has been together for 60 years and hope to get married. it depends on new york's legal battle. and i'm fredricka whitfield. stay tuned for "your money." >> president obama is being hammered on the economy as fear of another recession persists. but are republican presidential hopefuls offering any fresh resolutions? welcome to "your money." i'm christine romans. ali velshi is off today. cnn opinion research polls continue to show 4 out of 5 americans feel that economic conditions today are poor. will cain is a cnn contributor. will, numbers aside, people are not feeling this recovery. the republicans just had their first new hampshire debate seen here on cnn. what are they offering in terms of a solution that president obama is not? >> tax cuts. how about that, christine? ever heard of a republican offering tax cuts? what i wish i heard from them is tax reform. talking about taking all the

deductions and dumping them in the trash. then you could lower rates. that would have a posive effect. how about coupling that with even little infrastructure and education spending and how about entitlement reform? >> new spending? those are fighting words for republicans, will. >> you're exactly right. these guys aren't idiots. that is a proposal that i just put together that you will not get elected on. so they'll stick with tax cuts. by the way, that's more than obama's offering. >> roland martin is a cnn contributor as well. one thing was crystal clear after this week's gop debate. all the republicans plan to attack president obama's record on the economy. let's look at that record. today we have a 9.1% jobless rate. we have an exploding budget deficit. we have economic growth that is not making jobs. we measure economic growth in you look at it here, you can gdp. if you look at it here, you can see growth has climbed out of the gutter since 2009 when it was shrinking at a rate of 2.6%. but now it is growing at 1.8%.

not as strongly as last summer. but that is when stimulus measures were in full effect. right now, it's not enough to meaningfully lower the unemployment rate. in january of 2009 when president obama took office, 820,000 jobs were lost in that one month. overall, 3.3 million jobs are gone since obama became president. but the white house is right when it points out the job growth over the past year, some 1.4 million jobs have been added over the past year. roland, if a voter is basing his or her choice on the economy, can president obama win on this economic record? >> first of all, they have to make the argument. you saw debby wasserman schultz this week say, we own this economy. she also began to articulate that the turnaround started because of our policies. now, sure, nobody wants to sit here and be honest and say, hey, we were in a ditch, we were horrible, it was just a terrible economy.

which is all true. but fed chairman ben bernanke has said, this is going to be slow growth. what americans can't get used to is the fact that we're not going to have some huge explosion overnight, that we're going to see massive jobs. we put ourselves in a horrible situation. when you do that, it actually takes time. folks may not buy it. but it's also a reality. and every republican can talk about tax cuts. we know that tax cuts under president george w. bush contributed to our deficit. we have to own up to that. but many of them don't want to do that. >> ken rogoff is the former chief economist at the imf and the expert on financial crises. simplest terms possible, with the recovery weakening, how real is the threat of slipping back into another recession or does it feel so dismal to the american middle class, it doesn't matter anyway? >> it definitely feels so dismal to the american middle class that it's not going to feel great no matter what. i think we can expect a slow,

halting recovery. we could go into a technical recession where output's actually falling and we're losing jobs instead of creating them. i think we'll continue to get jobs. but this could take years before we really feel completely better. >> christine, one second. we keep saying the economy is weakening. but we're basing that on what? one jobs report. the reality is we're going to have starts and stops. we keep trying to compare 1984, 1992 when clinton was there and we think that all of a sudden we're going to see 300,000 and 400,000 jobs created. the american consumer has changed. our spending habits have changed. our economy is so predicated on spend, spend, spend, people have finally gotten the message, i can't keep spending like i used to. i need to have some discipline and focus personally when it comes to my checkbook. >> if the economy isn't weakening, we can at least say it's not getting better. here's why. the main problem in the economy,

the seed, the cancer in the economy is debt. not just federal government debt, household, historic levels of debt. ken rogoff knows a lot more about this than i do. if i was a dinner party, i would ask questions instead of giving pins. i'm not going to pretend to do much different here. ken, you said the same thing about debt. and you have said the mortgage market, housing market is at the core of that and we have to look at writedown, principal writedown, debt relief. here's my question -- if you do that, aren't you rewarding like a decade's worth of bad behavior? isn't it essentially saying the idiots won? >> well, you have to do it in a way where there's some giveback. so if you write down people's mortgage, they have give back the up site. if prices give back, you have to design a program where there is some penalty for it. but you're absolutely right that there's so much debt out there. consumer debt has doubled what

