Im ali velshi, and this is real money. Making sense of the Global Economy and the Financial Market these days make those who have hair pull it out. The rest of us scratch our heads. Well talk with the smartest economic analyst on the planet about the outlook of america and the forces here and abroad that may threaten your prosperity. But first i want to explain some of what we learned today. Inflation in the United States fell. 4 of 1 compared to november. Thats the biggest decline in six years, and i probably dont have to tell you why, but i will. Falling oil and gas prices. For the full year the Consumer Price indexthats how we measure inflationrose a paltry. 8 . At a may mean that the fed wont raise Interest Rates as soon as some people expect. Sure low rates make home and card affordable, but we need to see Wage Inflation at least if we want more americans to enjoy this economic recovery. Now, an improving job market and those low gasoline prices have consumers feeling pretty good. Thats the message we got today in a Consumer Confidence that rose to a 11year high in january. Earlier this week we learned that retail sales fell in december compared to the month before. Another sign that weak wage growth appears to be holding consumers back. Finally, there is europe and whether its economic woes will hurt the United States. The swiss frank went soaring against the euro, another sign of europes weakness. Unless you are you spend your days trading or youre an expert, why should you care. The decision by saudi arabia can lead to layoffs at Production Oil companies. In other words, were all in this together. The chair of the Global Development council. He joins me from california. You heard me the state of the world and u. S. Economy. Tell me where you think i can do better in giving our viewers a sense of where things stand . The only thing i would add is the bottom line. Ali, to everything you said, and everything you said is absolutely correct. The bottom line is on a standalone basis the u. S. Will continue to recover. We will continue to see higher growth and inclusive growth and wages will respond. If we were to look just at the u. S. On a stand alone basis we would be confident. The issue is, and you said it, the rest of the world is struggling. And the question for us is can the rest of the world pull us down . Thats going to be the major issue to monitor this year. Talk to me, you said that wages will respond. Now, im not trained in economics as you are, but i thought as labor supply diminishes wages do go up. Do we have so much extra labor supply in america that we have seen all of this job creation almostall these jobs we created in the last year such a strong year for job creation yet were not seeing wages pick up. Why is that . First, its a matter of time. Weve seen 11 straight months of 200 plus job additions. Weve created 3 millions jobs, it is just a matter of time. Wages will sequentially respond. Its not going to be like the good ol days because of fundamental structural changes but well see 2 plus increase in wages, that is going to be a good thing in this economy. In addition, as you said, the oil price declined is a massive tax cut for americans, american consumers. Lets talk about these inflations nor the for the rest of the world. Whats bad about it . The good part is when people spend less there is a tax cut. The danger is if you have some sense of ongoing falling prices you put off purchases, and that puts off expansion. Yes, that speaks to the big divergence. Thats the theme for the Global Economy. For the u. S. Prices going up less rapidly is a good thing. It comes from something that puts money in our pockets, lower gas prices. In europe and japan, it shows that there is negative inflation year an year. In that world you worry that one more addition to lower prices discourages people from spending. Why should i buy today when i could buy cheaper tomorrow. If that happens then you undermine growth. Thats not a big issue for us, but it is a big issue for europe. Weve seen as this relates to regular people we dont want to confuse what the fed does with how Mortgage RatesInterest Rates were set. Were back down to some of the lowest levels weve seen in a long time. How will the fed affecting inflation affect americans. We back down for two reasons. One, inflation is coming down. When inflation comes down normally Interest Rates come down. Second, were pulled down by what is happening in europe. In germany where the economy has slowed down significantly, and people are anticipating a major stimulus, the german weight is pulling us down further than where we would be otherwise. Now, thats great if you have a mortgage. Thats a good thing. Its less good if you can hardly earn anything on a fixed income. Is there anything from a policy perspective, obviously as we move into a week where congress has started, and well have the state of the union, is there something that we should be doing to deal with this around the world . Oh, yes, there is a whole list. The irony is that the economy is doing better not because of congress, but despite congress. We havent had any active legislation out of capitol hill for a number of years. Thank god we have not had a government shut down or debt ceiling we debacle or default. Its a good thing they didnt do what they did in 2012 and 2013 but we have had enabling environment from congress. Hold that thought. Well take a quick break, and after the break well ask what concerns us most outside of the United States, and well look at what we can be doing positively to help the situation here. Youre watching real money. Tell me what is on your mind at ali velshi give me your thoughts