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tv   The Kudlow Report  CNBC  August 18, 2009 7:00pm-8:00pm EDT

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the latest inbounds news poll in the last hour. good evening. >> good evening. the latest inbounds news poll shows the ground has shifted ever so slightly in the last month as far as the debate and pros and cons about the public option. when polls asked respondents would you favor or oppose a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private insurance companies, 43% favor the idea, 47% now oppose it. a month ago, the results were almost the opposite, 46% liked the idea while 43% did not. 10% not sure. drilling down further, a pro and con question. today, 45% agree a public option would lower costs and provide health care for all. 48% believe it would limit access to doctors and medical treatment options. a month ago, just 41% believed a public option would lower costs
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while 52% said it would limit access to doctors and treatment options. meanwhile, 60% of americans believe the health care system needs either a complete overhaul or major reform. four months ago that combined number was at 70%. a couple big picture numbers. president obama's job approval rating now stands at 51%, down two points in a month but congressional republicans get a 62% disapproval from the public on how they are handling the health care issue. bill. >> hampton, thank you very much. is the public health care option back on the table or is the president willing to concede to republicans in order to win support for some kind of reform. leaders of the 83 member congressional progressive caucus are saying not so fast in a letter to secretary kathleen seb billius said to take the public option off the table would be a grave error.
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passage in the house of representatives depends upon inclusion of it. house speaker pell locy has said as much as well. here's what ranking member charles grassley told cbs today. >> the bottom line of it is that a public option is resented by a lot of republicans and some democrats because we feel it's the first step towards government takeover of health car care. >> with us now is our dynamic you do woe, cbs contributor robert reich, whose book is called "super capitalism" and stev steven moore, "the end of prosperity." i have such a headache on this issue and i don't know who's going to pay for the aspirin. robert, i know you are in favor of the public option but should the president be pragmatic now that the polls are against him and saying it's not going to happen. should he give up.
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>> he should not give up because a public option is very critical. you have to have competition amongst the insurance companies, there is not enough competition. we saw monday insurance stock soared over rumors on the weekend the president is backing down from the public option. it's all about money and the more money they make, the more health insurance will cost. number two, the white house has to be very specific the president is not going to sign a bill that doesn't have this in it. all the waffling that's gone on over the last two or three days an waffling whether the president has a deal with big pharma over medicare bargaining over medicare prices, all that confuses the base of the democratic party and reduces the support that the president needs to get genuine reform going. >> steven, the hallmark of the president on health care has been to lower costs. competition will do that. you know that.
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if you don't have the government providing that competition, where will it come from. >> first of all, i wish that bara barack obama would nominate robert reich as his health care czar. if there is no public option, that means there won't be a health care bill and it's just atrocious. the only way it will go forward if the president gives up on this. every six hours out of the white house we're getting a different word. >> wee ke keep talking about th bill as if there was a bill on the table. even in our own inbounds news poll there, was a question in the inbounds news poll, from what you have heard about the president's health care plan, do you think it is a good idea or bad idea? 36% said, yes, good idea and 42% said, a bad idea. there is no plan yet. you have two senate committees
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working on respective plans and three house committees working on respective plans. we don't have a plan yet. >> the health care committee has reported out a bill. we know charlie rangel on the house ways and means committee reported out the taxes for huge tax increases on small businesses. it's starting to take effect. >> steve, bill has a very important point. all of this scare mongering about the president's bill when there is not a bill actually reinforces the point i was trying to make, the president has to be very specific about what he wants an what he doesn't want. unless he's that specific, it's possible for scare mongers to create a phantom out of this nothing that is -- >> hold on a minute! i have to say this. >> the president merely stated his objectives for health care reform this time around. your former boss, president
