agenda, and the role in the 2010 midterm elections. and later, kathleen christensen offers some ideas about the structure of work needs to be realigned for the 21st century work force. "washington journal" is next. host: the president will have an address at the washington hilton. the rest will be hunkered down due to what may be the largest snowstorm in the last century in the city. good morning. welcome to "washington journal." today is saturday, february 6. the unplanted numbers came out, and we are going to be talking about that from a different perspective, so to speak -- the

unemployment numbers came out. we have divided the numbers. there is the number for those who have a job and you are working. 0002 is for those who are looking for a job, and 202-628- 0205 is for those who have given up looking for a job. if you are held maker, we are going to consider that job. if that is your job, by all means, use that number. this is the story in this morning's "baltimore sun. it kind of place things out for us. it fell for january, but dishes 8.4 million jobs were destroyed in the last two years. one person at the tribune

newspapers rights that what was reported by the labor department was tempered by revised data showing the country lost a staggering 8.4 million jobs in the last two years, about four times the net job losses in the deepñi recessionary period of te 1990's and 1.2 million more than previously estimated. the severe destruction of jobs since 2007, when the latest recession officially began, means that it will take years for millions of distressed families and the economy as a whole to climb back from what is being called the great recession. the article goes on to say that factoring in the growing u.s. population and new entrants to the job market, the estimate the job player -- employers would have to create more jobs over the next three years to fully recover from the effects of recession. by any measure, a labor economist at the economic policy

institute says that is a tall order. employer payrolls are still falling, although by just 20,000 in january. so we are talking about jobs, jobs, jobs for the first 45 minutes of the program. we're going to start out with someone who has a job. good morning, stephen. caller: good morning. i am still working but will be retiring sen. our views and the way that we perceive things have not changed -- i will be retiring soon. things were based on a one- income family years ago where, let's say, the man worked mostly. the women normally did not work, or if they did, it was very supplemental, ok? ok, so now, let's say a man makes $100,000 per year and his

wife makes $30,000. she gets laid off. a lot of people feel this way. they are writing it off. hey, it is one year off with pay -- they are writing -- riding it. we're going to have to ration shops in some way. if we are going to be -- we're going to have to ration jobs in some way. two people who are taking up two jobs, increasing their income, and in the meantime, we are providing social networking accommodate year, lunches at school, after-school care, all of the benefits that parents have -- networking, other things.

i am civil service. i am going to retire with a% of my pay, a wonderful pension that was changed in 1984 -- with 80% of my pay. it is a pair of time young people will not understand. no, no, no -- it is a benefit young people will not understand. i am truly blessed to be in that category, and i know it is the last of a generation. c-span.org host:host: thank you. let's go to hawaii. >>caller: it is pretty much take what you can get. 80% said in a 85% of our economy is based on terrorism, -- 80% to 85% of our economy is based

on terror -- tourism. i have lived here for 19 years. in the paper, there would be 1.5 pages at a minimum of jobs listed, and now, there is less than a column of jobs. there are more postings for people seeking a job, so there are very few alternatives out there for you whenever you base your economy solely on one given industry. host: what kind of work were you doing before you got laid off? >> actually, i was not laid off. the business closed. i was working for a video store. previously, i had worked in the hotel industry. the hotel i worked for was closed. they demolished in in rebuild it as time shares. -- they demolished it and rebuild and -- and rebuild it -- rebuilt it.

instead of being the normal 20 or 30 job applicants if there is a job listing, there will be to wanted, 300, 400 applicants for just a medium job -- there will be 200. they keep talking about different ways to build our economy. they are going to have to find a way as soon to get other types of in point besides tourism if they want to sustain the islands. we are currently at a $1.80 billion in debt. we are having furlough fridays. our students are now every other friday are out of school. this is a nationwide news that every other friday, the public schools are closed because there is not enough money to educate the kids. we are going to end up with a generation of undereducated, unemployed, homeless, young adults at the rate we are going. host: ray, we are going to leave

it there. good luck. whether you are looking for a job or have given up. bill is from west virginia. you have given up looking. why is that? caller: these categories are always a problem. when you have your regular ones, i call in on the independence, but what i really am is a and a republican, and you do not have that -- i call in on the independent, but what i really am is an anti-republican, and you do not have that. i think we have got the right man in as president, and i think things are going to improve. things are very, very bad, and we came very, very close to disaster, and that was because of this miserable pill because

republicans who ran us into a ditch. thank you -- a miserable -- the miserable republicans. thank you. host: the economy shed 20,000 jobs, according to a government report that contains conflicting signals on the health of the country's labor market. the mixed jobs data was released amid turbulence. european markets fell sharply as fears about sovereign defaults in the euro zone savidge sentence for a second day in a row after a volatile day of trading in new york. the s&p closed up 0.3%. we are going to be talking about the effects of the stock market on the economy a little later on the program. next up, she has a job. go ahead, nebraska. good morning, georgia. what kind of work do you do?

and are you confident you are going to be able to hold onto this job? >caller: that is a good question. i work in industry that deals with freon, whether for cars or the nac or business. it is declining -- for ac or business. what do you do if a person is at of work? do you feed your family, or do you put air-conditioning in -- if a person is out of work? if your car air-conditioning goes up of work, and do you fix it, or do you roll down the window -- goes out of work? host: how many of your co- workers have been laid off because of this downturn in the refrigeration business? >caller: 9.

