Off. I look at the economic affect. Im jen rogers in for ali velshi, and this is real money. In just nine days voters in six states will decide whether to raise the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is 7. 25. States and cities have passed higher minimums, this year the United States senate voted down a pill proposed by obama, to raise the minimum for 10. 10. Republican lawmakers never liked to raise the minimum wage, arguing that it hurts businesses and jobs. In key senate recesses a negative stance on raising could cost them. Ali takes a look. Reporter democrats are bracing for a republican takeover in the United States senate. In some traditional red states the gop may be vulnerable on a key economic issue boosting the minimum wage. Theres minimum wages on the ballot in a number of states. One is arkansas, where the democrats are looking for anything they can to drive turn out for senator mark pryor who sw pretty embattled there, and theres hope that increasing the minimum wage would drive turn out. Traditional red states have ballot measures to raise the minimum wage. Arkansas, alat ka, nebraska. According to a law project, the measures have the potential to raise wages for as many as 419,000 workers in those states. Polling in states with Close Senate Races like north carolina, kentucky, louisiana, and iowa show that voters support president obamas proposal to raise the federal minimum wage from 7. 25 to 10. 10 an hour by wide margins. Republicans this those states, including kentuckys incumbent Mitch Mcconnell opposed the move. His states unemployment is higher than the National Average at 7. 1 . He says boosting the minimum wage will cost jobs in kentucky. It could cost about 17,000 jobs in kentucky alone. And potentially as many as a million nationwide. Senator Mitch Mcconnells democratic opponent Alison Lundergan grimes says boosting the minimum wage would raise a million americans out of poverty. The Nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the wage lifts as many as 900,000 workers above the poverty line, and estimated 16. 5 million low wage earners across america would see a bump in their pay. The c. B. O. Said razing the minimum raising the minimum wage would put half a million jobs in jeopardy by late 2016 as employers let workers go. Opponents seized on that number, but not all Business Leaders agree, like frank junior, president of the South CarolinaSmall Business chamber of commerce. If one or two people find themselves, that they for some reason lose a job because of this, therell be a lot more who will get the job, and those that are let go will find other jobs. Therell be more hiring to meet the demand that razing the min wum wage creates. His group backs raising the minimum wage and carolina, a red state seen as hostel to big business. He may be on to something. Polling in the tight senate races could turn on candidate support for boosting the minimum wage. Raising the federal wage resonates with voters. Tom is a director with Public Policy polling, a National Polling organization, and he told ali a majority of americans support a hike. The minimum wage is one of the best issues that democrats have going for them. Its universally popular with the base. It gets democratic voters excited, in every state a majority of Independence Support it. What is remarkable is that we find 2530 of republicans support president obamas proposal, and its hard to find anything that president obama wants to do that that many republicans support. Its a good issue for democrats. If you did the maths on minimum wage, from when it was implemented, and you adjusted it would get you to 10 . Thats why they say 10. 10. Democrats would be happy if we got somewhere in between. Did the president put the 10. 10 out there to stake out ground, particularly with progressives, democrat and liberals . The 10. 10 proposal is something we find voters getting behind. Where its problematic is places like iowa, and colorado, where they are trying to win races that are blue states that voted for president obama two times, and republicans are trying to reverse the voting strength, and its causing candidate trouble, that they are staked out on the issue, away from the big majority of voters that support the 10. 10 proposal. Theres a number of arguments from conservatives on this show against the minimum wage. It will be a job killer. Despite what the Congressional Budget Office says, its about Small Business. Theyll have to make choices to make fewer workers. The other argument is that why is it the governments role to tell private businesses what to do. Its easy for the government to say minimum wage can be anything you want is to be. Businesses have to implelment the things, and the third one, which is the hardest for me to get my brain around is let the market set the minimum wage, it will be 3 an hour. Yes. What we are finding in all the key swing states that we are polling is fewer than 20 of voters think they can support the families on the minimum wage. That is why you see strong support for the 10. 10 increase in the places we are polling. Its an issue that voters can relate with. Its not a distant thing. When people thing about can i support my family on less than 20,000, the resounding answer is no. That sort of familiarity is what lets the increase be popular. Let me arriving you this. 7. 25 is the minimum wage. If you want a 10 increase, it takes it to 8. Would people support it at 8 more than 10. 10 im talking republicans, or a 9 more than a 10. 10, or is it dont touch the minimum wage or increase it . What we are finding is that theres stronger support for a lower increase. Friendships, in arkansas and alaska, where they have Ballot Initiatives about the minimum wage that are not going all the way to 10. 10. They are likely to pass with well over 60 of the vote. You have solid majority support for 10. 