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clinton, bob, when he delivered health care reform, he delivered a full package on a take it or leave it basis. it had objectives and mechanisms to deliver those objectives. was it a tactical error on the part of barack obama not to do tha that. >> you have to leave something to congress. the problem may be the obama white house overlearned the administration of the clinton administration. they gave too much specificity and details and they essentially thumbed their nose at bill clinton. he went almost to the other extremes. here are the objectives, you guys figure this out. by now, august resecretaries very important time in terms of members representatives testing their constituents, you have a bunch of bills without any detail in them. this is a tremendous problem for
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obama. >> let me say a couple things. first, come on, bob, your idea republicanser are scare mongering. i didn't hear you objecting to scare mongering when george w. bush tried to fix social security and everybody ran around and said, this will ruin social security. >> he was very specific. >> wait a minute, steve. he wanted to privatize social security with a very specific plan. >> exactly. what did democrats say, it will destroy the social security system? the point is the democrats did the same thing when president bush tried to fix the social security system. the second point i wanted to make in this idea of what the objectives of this bill are, this is the whole problem, robert reich, on one hand the president says i want to cut costs so we have more efficiency in health care but he wants to spend a trillion. americans say, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. then he says he wants to provide more insurance, make it more affordable to people but doesn't want to allow states to compete to reduce cost, doesn't want to
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do anything for medical malpractice insurance reform. the kind of things that make sense to cut costs the president is against. >> i disdisagree. a trillion is necessary to expand coverage. people need preventative care to reduce long term costs of health care. that is a down payment on containment of costs. >> how? how does that reduce costs by adding a trillion and by adding all these new people in the system? that doesn't reduce cost, it raises a cost with a system $40 trillion in debt. >> it reduces cost because people who don't have health insurance go to imagiemergency and get preventative care and the costs are higher. if you had preventative care, you could reduce the long term increase in costs. >> as you can imagine, john stewart and the guys of the daily show are having a field day with this.
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here is the latest barb with mr. stewart. >> i've been very clear about the fact we should have a public plan. >> the public option whether we have it or don't have it is not the entirety of health care reform. >> yes, we can, unless you don't think we should, then we'll do something different. how the hell do i know? >> so i finish with the question i started with. should the president be more pragmatic if the political winds are against him in the public option and go for something different in some form of health care reform as gene robinson said in the op-ed page of the post this morning. >> this all comes down to what leadership means. the president has a great deal of political power, soapbox, his favorabilities are still very very positive. he can if he wants, lead the
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country and democrats in congress. when ken conrad said there won't be a public option because there's not enough support from the democrats. the president can turn around to the democrats and say, i want this and will sign a bill only that has a public option. that changes the political calculation. >> as i said -- hold on. >> finish. >> that basically means there's not going to be a bill. here's the problem, robert reich. >> no, it does not. >> yes, it does. >> i have to wrap it up here, guys. >> let me make my sec point. when john stewart is making fun of your bill, robert reich, you have big problems. >> i still don't know who's paying for the aspirin. thank you both, as always. coming up, it's just going to keep going, guys. is ob care a market killer or not? what it means for your money. we'll talk about that, plus an investment strategy from our market gurus, including the one and only steve forbes who loves
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now, that's progressive. call or click today.
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larry's new bull market was back on track today but it says here, could obama care bring it all crashing down. something we'll talk about. steve forbes, ceo and chairman of forbes and author of "power, ambition and glory" and jack rugin is the ceo. steve, how are you doing? >> i'm doing fine, thanks. >> i was struck on monday, when all the talk about the president backing away from the public option on an otherwise down day, we saw the health care companies go higher that day. would they really be that badly hurt by health care reform in your view? >> if they do it with a semi government takeover, absolutely.
