investigates reports of shots fired just a couple of blocks away from the white house last night. gunfire was heard around 9:00. secret service official says an ak-47 was recovered near an abandoned vehicle. coming up at the top of the hour we'll take you back to pennsylvania. ow athena jones is live on the campus of penn state. students there are getting ready after the week that was, getting ready for a football game starting in just a few hours. i'll see you at the top of the hour. right now, "your bottom line." is college worth the cost? it's a question so many families are asking right now. we're going to answer it for you once and for all. good morning, everyone. i'm christine romans. plus, my number is 63. what's yours? what do you want your number to be? do you know what it is? do you even know what we're talking about? aisle explain and tell you why your ability to influence has become a numbers game. we begin with a question. give a co-worker a hug. is that sexual harassment?

bun definition. sexual harassment is unwelcome verbal, visual or physical conduct of a sexual nature that is severe or pervasive and affects working conditions or creates a hostile work environment. in 1990, 6,000 charges were filed. 20 years later, nearly twice as many. it's not just happening at work or associated with politicians. it's even happening in schools. 48% of seventh to twelfth graders experienced some form of sexual harassment either in person or electronically through texting, e-mail and social media. rick newman is with u.s. news & world report, joining us from washington, the vice president of education and employment at the national women's law center. let's talk first about the statistics. the fact that we are now talking about sexual harassment from lockers and lunchrooms all the way up to a presidential race.

>> absolutely. unfortunately it's the case. the study released just this last week showing that nearly half of boys and girls experience sexual harassment in schools is really traveling, but what was more troubling was that less than 10% of them said that they reported it to anyone. >> does it show a culture? a culture where we are using -- we're using this? we're using sexual identity or harassing about things that are just so personal, starting at a very young age? >> well, you know, unfortunately, this isn't something that is very new. it's been going on for a long time, but i think what's really been good and sort of recent is the focus that both the media and federal enforcement agencies and even congress has been paying on both harassment and bullying in schools. that focus has been important and hopefully will lead to good policy changes in this area.

>> rick, i want to bring you in. you cover politics and the economy. you're actually saying this sexual harassment scandal, mccain says he's not guilty of, did not engage it, but it's got us talking about it. overa overallyou're saying it's good for america, why? >> we don't know what the facts are. >> this is not an indictment of herman cain, it's in the public square now. >> we've heard all of these cases about herman cain allegedly asking for sexual favors which he didn't get, by the way. we're used to a lot of cases where something terrible happened and years later people suffered and so on. how badly things went awry. the guy in charge been get what he wanted, as far as we know. in other cases, they may be different. these women also felt comfortable complaining. lower ranking women who worked at the national restaurant association when cain was working that. they felt comfortable to stand up to the boss and the

association took their claims very seriously from what we can tell. no evidence they dismissed these women and said you're overreacting. in a way, the system worked. again, there's a lot we don't know about that, but this was more than ten years ago and what this shows is, clearly there's a growing institutional awareness that this is a real problem. don't dismiss women who complain about this type of thing and take it seriously. >> in the past 24 months, i want to ask you both, one sursfra the society for human resources management said 36% of employers reported seeing claims by an employee or employees over the past two years. as many as 95% of fortune 500 companies actually have liability insurance that includes any kind of settlement or claim against sexual harassment. what does this say about corporate america? it tells us this is part of doing business. they're insuring against it and one-third of companies say they've seen it? >> well, unfortunately, what is

the case is that even though there has been tremendous progress over the last 20 years in terms of women being more likely to bring charges into complaint, too often sexual harassment in the workplace still goes unaddressed and although employers now mostly have policies and do trainings, the fact of the many harassment charges that continue to be brought really says something about it continuing to be a problem, and i really think in this economy, there's a concern that we aren't seeing the full range of harassment charges that should be brought, because people probably fear bringing these cases in the first place. >> but so many women don't want to even be bothered, quite frankly. they see it lapping around them or have seen it around but don't want to be -- someone told me this, this week. i don't want to be that woman. i want to get through this and get my head down because there's always going to be "that guy." rick, that's a cynical look at

