and jobs. it s amazing because what the democrats and the liberals who are anti-wall is basically saying, we would rather these folks stay unemployed than work at walmart. paul: so this same kind of fight occurred in chicago but happier ending, richard daly vetoed the bill. how has things turned out? it turned out fine. that battle waged for a long time. you have about eight walmart stores, yes inside chicago. daly at the time said something very interesting. we never addressed the stores in the suburbs. why are we opposed to them opening up in the city. that the jobs and need for jobs in the inner city. i think there is something else here. about the minimum wage, you have to acknowledgement that the minimum wage drives
a bill that would require large retailers to pay at least $12.50 an-hour, 50% higher than their current minimum wage. chain has encountered fierce assistance in new york, los angeles and chicago and other big cities. we re back with jason, colin and steve. what does the city council have against walmart? if you want to understand why major cities like detroit are going bankrupt, just look what is happening in washington, d.c. what has happened, the major developments, shopping center in low income areas in washington, d.c., the city actually with sutures trying to get walmart to build stores there. walmart agreed to build six and no good deed goes unpunished in politics. the city council in the middle of the construction of these stores, by the way,
the numbers. what evidence do you have that they got to the bls? that the chicago guys got to the bureau of labor statistics and jimmied these numbers by 0.3% as you put it? i6 no evidence to prove that. i just raise the question. well, alex, now admit he s an honest guy about that, he said there s no evidence. here is the question, now we do have evidence based upon the reports today that the jobs numbers are getting better, the best they ve been since the beginning of the administration. that seems to back up entirely what the report was about the reduction from 8.1 to 7.8 on friday. of course. but did you hear mitt romney say the number 7.8 at all? in fact, the day those numbers came out, he put out his own math which was it s actually closer to 11%. this party sun is unwilling to admit these numbers are right because they see it as political gain for the president. it s a testament to where this party is at. these are unemployment figures
promising unemployment numbers and put the damper on those conspiracy theorists out there saying these chicago guys, meaning obama s campaign people, tinkered with the numbers. here is what today s numbers show. weekly jobs claims are at 339,000, that s down 30,000, the lowest number since february of 2008. there s been more twittering on twitter about whether these numbers are kosher or not. there s actually still a conspiracy theory afoot that they were manipulated. these numbers are both good and legitimate, i can tell you that. joining me washington post pulitzer prize winning columnist, msnbc political analyst eugene robinson and alex wagner. i want to start with you, alex. i have done some work on this. all those years we have been watching bls come out with the numbers and they haven impenetrable. richard nixon was dieing to get control of that agency and he couldn t do it. larry summers said republicans and democrats on both sides of the aisles have been dying for years to ge
so-called media balance? you say there are those who believe in the 7.8% number and then there are those who don t. exactly. you undermine and question facts that are inconvenient, and that s been done again and again and that s what s happening again with the unemployment numbers. let s look at my interview with jack welch. i have always liked jack welch, used to be our ultimate boss, but i think he didn t stick to his original argument that there was manipulation of these numbers. he basically said at the end of the interview he thought there was coincidences, there s questions to be raised. he may change his view but that s where it was. let s see how it evolved in that few minutes. it just seems somewhat coincidental that the month before the election the numbers go one tenth of a point below where they were when the president started, although i don t see anything in the economy that says these surges are true. but here you put out the word here, unbelievable jobs nments,