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they would become wards of the government -- >> they would be competing with the government. why would they become wards of the government. >> because the government would tell them what they could and could not offer. they'd be subsidiaries, you want to shop an insurance policy, you do what the government offers. they will determine what you have and what you can and cannot do. >> what's your thoughts on stock these days without knowing what's going to come out of congress, if anything. >> i'm underweighted. the uncertainty is very high. who knows how this will work out. one thing is pretty clear, however it works out, stays private, co-op, public, private, a big part of the burden of financing the aging demographic health care needs of the united states is going to fall on the business sector be it insurance agencies, hmos, doctors, drug companies, i think the profit
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model going forward, at minimum is far less than it used to be. until this shakes out we get a new metric on the growth rate going forward, you're better with prospects elsewhere, particularly those with better earnings leverage in a cyclical recovery, where we're at at the moment. >> jack, what would you do? >> if you're an investment advisor right now, how can you tell people to get in the stocks when there's so much uncertainty and the cloud that seems to be hanging over the entire sector. when you have the president of the united states changing his mind and moving towards the center a little bit, it's obvious he's trying to work this bill through congress. i know you're saying we don't have a bill yet. it's obvious we don't have one because he can't get it passed in its present state. mr. forbes is absolutely right. what we're looking at right now is potential amtrak, the orphan stepchild of the government if we keep it going in this direction. that's the problem with this
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plan, unpassable in its present form. >> steve, do we need some form of health care in this country? >> we certainly do. we need to bring real capitalism, entrepreneurial capitalism to the health care industry. >> why doesn't that happen now? you don't have the government involved in health care in this country beyond medicare, you had for years they're supposedly competing against each other. why haven't we had the kind of competition that would bring prices down and make it more available to people who would be new customers and bring in new revenue? why hasn't that happened. >> if you talk to any hospital administrator, you'll find the health care industry is the most regulated industry in the country, medicare, medicaid, numerous rules there, states having regulations in some cases, thousands of regulations. if you want real free enterprise in health care, one of the first things to do is allow people to shop across state lines for health insurance policies and give individuals the same kind of tax treatment corporations get so they can get a good
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bargain on health care, allow small companies to pull together to buy insurance. how about real health care reform in the law? tort reform, health court, that would reduce it significantly. it would look like a drain as we baby boomers get older turn into a fabulous profitable growth industry. >> jim, what kind of business models among the companies you are avoiding you want to see in order to get back to these companies? >> part of it where i am now, i don't like the steady eddie character of this industry. this is a great industry maybe a year ago as you're heading in a down cycle in earnings. i don't think it's the best place to be overweighted heading into cyclical earnings with operating profit being the driving catalyst. >> you think the economy works against them anyway? >> i do. to steve's point, even if you don't go to complete
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nationalization of public option bill, it's clear to me however you come out of this it will be one step closer to quasi-public. when you do that, it makes it one step closer to regular m monopoly model and i say it's one step closer to being a lower profit model. >> you will have compromise. not everybody will be pleased by this. don't we need some form of health reform? >> bill, look, we have public schools and private schools. they co-exist. i send my kids to private schools and have that public school option. i still pay for the public school system. if it's done right, yes, it's digestible. steve forbes hit on a huge point there. what about tort reform? how come we're not talking about what's really important. when the president addressed that point he said he does not favor putting a cap on malpractice. that is the type of legislation we really need. that this is debate we should be having. >> all right. we'll take a break.
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you guys will be back and we'll talk about the market and economy when we come back. when we come back, on "the kudlow report," despite mixed messages on housing stats, homeowners are more optimistic. i believe larry kudlow would call that a mustard seed. late e in synthetic fuel the future of flight. a company called rentech on his new multiyear airline deal. she wants to make up. we decide to turn in early.
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score one for the bulls today as the major averages recovered about half of yesterday's losses. let's get the full down from scott, who joins us from stock market central. >> that's right. the markets overbought, corrections got a continue -- not so fast. today was quite a rebound off what we saw yesterday. virtually everything down yesterday was back up today. look at those retailers for example. much better than yesterday when lows really disappointed the market today. target, saks and home depot out with its earnings higher by better than 3.60%. and kb home and hovnanian and lennar. bb & t did a successful secondary offering. look at the names on your screen, all to the up side.
