welcome back to the floor of the new york stock exchange. it's time for the closing countdown. markets going four in a row, doesn't look like we're going to get there today. weakness in gold stocks, and

home builders. housing report out today, existing home sales were up, single-family homes fell. there is the bell. and then the "closing bell" continues with maria. it is 4:00 on wall street. do you know where your money is? hi, everybody, welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo on the floor of the new york stock exchange. things are falling at the close tonight. a volatile trade on wall street threatening a three-day rally. investors unable to get excited by several positive data reports. jobless claims, the federal reserve index, both coming in better than expected. housing rising to the highest level since november. palm just moments away from reporting its first-quarter earnings. we'll have instant analysis of the numbers. the expectations call for a loss

for palm for the quarter. the dow jones industrial average on the down side by five points. nasdaq composite weaker by six points. and the s&p 500 coming out three points. bob pa sanny on the floor of the nyse. >> we were just trying to cheer the thing on. to see if we could see nine out of ten days. well, it didn't happen, folks. it's inevitable. part of the key leadership groups were notably weak during the middle of the day. you knew it would happen one day, we weren't going to go up. here's the story. let's look at the keep leadership groups. there are four or five groups that pushed the market up in the last seven, eight, nine, ten trading sessions. remember gold? 18-month high yesterday. didn't really make it here today. moved to the down side. gold spots were aggressively to the down side. 4%, 5%, 6% down. a sign traders getting a little

nervous about the big run aup here. same situation with the home builders. 15%, 18%, 20% moves this month. here's the big move down here at 4%, 5%, 6%. depends which one you're looking at. these are leadership stocks, so pay attention to who's taking profits here. regional banks, we had positive comments from the companies, like regents financials earlier in the week here. here you see 4%, 5%, 6% declines again there. when you look at the leadership group, you see the down side here with some of the big names. fedex a little bit of disappointment. yesterday earnings in line. but the revenues were $200 million light. that was a little bit of a surprise to the street. we did have some positive news once again on the airlines. let me just show you what's going on here. we've had a great month for some of these names. amr came out with positive comments and raised $2.9 billion in new funding.

look at these moves up. we're only a couple of weeks into the month here. positive news, a lot of things going on here. number one, it's not technical, folks, fundamentals here. we talked about amr. raising new money. united states and delta raised guidance earlier in the week. a lot of talk about revenue trends improving. so maria, the bottom line here is, finally, finally after all these years, it looks like the airlines might be trying to get some real profits rather than just trying to grab market share. as a result, investors are responding here. big, big month for the airlines overall. >> some of the challenges, though, for the group are out of their hands, such as oil, such as labor expenses, which are the two biggest expenses we were talking about. >> if we get oil to stabilize, and that's what's happening recently, you'll find the analysts will start raising their numbers again. >> bob, thanks so much. bob pa sanny with the latest there. initial jobless claims fell by a larger than expected 12,000

last week to seasonally adjusted 45,000. the highest level since last november. single-family construction fell for the first time in six months. building permits were rising by a smaller than expected 2.7%. the federal reserve index shored nearly ten points, 14.1 this month. the increase in manufacturing activity in the region is expanding at a faster than expected pace. we kick off this hour with our week-long strategy session series. a wall street veteran who's new on the job at blackstone advisory services. serves now as vice chairman. not new to the program, though. byron joins us right now from midtown manhattan. byron, nice to have you on the program. >> nice to be back. >> let's get your sense of where we are in this economy. you have to believe this is a victory given the last several

months. >> i think this is a market that surprised all the bears here. it's done a whole lot better than most people expected. i think it's on its way to higher levels. i think the economy itself has moved away from the recession low. a question of how strong it will be. but my view is over the next couple of quarters, we're going to be favorably surprised, because inventories are low. i think final demand will be relatively important here, impressive. and as a result of that, i think we could have very good earnings at the end of the year. >> and certainly confidence settled back in, which is something that you've spoken about recently. tell me how you've invested in that environment. what groups do i need to be in, in order to take advantage of that continuation of a recovery, and stock market rally? >> well, you know, i've liked energy and materials for a long time and technology. i think it's possible just that the airlines have done well, and that's kind of surprised

