Tonight. This is real money. [ music ] this is real money. You are the most important part of the show. Join our live conversation for the next half hour on twitter at ali velshi or on facebook. Com slash ali velshi. Im in washington, d. C. Where the world bank has its headquarters. For those of you who dont know, the World Bank Provides technical assistance. Weve brought real people on the show to he willlous straight issues in our lives. But its true that many of the worlds problems get solved by socalled big people. Im going to introduce you to some of the giants dr. Jim yong kim. But before i do that lets go to Something Else that is happening in washington. Executives got grilled on capitol hill over their proposed mega merger. Lawmakers demanded assurances that the mega size comcast would not drive up prices. At stake is what is good for big business good for consumers . In february comcast announced its intention to gobble up time warner cable, which holds the number two spot. The deal is valued at 45 billion and would give comcast a whooping 30 share of the paid tv market and 40 of the broadband market. But first it has got to get approval from the Justice Department but that wont happen until they are convince that had a mass media merger would not harm competition. Anyone who plays monopoly know when fewer dominate the board, players pay more. Comcast executive vp david cohen found himself defending his companys pricing policy before lawmakers. There is nothing in this transaction that will cause cable bills to go up. I have a nasty habit of telling the truth. When asked if cable bills will go down, i said i cant make that commitment. But with whatever economic benefits generated it will ultimately go to the consumers. Cable has been consolidated for two decades. Theyve merged into four National Players today. Comcast, time warner, charter and cox. Now at the same time cable faces growing competition by satellite tv, and the two biggest satellite tv services, directv and dish are said to be in their own talks. With customers migrating more to the Digital Space to view their media content, we explain. Comcast is the nations largest cable provider. Taking over time warner would give the company 30 million subscribers, dwarfing the competition, but dominating the cable landscape may not add up to much in the end. You have to wonder if theyre trying to be the biggest in a declining industry. The people are pulling the plug and theyre going to other ways of getting their television. Devices from apple tv to roku and amazons fire tv allow viewers to cut the cable cord by streaming media over their internet connections. Companies like netflix distribute their content directly to viewers. And in 2015 one in five americans will not longer be watching tv. Roku, comcas netflix, apple r more ways to watch the shows you like. And it attracts the behaviors and worrie has comcast worried t advertising. Giving the company what some critics say could be too much power over our information super highway. Even if you drop your paid tv package youre still completely dependent on that player for access to the internet. And that player can squeeze control move the traffic cones with respect to the Internet Communications that are trying to reach you. Reporter in a statement filed with the fcc tuesday comcast points to increase broadband competition from verizon fios whose high Speed Internet reaches 14 of homes in the United States. The company also mentioned googles new fiber service, which could internet eight markets currently served by comcast or time warn cable. But the high cost of infrastructure means cable will likely still reign supreme in american households. Mary snow, al jazeera. Today on al jazeera and facebook ive been asking you is the potential 45 milliondollar merger anticompetitive . That might have been a leading question because i got the response that i thought i would get. Tell me what you think about tweeting me at ali velshi or leave me a comment on facebook. Edward wyatt was at the comcast time warner merging hearings today. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Most americans grew up having one place to get your cable from. Couldnt be anything less competitive than that. Right, local cities, municipalities granted the monopoly right in exchange for fees from that company and they would be the only one in that market providing cable, that was before satellite. If anything the market has become more competitive. There have been more types of competitors. With streaming video, there are a lot of different competitors and no boundaries on the internet as opposed you have one pipe coming into your house for cable television. Whats the sense of how this is going to go for time warner, comcast, and what is the net effect going to be . I remember when this merger was announced my thought was that cable prices go up any way. Do they go up more because there will be one less company . It would be hard for them to go up more. Cable prices have been up twice the rate of inflation every year for the last decade. So i think that what is likely to happen, this is going to get a lot of scrutiny here from the Justice Department and the fcc. The hearing today was not especially rigorous on the company because they ask about consumer effect. They didnt get deep in the details of the merger. It was brought up by several of the witnesses that there could be problems on the programming side. The shows that comcast owns that it sells to itself and to other cable companies. What sense do you have of the increase in the cost of getting content into your house visavis the content that is in your house. Youre also getting a lot more stuff over the last ten years. Your Cable Company makes arrangements to carry the stuff, and youre paying for it in the end. Right, youre getting a lot more stuff, but you dont necessarily want. Its not stuff youre asking for necessarily. Comcast said their biggest single cost of goods is what they pay to programmers for their content. And that thats probably true. That is true. Thats been going up now, its very skewed. Animal planet does not cost as much for them as espn. Right, in the end some things people wont pick. A lot of tv will disappear if you go for this a la carte method. It probably will. Thats the free market at work. Interesting. Ed wyatt has been reporting these hearings. Thanks. Thanks. How about this for an ambitious goal, wiping out extreme poverty on the planet in 16 years. Im talking the man on that mission, hes the world bank president. We can say very clearly that you got to be aware of this problem of inequality, and