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commodities bounced back, oil prices closing up just shy of $70 a barrel looking at apache, u.s. steel, rio tinto and gold fields. technology strong today. raising the price targets on a number of smartphones, looking at apple, 2 1/2% and research in motion, up more than a third% and don't forget palm. and hewlett-packard slightly outdid expectations. and middle of the road from a previously announced range and the stock was all over, especially after-hours and interesting to see how the technology trade reacts tomorrow. >> classic turn around tuesday. you look at the reason for yesterday's sell-off, fears growth around the world won't be as strong as hoped for after japan's gdp report was out late sunday night. be that as it may, it still proves today when the stock market does come down, you will
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have bargain hunters willing to step in. >> what really is interesting i find about this market, everybody that that says market is still going to go down are the same people jump inning and buying on the dips. the pros repeatedly on cnbc that says market has to go lower, but i'm buying on the dips. >> that isn't to say we could still get a correction of some kind but we're in that season of the year. >> i think the opinion on wall street is we're looking at 10%. we know september is not historically kind to the market. >> but it is pretty resilient. >> it is. >> we have something new on the homefront. a new report, get this, shows 81% of the homeowners polled believe their homes will not lose value over the next six months. 81%. diana is in washington with details. >> is it good news or does it show how completely deluded today's homeowners are about today's home values and the current value of real estate.
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finding 60% homeowners surveyed believe their home lost value the past year, in reality that would be 83% that lost value. even more shocking, 81% of homeowners believe their own value will not fall over the next six months. most of the analysts predict another 10 to 15% drop in prices before we hit price bottom. maybe it's koch eye'd optimism, much like the home builders. single family rose 1.7% from july and june and multifamily fell 13.3% largely due to lack of credit in the commercial market. builders may be building the single family pipeline to get the last buyers in before the tax credit expires in november and they're is a nine month supply of inventory. and still cautiously optimistic. >> it would be my bet we would
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be talking about a recovery in a year. it is not in my opinion a v shaped recovery, a more slow one. we have a lot of inventory out there, a lot of foreclosure inventory. it will take a while to work through and not expect a rapid improvemen improvement. >> if you're seeing that kind of cautious optimism from the home builders ceo themselves, you have to wonder what is with the homeowners and sellers they're telling me are still not pricing their homes realistically. >> maybe more realistic, they hope the value goes up. >> they say they believe it. where are they getting that from? that's the question. >> as you and i discussed earlier today, it is a classic part of the business cycle when sellers are unwilling to bring the price of their home down. that typically means we're not at the bottom of the housing market. >> it means exactly that. you say we're seeing a bump up in existing home sales we've seen in the last couple of months and will get another existing sales report friday, yes the bump up in sales but
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from the lowest of the market. distressed properties under $200,000. when you start to climb up the price ladder, there is no activity above that $250,000 level. that's why so many of these folks who think they can sell their homes for 5, 6, $700,000 really can't because they don't know what the comps are because nothing else is selling. >> indeed. thank you very much. coming up, is the u.s. in jeopardy of losing its rein as financial leader of the free world? >> dick says yes and ready to tell us why. the green party. they're switching to synthetic fuels and we have the ceo of the company making all that happen.