everybody, i think at the beginning of the year, i was suspicious that maybe christmas would be better than expected. and if that's -- if i'm right about that, consumer durables could have a pretty good move. >> so if you want to look at this market globally then, byron, what do i need to look at? a lot of people talking about china and really that is the jewel in terms of growth for the world. do you buy into that? do you want to be exposed to the emerging markets? >> look, the united states and western europe at best are going to grow at 3%. my view is that china is going to grow 7% or 8%. india's going to grow at 5%. i mean, to some extent that's already been reflected in the price of the stocks. those markets have moved fairly significantly. but i definitely think you have to have some money in emerging markets. >> okay. let me get your take on earnings. we just get the news that palm is out with this quarterly report, byron. reported a first quarter loss of 10 cents a share. but actually, the estimate called for a loss of 25 cents a share.

broadly speaking, on the earnings picture coming out of corporate america right now, what's your take away? last quarter very much the revenue growth was lacking. and it was an earnings growth story, but largely due to cutting of expenses. is that still going on or have we shifted? >> well, you know, from my earlier remarks, i said i think revenues are going to be better toward the end of the year. costs have been cut to the bone. so i think you could have -- you know, where earnings have been good, because revenues have been disappointing, but costs have been lower than expected. i think you could get both working for you in possibly the third quarter report. certainly in the fourth quarter report. where revenues are better than expected, earnings are much better than expected, because analysts' estimates are very cautious. >> as far as asset classes,

byron, what's your take? we are looking at commodities really on fire. gold continues a big move. oil obviously, oil now at, what, $72.52 a barrel. copper, iron, all kinds of commodities doing well. do you want to have a piece of it? >> i'm bullish on golfed. i'm bullish on oil. a lot of other commodities have done extremely well. in terms of other sectors, i'm sort of bearish on government bonds. positive on corporate bonds. positive on high yield bonds. >> we'll leave it there. byron, wonderful to have you on the program. we appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you. tomorrow we conclude or "closing bell" strategy session. david darst will talk about investing in this environment. palm 10 cents a share loss. jim goldman now looks behind those numbers. plus what the trends were. >> a lot of news here, maria, on

these numbers that dime a share loss far better than the 25 cents a share loss that wall street was anticipating. and this just goes to show you when you've got a blockbuster product, at least that is what the stock is indicating all this time, the palm pre, it can do a lot to the company quarterly earnings. the company's nongap revenue $360.7 million. the street was at like $290 million. look at the shipment numbers here. the total shipments, 823 million. i saw numbers as low as -- i'm sorry, 823,000. i saw numbers as low as 400,000, 450,000. palm really just blowing past those expectations. and the overall sell-through of 810,000 units, also substantially better than what some on the street were looking at. now, we saw palm dip a little lower and that is probably as a result of the company's announcement today of a stock offering of 16 million shares. there was some concern that a

secondary offering by palm would dilute existing shareholders who have been riding that nearly 400% gain in palm shares since january. but alas, palm does need to raise some money. the cash position down to $211 million on the quarter. that was a little less than what some on the street are anticipating as this company continues to burn through cash and spend a lot to market that new palm pre. all in all, it looks like a good quarter indeed for these guys. >> the stock trades up in the extended hours. jim goldman with the latest there. next week is going to be a very busy one for business. we've got the united nations general assembly happening, as well as the g-20 happening. the largest nations in pittsburgh. in new york city, the clinton global initiative. right before the program i sat down in an interview with president clinton. we talked about the economy, about deficits, as well as his charitable foundation and the upcoming g-20 meeting. specifically the increasing economic importance of emerging markets like china and india.