it is a very small business. we are fortunate to have an employe year -- none. it is a very small business. we are fortunate to have an employe here -- an employer. we are lucky he has not laid us off. is getting to the point that it is harder to keep the doors open, and with the new tax reforms -- is getting to the point that it is harder to keep the doors open -- it is getting there. we have cut everything to the bone. host: georgia, the thank you very much for your comments. the president was in baltimore, just outside of baltimore in lanham, maryland, when he met with some small-business owners -- georgia, thank you very much for your comments.

we will then take your calls. >> the zeb and zimmer's years for our economy. the greek this downturn -- these have been great downturns for our economy. this has been the greatest downturn in years. we took some unpopular steps when we took office to break the back of this recession. today, we received additional news suggesting that we are climbing out of the huge hole the refined ourselves in. last january -- that we find ourselves in. last january, the month i took office, almost 800,000 lost their jobs. today, we learn that the job losses were 20,000. the unemployment rate dropped below 10% for the first time since the summer. manufacturing employment grew last month for the first time in three years, led by increased activity in the production of

cars and trucks and automotive parts. these numbers, while positive, our cause for hope but not celebration. -- are cause for hope but not celebration because so many of our friends and family are still out of work. we cannot be satisfied when another 20,000 joined the ranks and others are underemployed, taking whatever work they can. host: and those are the numbers on the screen. the unemployment numbers. 9.7%, down from 10% in december 2009. total job loss, 20,000. we get these numbers from the u.s. bureau of labor statistics, and we will have some more numbers for you as we go through the throat -- program. back to the fund's, richmond, va., the white, you have given up looking -- back to the telephones, richmond, va.,

dwight, you have given up looking for a job. caller: job discrimination. americans had better wake up. we are being targeted for termination, it is discrimination, and it is just widespread. host: dwight, how long have you been looking for a job, and what evidence you have that racism is behind your not being able to find a job? >caller: well, i was actually fired from a huge corporation about six months ago, and it was a very hostile, racial environment, and i had worked there for 2.5 years. c-span.orhost: can you say where working? caller: yes, at st. mary's

hospital. i started looking around, and all of the african americans were being terminated. once they isolate you -- after a while, it is what happened to him, what happened to her. there are about nine or 10 people and left, and nobody knows why. -- nine or 10 people who left. host: you called in on the looking for a job -- not looking. caller: i am still looking, but i think we need to accept the reality that there are severe problems. there are very severe problems, and we need to start to address them. host: thanks for your call. some more numbers from the bureau of labor statistics, going to a little bit about what dwight was talking about, the unemployment rate by race. black unemployment was at 16.5%.

the spanish -- hispanic over 12%. again, these numbers come from the bureau of labor statistics. south florida, linda has a job. go ahead. welcome to the program. caller: good morning. hello? host: i am year. go ahead, linda. -- i am here. caller: i am thankful to have a job. they have made it almost impossible to obtain the bonus with the changes they have made. also, they made it where you have to be to work exactly on time. if you log in one minute afterwards, you are considered late, and you can be penalized

for that, and i am just wondering, are they doing this because of how the job market is out there? they just make it where you really do not want to go to work. the job market is pretty bad out there. they are doing what they want to. host: we have got some reactions to the job numbers from various members of congress. this is from the republican whip, eric cantor, the talks about investment, and investors need clarity. instead, the president, speaker pelosi, and leader reid perpetuate an environment of uncertainty with the threat of even more mandates and red tape that prevent job creation. there at are the ideological proceeds of washington, like cap and trade, the push for

government health care, and carr did check. it has created such great uncertainty -- and card check. the president's budget fails to focus on jobs. back to the telephones, detroit, susan is looking for a job. good morning, susan. al is the job hunt going? -- how is the job hunt going? caller: i am a registered nurse. i am college educated. i think they have failed us. when the big three was talking about taking jobs overseas, that was so unfair to us. we cannot live on the payments that they give people overseas. however, i think that our leaders need to invest more in the schools. and particularly the big three, they should be in the schools, teaching the children what skills they should have in order

to do our manufacturing, and that is all i have to say, and i would again repeat, our leaders have failed us. the governors, our state representatives and senators and city leaders, and thank you for taking my call. host: susan? susan, are you still with us? ok, let's go to tampa, florida. sonya has given up looking for a job. why is that? caller: i would not say i have given up, but the reason i have chosen this line is that i have a rejuvenated attitude. i am now going to create some type of a business that i am able to be an asset to my community and bea financially supportive to my family. i have a college degree. i worked in corporate america. if you want something, you now

have to think outside the box. i think there is something that can be done that i am able to help people in my community and also be employed, so what i am doing is a non-profit, where i am coming back to my community and helping people that are not able to pay their bills, and assistance, finding ways to help people get through the tough times. i have been going to our churches and getting reforms, is just taking one step at a time, but i have a rejuvenated attitude. -- i have been going to our churches and getting referrals, just taking one step at a time. i had been handling worker's compensation claims at a senior level, and i just had a burned out attitudes, where i was tired of shortchanging the injured worker. -- i had a byrdak attitude -- a

burned out attitude. not feeling any type of spark to give me some kind of encouragement that i could create this, and i listen to the president. there are things that you can do to create. quipsters never win. winners never quit. -- quitters never win. i have to think outside the box. what can i do to help people in our community but also what to do to build some kind of career. the church has been referring their members to me, and i have stepped in and charged a small fee, and it has been referral after referral after referral, and now i have to be more creative to get funds and some type of funding to build this. it is just one step at a time, and i am very encouraged. c-span.ohost: the next call.

