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tv   Real Money With Ali Velshi  Al Jazeera  May 19, 2014 7:00pm-8:01pm EDT

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there are specific rules on what equipment can be used. california chrome used a nasal strip during the 6-race winning streak. that will do it for this edition of al jazeera america. "real money" is next with ali velshi. you can go to the website aljazeera.com. >> telecom and television collide in another huge media merger. i'll tell you what the deal is really about, and it has everything to do with what you, the consumer wants. and china accused of hacks and computer attacks on corporate merck. i'll look at the link. plus philadelphia's rock which middle class. i'm kicking off a week-long series with a look at a
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hard-working city so different these days, even rocky balboa wouldn't recognize it. i'm ali velshi, and this is "real money." ♪ >> this is "real money." you are the most important part of the show. tell me what is on your mind by tweeting me or fitting me up on facebook. it is merger mania in the media. this time it's at&t announcing a deal to bye directv, for a cool $48.5 billion. but because at&t promises to assume the debt, it's really worth $67 billion. it would be the forth largest telecom merger in history if it goes through. but no mega merger gets done these days without approval from
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uncle sam. take a look at the ever-shrinking media landscape. already, comcast has proposed a merger with time-warner cable. giving a supersized comcast a 30% share of the pay tv market. and 32% of the broadband market. unlike that tie up, an at&t directv merger would cut the number of video providers from four down to three for about a quarter of all households in the united states. regulators will be looking at that before giving final approval. to either deal. but at&t is america's number two mobile carrier. remember it wasn't and then it got that deal to sell iphones way before verizon did. at&t got 110 million customers
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nationwide. it has at&t uverse that beams tv content through lines in to 5.7 million homes in 22 states. district tv has more than triple the number of tv customers nationwide, but it beams content over satellite and can't bundle high speed internet into its package offerings. this deal is set to help at&t get ahead in a growing segment of the media market, streaming video. >> reporter: the era of monster media mergers rages on. just months after comcast announced a $45 billion acquisition of time-warner cable, at&t unveiled its own mega deal. bringing together the nation's largest telecom business by revenue and it's leading satellite tv company. >> my first reaction i was a little bit puzzled. that why a broadband company
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would buy a satellite company. but there is a lot beneath the surface that makes this deal make sense. >> reporter: the deal could help at&t retain subscribers, but bundling directv's popular video packages like nfl sunday ticket with its own services. larger consumer base would also help at&t when cutting deals with media providers like nbc universal or espn. >> the content owners want more and more money. and a lot of times the distributors don't want to pass that cost to their customers. at&t only has about 5 million subscribers, you don't have very much leverage with those content owners, so by getting together with the 20 million subscribers that directv has, that gives them a bit more leverage. >> reporter: but analysts say the real end game is to keep up with the explosive growth of
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streaming video. >> consumers now expect to be able to get any content, information, anything they want on any device they want wherever they want. that seem, you know, everywhere, any time kind of experience that has attracted over 30 million people to netflix. >> reporter: last month, at&t announced a partnership with this man to develop over the top web service. that means you will watch tv streaming on computers. sprint and t-mobile will reportedly announce a merger as early as june, and pressure is building for verizon and dish network to find partners of their own. consumer advocates say this
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will hurt competition and increase prices. i think they are wrong. industry experts like john say customers could actually benefit if a combined table duel battled at&t and district tv for market share and your money. john is a reporter who has been following the potential deal closely. never in history has cable rates gone down, john. so that's why when people said to me -- i mean everybody, that time-warner deal was was first announced, everybody said it is going to hurt the consumer. but prices in cable have never gone down. >> that's right. but the reason behind is that is because the american tv landscape is so consolidated. and the reason is for them to pay for more leverage.
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>> because it's hard to be as somebody said in mary's piece, if you have at&t you have 5.7 million, versus 30 million, it's hard to cut the same deals. >> absolutely right. the other word thing about the american tv market is it is freg -- fragmented. they do not actually compete with each other in these areas, and obviously they are also getting -- >> that's an important point you make. until recently nobody has a choice. >> yeah. >> now with the arrival of satellite, verizon, and at&t, in some markets you have a choice. most people have a choice of two to three providers. >> that's absolutely right. the difference with satellite is it's a nationwide not print. at&t sees it as unattractive
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deal because their footprint is so small. and the nfl package is such an important part of this transaction. with nfl being the most popular sport in america. and this deal can fall apart if directv doesn't renegotiate that deal. but they are obviously confident they will. >> what happens to first of all customers of either of those companies. and what effect might it have on the rest of us who might not be customers? >> they are pledging to keep tv as it is on a stand alone basis for at least three years. for the rest of us they are talking about bundling in district tv with at&t wireless subscriptions over the internet within 18 months to two years. and that's known as delivering content over the top. >> bypassing some sort of box. >> sure. basically over the internet.