>> the first group of countries that went beyond the g-8, the merging markets of the future, and mostly big countries with sizeable economies, began to meet in my second term. in the aftermath of the 1988 financial crisis, which was mostly in asia, but also gripped brazil. and it was obvious that those countries were being really affected by the decisions of the monetary fund, the world bank, and the big economies themselves, the european union, the united states, japan, they wanted to be a part of that. china, india, brazil, all the other members of the g-20. and now, in the aftermath of this latest financial crisis, the g-20 was seen as an essential instrument of global recovery, because we knew it wouldn't be enough for the uk or france or japan or america to

come back alone. and china knew that in order for its growth to continue, it had to have customers first products. china had $2 trillion, no financial problems, but they had 35 million unemployed factory workers because the europeans and americans couldn't buy the products anymore. so i think there's a general awareness that we have to go beyond the g-8 to have more players in a global economy if we're going to have balanced growth and mutual benefits. i just want to hear these people talk in advance of the g-20 about what the long-term future is. and whether there's anything, both the business people who are here, and the non-governmental actors who are here to strengthen the economic growth in those countries. >> get the rest of my interview tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern with president clinton, as well as monday on the "closing bell." we talked about everything from the upcoming cgi to the economic landscape as well as president

obama's health care plan. recent comments by president carter, and the federal deficit, as well as president clinton's recent trip to north korea. that's tomorrow and monday on "closing bell." up next, a one-on-one with broad foundation founder, eli broad. where he thinks we're at in this economic cycle. if he thinks president obama is on the right path, when it comes to reforming the american education position. which eli broad has been focused on for many years. a look at the major growth story of the day and of the year, shares of badu.com up 200% in 2009. pretty sweet return. we'll talk to the boss, the ceo joins me about what's behind the big rally. his competition with google, where he sees future growth. you're watching cnbc, we're you're watching cnbc, we're first in business worldwide.

welcome back. president obama has made education a top priority since the start of his administration. but now he's faced with a variety of policy changes on the

health care and financial crisis. joining me to discuss this is eli broad, founder of the broad foundation. and his heart has been in education for, i guess as long as i've known you, eli. >> ten years now. >> thanks for joining us. we kick this off with the broad prize for urban education. your foundation gave that award yesterday to the alpine independent school district in the houston area. can you tell me about the award? tell me about that district. >> well, the award goes to urban school district making the greatest gain since student achievement while closing the gap between ethnic groups. it's a $2 million award that goes to scholarships. we had quite a ceremony at the capitol yesterday. >> very nice. now, do you think that the president is headed in the right path on education so far? >> absolutely. i think this president and this secretary of education, arne duncan, are doing all the right things. >> you've worked closely with arne duncan. you've got health care on the agenda, financial reform on the agenda. do you worry agenda will be put

to the side? >> no, i think the secretary's very active, and the president every now and then when he's not talking about health care, will talk about education reform and need for it. >> you know what's interesting, i learned this the other day, today 60% of higher degrees are going to women. all around the world. now, i know that you're focused on -- >> k-12. >> but do you see a similar trend in terms of girls in school? 60% of higher degrees going to women, that's pretty substantial. >> in k through 12, it's pretty even. but women are finding there are greater and greater opportunities than there ever were for women. and whether it's in science, whether it's in law, whether it's in all sorts of activities. >> what are the models out there that you can boint to that are doing it right in terms of education? whether it's international, or you can look at regions, such as the houston area? >> well, i like what's happening

here in new york city. in chicago. >> why? >> well, you've got mayoral control here. you've got a great chancellor in joe cline, who i was with earlier today. and they're doing all the right things. >> like what? >> like creating more and more charter schools, which have autonomy. just improving student performance, getting better teachers, better principals, not putting up with those that aren't getting the job done. >> how do you get the better teachers? some might say principals' hands are cuffed because they can't put in place the best teachers that they want because of the union rules. >> that's starting to change. here in new york city, it's certainly changed in washington, d.c. with their chancellor. it's changing across america. >> okay. let me switch gears here. eli, you founded two fortune 500 companies, now known as k.d. holmes, it was -- >> right. >> and sun america, which acquired by aig. can you characterize for us

where you see the economic environment? >> i think we're close to bottoming out, or have bottomed out. i do not see any rapid recovery. i think it's going to take three or four years before we have any real movement in the economy upward. >> it's not going to feel much different than the recession for most people? >> no, no. look, unemployment's going to get to double digits pretty quick. then it's going to soften a bit. but we're not going back to 4%, 5% unemployment in the next several years in my view. >> how do you like what's going on at aig these days? >> well, i think mr. benmarsche is doing all the right things. >> so he was the man to bring in? >> he was. >> you've got asset sales that have already taken place. would you like to see the asset sales pick up, or is this the wrong economic moment in time to be selling assets? >> it's the wrong time to sell assets. >> you're not going to get a premium for them.