corporate america. >> yeah. and i -- another thing is, we've seen these protections put in place at the senior level of corporations, where theoretically the most chance ever damage to the corporation. i -- it would be wishful thinking to believe that sexual harassment is being addressed seriously throughout all companies especially in less professional environments. it's an ongoing problem and it's just going to take, frankly, years of awareness. not just awareness among young girls and women, awareness among young boys and men, make them willing to step in as well. >> thank you both. come back on the show again soon. thanks, guys. have a nice weekend. next, how to bring opportunity back to the united states. plus -- why your ability to influence why your ability to influence others is all about the numbers. spark cash gives me the most rewards of any small business credit card. it's hard for my crew to keep up with 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. 2% cash back. that's setting the bar pretty high. thanks to spark, owning my own business

has never been more rewarding. [ male announcer ] introducing spark the small business credit cards from capital one. get more by choosing unlimited double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet? this guy's amazing. some folks call me a rock star, some call me the mayor... and i love it. and, i make everybody happy. i keep my business insurance with the hartford because... they came through for me once, and i know they've got my back. for whatever challenges come your way... the hartford is here to back you up.

helping you move ahead... with confidence. meet some of our small business customers at: thehartford.com/business i don't think about the unknown... i just rock n' roll. consumers er wanchai ferry orange chicken... over p.f. chang's home menu orange chicken women men and uh pandas... elbows mmm [ male announcer ] wanchai ferry, try it yourself. with listerine® total care. its multi-action formula works to restore enamel, help prevent cavities, and kill bad breath germs for a whole mouth clean. whooo... [ male announcer ] listerine® total care. the most complete mouthwash. requires more than wishful thinking. it requires determination and decisive action. i go to e-trade and get unbiased analyst ratings and 24/7 help from award-winning customer support to take control of my finances and my life. i tap into the power of revolutionary mobile apps.

to trade wherever. whenever. life isn't fully experienced sitting idly by. neither is investing. [ birds chirping ] is america still the land of opportunity, or is it rome before the fall? you decide. cicero is believed to have said something like this in 55 b.c. the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest rome fall. sound familiar with the nearly

$15 trillion in debt, still giving nearly $40 billion in foreign aid, will our story end like rome's? big government, big promises. slow growing economy, can't keep all those promises. bring in john, teaching global competition. you show your students slides like this. the chinese city of shenzhen. only about 30,000 people lived there in 1929. fast-forward to 2010, a population more than 10 million people. look at that. a skyline that is unbelievable. mckinsey, by 2025, china will build the equivalent of up to two chicagos every single year. john in your lectures you tell america to stop whining and start competing. >> yes, you know, christine, the issue is very simple. we have new competitors. we're working really hard, doing a great job and we have a choice. we either complain about them, like we complained about the

japanese and say, oh, they shouldn't compete, or we accept the fact that these guys are going to do the best job they can to improve their economy and we have to do the same thing. so i tell my students and people across the country, it's time to stop whining and time to started playing serious ball. >> bringing in the ed ter in chief for multimedia. how do we get opportunity back? how do we do it? >> well, one of the things we have to do and i think americans are doing, is redefining what opportunity means. it used to be, i apply for a job, go to school, apply for a job, get a job and do a good job. it's much broader, less clearly defined. it means free lancing, consulting, starting a side business and trying to get and maintain a job. >> this is why people feel unsettled. they feel there's no clear path for them and then see the rest of the world rising quickly. they see what's happening in china. opportunity in china and here we're feeling like, what are we supposed to do?

>> i happen top think we do a disservice when we worry about the rest of the world. one your own race. what's happening in china impacts you, so you should be aware, but it shouldn't be what you're thinking about as you're trying to decide what is the best way for me to provide for myself, provide for my family and to seek out the opportunities for the future. >> you're really into entrepreneurship. >> definitely. the black enterprise conference every year. amazingly, maybe not, does better in bad economies. more people either by force or choins say there's this thing i always wanted to do i'm not working, now's the time to do it. >> maybe that's the silver lining. you point out boomers lived through the glory days in this country and are desperate not to lose any ever the promises they've been granted in this new period of american austerity. i don't mean to blame the boomers but the boomers really had it good and want to make sure they keep it. >> well, i'm a boomer and i'm going to blame my generation. we took the government's credit

card and spent it up to the max and then broke the credit card and now are saying, the government's broke. we have all this debt, but don't touch our social security. don't touch our medicare. don't touch any of our entitlements, and that doesn't make any sense. if we're going to turn our economy around we boomers have to take part of the responsibility for getting us into this mess and right now i'm not hearing that from boomers. >> you know, alfred, we look to government for solutions, but some of the promises that have been made, you say look to yourself but don't look for the government to help you out here at this point? >> don't rely on the government. our generation, i'm a boomer, too, and our parents' generation trusted institutions whether it was gfts or the big company they worked for to kind of provide for them. now we know we can't rely on them. doesn't mean we shouldn't expect anything from them, but we have to adopt a model of personal responsibility in addition to institutional support, and i think that that's really going to end up being a good thing in the long run. i agree with john.