caller: i have lost about 50% of my clientele. i work for myself. i have been self-employed for about 11 years, and thinking for c-span. i have been watching you guys for about two years now -- and thank you for c-span. i get up just to see you because you are like the only media outlet that is telling the truth. i was a delegate for the ron paul campaign, hopefully getting back in for 2012. i am having to deal with a couple of my credit cards, and it almost makes you feel less american having to do that. host: what do you think about the previous caller from detroit

who says that now is the time to start thinking outside the box and that you have to kind of make your own opportunity? >caller: well, i was listening to that, and i really like what she is creating. it is going out there and helping other people, now that you have the time to do something like that, but, you know, i kind of went down on my prices because i have lost a lot of my monthly clientele, and, you know, it is basically only the ones keeping me above water are my wealthy clients. i strongly work through referral basis. but i strictly work through referral basis. -- i strictly work through referral basis. host: why do not advertise? we will leave it there. -- why do you not advertise? we will let our viewers know

that this week on "newsmakers," our guest is david axelrod, and during part of the interview, he talked about the possibility of lifting the payroll tax for a while to help get the economy going. >> senator schumer and senator hatch it proposed a payroll tax holiday, which would have the effect of putting some bucks in people's pockets and in the cash register right away. >> we discussed a similar idea. the notion was we were right on the cost of hiring, growing this country -- right on the cusp. people hiring large numbers of temporary workers. and that is generally a pre-lead to hiring. the notion is if you give people a little added incentive -- and that is generally prior to hiring. we are receptive to that.

host: you can see the entire interview on "news makers" would david axelrod. it is also online right now at www.c-span'.org. finding out about your job situation, if you have a job, are looking for a job, or have given up looking. our next call comes from michigan. tara is looking. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to make one little comment. tomorrow, on "q&a," you have a wonderful person, and i encourage people to make time to listen to him. i guess that is right around football time, but it is repeated. now, i am calling because i think my comment is an address to what one of the senators said

that they did not want to approve some job because, good heavens, they would want to put unions in, and i am so glad that the unions are out because those people were making wages that they could buy cars, and then, of course, their wages were good enough so that they could take vacations, even to hawaii, where that person is lamenting the fact that there is no tourism. then, of course, they have those good jobs, they can go out to dinner and go to restaurants and help the owners of the restaurants, and also, there would be a waitress and waitresses that have jobs -- there would be waitresses and waiters that have jobs.

now, they only went to pay a minimum wage or something equal to that -- they only want to pay minimum wage. host: what are you looking for now? caller: i was self-employed, and i designed gardens and do landscape-types of things. mostly, my work is in the design area, and, of course, people are not spending as much money on flowers and enhancing their surroundings because, of course, they have to save their money for utility bills or home repairs or different things like that. host: tara, are you looking because the work is not out there right now or that it is seasonal and that most of michigan is covered in snow? >caller: i do work outside of

the state of michigan, too. in michigan, we are lucky. the snow has bypassed us. we have had a very mild winter, for which we are all thankful. host: i am sorry we have to cut you off. we have to move on. speaker pelosi said today's jobs report marks a welcome step in the right direction for our economy and our families. the unemployment rate is going down. the recovery act, which congress passed one year ago to pull our economy back from the brink of collapse, has already created or saved nearly 2 million jobs so far. next up is from long island, n.y., stan. stan has given up looking for work. why is that, sir? go ahead. caller: i have only one question. i have been trying to get through for one month. i keep track of the jobless claims from the labor department

of each state on the business channel and bloomberg's channel, and they said 20,000 jobs were lost in january, last month. we lost more than that in long island, and the new claims that i have for the month of january is 1,874,000. and a new claim is a lost job. i do not get where the 20,000 comes from. host: tell me a little bit more about choos situation and the work that you were doing. -- more about your situation. caller: i was in engineering. there is no more jobs. it is impossible. host: so what do you do to get by, stan? caller: i live on social

security, a wife and i. i lost my house. 10 years and 10 months -- my wife and i. host: baltimore, maryland. are you concerned about your job and that it may not be there? caller: i am not all that concerned. i just started working again. i got outsourced last year, and there were jobs between the outsourcing and the job i have now. i believe it was the middle of december, the 14th, i believe. i was actually working for a government contractor, so i assume is going to be there for awhile. host: all right, thanks for your call. in "the washington post" on their jump page, there was a headline. they write, "the new jobs report

contains some conflicting signals, particularly the decline in joblessness alongside the contraction in the number of jobs. the two sets of data are based on different surveys. the unemployment rate is based on a survey of households, while the payroll numbers comes from a survey of employers. in the long run, these to be measures attracted together, but in the short run, they can diverge -- these two measures track together, but in the short run, they can diverge." back to the telephones. caller: it is dead. there is nothing to be had. host: is that there is is nothing in the winter? caller: nobody can build, and nobody can buy. you can get some small remodeling jobs, but other than that, people are trying to keep

the have put together. it is definitely very short. actually, i have had my own company, a small construction company, for nine years, and i started applying wherever i can, and you just do not get the callbacks. i just do not understand the numbers. i know you just read the article about how the numbers can conflict, but how can the numbers be this when you lose jobs? it is like saying you got a raise and are making less money. host: 84 your call. it was written in "the new york times," time is running out -- thank you for your call. politicians are clamoring aboard, but very few are telling the truth about the structural employment problems in the u.s. and the extremely heavy lifting that is necessary to halt are declining living standards and get us back to an economy that

is self-sustaining. we do not hear a lot that is serious about the sorry state of the nation's infrastructure or the trade policies that crippled so many american industries or our inability, or unwillingness, to compete effectively with china when it comes to the new world of energy for the 21st century or our at gipp failure to provide a quality public education for the next generation of american workers, scientists, artists, and entrepreneurs -- and are abject failure. -- our abject failure. caller: i have given up. i graduated college in 1990 and then went into the military and got out in 1996 and hit the job market running, and i just saw myself spinning the wheels.