>> you're not going to get a premium. you get a big discount for them is what you're going to get. he's doing the right thing. be patient. it may be three or four years before we sell units. >> it's interesting to see the economy bumping along the bottom yet the stock market is up sharply. you're an investor, how do you see it? >> i think the market's a bit ahead of itself. but i can't predict the market. >> if you're a passive investor, where do you invest today? >> we have some gold. we've got things in asia, whether it's china, india, and elsewhere in asia. we've light on u.s. equities. we're heavy on credit. we believe there's a lot of value in the -- portions of the bond market right now. buying bank loans at nice discounts. >> do you buy into the idea because we're seeing india and china grow as much as we are, the demand for commodities are going to be there? is that one of the reasons to buy gold or is it just because

that's a hedge against everything else? do you like other asset classes like copper and iron ore and -- >> no, we're only in some gold. we think the dollar could continue to weaken. i hope not, but i think it's a high probability. we think there may be some events in this world in the next year or two that will shake a lot of confidence. >> what about financial reform? one year after lehman's collapse, how would you grade the administration's response in dealing with the financial crisis? some people say, look, health care is front and center on the agenda. financial reform is probably going to take a back seat. >> well, we need financial reform. i don't think anyone can deny that. no one can deny that we have to change health care in america. i think it's going to happen. how quick it's going to happen, i don't know. i would guess within the next six or nine months we will see some form of financial reform. >> and do you have any thoughts on what that might look like? >> i do not. >> okay. let me ask you this, because i

know you're invested in china. and norro ravini from nyu would make the argument, don't look at china to take the world out of recession anytime soon. when you look at the china gdp, you're talking $3 trillion of a gdp in this country of $13 trillion. do you look at china as a growth catalyst in the world? >> it's going to contribute to growth. no, we're looking at china, that's going to grow at least 6% if not 8% or 9% for the foreseeable future. the problem we have with the chinese economy is it's not consumer oriented. our economy was pushing 70% consumer. the chinese, i think their consumer portion economy is below 30%. hopefully that will increase, they'll use more of their goods and services. >> focused on expert-led economy. >> exactly. >> thanks for all you're doing with education for this country.

i know many people thank you for that. good to have you here. thanks, eli. >> good to be here. >> eli broader of the broader foundation. olympia snowe could end up being the key to get the health care reform bill through the senate. if she thinks the two sides are too far apart to compromise. stay with us.

welcome back. senate democrats have been struggling to gain bipartisan support for health care reform plan. now the entire bill effort comes down to the vote of one republican senator from maine. john harwood just spoke to senator elimb pi a snowe. >> reporter: maria, senator olympia snowe from maine continues to negotiate with her colleagues on the finance committee. she's not tipping her hand, but everybody's looking for signals and the way she might indicate how she's going to go. and one of the ways is how she sees obama and his overall effort on health care. i asked her first of all whether she thought barack obama like other republicans is a big government liberal. >> no, you know, it's interesting, i don't. in fact, obama's almost the opposite. he's been very realistic in his

views on health care. understanding the implications. i get a sense that he does study these issues very carefully. he has a deep conversations with his staff who advise him on health care. he's told me on several instances where he has actually, you know, been reading the memos, studying the issues, and what's changed in various positions, concepts that we had been discussing within our group of six. so he seems to me to be very well informed, well briefed, well versed. seriously immersed in the issue, recognizing the implications. and he understands that there are fundamental differences and disparate views and how controversial they can be. the fact is, i've gotten the impression he would probably do less than more. >> do you see him as a moderate? >> more moderate than liberal. he has advanced the issues of the public option.