it was 30 years ago. this is not a typical recovery because of the debt. that's what's making it slower, not the government -- >> how do you leverage that? >> will, here's my problem. you keep saying rewarding those people who made some mistakes. here's the problem with that. the people who did mistakes, guess what? our home prices have fallen as a result of this situation. secondly, you're seeing school districts, hospital districts having to cut services because the property values have dropped. so when you say reward those people, you also are looking at an entire economy affected by the drop in home prices. sales taxes as well. >> i want to ask ken a little bit about this whole idea of a zombie consumer. it could take years and you said it yourself, it could take years for the consumer to have a balance sheet that's repaired enough so that they can actually be powerful again in the economy. am i right here? there's a lot of debt that we still have to work through, as much as we've already done, there's a loit more to go. >> there really is. i actually think having some inflation would be helpful to bring wages up relative to

debts. there's not another pretty way to do it. we can also try to write down the debts. there's not an easy out. but it's also not time to panic. i think these people are proposing massive stimulus again, more government spending. this isn't a typical recovery. debt is the problem. and if the government's going to spend money, it ought to be on something to bring down all the household debt. >> let me ask you a quick question. you're going to get republicans and democrats who are arguing immensely over the bush tax cuts. ten years exactly we've been talking about bush tax cuts. did they contribute and how much to our debt problems? >> i think will hit the nail on the head with what we need. and it's the problem with the bush tax cuts. we need to get rid of as many deductions as possible, lower the tax rate so people have incentives to work, to build, to create. president bush, the tax cuts were fine except that that was an opportunity to improve the tax system, to reform it.

we made it messier. and now the tax rates are really low. it's harder to do the reform. it's harder to do it in some way that everybody gets something. >> i see you want to jump in. don't quite yet. we have to make a couple of bucks in the next few minutes. stay where you are. america's debt may be unsustainable for the long term but do we need even more money from washington in the form of another stimulus right now? what about the tax cuts and tax reforms? don't go away. what do you got? restrained driver...

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>> you look at the omb and what they have to say and the gao. at the end of the day, we sit here and say, tax cuts -- i'm a high-income earner. i would love to sit here and keep saying oh, cut, cut, cut. but the problem is we want to sit here and say, cut but also spend, but also if you cut taxes, don't cut the oil subsidies. as will talked about, don't cut the deductions. look at what's happening in europe right now. the people there are freaking out because of the austerity plans because they have lived that way for so many years. and when you have so much debt, you're going to have to stop something. same thing in this country. we don't want to let go of anything. at some point, we have to have a balancing act. you can't keep saying, cut, cut, cut, that's going to solve all our problems. it's not. >> we need to distinguish two things. there's the current economic problem and the debt attributable to that. it can have a positive effect on

our economic system that's in the tank right now. you only have a few options. another stimulus bill, cut taxes or print money, inflate our s l ourselves out of the debt. i would ask ken this, if we're looking at our -- as you said, it takes a long time to get out of this situation. ken, how long are we talking, just to make ourselves realistic? seven years? how long are we going to be in this situation? >> i think it's going to gradually improve over the next few years. it has been gradually improving. but we may in three or four years still have 6.5% unemployment. it may never go back to the way it was. i want to distinguish between tax cuts and lowering the rates but maybe raising revenues by getting rid of a lot of deductions. i think that's where president bush failed to improve the tax system. that was a big missed opportunity. >> here's the problem. you have people like grover

norquist who make americans sign these pledges and we saw it this week. if you change certain things that equates to a tax cut. republicans even saying, wait a minute, we're getting rid of subsidies. he equates any change as somehow being a tax increase. mike huckabee, when he ran for president in 2008, same thing, he raised fees, you'll raise taxes. this is a political fight. >> this is comprehensive tax reform. which has been so difficult. but comprehensive tax reform, fixing the system, getting rid of the loopholes, making fair and simple tax brackets for everyone and companies is so important. a lot of people say that's politically so impossible. but they've had health care reform. they're talking about social security and entitlement reform. ben bernanke has pushed for it and members of both parties have pushed for it. i want to talk about spending. america overspends. we have a debt at more than $14 trillion and counting.