i really did not start to pay with close attention about why the job market had problems until about 2000, 2001, and we are in 2010, and since i have been out of college and the military, i have been looking, always looking, looking, looking, and last year, i had just totally given up. you know what? i see how this is being played out. host: what kind of work are you looking for, alan, if you do not have a job, how are you going to get by? caller: you really do have to think outside of the box. i am thinking outside of the box. i am probably going to start looking at other economies, but i have a pretty good support system. you look how the laws are being implemented, how the people are being treated, you can kind of see how things are being played out. host: thanks for your call. more from "the financial times"

this morning. the u.s. data shows a mixed picture. james writes that economists had been expecting the u.s. labor market to begin returning to normal in the coming months amid roaring productivity and strong annualized growth of 5.7%. there were some encouraging signs beneath the headline numbers. steven stanley and rbs in connecticut says it confirms our conviction that the labor market is gradually turning around but wishing that payrolls would improve faster. the average workweek increased by 0.1% to 33.3 hours -- increased by 0.1. these reflect trends that are expected in a labor market recovery back to the telephones. georgia. roger has a job. tell us about that job, roger.

caller: can you hear me? host: yes. what kind of work do you do? you are a house painter? and how is the work down there where you are? caller: i would like to ask two questions. how is it that they do not want the government involved in their lives, but they want the government to make jobs for them? also, how can the economy grow when the minimum wage is less, and the supermarkets and the food and the gas is sky high? have you expect this economy to work when the minimum wage is low against high gas prices, shipping jobs overseas? how can the economy grow on those two things? host: this article in "the

financial times," roger, says wages have increased per hour. is that in the neighborhood of what you are making? caller: no. lower. yes. in the south, things are in the will cheaper, so i guess that is why people hold back more, you know? host: how much are you making? caller: i am making $12 an hour. host: can you support a family of $12 an hour, or are other is chipping in? caller: you know, god gives away -- or are others chipping in? caller: you know, god gives a way. host: next caller. caller: oil, gas, the timber

industry, those jobs were killed off by regulation from the environmental movement landgreen labor union -- movement and greedy labor unions. these are jobs that cannot take away from us, but these are jobs that because of unions environmentalism, we do not have any more -- anymore. years ago, my grandfather made $40 per hour. i would take a mining jobs for half of that now easily. host: william have to go somewhere else in the country to find a job -- will you have to go somewhere else? caller: i will have to go back to college. i am thinking the only jobs that

are safe for government jobs, and i am strongly thinking about getting a teaching degree -- the only jobs that are safe our government jobs. host: thank you. a representative of new york had this to say regarding the january jobs report. she says the report showing a drop in unemployment provides fresh evidence that the recovery act has got to the economy moving again and is helping to get americans back to work. we have, a long way since 779,000 jobs were lost. while we still have a great amount of work to do and far too many americans remain unprocessed or underemployed, today's report is an important sign of progress. it shows that the gdp growth is now having an impact on the labor market and making a difference in the lives of americans looking for work. and speaking of looking for work, we have got keith from pensacola, florida. keith has given up looking for a job.

why is that, keith? caller: i got laid off in november 2008, and then i went back to framing and doing odd jobs. i have done that for the past year, a little over a year, and then when i would think i could find another real job or whatever, i do not have a computer, and it seems that everything, you have to have a computer to send an email for a job obligation, so i am justly to keep trying to find jobs. it is crazy out here. there have got to be more people of their do not have computers. -- more people out there that do not have computers. a feeling it is a discrimination thing -- i feel like it is a discrimination thing.

host: you feel you are being discriminated against? caller: yes, people without computers. you cannot look for a job because you have to have an email address. , the library or the center. does that mean i have to go there every day -- go to the library or the center. that is crazy. host: good luck. our next caller has a job. tell us how secure you feel it will be for the next year. caller: i am a homemaker, always -- also 80 years old. i am a kid of the depression. i was born in 1929. i keep hearing all of this stuff about small businesses. small businesses are great for people just entering the market or retiring, because, as the,

they are family owned, and if anyone gets any raises or promotions in small businesses, it is the kids or the cousins or the nephews. anyway, what i really wanted to say was what ended the depression was world war ii. all of the empty buildings that used to be factories were re- tooled and made all of the stuff for the war. a lot of women for the first time in their life probably went to work. and those who did not go into the service, the men, they had good jobs. now, i hear about more of this stuff is made overseas, so if we do not bring the jobs back and stop the outsourcing, there will be in a jobs. and that is all i have to say. host: all right, then let's go to south carolina. that call has gone -- there is.

south carolina. -- there is. -- vera it is. -- there it is. do me a favor and turn down your television. caller: i used to work for a company. we used to install robots around the country for manufacturing, and the company has basically collapsed and gone under. i moved to south carolina in the greenville, spartanburg area because of the automotive and manufacturing down here, and every time i find a job, i have got to go to a recruiter, and the recruiters, it seems, cannot get in the door to a factory, so even though i am qualified, i cannot even get an interview, and i am frustrated the tissue can go to a careerbuilder, you can go to monster, craigslist --

and i am frustrated because you can go to careerbuilder. host: how long have you been looking? caller: the last few months. i have seen jobs. i have seen jobs that i can walk in the door and start immediately and handle and be productive for the companies, but i cannot get past these recruiters. host: well, good luck with that, and thanks for the call, john. we are going to take a break and check in with a caller who is studying over at oxford, and she is going to be talking to us about an early draft of the u.s. constitution that she found. lorriane, are you there? guest: i was visiting from