but i've sensed from the outside that he might be far more flexible on that question. many months ago when i had an initial discussion with him on health care itself. but also, in the ensuing conversations, he has seemed to, you know, understand others' views. he obviously puts it forward, because that's been his position. but i think he's always indicated a willingness to be flexible on this and other issues, and taking into account, you know, different views on the subject. and he certainly was more than willing to listen to my views and others, and he also -- you know, he solicits contrary views and conflicting positions, so that he can better enhance his own approach to it. and i think that was illustrated in his speech of last week before the congress and to the american people, is trying to outline some of the misconceptions and fallacies surrounding a number of issues. and secondly, understanding that

there's a lot of confusion that had emerged as a result of the variety of initiatives that had already been considered in various committees in the house or senate. >> maria, senator snowe indicated there are changes she wants in the bill. she would like more subsidies for low-income families to buy insurance by reducing the level of insurance people would be required to buy. but she's satisfied with the overall level of cost controls and may offer that triggered public option, not likely to committee, but on the floor of the u.s. senate. i would say from this interview, the white house has reason to be optimistic she may be on their side in the end. >> thanks very much. up next on the "closing bell," why one wall street firm thinks investors may be able to hit the jackpot. stocks up 7% today. back in a moment.

welcome back. with the market today really

little changed. the other stories we're following. discover financial, third-quarter profit nearly tripled. $577 million due in large part to an antitrust lawsuit. the stock today up 1.7 a%. kroeger down today. the analyst telling clients increasing price competition and sluggish sales trends are to come. kroger sharings down 2%. mgm mirage was upgraded from a buy to sell to $18 a share. because of balance sheet improvement. expectations, renovations that some properties will help drive new traffic. the stock today was up 8%. finding success in a tough climate. we'll be talking with the ceo of baidu.com about his company's stellar run. we'll break down what's behind the move. find out where the growth comes

from next. robin li joining me.

the pandit restaurant group known for fast food is cooking up innovative employee wellness. >> 14% body fat. >> reporter: offering free health screenings at work with california based huntington hospital. >> if you have some screening done, particularly things like blood pressure tests, and that

then helps you build an overall fitness program. >> reporter: a win-win for the company, and for the hospital. dr. curt hong says the screenings have identified patients who can be referred to the appropriate medical attention at huntington. >> if they can get treatment early, it will significantly impact the long-term health care costs. >> reporter: for the ceo who calls himself the chief fitness officer, they put healthy living front and center. >> anything we can do to show people we care about them as individuals, not just something with an roi attached to it. the more they're going to reinvest in us by caring about the business. >> reporter: that's today's "healthy horizons" report. i'm brian schactman.

welcome back to the "closing bell." i'm cnbc pharmaceutical reporter. this is indicative of all of the excitement, especially among investors for late stage diet drugs. because just on the announcement in a press release that arena pharmaceuticals ticker arna is going to hold a conference call tomorrow morning to discuss its late-stage clinical trial results for its diet drug. the stock is spiking after hours. this is the last of three small biopharma companies. the other two being arena and erexogen on their diet drugs. we'll have that news for you tomorrow morning. >> thanks very much, michael. see you later. baidu dubbed the chinese google killer. they're expanding internationally and taking its search engine mobile. it's reflected in baidu's shares. year to-to-shares up 200%.

compared to the nasdaq's 35%. joining me is robin li of baidu.com. good to have you on the program. >> thank you for having me. >> what do you think about the stock performance? >> i think the dominant search engine in china, we have about 76% of the traffic share. more than four years ago when we went public on nasdaq, we only had mid-40s in terms of traffic share. we have proved that we can deliver, and i think more and more people are starting to realize the potential, the market potential for chinese search, and starting to believe we can really execute on our mission. >> you've seen the growth. you obviously have experienced tremendous growth. >> yeah, even during the difficult times, we were able to deliver good numbers. >> i want to ask you about the difficult times and certainly where the growth comes from now. but as far as the recession and the global upset that we've seen, what kind of an impact have you seen from that?