will we spend more in the near term to avoid slipping back into a recession or worse? ken, do we need more stimulus in one form or another, either the fed or congress, to boost a slowing recovery? politics aside, should we be spending more money right now? >> i don't think we should have another big stimulus. we need to pull out of this one slowly. i don't think it's the problem. this is not a typical post-world war ii recession. this is a post-financial crisis recession. there's too much debt out there. if we're going to spend money, we should address that. on the other hand, the fed ought to do what it can. unfortunately the rollout for q.e. 2, its big buying bonds program, wasn't very successful. the foreigners hated us, a lot of americans hated the fed. they didn't sell it well. but we need to get inflation up. that's really important as part of this recovery. >> i have to say, seven years ago, i filed for personal

bankruptcy because i had almost $100,000 in health care costs as a result and having no health insurance. and so when i did that, guess what i had to do? i had to change the way i lived. i had to change my spending habits. we talk about the personal debt of consumers but also of government. it requires a change in habit. the problem we have with this stimulus programs, the first one with president barack obama, one third of that stimulus package was tax cuts to appease republicans. at some point, you cannot keep spending your way out of a mess. you have to suck it up and realize it might take me four or five years to change my lifestyle, pare my habits down to fix my mess. spending our way out of it is not going to be the answer. accept the pain. >> the question is accepting the pain and how much -- and how do you do it? that is where politics is involved. you think you're living within your means in different ways. by a two-thirds two one-third margin, americans say government is doing too much that should be left to business.

will, should we forget the stimulus talk and let washington get out of the way and just trust the private sector to start hiring? >> that's certainly a good principle to start with. i do think that ken is right. we're in a very unique situation that can, in my opinion, extend beyond recession and resembles things like 1930 more. yes, let's enable the private sector in whatever way we can. but in order to address the federal government deficit, we can do reform entitlements, medicare, medicaid. social security at the same time doing short sterm like infrastructure and education. i think that's a way, a responsible way you could address both of our problems at the same time. >> tax reform, education reform form. all these are easy, simple things we should be able to do quickly. >> two-thirds of americans don't want to cut their entitlements. >> who cares? >> it's all the same. >> thank you so much. if you want to know anything

about financial crisis, you have to read ken rogoff's book. it's require reading to understand the economy right now. thanks, guys. up next, why the companies on president obama's jobs kouns council know how to create plenty of job, just not for you. [ male announcer ] introducing the ultimate business phone -- the motorola expert from sprint. its powerful tools help you work faster and smarter so you can get back to playing "angry birds." it lets you access business forms on the go, fire off e-mails with the qwerty keypad, and work securely around the world so you can get back to playing "angry birds." it's the android-powered phone

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[ male announcer ] want to pump up your gas mileage? come to meineke for our free fuel-efficiency check and you'll say...my money. my choice. my meineke. president obama has a jobs council he can turn to for advice. but just whose job are they concerned with? richard quest joins us and senior vice tight legal ger in fortune. and alfred edmond. president obama -- >> i will not be satisfied till everyone who wants a good job that offers some security has a good job that offers security.

i won't be satisfied until the empty storefronts in town are open for business again. >> when it comes to fixing unemployment here at home, is president obama seeking advice from the right people? many of the biggest companies represented on the president's job council bring in the majority of their revenue from sales outside the u.s. alfred, is it too cynical, that this council could have something to do with securing corporate support for the campaign trial? and not really creating jobs in this country? >> i think that's a cynical look. but i do believe you really need to diversify the kinds of business leaders who are providing advice for this job council. you have to look at some of the companies that have most of the work here in work and then work with the larger global leaders to address these problems.