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k today. china's sovereign well fund says it wants to buy up to $2 billion worth of distressed mortgage securities under the p pit plan. remember that? is that a good idea or is china about to subsidize the purchase of fixed assets. steve forbes back with us and
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the thirsty james paulson and jack. what's wrong if the chinese want to buy distressed mortgage assets. >> it is. the fact they have to subsidize the china to do it is upsetting. for every dollar the chinese put up the u.s. will match it. if they put up $2 billion the u.s. will match it by putting up 2 billion. what if japanese want to buy it or turks want to buy? will you be upset about that as well. >> yeah. why should the united states b subsidize foreign countries to buy assets at distressed prices? are we going to put a for sale sign on the united states to use the old cliche, not just put a for sale sign on it, tell other people we'll give you a discount on everything we sell you plus the taxpayer will throw in money to help you plus the fdic will guarantee $6 of debt for every $1 you put up. >> are you in favor of the ppit
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plan. >> absolutely not. what we're doing is asking the taxpayer to subsidize other entrepreneurs who should put up their own money at their own risk. not up to us to subsidize this risk. >> steve, what do you think. >> dick's right about the program. it should go on the scrap heat. when they finally amended mark to market accounting in march and april, we finally stopped the bleeding in the financial sector. if tai did a real reform on that, it would take care of itself. >> let's not forget, this was the whole idea behind the original plan for banking industry was buy out these distressed assets. don't we still need to get them off the balance sheets. >> i don't know. no one knows for sure. there's been a lot of improvement when you think what asset prices have done since march low, think how much junk credits came in from 22% yields to 11% and mortgage back paper
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yields have come in. what i'm saying, even leveraged bank loans are back to 90 cents after being as low as almost 60. >> for that reason there, is a feeling out there it's not even clear the banks that have those so-called distressed assets on their balance sheets will even be willing to sell these mortgages now that things have settled down. >> they should not be willing to sell. you go back to rtc days in the early '90s, those banks forced to divest assets lost a lot of money while the buyers made fortunes. the banks have enough in reserves, have enough in capital and can work out these loans on their own. we don't need the government intervening, let the banks work out the loans as they normally would do and there will not be a problem. >> let me talk about the markets in the couple of minutes we have remaining. jack, there is a lot of talk about the market, i won't get into the technical jargon, a lot signalling we have a correction
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coming. be that as it may we had a pretty good bounce. what do you make of. >> it the bounce is coming on when you have expiration, august expiration, usually highs take place in august. something happening we have to be aware of, you take that august or october '07 high and march '09 row, you have a perfect retrace. if you look at that type of technical work. that takes you to 1015 in the s&p where we stopped. it coincides where we were right before election day. for me, the market will vote from here on out. let's see if there a's any poli that comes out that acts as a headwind for the market. >> i'm glad we're not getting technical. do you like this market here? >> i do, bill. this won't be a straight line. no doubt there'll be a correction of 5% at some point. we're really early in this. we're either at the bottom or just 30 days maybe past the bottom of a recession.
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we have just begun recovery. if that's the case, if the recovery does mature, this market has a lot further to go. whether it does that now or does it in two or three or four months from now, as an investor, i'm not worried about which way that works out. not as an investor. i think we're really early in this thing. >> steve, it's clear we're not clenched as investors as we were in march. things have thawed from that perspective. have we overdone it to the up side do you think. >> no. we just retraced what we lost when we were about to put the banking system out of business with mark to market accounting. one of the key things is get our credit markets working. i wish the federal reserve and this administration would have a formal policy of strong and stable dollar instead of continuing the bush administration policy of weak and vulnerable dollar. >> how would you do that. >> first, announce it and then look at the commodity markets.
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>> hasn't he said many times as his predecessors say it's in the best interest to maintain a strong dollar. >> yeah. what they did, a wink and a nod. we want a stable dollar but we don't mind if it goes down and the market took their cues and bashed the dollar and led to the housing bubble contributor and smashed investment. >> bill clinton got it right, ronald reagan got it right. george bush did not. so far, the obama administration did not, you can't have the dollar weak and volatile. it doesn't work. >> we have to go. di dick bove, thank you. steve and jack and paul. thanks. was the nearly $800 billion stimulus a big help or big dud? do we need a second stimulus? yes. that debate is back, folks. david and casey will debate that after the break.
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fibonacci. it has roughly been six months since president obama signed the $800 billion stimulus package. is it working at this point? according to minority whip eric
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cantor, not really. >> this stimulus has not done what the administration said it would do. in fact, vice president biden came to richmond about a month and a half ago touting the success of the stimulus. i can tell you the 3200 some people i spoke with yesterday would resoundingly disagree with that notion. >> a recent gallup poll found more than half of americans polled thought it had no effect or even made the economy worse. if that's true, is there a need for a second stimulus package. david good friend and casey mulligan. thank you very much for joining us tonight. casey, your latest blog is head line, stop the stimulus, you don't want to see anymore, why? >> i was trying to learn what good the stimulus might be doing. i went to look at the white house report that just came out. they have the best numbers, great people to analyze them. what they told us last quarter $100 billion was spent of taxpayer money.