and what you think i should ask mohammed. Tuesday. From Race Relations to foreign policies, terrorism and the economy. If this Congress Wants to help, work with me. Ali velshi kicks off our special state of the Union Coverage at 7 00. Well take an indepth look at our nations financial future. Then John Seigenthaler breaks down the issues. We need to know whats going on in our backyard. Plus, objective analysis and live reports from across the nation and reaction from around the world. The state of the Union Address. Special coverage begins tuesday, 7 00 eastern. Right here on al jazeera were back with mohammed chief economic adviser for Financial Advisers firm. We left off with your idea of what we can do. As Congress Goes back, you know, some cases theyre worried about foreign policies, particularly in the middle east. But fundamentally there are domestic concerns. We live in a word where we may have to take protective actions. Hat are your preparations prescriptions. We need to increase our resilience and growth engines. First, step up Infrastructure Investment at a time when Interest Rates are very low where there is a lot of privatepublic partnerships. Second, look at investment. Thirdly, move forward with trade agreements and with immigration reform. And finally do something about the mishmash about the will to spend and the wallet to spend. You can do that by acting on the minimum wage. I think if congress were to deliver on these things, then you would enter into a higher Growth Paradigm and it would be sustainable growth. You just mentioned image wage. This is going to come up in the president s speech in the state of the union. This is a tough one. The president wants minimum wage to be risen to 10. 10. And congress is saying that theyre making policy that then individual businesses have to live up to. Youre spending other peoples money, thats the rebuttal well hear about the minimum wage. I dont understand that rebuttal because we spend other peoples money all the time thats taxation. Government is correcting failures. In this case you have something that is both economically needed and socially needed. So for me its really hard to understand that counter. Then we look at infrastructure, and well lack at it even more in the show. The irony is weve had cheaper money than anyone can remember. This would have been a good time to take all of our crumbling infrastructure, choose anything you want, transport infrastructure or broadband or water, its all in need of repair, to make us competitive with countries so that people will open businesses here, theyll move their businesses here, immigrate to the United States, and employ people. If not now when . Borrowing costs are very low. We can borrow below 1. 8 . We can borrow 30year money below 2. 5 and the return on these investments is far in excess of that for the nation and individual businesses. Its an economic thing. This is not an engineering issue. This is a political issue. Then you brought up the one thinga lot of things youre talking about is pie in the sky. It makes sense to investors, but it does not make sense to washington. Your sense of the chance of this happening and why . So the chance of it happening is low, and the reason is because we are not doing things that make sense. Right now were in a gridlock where neither side wants to be scene cooperating with each other. I mean, its a ridiculous situation. Even though both sides agree it is in the good interest of the country, right, neither side wants to be seen cooperating with the other side. Im afraid we wont get much done and well have to wait for 2016. Meanwhile, we will remain vulnerable to what is happening to the rest of the world. Well continue to heal, but as you said earlier were not an economic and financial island. We live in an inter connected world. We can fix what we can fix, but we need to move afford. Mohamed, thank you. Chief economic adviser. As we talked about, fixing americas infrastructure has long been neglected, and president obama wants to change that, hes proposing a way for private investment to come to the can rescue. Well talk more about that when you come back. Youre watching real money. Call amy smith at work when were behind the wheel basically we just dont multitask as well as we think. Are we focused on whats ahead . What could those misses mean . Distracted driving. The new road hazard im driving like a maniac youre distracted. Techknows team of experts show you how the miracles of science. This is my selfie. What can you tell me about my future . Can effect and surprise us. Dont try this at home techknow. Where Technology Meets humanity. Only on Al Jazeera America every monday night, Al Jazeera America brings you controversial. We have to change those things in order to make our own lives better. Entertaining. There was a lot of laughter. Thought provoking. It doesnt change the world but it does influence the way people think. Surprising. No edits exclusive one on one interviews with the most interesting people of our time. Youre taking me to a place in this interview i havent been before. Conversations you wont find anywhere else. Talk to al jazeera. Monday 9 30 eastern. Only on Al Jazeera America. President obama announced a plan to to attract private investment to fix roads, bridges, Water Systems and broadband and networks. The president would like to gear projects to the big fix. The nations infrastructure earned a near failing grade of dplus from the American Society of civil engineers. Since then not much has improved. Of course, all this costs money. Thats where qualified infrastructure bonds come in to play. He says that the president s action is terrific, but