oxford in philadelphia to do research on the draft there. i do not think people really know the treasures that are available with the historical society of pennsylvania. these are some of them. on the back of what they call the first draft, i noticed that written upside down was a draft of the preamble and a couple of sections of the constitution. these had been transcribed in 1911 by a yale scholar and an historian, and it was supposed to be followed in what was published in 1911 by a document that begins in "continuation of the scheme," and the numbering starts over. i cannot find that document as well as a couple of others. because it was the day before thanksgiving and patron traffic was slow, i was allowed to go

into the back vaults and go through the papers. i found an otherwise unmarked box that had volume two on it. i pulled it out and began looking at the documents that were there, looking at some of the most precious documents, including this, the continuation of the scheme, which has been forgotten for at least 99 years, and there was a third earlier draft of the constitution. host: so tell us a little bit more about james wilson, and why is it so important for us to know about him? guest: well, wilson was a scottish immigrant. he was a brilliant attorney. at the time the constitution was written, he was probably considered the most knowledgeable, the most eminent constitutional attorney in the united states. he was in line for the supreme

court chief justice position, but, instead, it was given to john jay, and he was merely an associate justice, because he came from pennsylvania, and pennsylvania, largely because of wilson, who was the second to ratify the constitution and the first large state. in addition to drafted the constitution, that is one reason why this draft is a significant, and that is that the way it is written, you have a piece in one place, written upside down. the thought process stops. wilson bridge briefly sketches out his continuation of the scheme, -- wilson briefly sketches out his continuation of the scheme. there was the continental congress convention, discussing independence, and the constitutional convention, the state ratification debate with pennsylvania, he had put together, and he would not allow

documents such as these, which show a scattered thought process, to be seen by others, so in my opinion, this demonstrates that he wrote these drafts of the constitution by himself as part of his appointment not only by the constitutional convention to sit on the five-member committee that was called the community to add details, but he was also selected by that committee to draft the constitution by himself, and so, in my opinion, wilson is the constitution -- is to the constitution when jerson is the declaration of independence. he drafted it. -- what jefferson is the declaration of independence. host: if you want to get more information, you can go to their website. we were talking to lorianne updike. you talked about this scheme. what is the significance of that

title? guest: well, if you are titling something continuation of something, you are continuing something you already started, said the document is in outline form. the beginning was in prose form, which may be somewhat distracting to some scholars, but if you look at the title, continuation of the scheme, it is that he is continuing a thought process, and these documents are pieces and are very different, and that title helps link them together. that and the flow of the constitution, which is paralleled in this document. it is a brief outline, and the scheme is just another word. it is an old word, an antiquated work, for plan. host: when you were doing your research, did you know this document existed, or was it a complete surprise when you found it? guest: i expected to find it.

what was interesting is that it was not with the other drafts of the constitution. it was not considered a draft in 2009 right before thanksgiving. i was surprised on how it was written. a piece of it was written upside down on the back of another draft. they did not know where it was, in fact. they did not know how to find that document until i told them the call number. it was just in a box in a unmarked folder. guest: so you are kind of like a constitutional indiana jones. caller:-- host: so you are kinde a constitutional indiana jones. guest: without the risk. host: you are studying at oxford. guest: yes, and last year, i

decided to come and start steadying, and i want to start studying constitutional rights of our constitution in england, so there is a lot of that here. there was summoned by the name of blackstone. -- there was someone by the name of blackstone, and i would like to pursue that. host: lorianne updike from toler, thank you. if you want more information about her organization and the early draft of the constitution, you can go to their website. we are going to take a short break, and when we come back, we are going to be talking about the stock market and its impact with nick baker. we will be right back. >> "in depth" welcomes the author of over 40 books, his

latest on winston churchill. that is live from london, sunday, at noon eastern on c- span2. >> it is really easy to just complain about the issues or the politicians of the day. i have tried to be entertaining, informative, and relevant, obviously, but in a way that offers solutions. >> progressive talk radio host and an author, thom hartmann is our guest on c-span's "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: talking about the economy. good morning, and welcome to the program. guest: good morning. host: worry grows in europe.

there are fears that the problems of continents may hurt the global economy. tell us about the machinations of our stock market and what the folks on the other side of the ocean are worried about what is happening in new york. about why the focus of the others cited the addition -- about why the folks on the other side of the ocean are worried. guest: the worry is that some of these european nations, like portugal, greece, are facing their own issues, and the thought is that those sorts of problems will creep over here, and if you find that banks start feeling as a result of these nations having difficulties, that is the kind of thing that would affect our economy. banks could stop lending as much. certainly we saw at the end of

2008, when banks stopped lending, that was certainly not something that was very helpful for our economy or our stock market. host: "the new york times" piece talks about worries that troubles me push even big european nations, like spain, into a financial crisis, and then drove the euro to $1.37. the question is now, how big will this fire be? what is panic, and what is legitimate? we do not know at this point. answer that question or address that question for us. what is legitimate? and what do we need to be worried about on this side of the atlantic? guest: it is difficult at times. you will find that there are fundamental issues that people are talking about. they are talking about the inability of european countries to pay back their debts. you are seeing the euro decline.