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what happened? they say 161,000 jobs were created. in other words, each job that we created cost over $600,000. you know, i like to help people but that's a ridiculous price tag. >> in fact, david, antidotally, we hear 10% of the $787 billion has even been spent at this point, here we sit today at new highs for the year in the stock market. yes, unemployment is near 10% but there are signs in other parts of the economy that things are getting better. do we need another stimulus package, in your view? >> let me speak to my friend from the university of chicago where i did a fellowship at the business school one summer. i will try to get this right. if we look at it scientifically we have to look what does the data show. the "wall street journal" report shows the majority of economists surveyed say we are now out of a recession that began in 2007, the worst recession in seven decades. we start with the fact. the fact is the economy is
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improving. now comes the question of causation. did this stimulus program have anything to do with the fact we're coming out of the worst recession since world war ii. you look at job data, that's a mixed bag, we're still hovering around 10% yet the rate of job loss is the lowest in months. that is a fact not in dispute. >> are you willing to connect those dots, the stimulus package? >> i am. you're right in pointing out only 10% of the funds have been spent because the program is designed to last over two years but the rate of spending is picking up at such a speed, i will give you one example, $20 billion spent to create about 6,000 infrastructure project, 3,000 of which are now under way. you can pass them when you're driving along, see a sign that says "american recovery act." sit there and count the number of people on the highway working. my friend from the university of chicago might say we're spending
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too much for each of those jobs, you're not counting, my economist friend, the multiplier effect each of those turns around and spends. i would ask you as expert economist, that $600,000 when put in the economy, what multiply deer you give it? 6? 5? 10? i would argue -- >> let him answer this. >> that multiplier stuff is a fraud. >> oh! >> republicans, when they tried it we called it trickle down and said stop, guys, stop feeding us that. democrats are feeding that same thing in the name of a multiplier. it's a fraud. we haven't seen consumer increase while government is spending. what government spending is doing is causing them to spend less. it's not a multiplier, something like a divider. >> have you been willing to say tonight the stimulus -- without the stimulus package we would be where we are today in the econom economy? >> the white house says we're a little bit better than we would have been. i want to emphasize, even if
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they're right, that's a little bit. >> i'm asking you if there had been no stimulus package plan passed with the tax credits, amount of money spent on jobs, highway construction and everything else, if there had been none of that, would we be sitting today with the economy where we are. >> we would be right about where we are now and taxpayers would have a lot of money in their pocket. >> david. >> the university of chicago can certainly turn them out. that is folly. >> how do you prove that. >> start with the facts. if we did not have today federal dollars being spent to create jobs, what would that do to one sector in particular? i'll give you a good example, public sector, teachers and police officers have been kept on the job as a result of funds from the federal government to the states where they are employed, again, an indisputable fact. i would argue but for those funds, those police officers and those teachers would be
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collecting unemployment today. that will result in increase in the unemployment figure. >> let me ask casey about that. >> that's another myth. public sector employment by the state and local government has been increasing month after month before the stimulus even came into effect and after it was in effect. the people who really lost jobs are people who used to work on construction and manufacturing. not government bureaucrats that have the fear of unemployment. >> is it the cost of bureaucrat? i don't get that lodgic. >> you're saying the cops and firemen who kept their job as a result of the money from the federal government, is that a myth. >> it's a small drop in the bucket compared to jobs lost in construction and manufacturing. >> may i jump in, that phrase "drop in the bucket" says it all. to me, that drop is really important. if it saves some family's job -- >> but at what cost? that's casey's point. >> we have to spend $600,000.