the heavy lifting needs to be done by congress. You should tell america. I always talk about the rating on americas infrastructure. Its a rating done by you guys and i always wonder if there is a dog in the hunt because youre engineers, but you say americas infrastructure is in desperate need of repair. It certainly is, ali, and at the same time the u. S. Can make progress towards fixing its infrastructure. We looked a 16 categories, bridges, roads, airports, Water Systems, dams, and other systems systems, and the u. S. consider economic risks. Just in the transportation sector, congress is facing a critical may 31st deadline to deal with the surface Transportation Programs. The u. S. Is putting at risk by the year twenty20 1 trilliondollar and 900,000 jobs in the u. S. Economy by not making modest increases in some of these investments needed. The u. S. Is also at risk of being less competitive with other nations if it does not address this issue. As i hear continued discussions about income equality and the types of jobs we have in this country, i think an Infrastructure Investment program will not being a Silver Bullet well, we have to stop acting like its a Silver Bullet. Its a complicated economy, and there is no Silver Bullet, but as engineers, to hear irresponsible Government Spending you see this entirely differently. Some of the greatest things the u. S. Has done, if you look at the highway system a and the good that it has done economically and socially, for the government to want to end the federal Transportation Program flies in the face of reality. You take the national highway system, the interstate and other key highways. Thats 4 of the roadways in this country yet carries 40 of the traffic, and 60 of the truck traffic. You rated 16 different categories. What do you see were doing better. The areas where the country is facing serious grades, water, waste water, levy systems, roadways, and a number of categories. The average grade was a dplus for the nation. We have a long way to go. The president s proposal today is a step in the right direction, but the heavy lifting will occur later this year with the transportation bill. And after that assuming that congress can get moving on that, aviation is another major infrastructure sector, which face as deadline later this year. Part of the problem is that these things dont always sound sexy to people. I dont want my tax dollars to go to that. It seems to work. Thats why it doesnt get public attention. I think if publicif the public realizes how long weve been under investing, and how our Investment Infrastructure stands up against other nations. Western europe invests twice what the u. S. Is investing. China, four times what the u. S. Invests, and theyre investing in modern systems. We have a lot of aging systems that are at the end of their design lives. Bridges, roads, Water Systems in this country. We have a watermain break every two minutes in the United States. Wow, i see them on tv and i wonder what is going on. Great to talk to you again. Thank you for being with us. Senior managing director of the American Society of civil engineers. Before we pile on d. C. And local governments, lets remember that executing infrastructure plan is easier said than done regardless of where you are in the world. Take a case of the rails finally being laid on a new metro line running under the city of amsterdam. This project is years behind schedule and massively overbudget because of technical challenges of tunneling in wet sand soil. We have our report from underneath amsterdam. Its one of europes historic trains stations and the busiest in the netherlands at and extraordinary construction project has been going on beneath it. Tracks are now being laid six years behind schedule, and the finishing work on the station is well under way. Building and under ground rare wayrailway line has not been easy. We had to excavate a canal under the station. We had to take over the foundation of the station, which is also built on wooden piles, and 3,000 wooden piles had to come down. After the canal was built we float it in, hang it up, and then immerse it to this depth. So this was really extreme engineer ing. Work was suspended midway when shops and homes above sank. It eventually resumed but the cost has ballooned billions of dollars. Throughout the project engineers have had to come up with new and innovative techniques to bore seal and finish those tunnels. It unearthed 700,000 art facts from the citys past allowing allow archeologists to rewrite their history. We have a completely new entry on the official history, and the objects theyre connected with daily life. There are plans to put some of the actors found on display in the stations. For now the focus is on the finishing work on this long awaited, costly line due to run the year after next. Al jazeera, on the north south line under amsterdam. Up next Congress Wants to impose more sanctions on iran. But the president says hold your fire. Why . Thats where it gets interesting. Answers in just two minutes. Monday. The most secretive nation on earth. Were heading to the border between north and south korea. A rare glimpse inside. Kim jong un sometimes does strange things, but he is smart. As tensions escalate, what will be the fallout . Were still at a state of war with north korea. We have to be ready to fight tonight. Faultlines. Al Jazeera Americas hardhitting. Today they will be arrested. Groundbreaking. Theyre firing canisters of gas at us. Emmy awardwinning, investigative series. New episode. Hidden state inside north korea. Monday 9 00 eastern. Only on Al Jazeera America. 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