10. When you talk about smaller numbers, 9, 8, you see the support for increasing minimum wage go up 6570 . There are few voters that dont support some sort of increase in the minimum wage. That has renewed my faith in people. Thank you for being with us. Tom, the director at Public Policy polling. Next, its about to get easier to buy a home. Fanny and freddy will approve mortems with virtually no doup payment. Didnt we learn anything from the financial crisis. The buzz about bees. A huge part of the food economy is being threatened. Not for the reason you think. Ill explain when real money tips. Tell us whats on your mind. Keep it here. Mortems with a 3 mortgages with a 3 payment are on the way back. Fanny may will let some borrowers put as little as 3 down. The government is trying to encourage banks to issue more loans. Fanny mack, the other agency is expected to follow suit. These low moneydown loans are potentially dangerous and could encourage people to bite off more than they can chew. In response to concerns the regulator says if they are sold bad loops, they can force banks to buy them back. This news interested us. Its been five years since the end of the great recession, which started because of the financial crisis sparked by bad martings. Alley spoke about the crisis with the chief financial commentator of the financial times, and the author of the shifts and shock what we learnt and are still to learn by the financial crisis. Ali asked him what have we learnt . I think the most important thing we learnt is the fragility of the Financial System, and the way it interacts with the economy, and the dangers of leave ridge and accumulating huge amounts of debt, in the Financial Sector and the household sector. This is something we shouldnt repeat. We have a generation thinking debt is the fantastic, the greatest invention in the modern well. Its exactly what they thought. For a generation, 30 years, thats how it seemed. The same thing is true. For the last six, seven years we reduced leverage, debt. There has been a lot of bankruptcy, corporate and more in households. Its painful on the other side of the debt machine. We have seen as credit is more available, as jobs get filled, people go back into the bad habits, do you think we have learnt . What we have still to learn. One of the things that worries me, if you look at where we are in the u. S. And the u. K. , my own country, we may think about how to get growth back into the economies. We cant thing about anything smarter than getting people to borrow money. Theres a danger starting from a level which has a lot of that. It would get more leverage, more debt, and at some time, this decade or others, well have a worse crisis. You write in a book a few smart people saw the 2008 recession, one that things recession is always coming, and bob schiller that doesnt. Should more have seen it. Should it have been obvious for some. In some cases the only clues was when Consumer Spending was slowing down and people were feeling bad. Was there something clear we should have looked at. First, we had to recognise the real mistake, the possibility of a crisis. I, like many, thought there would be a slowdown. That was perfectly normal. What i didnt expect, and i think even in hindsight it wasnt obvious, i discussed why it did, that the slowdown in the economy, with a lot of leverage, would lead to a melt down of the Financial Sector. It looked like a garden variety slow down, and then became jungle variety. Until august 2008. It looked manageable. It would be deep, long, a debt overhang. I have no doubt about that. It would not be like previous recessions. The Financial Sector imploded and to know that that would have happened, you needed to know more about what was going on inside the Financial Sector, that most people, including regulators, were astonished when they revealed, relevant to current news, how a. I. G. Was involved. No one thought a. I. G. Was the core of the Financial System. They were doing it on an unregulated thing. Insurers didnt know what the credit default swap was, bankers didnt no. No one was regulating. You say in the book that oversight was too complex. Does that mean we had too much complication . There was so many holes in the regulatory structure in the u. S. People could go coach and horses through it, and they did. The regulator was ipp complete and complex. The current structure is more complex, maybe sa bit more complete, in the current Financial System it is so easy for something, some respect, who nose where. To be intricately involved in a complex way of what happened in the Financial Sector. Suddenly we discover only when things fail, what was missed. Do you think something was brewing that we could be missing, or are we better at getting across the board to Financial Instruments and ways of measuring your value and on the books that keeps us safe. The only thing that makes me feel safe is the people in the Financial Sector are more frightened. When people are frightened, they tend to be cautious. I rely on the people running the banks, the financial institutions. They have been burnt. And i suspect that, therefore, i suspect and hope that they are running their institutions in a conservative way than otherwise. Its the only thing. Understanding how the system works as a whole, the one thing we have learnt is its almost impossible. We talk about income inequality. We did such a great job of lifting home out of extreme posterity. Since of recession, we have a bifurcated economy. A small proportion of people around the world for whom this is the best five years in modern history. Interest rates are low. Property has gone up. The stock market is doing well. And theres a majority for whom they are not sure this is over. Thats true. Those were reenforce. Of trends existing. Correct. In the previous 20 years. Theres a bifurcation, the barr bell economy. In the u. S. , now in europe. Its been going on for a long time. Theres little prospect that the incomes of the majority will rise when theres so much labour competing. Theres the winners at the top who own the assets, the wealth, the top 1 get a quarter of income. They own half of american wealth. Anything that helps the economy helps them. The truth is we dont know what to do about it. Its a good question. Its a great read. Martin wonderful the chief economic comment tatar, and an dollar coming up, a mystery involving honey bees, dying at a rate of 30 a year. Thats bad news for the food economy. If we consider them livestock, they are the thirdmost important in the United States. After cows and pigs, come the boos. What disagree bees mean to your grocery bill when we come back. Pash America Votes 2014 the race is still a dead heat filmmaker aj schack turns his camera towards elections in the swing states it shows you who these people are. In ways that you dont get to see from the short appearances unconventional. If i can drink this. I dont see why you should be able to smoke that. Unscripted. We gonna do this . And uncensored. Are you kidding me . America votes 2014 midterms the series continues only on Al Jazeera America its a mystery just as gripping as Box Office Hit gone girl, in 2012 beekeepers reported the disappearance of hundreds of honey bees, vanishing without a draws. Its colony collapse disorder or c c. D. It may be over. Honey bees have stopped disprrk, as mary snow reports, their lives are at risk. Reporter its a mustry plaguing scientists for eight years. Billions of bees vanishing without a trace. It appears the beekilling disease, known as colion colony collapse disorder or c cd has finished. It spread across the u. S. In 2006, affecting 10 of the honey bee population, or roughly 200,000 colonies a year. The beekeeper would go do the colonies, and over a matter of two weeks the workers within the colony, the bulk of the colony disappeared. Investigators are seeing fewer cases. Yet commercial bee keepers lose 30 of coleanies each winter colonies each wind, double an acceptable rate of loss. They are driven by primary factors. The first is nutrition. We saw huge changes in the landscape in the United States, especially in the midwest. Once there were lots of acres of meadows, flowering plants, they have been ploughed under. Global demand for soya bean led to massive single crop farms knowning ag mopo cultures known as monocultures. Bees do not have the strength to survive the long winter month, and are susceptible to diseases. The para sites or vampire mites feed on bees and their larvae, but spread viruses throughout the hive. Pesticides, including those bee keepers use are proving lethal to bees. They are especially deadly when chemicals from different fields combine into a single toxic cocktail. We think its a combination of different elements. Its like heart disease. You can be predisposed, not eat well or exercise well. Its one or a combination of the factor. We think its these three factors that are predesposing the colonies to die down. The die off is a concern to farmers and the Food Industry as to beekeepers. One in every three bites of food are pol jipated by honey bees. Everything from fruit and reg table. Honey bees contribute 15 bullion to the u. S. Economy. They are the third most important livestock. They provide more economic value to the u. S. Economy. Based with a threat to the food supply, the president Obama Administration invested 50 million. Advocates insist consumers and industry can do more. Without the produce money bees make possible, its not just their health at stake, it could be our own a key question raised by the story is what can be done. Ali spoke to noah wilson rich, founder and officer of the best bees company and the author of the bee a natural history, saying healthier bees start with crop diversification and the government should give tax breaks to farmers to grow a variety of plants. The state of the utz system relies in no small part on the little insect. When we think about bee, moment talk about honey bees, but they are one speesees out of 4,000 that are native to the United States, and 20,000 bees around the world. We understood to start thinking about all bees, all pollonators. As we know, and everywhere watching we like food. If you eat the fruit and vegetables, you need to think about where they are coming from. Bees are a pollinator, and economic commodity. Snow where they disappeared. Where they disappeared, tell me about the people that bring bees in. There are more bees living on flat bed trucks than permanent places. Thing about it 20 or 30 years ago, its in a farm. These days with monocultures, we have to move the pollinators around from monoculture. Almonds, blueberries, cranberries and so on. When they fall off, theres nothing for the bees to foed on. They need to move to feed. It sounds like a business solution. You say its not good either. Its not good. Different bees pollinate different crops in different ways. Theres an overreliance on honey bees. They pollinate in one way. Bumblebees and others pollinate different crops like blew bris and crapp bris. Garm erts blueberries and cranberries. Farmers need to understand the crops and match up the species. The bees need to be local, they need to live there. They need to be matched with the crop. Farmers need to understand what they are growing and what pol jipation it requires. We have been doing things and change it to become profitable and have more food. I never believed i would have this conversation. One of the things that you and others suggested is in the monocultures, where you have tens of thousands of acres, it would be useful for farmers to plant in between wild flowers. Yes. Data shows that honey bees dont always go to the crops we intend them to go to. If we put a beehive in the middle of a field of blueberries. Bees are going elsewhere. If we keep bees happy and locally, they should stay in the area. Its about planting diversity. And why they do well in the cities. Its something unexpected. We see theres a diers flower diverse flour population. I was on the upper west side, someone was selling honey, that they said was garnered on the upper west side. I looked around thinking it was nothing but buildings. We raise funding for research, that funds different ways to improve the nutrition. Thats the best bees company. Others are creating jobs in this way. Its up to policy mackers to think about the behavioural economics. Places where bees are il, preventing jobs and food. You can do a lot to promote diverse crops and poll junators. Too its the pollinators. As an interesting cough. Noah wilson rich, author of the bee, a natural history. Thats our show. Real money airs week nights. Ill jen rogers in for ali velshi. Thanks for joining us. Im thomas drayton, coming up in the top of the our, in ukraine people have voted. A ground swell of support has been shown for petro porashenkos prowestern policies. Samantha power, u. S. Ambassador travels to west africa, criticizing the lack. Of International Support in the fight for ebola. With talk to two victims of Domestic Abuse how they escaped Domestic Abuse all that next on Al Jazeera America hello. You are watching a special edition of the listening post on the snowden effect. Change is occurring in journalism in the age of the state. When he hadwin snowden took the classified u. S. Intelligence documents and make them public, he knew his emails could be intercepted by the same people that the story was about. The National Security agency, his employer. So, he secured