>> a lot of people are making their money from economies growing elsewhere. >> there's a thought that the private sector are going to solve our jobs problem. but these are companies latching on to markets that are growing overseas. which is where most of the growth is happening now and makeshifts there. they're benefitting from that. it doesn't mean they don't have good ideas. these are some of the best people in business. these are the biggest names in corporate america. i think they can still offer good ideas. but i think small businesses is where we can really see -- those small businesses are really feeling the pain and it might be interesting to get more input from them. >> and that's what they say, too. they say they have not really -- some of those big small business groups haven't been invited to the table. richard, there are those on the left in this country who say the jobs competitiveness council is more like a job outsourcing council that the president is listening to. >> a couple of points. first, the companies you're talking about, yes, they do make

a lot of their money, most of the revenue in many cases outside the united states. but those profits those companies create goes into the shares and the dividends that then make up people's 401(k) plans. so it's not a zero sum game in that respect. it's in everyone's interest that those companies do actually create wealth as well. also the sort of ceos that you're talking about know how things have to be done on a macro scale. when you're talking about shifting an economy the size of the united states, introducing new policies that may not have obvious effects one way or the other, you really do need to have the big players because they can put it into proper context. >> i will just say that for many people who are out of work, to hear that, look, you should just be an investor of this country that's how -- i mean, they want a job and these companies are sitting on

$2 trillion in cash and aren't hiring. the people out of work -- >> when it comes to job creation, this is the role these companies can really play. outside of the federal government, they are the biggest spenders in the united states. if you're looking for small business to create more of the jobs, then the larger multinational corporations have to find more ways to spend money with these smaller businesses -- >> the other issue is that many of the things they've suggested are things that have been suggested before. they're all good ideas. but we need to put them into action. training, making more jobs in tourism and construction are great ideas. but we have to turn them into action. that really hasn't happened yet. >> let's stay on small business. this summer, more than half of all small businesses say they'll be shrinking their workforces as opposed to adding jobs, according to a report from the national federation of independent business. when asked what the most pompbt problem facing their business is, 1 in 4 said poor sales. and that leads to less hiring. less hiring turns to poor sales. what does it take to break the

cycle? >> this is a really interesting point because small businesses -- if you look at big corporate america, profits have never been stronger. across the fortune 500 are huge. small businesses are not seeing that. the fact that sales is a problem means that people aren't buying enough stuff. big companies can cut costs and reap huge profit gains, but small businesses can't do that. it highlights the same divide going on between wall street and main street, it's happening between big business and small business. >> we saw another statistic this week that $15 billion was how much small business loans fell in the most recent quarter. two reasons -- banks are stingier with their lending but also small business didn't want to take on new debt. they were not going out asking for new debt because they're in a position where they feel like they can't because their sales don't reflect it. >> the point here is really that the recovery post-2008 recession, the problem is it's

not a demand-led recovery. that's what's been happening in previous recoveries after a recession. it's always the consumer. it's always the demand that has pushed things forward again and that's not happening this time. now, larry summers, former treasury secretary and adviser to the administration, writing in "the financial times" this week has been talking very much about how the policies need to be adjusted to create more demand. the problem, of course, is everybody's stuffed to the gills still with debt. they don't have any equity in their homes. that's another problem. it's going to take time for this to work its way through and the pipeline of the economy. >> stick where you guys are. we have a lot more to talk about to run through all of this. when it comes to making money in the stock market, it might be better to leave that to the woman of the house, the difference between how women and men invest next. [ nurse ] i'm a hospice nurse.

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2010 was a great year for stocks with the s&p 500 gaining nearly 13%. that's just one of the reasons that members of congress may not be feeling your pain. among the wealthiest members of congress, house minority leader nancy pelosi is worth at least $35 million. that's according to new financial disclosures. that's up 62% from 2009. one of her republican colleagues in the house, darrell issa, is worth $220 million. that's up 37%. he made his money before he came to washington. richard, you got the royal family in london. so you have some rich people there. but this is supposed to be the people's house. from your point of view across the pond, is america just a nation run by a bunch of rich people? >> oh, please. please! get off your high horse on this

question. all right. so there are a couple of rich people in congress who either have made their money through family connections or through other enterprises before they went into politics. but does anybody think that nancy pelosi has gone into politics to make money or indeed anybody really goes through the grunt and the grind of getting into the house or the senate -- what point are you making? there are rich people in politics? >> yes. i think you are going to to understand what i mean by this. people -- these people, they've got a lot of money. we're talking about the average household income in this country, $50,000. do you think that it disconnects them a little bit from what's going on? >> i think for most people in congress -- you don't go to congress to get rich. you're not getting paid enough. >> but you can't go to congress unless you're rich. >> that's the issue. it's harder and harder to really become a political