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>> why not give them a yacht and cadillac escalade? why do we have to spend $600,000. >> your predecessor who said we don't need stabilizers in the economy have been proven wrong, in the dust bin of history. when you're in a recession, it includes increased spending in order to maintain the growth we have otherwise had but for that. >> the spending is probably making it worse. >> i'm looking at the data. you're an economist, look at the data. it speaks for itself. >> i'm taking the data as the white house gives it to me. the data tells me the taxpayers have been ripped off more than ever in history. >> i'm tempted to pull out the data and go over it with both of you but that would be really bad television. thank you for joining us. coming up, the greening of the airline industry, eight airlines make a deal to use biofuels. we'll be joined by the ceo,
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rentech to discuss how it may help change the way we fly the friendly skies. oof! i hope he has that insurance. aflac! you really need it these days. how come? well if you're hurt and can't work it pays you cash... yeah to help with everyday bills
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cornwell. eight u.s. airlines have taken a greene approach tonight signing a multiyear deal with biodiesel synthetic fuel, rentech used for ground operations at l.a. international airport but could pave the way for the use of synthetic jet
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fuel. joining us is rentech's ceo. thank you for joining us. >> how are you, bill? >> what is this fuel that will be used for the ground operations at l.a.x.? >> the ground fuel we'll be making for l.a.x., taking woody greenways in california, greenways from yard clippings and converting that into s synthetic diesel, pretty close to carbon zero diesel fuel, the cleanest fuels in california. >> it can be used in internal combustion engine and go through the same pipes the regular fuel goes through, yes? >> exactly. that's the same. same infrastructure, today's engine, whether diesel truck, approved by commercial aviation, you can put in your jet engine, same fuels. >> green, near zero emissions, what's the cost relative to regular fuel? >> one thing i can tell you about the airlines, it has to be
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price competitive for them to be entering into these contracts. we're competitive at today's prices, the deals we're working on with the airlines are competitive over the long term with the price of crude. >> i do hear you saying it's more expensive right now but it will be cheaper down the road? >> no. the project we sold out here today is competitive with today's prices so we did not do anything special with the price of crude. >> will you be able to use the same technology or similar for jet fuel? >> the same technology. we just have to change the back end of our plant and use different feedstocks, whether biomass, waste streams, petroleum, exactly the same technology, which is really the benefit of our technology. that's really -- when you think about it, the airlines -- this ground equipment deal out here was really borne out of two years working with the airlines
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getting the aviation fuel certified. through that two year process and the airlines were terrific during this process and air transport association was terrific and said you can use this for jet aviation and you can solve your ground fuel and clean up the skies and ground equipment. >> you're not the biggest company in the world. >> that's true. >> but this will help the bottom line to a great degree. do you have the capacity to produce the kind of fuel need five-day forecast you had more and more airlines signing up for your jet fuel? how long will it take you to ramp up? >> that's a great question e. each is a steppingstone and today was a milestone. what i loved about today is an industry stepping up saying we want these fuels. we want to create an industry in this country of alternative fuels that is domestic, secure, price competitive and clean.
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>> can you meet the demand if it starts to pick up aappreciatably? >> as a small company we certainly can. the airlines are a million and a half barrels a day plus diesel. we're a small company and will need a lot of help. >> if i'm ceo of a larger chemicals company watching tonight, you know, this guy is onto something, i will call him tomorrow and offer to buy this company. what would you say? >> i'm saying, we're just starting our trek. we're not building this company to sell the company. we're building this company to create jobs and make fuels for this company. we're a publicly traded company and have to take what comes along. we're certainly not looking to sell this company at all. >> we wish you well on this. i know larry would be high on this and very high on this kind of mustard seed and the economy well. >> thank you. >> hansbottom, the ceo of the
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company, rentech. >> that's it for tonight. sad news as we leave you, maybe you heard by now, influential columnist and conservative icon, robert novak passed away this morning at the age of 78. his reporting spans all the way back to the ieisenhower years. he was a very very close friend of larry kudlow and he will be very missed. robert novak. he ran off with his secretary! she's 23 years old! - oh, come on. - enough! you get half and you get half. ( chirp ) team three, boathouse? ( chirp ) oh yeah-- his and hers. - ( crowd gasping ) - ( chirp ) van gogh? ( chirp ) even steven. - ( chirp ) mansion. - ( chirp ) good to go.
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