which means it s not just about getting a name or going on tv or any of the things we think about as politicking, it s actually just having a very wealthy social graph. the washington post reported today between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth for a member of congress more than doubled. those numbers did not include home equity. for the average american family in that same period, their net worth actually declined. we have a growing difference between the kinds of people who we re electing and the people who are doing the electing. your thought on the implications, chris? i think ari s certainly right here, chris, that there is this idea that you need more money and more connections to run for office because of the price of the office. and certainly, that could be a backlash for many members of congress, you know, the occupy wall street guys, who are protesting the 1 percenters may not understand that most of congress is part of that group of 1 percenters. but i m also remi
social graph. the washington post reported today between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth for a member of congress more than doubled. those numbers did not include home equity. for the average american family in that same period, their net worth actually declined. we have a growing difference between the kinds of people who we re electing and the people who are doing the electing. your thought on the implications, chris? i think ari s certainly right here, chris, that there is this idea that you need more money and more connections to run for office because of the price of the office. and certainly, that could be a backlash for many members of congress, you know, the occupy wall street guys, who are protesting the 1 percenters may not understand that most of congress is part of that group of 1 percenters. but i m also reminded of a debate that i saw back in 2004 between ken salazar and pete coors. pete coors of coors beer, ken salazar, now the interior secretary, it was the 20
coors. pete coors of coors beer, ken salazar, now the interior secretary, it was the 2004 senate race in colorado. and it was a debate between these two guys. and salazar is trying to make this point that, you know, pete coors is not one of us. he s not a farmer from the san louis valley like he was, who didn t have lights in his house until 1979. he says, you know, who here is rich? and hardly anybody in the audience raises their hands. pete coors turns to the audience and says, who here would like to be rich? and almost everybody raised their hands. so i think when you look at the population, you look at the voters, they re not always going to be folks who are going to hold it against a candidate because they are rich, because they are aspiring also to be rich. i put out the question, what does this mean for our democracy to the folks on twitter who follow me. and one person, c.j. barrett 76 said, the founding fathers who were rich guys who put it on the
down 9 1/2%. so what happens next? and is your money safe? these are the questions for legal ber and ali velshi. i ll start with you with the usual entreaty. what is going on, ali? the french economy, actually no growth in the quarter. global economies are slowing down. we re dangerously close to a recession. we may need more intervention from the european bank and more from the fed. you ve been talking about this piers, that rick perry said we can t have more intervention. if the fed intervened it would be treasonous. what s that setup? we have no political agreement in this country and add a few economic reports and i won t bore you with right now that came out again before markets opened this morning that added up into a big mix. people were running into the market, putting their money into gold, which hit another record, and savings bonds. this is pretty serious, isn t it? we ve been talking about the possibility of having some kind of second recession. is this lookin
with the usual. what is going on, ali? look, we started off the day this morning with a rough night in asia. european markets on news that, you know, the german economy, the strongest in europe has weakened to almost a stall, the french economy, absolutely no growth in the quarter. that took u.s. markets downright off the top. but before that, more than 12 hours ago, we got a report from morgan stanley to say what we ve all been saying, global economies are slowing down, that they were on the we re dangerously close to a recession, we may need more intervention in europe from the european central bank and more from the fed. and you know, you ve been talking about this, piers, that rick perry said that we can t have more intervention. in fact, if the fed were to intervene, it would be treasonous, it s that whole set-up, what are we going to do if things are really bad? we have no political agreement in this country. and add a few economic reports and i won t bore you with