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>> the internet. >> yeah, totally. and in they do that, that would be a big win for consumers because people have been sort of crying out for the ability to do that. >> right. we have to remember that comcast and time-warner, if that deal goes through, comcast is massive generator. >> that's absolutely right. >> so could that have prompted this type of discussion? >> there's no doubt the time-warner comcast deal triggered this transaction and dynamics are at play. obviously comcast wants more scale in its negotiations, apart from nbc, which comcast obviously own. and it's the same rationale for this deal. i don't think regulate tlors be as concerned about this transaction as the comcast time-warner one. >> is it your sense that one will go through?
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>> i think it will go through. there may be concessions. but regulators won't be as concerned about this deal. >> so if you are customer of district tv or at&t the world might get a little better for you. >> absolutely. >> john, good to see you. >> thank you for having me. sprint apparently didn't get the do not call message. the scc fined the company $7.5 million for failing to honor customers requests not to receive sales calls. swiss banking giant credit swisse pleaded guilty to a single criminal charge of conspiracy. it admitted to helping its
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wealthy american clients evade millions of dollars in taxed owed in the united states. as part of the agreement reached, credit swisse gets slipped -- got slapped with a $2.6 billion fine, fines and restitution. the government says that's the highest-ever payment in a criminal tax case. a criminal guilty plea by any bank or financial institution is very unusual in these cases. reports say the u.s. government still wants the names of account holders suspected of dodging taxes. later in the show i'll to the bank bailout watchdog during the dark days of the financial crisis. i'm going to tell you how stolen trade secrets could cost america jobs. coming up. plus i'm kicking off my series
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on philadelphia's rocky middle class with a firsthand look of the two faces of that city's middle class. the young professionals and the old school middle classers like this. >> reporter: you have young professionals moving in? >> yes. >> does that keep the neighborhood solid? >> yes. it has changed. >> reporter: because of their age -- >> because of both. both. [ laughter ] ♪ >> that story and more as "real money" continues. don't go anywhere. ♪
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if i look a little tired to you it's because i have been working through this 575-page tome. tim geithner's new book, stress test is simmering up questions about the 2008 financial crisis. it's geithner's account of the government's battle to prevent
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the u.s. economy from fall going a recession. he was the federal reserve bank of new york, and one of the weapons he and the obama administration used was tarp. that bailed out banks and other institutions, and that's where things get interesting. as i told you last week, the book takes aim at some critics. he says that a former federal prosecutor was, quote, untainted by financial knowledge or experience, end quote. he also wrote, quote . . . finally, geithner says former treasury secretary once apologized to him, for, quote, bequeathing me beraski.
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he responded to some of what was in the book. he wrote that he failed to address criticism. and the management quote . . . joining me now to discuss that and other issues is neil boraski, he is now a partner at the new york law firm. this is juicy, but i have to hold off for a minute. credit swisse has entered into an agreement with the department of justice that calls for them to pay a fine of $2.5 billion, and plead guilty in a case that involves aiding wealthy americans to evade taxes. couple of things of interest here. number 1, we don't typically hear of banks pleading guilty.
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and what does it mean that they do? >> this is a big shift for the department of justice. and last year the attorney general went before the senate and was criticized when another large bank entered into an agreement to pay a fine but was not pleading guilty. and the attorney general made the explanation some bank are so big, we have to be careful, because if we charge them that could bring down the entire financial system. >> right. >> and after a year of criticism, we're seeing what happened really in response to that criticism more than anything else with a guilty plea from a major international bank. >> to be clear, nobody is going to jail about this, right? >> that's the part of the criticism that will not be answered by this. at the end of the day corporations don't commit crimes, people commit crimes, and it appears so far that we're not seeing individuals or top executives being included in the
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criminal charges, so those criticisms will remain unanswered. >> what is more important about this case, that credit swisse is in trouble, or that a bank has pled guilty? >> well, both are important. now it will be now what? they are worried about the collateral consequences. banks can lose their charter if they plead guilty. well, this time, again, not fully answering all of the krit circumstances, what the department of justice did, they had these side agreements with the regulators, okay. don't put them out of business. >> but you would have had to have made those types of deals as a prosecutor. is this gross and ugly? because 95% of criminal charges get solved this way, don't they?