you are seeing companies being concerned about their growth prospects. but that is kind of a fundamental view of things. you can also look at things in a behavioral sort of way, and it is important to note that people get scared. there was the collapse we saw at the end of 2008 after lehman brothers fell apart. some of that was a fundamental reaction. lending stopped. people had to start pulling back. but at the same time, it is also driven by fear, and fear is a very powerful thing. if you talk to someone like warren buffett, he is an investor who very much understands that. psychology drives that. the economy is going to do what it is going to do, and you can think about a line that goes up and down. the line is driven by optimism and pessimism, and so, while he may find a slowdown as a result of these issues: on in europe,

what determines this is sentiment. how do people feel? how do consumers feel? does it scare them enough that they stop spending? how does it affect companies? there may be a slow death because of these problems in europe, but how scared to people get? -- there may be a slowdown. people got scared. a lot of jobs were eliminated because of that. economies work the same way. economies as a whole, if people get very frightened, that would just amplify the problem, so it becomes important to assess up that fear aspect. i think he is right to say that sentiment played a role in that, and that is the part that is more difficult to control. the president of any nation is going to be able to do with that person is going to be able to do in terms of setting fiscal policy, but how people react is going to be the important driver

of how something can be. host: we are talking with nick baker from bloomberg news bg is coming to us from new york. if you would like to call -- from bloomberg news. he is coming to us from new york. here are the numbers on your screen to call. if you're calling from outside the u.s. this morning, that number -- you can also send us an email and also twitter. the address is c-spanwj. our first call for nick baker is on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: this whole economy and the wall street people, they are the ones that created this with

derivatives and all of this stuff that they tried to make us believe in, and now they are saying that the whole world is shaky because of the currency, when it has all been an allusion. it seems to me that there are people wearing $5,000 suits on madison avenue and at 10 downing street, and this is the new world order? host: nick baker? guest: this is something that we hear. they are angry at the wall street firms. the ceo of goldman sachs received a stock bonus of $9 million, and the ceo of jpmorgan received one of $17 million, i believe, for 2009, and it is difficult for folks to accept that when you have, what, 8.2 million u.s. jobs and the minute it during this downturn? -- jobs eliminated during this

downturn? and there is anger, at the gentleman said, at the derivatives that were created on wall street, which, a shocking the, these people did not understand. the banks themselves and didn't understand what they were selling, what they were creating, -- which, shockingly, these people did not understand. these created major, major problems for the economy, and policymakers at this point are trying to figure out how to prevent that from happening again. president obama has proposed limiting the risk taking at banks, and there is a fair number of people out there who think that is the right way to go. you essentially have to make these things very boring, going back to an old way of thinking, where they just have to lend things to people and collect money from people, and these kind of exotic trading acts of these institutions that are not big enough to take down the

economy. host: richmond, va., go ahead. caller: this has been correct since the 1960's. -- corrupt since the 1960's. .

>> i'm going to receive criticism from people that believe guest: this is something not new, the dollar weakening. host: this is a jump from the article we referred to early quarter. they write "fearful investors have started wondering if richer countries should be forced to bail out their poorer cousins.

an outcome that would have repercussions for europe and financial markets worldwide." is there a proposal put forward to help out smaller, less affluent countries? guest: there is speculation. i will note yesterday in the stock market, we had a big down day on thursday in the stock market. the day yesterday began with a pretty bad day as well. in the final hour of trading, things came back. and one of the things we heard from a lot of people was that the reason that the stock market clawed back all of its losses it had earlier in the day was there was speculation europe would come out with an announcement that they would help out their poorer nations. i think one of the pressures going on is that europe is a 16-member euro region. i think there is some question

of how tenable is that structure? are they going willing to take care of the lesser countries when they have their own pressures at home to take care of their own economy. now, the head of the european central bank said how the economy is solid, the euro-region is solid, however markets fell nevertheless. so he had has difficulty convincing people that everything is ok. it is important for the u.s. that sthr stability, simply because, as i said earlier, confidence and optimism and pessimism are what drives the magnitude of moves in the market. so if investors in u.s. traders and investors in large fund managers are fearful that europe is facing a certain future, that's the kind of thing that spooks people, and that causes markets to -- stock markets to sell off and commodities to sell off, and obviously that filters into the real economy.

again, that's the fear. you have these moves out of europe. it caused losses in markets, and does it persist? this recovery we've southeastern since last year or so, does it fizzle? and that's a question that a lot of in-- on a lot of investor's minds. guest: the question -- the article says "the focus remained on greece, portugal, and spain, and fears their debt crises could trigger a default." could greece, por tusm gal, and spain be the first dominos to fall in the stock market crisis we have had in the united states over the last couple years? >> yeah, there are people that think they are the european lehman brothers. to repeat history, lehman brothers was one of the largest

banks in the u.s. and it was allowed to fail september 15, 2008, and that's when the financial crisis hit a tailspin and things went from bad to quite ugly and to a degree that we hadn't seen since the great depression. and i think that's not that long ago, and that's in a lot of people's minds, that if you allow something big to fail, it has repercussions throughout the world. so in addition to spain, portugal and greece, and there is even concern about italy and ireland, together they are being called the p.i.g.g.s., portugal, italy, airline, and spain. host: our next call comes from

edn. on our line for independentents in mournt poconno, pennsylvania. >> good morning. this has to do with the economy. i just want to make this comment. i'm getting tired of hearing the democrats cry about what obama inherited. when we paid hundreds of millions of dollars begging for votes, now they are crying to their momies like little girls. they should stop making excuses and move on. i'm sorry if this has nothing to do with the stock market. i don't understand what it's all about. thank you. host: thank you for your call. let's parse that out a bit from the obama administration and what they may or may not have inherited. what did this stock market look like when the current administration took over and how has it changed since tchen? -- then? guest: well, it's a mess.