have you seen fewer people doing -- using the internet? i mean, what was the actual impact to your business, the financial crisis? >> i think we had a number of -- a couple of difficult quarters, especially q4 of last year and q1 of this year. >> because of advertising. >> yeah. we didn't see a lot of people using the internet actually. we continued to add more internet users, people search a lot more. but because the slowdown in the economic activities, you just have less key words of commercial value. we realize that. we also realize that the market it's still early. a lot of businesses still do not know how to leverage and promote their products and services. so we went out and tried to educate the market to hold those customers and potential customers so they will be able to shift from other sources to

the search engine and baidu specifically. >> you've got more than # 00,000 small and medium business clients looking for places to get their messages out. and advertising. so which sectors would you say stay throughout, and which sectors were under pressure in terms of advertising? can you give us a sense of the growth within the sectors? >> yes. i think the consumer ended sectors like education, franchise or health care, those are less affected. the b-to-b businesses, especially import-export businesses were affected much more. we're being focusing on those growing domestic consumption sectors, and that has given us very good results, return. >> where does the growth come from now, mr. li?

>> there is still a lot of room for growth. the internet population in china surpassed a 330 million by the end of june. that's already the largest. compared to last year, that's more than 30% growth in terms of internet user base. and people spend more time online. the amount of information, chinese information online is also growing quite quickly. all these sectors drive internet usage. and you mentioned more than 200,000 customers, advertisers use baidu. that is a small penetration. there are more than 40 million businesses in china. every one of them should use baidu or use search to promote their products or services. we have a very large consumer base, a lot of people use search to find information. but most of the companies, most of the businesses have not really used the search to promote their services and

products. that's the opportunity for us. >> it sounds like you're really scratching the surface, actually. >> exactly. >> an enormous potential in china alone. let me ask you about moenlt. you know, we've spoken with google a number of times on this program. and eric schmidt has told me mobility is one of the major growth engines for the entire industry. there are 4 billion cell phones in the world versus about 1 billion pcs. is mobility a place that you see potential for big growth numbers? >> i think so. i think in the future, mobile will become a main way of internet access. we're more than double the number of mobile phones in china than there are internet users. so we think as it's being viewed out, there's healthy computer competition in china. we'll see better and cheaper internet access from mobile phones, and we will be able to

benefit from that as the largest search engine in china. >> what about the 3-g network? how soon does that happen? >> it is happening, i think all of the carriers, china telecom and china union i com investing aggressively in the infrastructure. because they compete with each other. they are eager to build out the network ond sign out to customers and users and find key applications. search is the most fundamental, most needed application in the internet age. and it can make money. it's got a beautiful business model. so we hope that this will happen sooner rather than later. >> what happened between you and google? i know that they had a big investment. they sold it. they wanted to acquire baidu, and you said no, or what? >> i think baidu needs to be independent at this time. i think a lot of people haven't really realized the potential of this company. we started about ten years ago

from scratch. and as i mentioned, four years ago when we went public, we had 40-something percent of shares and now we have more than 70%. >> huge growth. so you are expanding internationally, launching a japanese search engine in january of '08. what about the united states? are you expecting to expand here as well? >> japan is a strategic move by baidu. this is the first overseas market for us. we think we should invest for the long term. china basically we do have a lot of room for growth. but five years down the road, ten years down the road, we need to be everywhere. we need to find more areas to expand our business. the u.s. is obviously a huge market. but i would like to see japan succeed first and then think about other marks. >> i understand. can you give us a sense of what's going on in china right now? a lot of people debating where

the economy is. some people say that 8% growth is back on the table there. what does it feel like on the ground in china now, economically speaking? >> it's getting better, but slowly, i'll put it this way. i think export is still not that great. but the government putting together a investment package. and investment is very aggressive. lots of money going into there. consumer consumption was not that badly affected during the past year also. but it's also growing slowly, i would say. it's getting better and better, but not that quick. >> right. because you've got to turn it into a consumer-led economy as opposed to an export-led economy. how long is the transition? >> everyone hopes that it will happen sooner rather than later. i think the government obviously thinks we ought to be the beneficiary of the government consumption. but it takes time. >> mr. li, good to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> we so proesht your time today. chairman and ceo of baidu clom.