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>> no, not this way. there are a lot of things that are not typical like if a smaller financial institution -- when scc capital, the big hedge fund operator was brought to court, nobody asked about this. but this is definitely a ratcheting up from where we were. >> it's evolution. let's get back to the book. it seems like two secretaries in a row thought you were a pest. >> i don't know about secretary pahlsson. he came to speak to my class. i'm guessing if he said that, he said it in jest. but certainly former secretary geithner thinks of me as a pest.
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>> for people who don't know, what is the tension? >> we were created by congress to be a watchdog. and part of that meant reviewing decisions. and when they failed -- and unfortunately for mr. geithner, they often failed when it came to meeting the mandate on failing homeowners, and it was our job to be critical. and he did not receive criticism well, to put it mildly. and some of the quotes you have had, those are really not new. he has been saying these things for years about me. >> but he says he was tough on banks, and everybody said he wasn't. was he -- were they not tough on the banks? or did they just have bad pr about it? >> no, they were not tough on the banks. they left the senior executives in place. the whole thing what i heard
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when i was down there, they are working to earn their way out of it. and he may -- >> they are the banks. let them make their money -- >> yeah, and we can have disagreement about that. but even putting that aside, he still could have done something to help homeowners and people on main street. >> and what about the programs that the government did come up with? >> they were very small in scale, terribly designed. we started pointing out the flaws early on. they never fixed them. because they never wanted to spending the big money on homeowners. and tim geidner,er frer in refeo it as been unicornny. and i think history will judge him for the millions of people who could have been helped, should have been helped because
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of his decisions and his cobbling of the largest banks may be setting the scene for a bigger failure down the road. >> because those bank are bigger, and control even more of the market than in 2008. >> that's right. >> if you could be there at the table again when they were designing this, what would you have done differently, that would have helped american homeowners. >> a massive principle reduction program that would actually work -- >> was that ever on the table? >> look, it's something we recommended as this book came out, and a number of economists said they were pushing for it. and tim geithner didn't like it. and he said it back in 2009. that he thought it would be unfair. it would be morally hazard -- >> versus those who didn't get
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in over their heads. >> right. at least incentivizing and working with the banks. that was a very -- most economists looking back, say they would have put us in a much more robust economy. and would have fulfilled the promise that they made. and i think that's part of the problem is, when you only do the part you want to do, which is help the bank, and not do what you didn't want to do. >> i don't believe what they are saying about you. you sound like you know a lot about it. all right. philadelphia isn't what it used to be. i paid the streets vase it is for a look at what has changed and what stayed the same. >> old school barbara shop, mexican, and what else?
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>> a cigar shop. >> the oldest cigar shop in south philly. >> make sure you get that one! >> we got it. >> all right. >> there is more ahead on my series on philly's rocky middle class. keep it right here. ♪
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the just -- justice department filed criminal charges against five chinese officers for hacking corporations and stealing trade secrets. among the hacked companies are u.s. steel, westinghouse, and alcoa. it's the first time the united states has filed charges against specific officials of mourn -- foreign governments. china is denying the charges, saying they were made up and would damage trust between the two countries. lisa what is behind this indictment is it justice? a symbolic move? justice? >> probably a little of all of
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it. these five officials are not likely to stand up in court in pennsylvania where they were indicted and face charges, and experts also say it is not likely to slow down the chinese in any sort of economic espionage. but still there is an unprecedented move by the united states. the attorney general saying today enough is enough. they have tried for years to bring this issue up. they have tried to work diplomatically. i think they finally got fed up, and decided they needed to take some action. the consequence? we'll have to see. the chinese are already denying they have done anything. and they have now pulled out of talks between the u.s. and china on cyber security, on cyber issues, so we'll have to see where that goes. but this is a shot across the bow. the u.s. saying we don't want to put up with this anymore. >> and as you pointed out, they
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had tried to do this through back channels. is there any likelihood anybody has to face a trial or show up in court because of this? >> i don't think so. although they are on a wanted poster, five chinese officials on an fbi wanted poster. >> thank you, lisa. >> thank you. chris has testified before congress twice on government computer security and vulnerability. in 2008, he was named one of the 100 most influential people in it by e-week and joins us live from san francisco. good to see you. thank you for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> if i thought the chinese were hacking into american companies my instincts would not have gone to u.s. steel, westinghouse, and alcoa. they make steel.