you got to move on it. Later Car Companies coming clean. Toyotas huge new recall and asking if congress and the Justice Department have the automakers scared straight. This is real money keep it here. Im here in washington, d. C. For the annual meetings of the world bank and International Monetary fund. Tomorrow ill be speaking with imf boss, but today it was all about the world bank which actually isnt a bank the way you think about it. Its a partnership of five institutions managed by member countries including the United States. Together they work to reduce world poverty and support development. The Bank ProvidesFinancial Services on a massive scale. Not to individuals but countries. It grants low Interest Rates loans to support education and Public Health and infrastructure. It also assists developing countries through policy advice, research and analysis. The world bank has set two Ambitious Goals and quite frankly critics dont think theyre attainable. Theyre first to end extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people who live on less than 1. 25 a day to no more than 3 of the worlds population by the year 2030. Thats 16 years away, and to promote shared prosperity by spreading the Income Growth. I had a chance to speak with the banks president , and i asked him about the role and mission of the bank. This is an effort of 188 governments of the world to come together and see if we can help countries develop their economies. Thats pretty specific thes. All the things that it takes, also join the group of people who have education and who have the global middle class, if you will. Were focused on prosperity. Were focused prosperity shared by everyone, and were very now focused on lifting the billion or so People Living in extreme poverty out of that condition so they can have the things that everybody in the world seems to want. Here in america we seem to be consumed by the idea that were hollowing out our middle classes. Were bifurcating an economy into haves and have nots, and thats happening in a lot of the world. Whats your perspective on the middle class in the world. Is it growing . Is it healthy . One of the things that were looking at for the first time as far as we know that the world bank has been doing this, were actually tracking the Income Growth of the bottom 40 . Now there is a lot of really good data that suggests the higher levels of inequality is a drag on economic growth. Even if all you care about is economic growth, then you really have got to be focused on inequality. You if you have gtp growth but you ignore a large portion of your population youre building poverty into your country. We can sea clearly you have got to be aware of this problem of inequality, and you have to move on it. I think that were now very much in unison on this message with the imf. They have said important things recently about the importance of inequality for growth or fighting inequality for growth. Were on to this issue, and i think many, Many Political leaders are beginning to understand that they cannot afford even for their own political lives they cannot afford to ignore that bottom 40 . When you say eliminate extreme poverty by the year 2030 what are we talking about when we mean extreme poverty. I know there are more people than we would think who live on less than 1. 25 a day or even more when you get to 2 a day youre talking about 80 of the worlds population. Were talkingin the case of extreme poverty when the concept was first introduced by Robert Mcnamara in the 1970s it was 1 a day. Now its increased to 1. 25 a day. He described that condition as a state of depreviousty that almost goes beyond human imagination, and it still almost goes beyond human imagination. Ive worked with many People Living on less than that. Its a condition that we should not tolerate any more on this earth. And so in setting that target what we mean we want to lift everyone out of that condition of living on less than 125 a daaday bring that less to 30 of the population. There are always going to be disasters, and people going in and out of poverty. We dont think we can get it lower than 3 . But right now the levels are 17. 7 is the last number we have globally. To get there were going to have to lift almost 50 million peop people a year out of extreme poverty. You mean now. Between now and 2030. A million a week. Thats what were going to have to do. If the Global Growth happens in the same way that it happened in the briefs 20, 30 years were not going to get to 3 . Were going to get to 7. 5 . We have work to do. The economies have to grow. But also we have to think about how to invest in people. How do bring in programs that will lift more people. Going to 7. 5 is assuming the same level of distribution of wealth is going to persist. If that distribution of wealth changes, and more is invested in the bottom 40 , then were going to be able to reach that target. When you combine the structure and bigness of the world bank, you have thousands of people who work here, with the fact that you are trying to get money and resources and loans to businesses and individuals in some cases in countries that are full of bureaucracy and corruption, one wonders how effective one can be with this simple slogan to end poverty. Ali, when i came into this job there was a chorus of public opinion, and the questions they were asking were fundamental. Is the World Bank Group relevant any more . I came quickly to the conclusion that not only are we relevant, but if we can get quicker, if we can move knowledge more effectively, if we can reduce our own bureaucracy our relevance could skyrocket. We want to be the organization of the world that captures all the great innovations in development and then can move them to anywhere that might be needed. For example if something great is happening in Climate Smart agriculture in costa rica, we want folks to know about it art away. This is the organization that if you come to the World Bank Group were going to know about all the great innovations, and how they werent implemented. Not just what to do but how they did it. If we can provide that to everyone country in the world then i think the demand for our services will grow. When you talk about inclusive growth, and you talk about inequality, and ending extreme poverty by 2030, i suppose if your threshold is 1. 