quite an entrepreneur and huge opportunity there. cnbc exclusive with french majority leader. he will tell us how the g-20 will address the global financial reform efforts when the "closing bell" comes right back.

welcome back. leaders from the g-20 nations will gather in pittsburgh next week for the g-20 meeting. on the agenda, clamping down on excessive bank bonuses. recently we did see growth in two parts of europe, actually. joining me with a preview of the g-20 and the look at the economy in europe. french majority leader in parliament. good to have you on the program. >> hello. >> thank you for joining us. what's happening on the ground in france. recently we got the most recent gdp report in france and you saw growth. does it feel that way or are things still troubled so far as the economy is concern dconcern? >> well, it's getting better. the financial market are going normalization. at the same time while the crisis is not over. the dow jones is getting up but unemployment rate too. so we know that we have to take into account the causes of the crisis and also the strategy.

>> where are the strong spots right now in france? and where are there still troubled weak spots? >> i would say that consumption is all right. it's getting better. and the last term on growth was all right. and these -- think that we are in a better view but it's not enough and we have to be cautious. we have to think to bring solutions to the financial regulation, to the global governance and to find new -- new sectors for growth. and specially i think that we have to deal with this sort of green growth. that's why we plan to invest a lot and to focus our plans -- stimulus plans to -- development, alternative, energies, green cars, and i think that that will create jobs, growth, and people are worrying the way for us to invest on this kind of spending, public and private spendings.

>> right. and this is something of course president sarkozy has discussed. the moving into the alternative energy areas. next week we've got the g-20 meeting. from france's perspective, what would you like to hear on the agenda? >> well, first this will be a very important conference. vital for the global economy. i think the conditions are to get into a global agreement. because the issue must be global, you see? and global is the keyword. so while we're going to talk about, what? of course, bonus. because as you know the opinions want us to find the solution, but it's not key issue. we have to talk about financial regulation. >> how do you want to see financial regulation play out? what do you want to see in reform? >> well, first i would say that the keyword is to get back to confidence.

because i think people know when to bring the savings in the banks and make sure that they can trust on the banks so this means more transpiarence. >> right, performance is the key, obviously, yeah. >> of course. and then to go back to economy too and to make sure that we are the exit strategy. >> and you have said that you would like to see the merging of the g-8 and the g-20 and the security council into a global governance council, what do you mean by that? >> i deeply believe that the institutions now are not adapted to the 21st century. you have the skooul, the g-8, the g-20, et cetera. i think that would be great is to merge all these institution into the security council. like, security of course.

but also economy fields, social, environmental and in order to make -- to make all these more efficient and of course it's -- it's just pragmatism and for political leader it's much easier to bring global solutions and deal with global issues altogether in the same place and that would be more efficient than to go from the g-8 to the g-20 and sea on. >> because there are so many meetings and -- >> and the last thing that it's a way for us to put the emerging countries inside of our discussions. because i think we cannot continue like that. to talk from france or europe, with american -- with our american friends and when the emerging countries are outside of the discussions, i think this is over. we need in the 21st century to put everybody around the same table. >> one thing that we learned about the financial crisis it's that we're in this together. jean-francois cope good to have you on the program. >> you're welcome.

>> french majority leader in parliament. we head to the nasdaq marketsite. melissa lee is coming up. >> hi, there, maria. his announcement today that he's running for the connecticut senate seat. also his predictions for the economy. we'll also check out palm in the after-hours' session. it's been a big mover. we'll tell you how to trade it tomorrow and we pull out the crystal ball once again tonight. saw the financial crisis coming, richard bernstein with his outlook of the u.s. economy. >> melissa, see you in a few minutes. up next look at the markets tomorrow. boss: so word's gettin' out that geico can help people save in even more ways -

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