it as being a gentle slope. >> don't believe that. if it's a slope it's like a slalom. >> black diamond gentle slope. >> no, blue. >> nanny says maybe blue. >> still a sleteep slope here. president obama will host top republicans and democrats and look for any room for compromise in the fiscal abusineyss, cliff slope. >> reporter: one thing is for sure, if they don't do something, everybody will end up paying a lot more taxes. that's a good spur. but right now everyone is looking for the tone of this, what the president will do, how both sides come into it. at first glass, it looks as if they're sticking to their positions but there are some cracks. you can so some hints of thi