representative, a congressional representative if you either don't have a lot of money yourself or you don't have access to a lot of money. and in an economy where people who are middle class and lower middle class are struggling, it doesn't inspire confidence in your representatives to know that they really can't feel your pain, for the most part. but it's going too far to say that they're going to congress and getting rich off going to congress. >> what do you think, leigh? >> we can find plenty of examples of people in congress who aren't millionaires. >> and it's taken barney frank about 30 years of being in congress to be able to amass $1 million, i think. >> but even talking about the people who built their wealth before coming to congress, if they're invested in the stock market, that's great. that's the equivalent of having a ceo invested in its own company. you want the people to be incentivized to bring the economy back -- and that is exactly what is happening. >> except we're talking about an economy with a stock market that's going up but people aren't getting jobs.

>> that's true. that's a very fair point. >> hang on. one thing you do need to think about. never mind how much money they've got. what about the benefits that they enjoy while they're in congress? that, perhaps, is more important -- the pension benefits, the sickness benefits, the medical benefits. it's those things that perhaps means they can't understand the difficulties of ordinary working americans. >> and that is probably very true. i want to talk about protests against austerity measures in greece. this week, they turned violent. there are fears of a possible greek default, taking its toll in the u.s. on markets as well. could it get worse here at home, too? alan greenspan thinks a default by greece is, quote, almost certain. he says that that could help drive the u.s. economy back into recession. richard, why would greece defaulting on its debt potentially cause such a catastrophic outcome for the united states? >> firstly, if greece goes, does ireland and portugal -- the

contagion effect. secondly, just as important, the confidence factor. and the lehman effect. who in your counterparty is good for their money and who is not? of course, a small country like greece has no direct effect on the united states. that is a given. but the ripple effects as they move out from the mediterranean, that's where you need to be worried. >> we started with class wars. i want to move into gender war now, if we can. that is always not confrontational. are women less likely to get in on risky ipos? when it comes to investing, seems women and men have very different strategies. a new study show that is men have a higher risk tolerance than women. men feel better about trading frequently and trying to time the market and they tend to get less stressed about it. women, on the other hand, tend to have a greater desire for self-control. leigh, it's you and me against richard and alfred. are we better investors? is that what i take to this?

>> yes, women are better investors. if you're measuring it by how effectively to invest, how much money they make. for a long time, the investment clubs were big. studies showed that all female investment clubs outperforms the mixed jend interall male clubs. women don't have their ego tied into being right. they're much more willing to say, you know what, maybe this isn't the best thing to say in. we get into it and we're like, this stock is going to perform and i'm going to hold on until it does. >> tell us why we're better investors? >> the risk is a big part of it and the emotion. it is true about the risk thing. we have a 40 under 40 list at "fortune." and every year we get a lot of flak but there aren't a lot of women on it. it is solely because, this has been proven. women don't take as much risk. it takes a lot of risk to try to start a company like google. you won't find a woman entrepreneur who's started a

company of that size. that's changing and we hope it will change more. i can't until that list is 50/50 or more. it's really true. we don't take risks. we don't raise our hand in a room full of men. this is behavior that is true. a lot of people have actually said the financial crisis might have been worked out differently if there was a woman in the room and might not have taken the risks we did. >> at the highest echelons of any business or any government, it's important to have a mix of men and women because you can temper the risk of soberness and analysis and good judgments can be made. >> if i was to sit here and jug ses the opposite, you would be the first person to shriek sexism at me. women do slow and steady while men are boom and bust. >> women are the long-term stock and men are a tech bubble, is that what you're telling me? is it back to the days of the tech bubble? some are wondering if this

internet radio company, pandora, if it's bubble time. pandora went public. it's the latest in a slew of initial public offerings for historicically unprofifthible companies like linkedin and groupon. pandora shares have swung wildly. what's driving the demand for companies that have yet to become consistently profitable? it feels like '99 to me. >> it is not the same at '99. >> good. >> a lot of the ipos and tech companies from the tech bust before, it literally was air. literally you could not explain the profit model. i think there's some of that still here now. and i'm not sure i totally understand pandora's story. but i think there are other companies that are going public now, that there is a credible story and that it's not total air. >> what do you think, leigh? >> well, there is certainly some froth out there. the market is famously susceptible to psychological factors. my dry cleaner told me this