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what do the chinese not know about making steel that americans know? are they hacking more companies? >> oh, they are hacking many more companies. last year there was a report that came out with a lot of the same tactics that they were saying the chinese had broken into. over 100 u.s. companies over the last year. even though you think of u.s. steel and westinghouse, these companies have sophisticated technology, nuclear power, and this is pretty sophisticated stuff. >> is it meant to give them an advantage over american companies, or is there something more sinister? >> well, i think there are potential military applications, but there's definitely on economic impact of it.
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learning the things that american manufacturers know can help chinese companies build better products. >> draw me a picture. we know what old-fashioned spying is like from the movies. what does this involve? is this getting into their actual systems that they use for -- for manufacturer, or product development. >> yeah, so they typically get in through the email because that's how companies communicate with the world. you are always reading on email messages, clinking on links that come from the untrusted internet. once they can compromise one executive's machine or one administrative assistant's machine, now they can work their way throughout the organization, and break into machine after machine after machine.
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>> so it's a bunch of people sitting around or algorithms that are trying to find that stuff. how prevalent do you think this is? is there an estimate of companies you think are hacked by the chinese? >> in my base, what we say is it's not when you are compromised, it's when you will find out you are compromised if you are a fortune 500 company. sometimes it's a very sophisticated state-sponsored attacker like the chinese. >> if a major company said we want to stop this, is the technology available to do so? >> it is available, but it is not easy and it is not cheap, and it changes your business such that maybe you are not going to be able to innovate as fast.
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maybe you are not going to be able to reach out to your customers and suppliers as quickly as you would like to. so sometimes you have to slow down how you use technology, and that's the balance a lot of these companies have to stake. because you have to take advantage of the latest technology, but when you do that, you are exposing risks. so it's a challenge, and i think incidents like this will swing it more towards the be careful side. >> chris thank you so much. cracking down on cyber crimes, including a creepy one called black shades. police in 19 countries, including the united states arrested more than 90 people suspected of hacking webcams to spy on victims. the u.s. attorney said the alleged creator of black shades was arrested in moldova. officials said black shades had
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sales of more than $350,000 and infected more than half a million computers. all right. when we come back, philadelphia's rocky middle class, a look at why so many families have fallen out of it and how the look of the middle class is change for the future.
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>> these protestors have decided that today they will be arrested >> these people have chased a president from power, they've torn down a state... >> what's clear is that people don't just need protection, they need assistance. ♪ >> philadelphia has seen a shocking decline in its middle class over the last 40 years. the driving factors behind it
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include the loss of the city's manufacturing base. and the decline of the city itself. high crime and a poor public school system. but there is some good news a recent report shows philadelphia's middle class has started to stabilize. but it's different than it was in the 19d -- 1970s. less blue color, more professionals. i want to take you to south philadelphia where the transformation is most obvious. ♪ philadelphia is a city beloved for reasons as diverse as the people who live here. celebrated in equal parts of its cheese steaks, its rich history, and many, many a rocky movie. ♪ >> here in south philadelphia lies a gem of a restaurant called victor cafe. ♪ >> it's as rich in history as
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the city itself. established in 1918, by greg's grandfather. it's as philly as it gets. part of the last rocky movie was filmed here. >> what do you love about philly? >> i love the smallness of it, where you don't get lost if something great happens. it's such a celebration. it's like we're an underdog city, we're fighting for our respectability. we have a lot of great things here. >> describe what somebody in philly, who is middle class feels like to you. >> i mean, what is middle class? it's families that are just working hard, struggling to -- you know, make their payments. getting their kids into some kind of a goot school. >> it's common throughout the u.s., but philadelphia's story has a unique twist. in the last 40 years the city has lost a quarter of its
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population. almost 400,000 people. and 43% of that population loss was the middle class. nationwide the middle class has shrunk from 60% of the population to 51. but philadelphia's middle class has shrunk considerably more than the rest of the country to just 42%. larry wrote a comprehensive report for pew charitable trusts. >> our report showed even though there was a huge decline in the middle class, if you look back from 2000 on, it's pretty flat. it seems to have stabilized. >> the middle class is a reflection of a city's economic health. it fuels the economy like it has been doing here for the last 100 years. the middle class uses and pays for city services. but philadelphia's middle class carries a much larger burden
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than other cities do. for one its taxes support one of the largest groups of low income residents in the country, second only to detroit. not only that, but philadelphia has fewer rich residents, 9% of the population to offset that burden, much lower than most other u.s. cities. this is stretching philly's middle class, causing higher taxes and limiting the amount of money the city can spending on services like police, fire, and updating the aging infrastructure. ♪ >> philadelphia's middle class may have hollowed dramatically, but there's still a solid, albeit much smaller base in a few vibrant neighborhoods of the city. this is one of those neighborhoods, traditionally blue collar, italian american, the area is now in the midst of