i don't think that is a partisan topic to note that the stock market was a mess when obama took over. so in september of 2008, as i mentioned earlier, you had lehman brothers fall apart. it was nothing that i had ever seen. the last time you saw moves like we saw was in the 1930's. i poured over the stock market, how did it look in the 1930's. you had days in 2008 when the stock market would be down 5%, 6%, 10%, 8%, which for me and for my colleagues was something very shocking. we're used to, you know, the stock market being up 1%, 2% or down 1% or 2%. so all of a sudden, you saw these amazingly exaggerated move following the collapse of lehman. you can't necessarily pin -- necessarily pin lehman's collapse on the bush administration. certainly, what occurred there was that a bailout didn't occur.

banks didn't come along and decide to buy them. instead you saw a bank like merrill lynch get purchased by bank of america. that was not necessarily a washington issue. maybe it was, but it was a bad time for the stock market. obama was elected. we had then on his inauguration day actually a very big down day. now, people who aren't fans of obama can probably point to that and say well, investors didn't like obama. others may disagree. but then we had a stock market that continued to fall through march of this year, the first two months of president obama's term. and we actually saw the seep s&p 500 fall to its lowest level in 12 years in march. ever since then, however we have seen the stock market rally, which reached as much as 70% for

the s&p 500 from that low in march. that was the biggest, fastest of the slope of that low rise. the slope of that low rise the steepest since 1930's. there is a little bit of everything in this. the bush administration ended with a horrible stock market. you can say the obama presidency started with an awful stock market, and the obama presidency has also seen a great stock market. i think that's the nature of volatility. you have these very exaggerated swings in a period like this where there are fundamental questions about the strength of the economy and the financial system. let's not forget, at the end of 2008, in is very good reason to believe that our banking system collapsed -- almost collapsed. and nationals a pretty serious thing. certainly we have seen people lose their jobs and people are worried about jobs, and a

banking system going away is the kind of thing that would cause more jobs to be lost than we have seen. >> our next call for nick baker comes from cleveland, ohio, on our republican line. go ahead. caller: i had a feeling initially that the banks had made investments and that the banks had absorbed or started the collapse of the banks. my concern is with the economy being so bad, with small businesses across the country, you have entrepreneurs doing it for years, and they have commercial properties, and things erupt. there are tons of properties going out of business, and mp scores that are -- and credit card interest rates have gone through the roof for many people, and most the reason is a lot of people are living on their credit cards because they just don't have jobs. and you have these banks that are taking, you know, huge bonuses at this point in time.

what is to prevent another lapse of bad debt from commercial properties this year and what's going to prellvent the government to step in and say, we have to win this money bank to these banks, and is that going to affect the market, too? i mean, the market affects just about everybody out there, because they are hiring people to do the big investments, like you said, are pulling back. what's going to prevenlt these banks from coming back to the government in the future saying, i need more money because now we have credit card debt out there. we can't absorb from people. companies are going out of business now. host: nick baker? guest: certainly we saw the subprime crisis. that was all about residential real estate. that started unraveling in 2007, and that was through the proximate cause of the financial crisis. people were not paying off their

mortgages, people could not afford them. that trickled into the banks, and that caused major problems in markets. there is a feeling out there among some analysts and people have been talking about this for a while now, this is not something brand new right now, at least a year people have talked about commercial real estate. again, residential real estate caused the original financial crisis, but commercial real estate. and is that going to -- are losses going to unleash another massive set of problems for the economy? so far that hasn't occurred, that there has been anything approaching the residential real estate crisis. that is a concern. the caller mentioned, who are the banks? let's go back to the government and let's say we're getting killed on commercial real estate. we need help. i have to note, the political climate has changed a little bit. it would not be quite so appetizing to people to have

these banks set out for they. that poses a risk. if you take an impartial view of these things and say we need banks to be solid, we need banks to survive because we need them for the help of the economy. but look, we balede bailed them out before, and look, lending didn't necessarily rise. so they didn't -- they sort of got bailed out of their losses, but they didn't turn around and increase lending to people that would create jobs. so in that framework, if they were to go crawling back to the government and ask for money, it may not be politically viable, which is a difficult situation. if you are someone that believes that you have to have a solid banking system, then from that viewpoint you have to say, ok, we have to take care of the banks, we have to make sure they are ok. but let's not forget that there are a lot of people that are unemployed, under hch employed, and are they going to be willing to accept government giving banks trillions of dollars, millions of dollars, billions of dollars again?

they may need to, but is the political reality going to be there? i'm not sure. host: we've been talking about nick baker of bloomberg news and the stock market and the economy. thank you for being here. guest: thank you very much. host: in just a few minutes we will talk about the national tea party convention taking place in nashville this weekend with mark scota, but first we want to show you a little bit about what's going on down there. yesterday we talked with jeff mcqueen who is a volunteer athe national teaparty con vice-presidential, and this is what he had to say. >> hi, what is your name? >> jeff mcqueen. >> how many members of the media did you sign in so far? >> we had about 160 registered, and about 200 that came through all together.