morning that facebook is going public next year. that's a sign of the times. you never want to say it's different this time. but these companies, there are five big, big ones. not counting pandora. there were 300 in 1999. these companies, these five, actually all of them, even twitter, they're making money. linkedin -- these companies are profitable. linkedin has 100 million users, tons of revenue. there are the financials to back this up. there hasn't been access to these companies. people have been waiting a long time this time around. it's tempered. there's not a -- i can see why people are comparing it to 1999. it is a little bit different. >> but it's all about the facebook ipo. that is the holy grail, the facebook ipo. >> nope, nope, nope. your other guests -- in 1999, we said it wasn't like the previous bubble. >> i know, yes. >> then it wasn't like the previous one.

the fact is we -- path to profitability, we heard. we would be better off holding our nose, saying it's a bubble and working out how we're not going to be carrying the can when the doo-doo falls on us from above. >> look, i'm a woman, i'm not taking these risks. >> thank you all so much. love the conversation. nice to see you all this weekend. we hear every day about the pain caused by home foreclosures. find out what it's like to live in foreclosure city, usa. e -- the motorola expert from sprint. its powerful tools help you work faster and smarter so you can get back to playing "angry birds." it lets you access business forms on the go, fire off e-mails with the qwerty keypad, and work securely around the world so you can get back to playing "angry birds." it's the android-powered phone that mixes business with pleasure. so let's get our work done, america,

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take a look at this. foreclosure filings have been on the decline now for eight straight months. this is according to realty track. in may filings dropped 35% compared with the previous year and 29% fewer homes were repossessed by banks. but for one town, plainfield, new jersey, that is not the reality. there, the bank owns more homes than anyone else. here's poppy harlow. >> reporter: at a bird's-eye view, plainfield, new jersey, may look like a lot of small towns in america. but when you walk the streets and talk to folks here, you start to realize,s the bank owns a big chunk of the city. >> i moved in three houses and three of the houses that i've lived in have foreclosed and i was forced to move. >> reporter: of the roughly 9,000 homes in plainfield, nearly 900 are in foreclosure. that's almost three times the national average. >> it's terrible. my kids have to walk past these empty houses.

and i'm afraid for them. >> reporter: you won't find padlocks or boarded-up windows but it's not tough to find people thousands of dollars in debt on their homes. right here on east front street alone, there are 25 homes in foreclosure. and just down the way on berkeley terrace, you'll find eight more. crime is now rampant here. police spend their time breaking up gang activity. dermg which came first is a chicken and egg situation. do you feel as though the amount of foreclosures, really the foreclosure crisis in this city led to this increased gang violence? >> there may be a relationship in terms of certain areas in the city of plainfield where some of our residents have been laid off who feel hopeless at this point. >> reporter: the highest density of foreclosures is near gang violence. 123 within a half mile. but there are hundreds more all over town.

>> the town is going down. taxes are going up. we're suffering. >> reporter: today, home prices continue to fall. there are layoffs in the schools and the city has cut 50% of its workers since february. at rise and shine restaurant, the owner says business is slumping. >> there are ups and downs. some days are better, some days are slow. it's tough. >> unless something can turn around, we need a miracle. >> reporter: a miracle. >> we need a miracle. >> poppy joins me now. what do the banks say about foreclosing on so many homes? they are essentially the homeowner in this town. >> absolutely. what i always think is interesting is the difference between a bank owning a home and a human living in it is a bank doesn't fix things they don't buy things in the town and support the town the way a homeowner does. we reached out to two of the

biggest lenders in new jersey. bank of america just gave us a statement saying they're committed to helping their customers retain their homes. wells fargo says they're working with their borrowers to avoid foreclosures. but when we asked both to come on camera with us, some experts said we didn't have people available. we wanted to hear from them what's going on in this area and how to fix it. >> in many cases, residents were renters from someone who owned the home. then they get bumped out. >> three times. >> and if you're the bank, would you rather have somebody paying rent or have an empty property? they have to start designing some programs that make sense. i think i scary thing, what does it mean for the town long term? 1 in 10 homes in foreclosure. that one block had 25 homes in foreclosure. can you imagine if you're up to date on your taxes and your mortgage if that's your neighbor? it hurts you a lot. the mayor of the town said they've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. that affects job. they've cut half their workers