25 its not going to cost the world all that much to do, but does this involve some sort of Wealth Distribution . Ronald has asked this question on facebook, this is translated from french. The main obstacle to ending poverty is the inequality of Wealth Distribution. What do you do to address that . So if the poorest countries weve had very specific projects. Both brazil and mexico showed us that something that we call conditional cast transfers. Its had a huge impact. Not only have they lessened poverty in the household, but these programs have been shown to work. Simply moving cash, literally, to some of the poorest households and in the countries who can manage the bureaucracy of measuring, putting conditions on it, has had a huge impact. Countries that are so poor that they cant even manage tracking whether they go to the Public Health institute, whether they go to school, giving Unconditional Cash transfers have been very effective. We would say that that kind of distribution, the evidence is overwhelming these are good programs. These actually help societies to grow. One of the things that were very good at is assessing the quality of public expenditures. You go to a country like egypt where 8 of gdp was devoted of subsidies. This is not a good way of spending money. We would say stop spending money on subsidies and spend it elsewheres. Its the return on investment. Its the return on investment. Every country in the world can get better with that. Including the United States. Thats the issue. We talk about it in terms of real tax rates, but in fact, if one could argue that youre getting a better return in this investment than another people might be happier. You know, we dont provide advice to the United States. But weve got some awfully good people in the World Bank Group, and i think they would have ideas about ways of improvel public expenditures. The competitiveness of the future. What will make the country competitive going into the future. If youre not asking yourself that question intensively every day. I think youre going to be in trouble. He said every country small and large is worried about future growth and spurring innovation. He said it will be a major issue Going Forward throughout the world. Well, last week General Motors hearing on capitol hill was a wakeup call for Car Companies, and it looks like toyota was listening. Were looking at a huge new wave of recalls from the company. This is real money coming to you from washington. Keep it right here. Lobbying groups representing doctors have long opposed making public what doctors get paid for medicare, and now we know why. The Obama Administration finally opened the books on medicare reimbursements to physicians and it was nothing short of eye popping. A florida ophthalmologist was paid 21 million in 2012. He topped the list of more than 300 doctors who collected 3 million or more a piece in medicare claims that year. Over all medicare paid individual physicians nearly 64 billion in 2012. Well, it seems like a day doesnt go by that we dont report a car recall, and today toyota issuing the warning. A massive one, too. The company is recalling 6 million vehicles worldwide, 2 million of them in the United States. The problems range from airbag failures to faulty front seats. Here in the United States the recall covers 27 models including the toyota rav four, the corolla, the matrix. Theyre not aware of any accidents related to the recall. Thats good news. Lets take a look at a slew of auto recalls. Joining me now is justin walsh, reporter for Detroit Business which follows the Auto Industry very closely. One wonders whether these were recalls that were going to happen or were pushed forward because of that grilling that g. M. Ceo mary barra got in washington last week. Yes, thats certainly a question that can be answered that hasnt been answered, but were going to see a lot of these. The issue is that toyota is not aware of any injuries or deaths as a result of this. Thats the bar of this. There are recalls all the time, and most of them go on without anybody knowing anything about it. You take your car into the dealership. Some piece gets replaced. The issue is becoming one of liability. What do you think the Car Companies are thinking after they heard what the thrashing that g. M. Took last week . Well, they certainly dont want to be in that position. But people do have to remember that most recalls are not safety critical. They happened for a very long time and theyll continue to happen and at an accelerated rate given the technology on board, and certainly the issue with g. M. Is making them probably be a little more cautious than normal. I was one of those people who think that mary barra did a terrible job on capitol hill. She sounded defensive. Im not saying that anybody else could have done a better job, but in the end, people keep asking me do they bounce back from this. I think about toyotas acceleration problems and fords exploding gays tanks, every one of them did rebound. People have short memories regardless of how serious the issues are that led to a recall. Consumers have short memories. Toyota is a primary example of why g. M. Will rebound. We have not seen it hit g. M. Stock price, so youre seeing a lot of things that are going on right now. In a few years it will probably be under the rug. Justin, good to talk to you. Now tomorrow on this program ill bring you my interview with christine la guard, the led of the International Monetary fund. Well discuss how the crisis in ukraine will hit europes grow growth. Yes, i want you to watch even though many people reach for the remote when they hear the word imf. Heres why this matters. Imf works to promote economic stability across the world. Thats exactly what the world was robbed of six years ago le leading to the greatest crisis since the great depression. The depressioin the decades thaf jumped from crisis to crisis lending money to countries in can trouble often in return for painful economic reforms. Today the imf have 188 members. Thanother reason why the you shd care about what the imf does and how it spends its money. Thats our show for today. Im ali velshi in washington. Thanks for joining us. Aljazeera america presents a break through Television Event borderland. Six strangers. Lets just send them back to mexico experience illegal immigration up close and personal. Its overwhelming to see this many people that have perished. Lost lives are relived. All of these people shouldnt be dead. Will there differences bring them together, or tear them apart. The only way to find out is to see it yourselves. Which side of the fence are you on . Borderland only on Al Jazeera America hi, im Lisa Fletcher and youre in the stream. Out of the box thinkers share their tool kit for racing smart successful well balanced kids. My cohost and digital procedures wajahat ali. An increasingly high tech world im so encouraged how all our