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a transformation. as a new middle class of professionals move in. news editor brian howard bought a house here in 2009. you could call him the face of the new middle class. >> how does this feel to you as part of a city that has seen decades of hollowing out of the middle class? >> this feels like a good middle class neighborhood. >> i like it. i mean, there are a lot of newer faces on my block, but there are also faces who have been there for decades, people who were born on the block and still live there. >> but it's a tentative piece. young professionals have been buying up property in this neighborhood the past few years and bringing with it many changes. byob restaurants, hipsteres and higher home prices. >> what do they think of guys like you? >> well, i think there was a
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sort of feeling each other out period, the first winter we were here. i got some side long looks. >> the side long looks are from a middle class that has historically been blue color. mostly manufacturing and mid-level office jobs. but that has changed. in 1970 philadelphia's work force was roughly equal jobs blue color jobs and professional jobs. but now the white collar jobbed have almost doubled. brian took me on a walk of his neighborhood to show me how much it has changed. >> an old school barbara shop over there. mexican, and what else? >> we have fountain porter, which is a craft beer bar. and this is a cigar shop.
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>> the oldest cigar shop in south philly. >> make sure you this sign, huh? [ laughter ] >> we got it. >> clearly he doesn't mind the new philly. >> the guy is a regular at the cigar shop. he has lived her his entire life. you could call him the face of the old middle class. >> so now you have a bunch of different email people moving in. young professionals. >> yes. >> does that keep the neighborhood solid? >> yes. they have kept our neighborhood solid. it has changed because their aspects are a little different than ours -- >> because of their age or -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> because both. it's both. >> let's look at the implication of having a smaller middle class. steve cokrin.
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here is the thing, in new york there are rich people who move out of the city, but a lot of them stay. in philly those that are wealthier move out to the suburbs and don't pay tax to the city. >> that's why a lot of upper income people have left, because taxes were higher than in the suburbs, crime rates were much, much higher. particularly in the '70s and '80s. it has gotten much, much better, and the deterioration of the public school system was also another very important factor of
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people moving out of the city and staying in the suburbs. >> many people said we have seen a 40-year decline. because the decline began about 40 years ago. but some of them said somewhere around 10 years ago or so, philly hit bottom and they have seen a lot of growth and improvement since then. >> one of the things that i think has changed is the crime rate did go down. methods of neighborhood policing changed, and neighborhoods are simply safer. and that's -- that's, i think, the number one factor if people will be attracted in to the city or attracted to stay in the city, is it has to be a safe place. that was one of the early achievements of just making it the perceptions of safety much much better than it had been in the past. >> when you look at the
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statistics, philly, which is -- from an infrastructure perspective, more like new york than like detroit, get lumped more like detroit. is there a tax base upon which you can build a successfuls a -- successful ascending city? >> that's right. it's interesting when you look around the country, and you look at where middle income jobs are being created, first off across the country, there are more middle incomes -- low income jobs than middle income jobs being created. philly is kind of a disadvantage
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because of the structure of the kinds of jobs being created. some of them that has to do with the fact if manufacturing is growing, it is more in the west where there is a lot of high-tech manufacturing or in the south, so there's a way to create middle class jobs through manufacturing in some of these other regions, not so much here in the northeast, in particular in philadelphia. also construction is a real important creator of middle income jobs. >> sure. >> philadelphia like new york is pretty packed. are you hopeful about the trajectory for philadelphia? >> i am hopeful for a couple of reasons. one, it seems pretty clear that the 20-something generation that is moving out of college and getting that first job is very desirous of living in an urban
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environment. we see that in so many cities right now. so philadelphia has an opportunity to capture many, many of those graduates coming out of all of the great colleges, and the key is to keep those young folks as they age, as they marry, as they create families and are looking for a place to stay permanently. and that's where things like city services, which are hard when you have a large lower income population, and of course the schools are so critical if you are going to keep middle income households in the city over a long period of time. >> you are right. and that young group is one of the fastest growing elements of the middle class. thank you, steve. >> my pleasure. >> tomorrow on day two, we'll look at the sensitive subject of race and the middle class in philadelphia. and why more than half of the
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city's black philadelphiians fear they will slip out of the middle class. voters in switzerland got the chance to set the country's minimum wage at the equivalent of $25 an hour. swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected the measure. it would have made them the country with the highest minimum wage in the world. australia gets to keep its bragging right of the highest minimum page, the equivalent of $15 an hour. well, they say everything has a prize, but pfizer couldn't find the right one. pfizer made what it calls its last and final offer, $118 billion. the deal would have koreaed the
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world's largest drug firm. not helping pfizer was the scrutiny in britain and fears that it would cut jobs and research. miami has a new tunnel that connects two islands less than a mile part, but it's part of a bigger connection to the panama canal. and i'll tell you where even a movie and a burger can hurt your wallet.