in less than a year for the city. >> it affects the school system. >> it's the ripple effect. if you have a high unemployment and it's not getting better, it doesn't matter how much your loan is modified. if you don't have a job, you can't pay it auto al. >> poppy harlow, thank you so much. it's an important report. when the markets pull back, investors run for cover. but there are some safe ways to invest your money. we'll walk you through it next.

if you checked out your

401(k) or investments in the last month and a half, no one would blame you for feeling a little bit kweezy. whether this is a correction or a troubling sign of worse days ahead, it is no surprise that many americans are nervous about their money. but there are sectors that historically perform well during a volatile market. matt mccall is author of the book "the next great bull market." matt, what are the strongest sectors in this type of a market? >> this type of market, you look at sectors that -- things that we need. so you look at health care, consumer staples, utilities, things that no matter how good it is day-to-day, no matter how many people are unemployed, we still have to wake up every morning and go buy diapers for the kids. it's going to be things we're going to buy no matter what's going on. >> we're showing people the consumer staples, select sector spider. this is an exchange traded fund, xlp, the ticker symbol, up 16% over the past year. >> this is things like kraft, procter & gamble. when kids wake up and hungry for

lunch, you're going to go buy some kraft macaroni and cheese. you'll be buying things we actually need. sure, they -- if the market completely sells off like a couple of years ago, every stock gets hit. you look at what is called, the staple, the staple is the fact we have to go out every darn day and buy products that are made by the companies that make up the exchange traded fund. >> not sexy but a little bit of a return. that's what you're looking for when the stock market is going sideways or lower. for folks that want to invest but safely, you picked a stock and etf. let's start with kraft foods. ticker symbol kft. same kind of concept. >> same kind of concept. what's nice about this as well is it pays a 3.4% dividend. >> just owning the stock, they're paying you to own their stock. >> they're paying you 3.4%. think about trying to get a cd or money market these days. 3.4% is a lot of money you're getting each year for holding this stock. not only that, this stock is up 10% this year versus the market, only up 1%. it's actually had a very nice run. again it goes back to the -- i hate to use the word things, but things we need to buy. this company, you look at a chart, it is very strong.

so this is stock i'm looking to buy on the pullback we had in the market. this is a great opportunity on kraft. >> that pullback is a reason to step in and get it, that's a good time to buy. >> absolutely. >> the etf, top drug and medical related stocks. the ticker is xlv. it's also had a little bit of a pullback. >> it's had a little bit of a pullback, and this is the opportunity. a lot of people say, man, matt, i want to buy stock, an etf, but it's hitting a high. i tell them, wait for the pullback. xlv is pulling back to the sweet spot that you want to be buying and it's a lot of the big drug companies. johnson & johnson, merck, pfizer, names that people didn't like for many years but now they have made a comeback. again, you had this emergence of the baby boomer that has a demand for health care. whether it's drugs, medical equipment. this etf gives you a basket of those stocks without taking that company specific risk to get exposure to that entire health care sector. >> matt mccall, the book is "the next great bull market," three incredibly interesting picks. we'll watch them for you.

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ago, yet we're still behind in subjects like math and science. only 14% of all undergraduate students enroll in a s.t.e.m. subject. science, technology, engineering, math. a third will switch out of these fields and only two in five will graduate with a s.t.e.m. degree or certification within six years. as the president said this week, quote, these are the jobs of the future, the jobs that china and india are cranking out. those students are hungry because they understand if they get those skills, they can find a good job, they can create companies, they can create businesses, and create wealth. and we're falling behind in the very fields we know are going to be our future. we need quality education to get back to the top and we need our leaders to make it a priority. sure, it's a complicated and controversial issue, everyone from teachers to parents to unions and reformers, they have an opinion. but if we're serious about our future, serious about our economy, we need to get serious about educating the next generation of americans. let's start by making it part of the political conversation.