the greatness of america, we made decisions good for us today but always thought about future generations. certainly in the african-american community. we thought about what was bet for future generations. to return to greatness we have to do that again. >> are we close to the fall? >> not close. >> rome before the fall, john? >> no way. we're america and can turn it around but we have to be responsible to the younger generation and we have to stop whining and we have to understand that what made this country great was entrepreneurship, if we don't get back to it we'll have real problems. >> we'll have you back and talk about solutions and keep going because this is a fascinating conversation. thank you, guys. >> thanks. my number is 63. anderson cooper's is 81. justin bieber, 100. these aren't just numbers. they actually mean something about your influence in social media. we'll tell you all about it, next. the markets never stop moving. of course, neither do i. solution?

td ameritrade mobile trader. i can enter trades on the run. even futures and 4x. complex options, done. [ cellphone rings ] thank you. live streaming audio. advanced charts. look at that. all right here. wherever "here" happens to be. mobile trading from td ameritrade. number one in online equity trades. plus get up to $600 when you open an account. the progresso chicken noodle you made is so good. it's got tender white meat chicken. the way i always made it for you. one more thing.... those pj's you like, i bought you five new pairs. love you. did you see the hockey game last night? [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. [ male announcer ] it has an hd webcam, killer audio, and lids that switch to start every semester fresh. but mostly it helps me try new moves on and off the court. ♪

[ male announcer ] featuring windows 7 and windows 7 live messenger. for a limited time, purchase select dell pc's and receive our holiday photo solution. our gift to you.

kim kardashian. she's a 93. the white house, it's a 79, and george clooney, he's a zero. what do these numbers mean? it's their clout score on twitter. right. now measuring how influential you are in social media. it's so much more than how many friends you have or how many times you tweet. joe far and in ez is the founder and ceo of clout. he's a 65 by the way. joe, people are suddenly talking about this number that is the way they measure how influential they are on social media. how do you measure how -- how do you measure influence? how are you doing it? >> yeah. i mean, it's definitely a big challenge. what we're looking at is all the content you create on facebook, twitter, google plus, linkedin, wherever, and understanding how people react when you create that content. so if i talk about what movie i saw, how many of my friends are

likely to see that content and go see the movie? if you're talking about the company you're starting, what impact, what ripple effect does that have through social media? >> all right. jeff, i want to bring limb in covering median technology for forbes pap score of 58. i checked. why do we care about this score, first of all. second, how can we use this kind of stuff to define ourselves, to grand ourselves and in business to try to show other people, customers maybe, what kind ever influence you have? >> i think part of the reason we care about the score is we just love keeping score in general. >> we do that. >> i don't know. you're a 58, i'm a 63. i want to the close the gap. >> how are you going to do it? >> hopefully -- >> on twitter, everybody. >> there you go. but i think that when we talk about people putting it on resumes it shows you people are trying to show how they can harness social media. as a business. as a brand. as an image. this whole new arena.

it's hard to figure out how to gauge your influence on it. >> absolutely. and i think that companies, it's a great idea to put on your resume or at least to sort of tally it. how many job interviews there are. companies are trying to re-invent themselves for this social running companies are maybe not as older or are not as fluent in the social language. and so they're extra interested in bringing people into the company who are fluent and they can prove it. >> it's interesting you say that because i was talking to a job placement recently who said you have to know what a hash tag is. that's what she does, she's starting to teach, especially 50 something people who are looking to retrain or rebrand themselves. the technology is how you are defined now. >> absolutely. i can't tell you how many people i know have left their jobs or lost their jobs and gone on to reinvent themselves as social media consultants. >> joe, let me ask you, reinventing yourself as a social