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the night's events, a smarter start to your day. mornings on al jazeera america ♪ >> after four years of construction and a cost of a billion dollars, a new tunnel under the port of miami is almost ready to go. the tunnel will connect the causeway on miami island to dodge island.
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alleviating the downtown traffic above ground. it's part of a project to renovate the port. miami has the closest american port on the east coast to the canal that is expected to attract the big cargo ships. still in the works are major dredging and the installation of massive cranes for loading and unloading cargo. a project of this size comes with plenty of controversy, and one of the issues is whether it was even needed. mi mimi thank you for being with us. let's talk about the impact of the expansion of the panama canal?
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what is this meant to be? >> what it will mean is that cargo, the big ships, called the post-panamx ships will be able to go across the kanell. right now they have to go through the suez canal. the biggest ships cannot get through the canal. increasingly this is what the world's fleet is going to look like. so sooner or later u.s. ports are going to have to be able to accommodate themselves. >> and we're fixing bridges here in the new york area to the idea that now these ships can go anywhere in the world. is this important -- this tunnel, is it important to handle these ships? >> well, there are three things that had to happen in miami. one was the tunnel. another important step was a
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rail-link from the port to the railroad yards by miami international airport, and then of course the dredging or deepening of the harbor. i would say without all three of those prongs of attack, miami wouldn't be come particularly competitive in this race for deep water. >> when you think of the deep water ports, this is infrastructure, and people don't involve themselves with it. if you don't work with it, you don't know what happens. would that have then set miami back as a major port? >> i think even port officials say that what it would have meant is miami would have been a nice regional port. they have bigger aspirations. they want to win ship business back, and be what is called a gateway port. that means when a big ship comes up, they want to be the first
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port that the ship unloads at. >> unload there, which means trucking business, rail business, comes through. could this be a game changer for miami and south florida. are we going to look back in 15 years and say, wow, that is a good thing this happened? >> well, miami is betting this is the right move; that there will be extremely competitive. but there are ports up and down the coast that also want this business. miami is a little bit ahead of the curve. right now norfolk and baltimore are the only ports that have deep enough water. miami will be the third. there are a lot of other ports that are trying to compete as well. so if miami gets this business and the stars align, it could look like a brilliant move, but there are a lot of other factors
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that will determine where this trade will go after the canal has expanded. >> it's like the lottery, you can't win if you don't play. thank you for joining us. all right. coming up, when a cheap date isn't very cheap at all. i'll be right back. ♪
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i am what you would call a cheap date. sure, i have been fortunate enough to sample fine dining all over the world, thanks to a job that keeps me on the road, but when all is said and done, much to my wife's chagrin, just give me a burger and a movie and i'm happy. these guys define a cheap date as a cab ride to a mcdonald's for burgers and a soda, two sodas, actually, then two movie tickets and a couple of beers afterwards. why did they choose mickey d's? because their restaurants are virtually the same all over the globe. i think the fact that they through in a couple of beers is
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a big assumption, because if you don't make a good impression during the burgers and soda, you are going to sucking those beers back on your own. london, a night on the town goes for $125. the cheapest is mumbi. so here are the most expensive cities for a cheap date in america. new york rolls in at $93. san francisco, $89. boston $87. and chicago is a deal at just $80. keep in mind, though, we are talking about cost here, and when you are searching for that special someone with whom to spend your life, money isn't everything. just like those mastercard commercials. burgers beer a movie and cab
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fair, $93, finding someone to spend your life with, priceless. that's our show tonight. i'm ali velshi. thank for joining us. ♪ hi, everyone, i'm john siegenthaler. welcome to al jazeera america. marshall law, breaking news out of thailand, the army declares a state of emergency. hack attacks. china's military accused of cyber spying. tonight's beijing's angry denial. on the brink in libya a rogue army general threatening war against religious militias. african nations pledging to crush boko m.