media consultant, people putting themselves on a resume, for example, i have 300 facebook friends. but the way you measure influence, it's not necessarily how many friends you have, but how active they are and whether they're acting on what you do and say. >> yeah, absolutely. so we look at your friend count or follower count as a very small aspect of your overall influence. i mean, because you see people out literally buying friends and followers. and -- but what we really care about is the quality of the content you create and how people react to it. you know, if you say something and, you know, oh, your network gets excited about it, that's important and that's what the cloud score is all about. >> how do i raise it? >> the internet has a short attention span. it's the challenge i have. you get busy and you look up and it's been a week since you created any content. so getting a repetition and not being afraid to just be yourself. everyone is so worried about, oh, no one is going to care about my opinions, but the

reality is your friends do care. and as you get comfortable kind of expressing yourself and sharing your feeling, you'll see that the impact of that grow. >> we're showing a chart right now called the half life of a tweet. explain ta to me. the bigger your score, the more your tweet lasts, right? >> yeah. so the idea, if you watch twitter and it's this stream of information and you generally, when you tweet something, it just disappeared. but the higher your cloud score, the more amlification your tweet gets spread across the network. and the longer your thought, your tweet, your idea lives, that's an important measurement of your influence. >> it's just the whole world has changed so much. itted use to be you would take your briefcase, your bag, your laptop and went to work, got a cup of coffee, and now there's a whole new arena out there, too. thanks for trying to demystify this for us.

it's a pop ewe lar money myth at the moment. you've heard it, right? college is too expensive and there aren't enough jobs, anyway, so why make this investment? ali velshi is stopping by to answer this debate, whether college is worth it. americans are always ready to work hard for a better future. since ameriprise financial was founded back in 1894, they've been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them. helping millions of americans over the centuries. the heart of a one-to-one relationship. together for your future. ♪

when someone changes lanes without warning? or when you're distracted? when you're falling asleep at the wheel? do you know how you'll react? lexus can now precisely test the most unpredictable variable in a car -- the driver. when you pursue perfection, you don't just engineer the world's most advanced driving simulator. you engineer amazing. ♪ with listerine® total care. its multi-action formula works to restore enamel, help prevent cavities, and kill bad breath germs for a whole mouth clean. whooo... [ male announcer ] listerine® total care.

the most complete mouthwash.

all right, we're back. many of the questions we cover on this show every week you can find in our book. it's call "how to speak money" and i wrote it with my friend and work husband, ali velshi. >> everybody speaks money differently. the job market is different. >> a high school grad was always guaranteed a job with paid vacation, retirement, pension. >> pension. >> those days are gone. anyone entering the job force

needs to think about the right education and training and that probably means a college degree. >> most jobs. some questions, now, whether is a college degree is worth it. christine and i agree entirely on this, that a college degree is worth it now more than ever. let me just tell you about this. the u.s. employment rate has hovered around 9% for the last couple of years. but if you break down the unemployment rate by education level, check this out. the higher education level you have, the less likely you are to be unemployed. only a high school diploma is a rate of 10.3%. bachelor's degree, it falls to 5.4%. >> if you break down the median weekly earnings by education level, you can see the same trend. if you have only a high school diploma, you're making $626. a college degree, that number jumps to $1,038. these are nebs from the government. everyone can see that. we'll tweet them out again. those are numbers from last year.

it's a dramatic difference. >> here is where the argument comes in. college is expensive. many students graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. that's why it pays to be smart about what you're going to study, where you're going to study and pick a school you can afford. >> private universities cost $5,000 a year. the most expensive are $50,000 a year. that makes for a total tab for your college education if you're just paying $25,000, a hundred grand. a rule of thumb, never graduate with debt that exceeds the annual salary that you're expecting to get for your first job. >> many schools offer an education that is just as good as private school education for a fraction of the price. so you really, really want to do the research on this, as well. >> and a lot of people are looking for community requirements for college education later on. next, you have to prove what you want to study. both ali and i are liberal arts majors, liberal arts degrees. and you have to be careful about

picking majors. >> if you want to study french or english or religion, you'd better have a road map where you're going. if you want to make money, science, technology, engineering and math. the top ten majors with the highest median earnings are all st.e.m. jobs. compare that with counseling, psychology, $29,000 per year. good job, you help people out, you don't make a lot of money. >> the highest paid english majors are technical writers. they're taking that liberal arts education and using it on s.t.e.m. choose a school you can afford, study a subject with high earnings potential that you like. you'll set yourself up for financial success down the road. >> and this is one of the topics that we cover in our new book, how to speak money, it's in stores now and available on amazon.com. i'm christine romans