>> how does that relate to the number of people attending the convention? >> about 20% right now. >> are you part of the organization? >> no, i came down here to volunteer and help out in any way i could, to speak if they needed me to, to design the flag, which is now being called the new symbol of the tea party movement. it is this flag here. >> a couple weeks ago, this flag was flying at scott brune's rally in boston, massachusetts. and this flag was snuck into the rally there, and we had about 200 of them there. >> when did these get into production? >> th i snuck the flags into the rally so the people could see the significant contribution to the party of getting scott elected. host: joining us now from

nashville, tennessee, is mark scota. for anyone who hasn't been paying attention, tell us a little about the tea party movement from your perspective and what's happening there at the convention, what are the goals of what's going on there in nashville. guest: i think the tea party movement is popular movement only in america, of course, where people are not being heard by the legislature. so i think what began to occur back in last february is the famous now sen tesm lli rant rant on cnbc, where people began to culminate in the town halls and of course the million and a half march that took place in washington, d.c. certainly the events in new jersey, the movement in

massachusetts which elected -- it is now beginning to exert political power at the voting booth. here at the national tea party convention we are helping people move to the next level. we are beginning to provide training tools, giving them ideas on how they can collaborate, how they can work closely together as they network and go back to their respective tea party associations and lead other people. >> so the front page of the "the washington post," they have this headline, the tea party is still taking shape. they write it is a critical moment for the movement that is unmistakably people-powered that is deliberately left leaderless to give hope to all frustrated. even though the mood has been festive and even giddy, the fluidity of the group has been on full display. would you describe the mood there as festive and giddy?

guest: it is amazing. i have been dealing with the media. we had 11 different countries represented, 200 media credentials, and people have just been enjoying that. on the one side, they are glad they have their own convention. it is an opportunity for people to get together with like views. in addition, people are getting their voices heard mostly in a positive way. i think we have been hitting the papers extensively. the interview you have done and others, and i think in that sense people are not being characterized in the use of pejoratives or silliness we saw earlier in the year. it is poignant to say that people are not dressing up, they are not holding signs. and unlike the approach that was taken to how they were pour trade, this is a business convention. at the same time we had great movies, and of course looking forward to -- >> when you say not dressing ep, woor showing video that featured

a guy in a green tem, i guess, and we're seeing video of a couple gentleman wearing the three cornered hats, sort of reminiscent of the revolutionaries that started off with the boston tea party. so when you say they are not dressing up, what are you talking about? >> the gentleman you saw earlier, he actually stays in character the whole time. he was the luke livingston tea party the documentary movie. we launched that and had a premier showing on thursday night. so he's been quite enjoying his notoriety, veesvee the movie, and he made for a festive event. he stays in character the entire time. there are, indeed, a couple folks who wear a hat or two, but people are basically all about business, all about learning. remember, i think your point earlier, we don't need to affiliate to a national organization. politics is all local. you don't elect someone in the

state of tennessee senator unless you live in tennessee. we saw scott brown elected with almost 6,000 people coming across the state line helping to get the vote out and helping change the face of the administration's agenda. host: we're talking about mark skoda, memphis tea party chairman and founder. if you want to call in, you can call our lines. and a special line for tea party members 202-628-0184. is the tea party the beginning of what may become a third party here in the united states? guest: we are very clear about this.

i think everybody at this meeting believes that a third party is the way to lose. the truth of the matter is the tea party movement is really a -- essentially an ability for grassroots people to energize around politics. most of these people had never been to these kinds of rallies before. they had not been involved in the political process to the extent they had been in the last year. i would argue these people have gone home, done their jobs, paid taxes, and expected the government to represent them well when that began not -- began not taking place, people said enough is enough. we can no longer stand silent. i think what you are seeing here, if you will pop your up-- a popular uprising without the angryness that you would see nor the problems of repression you see in other risings in the rest of the world. so i would suggest that what we're seeing today is a group of people that are concerned about their country and are concerned about what is going on with

respect to debt, with respect to the payoffs that are being used relative to our tax dollars, and at the end of the day, the extensive application of government in our lives. >> so if i were to be strolling through the tea party convention down there in nashville, would i see a fair amount of liberal democrat tea partiers talking with conservative republican tea partiers? >> what you would see, spln asked jesse james why he robbed banks, and he sase said, "that's where the money is." the fact is we saw in full plunder the fact there are few to no conservative democrats. we saw that in the votes taking place in the house and the senate, and i would suggest most of the people here are independentents with conservative leanings and people were -- who were classified as republicans, but most of all, what you will hear is the message of fiscal responsibility and people who will more likely associate with the republican party.

i want to be clear, this is not a republican movement. michael steele would have been so proud to have co-opted sth and steal it. i think they are looking for that singular leader to move this -- pull this movement together. the fact these local organizations send to work in their communities, as i shared numerous times, senators and congressmen don't wake up one morning in washington, d.c. what they do is start out as school board members, local councilmen, perhaps county commissioners and small-town mayors and move through the political process through which they finally change washington. he the distance between their hometown and washington has changed, and that's what they are angry about. what you will see is people who stroll through the event saying, look, we put you there, we expect you to represent us.

we want conservative values, fiscal responsibility, in particular, represented in washington. >> the tea party convention is meeting at the gaylord opryland hotel. we will go to the phone lines now. caller: i'm thinking about the tea parties now. once they get -- recently mr. brown got in. now, he's just one man. what are you going to do, just say no and block everything? help try to block everything? if he gets two or three of them in there, that's not enough to get something done with that mr. democrats. so i don't see no future in it

myself. they are like the lone rangers out there. they can't accomplish nothing. host: mark skoda. guest: i think that's a good point. when you look at this movement, it is new. it is maturing. it is only one month. from the first tea party that took place in april, that one person changed the entire dialogue on the votes with respect to health care. let me be clear, one of the things we announced yerksd the ensuing liberlt, 501-c reform. and that would represent the first principles of fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, less government, certainly states rights and national security, and the idea is over time, over multiple election cycles, the tea party can begin to change the face of congress, particularly republicans that would caucus around core values. so you probably have that right. one person isn't going to make

the total difference, but if we have a strategy and a way that we can energize the base, that would be a way to participate pailt. and there will be many ways in which the tea party will vote in people that reflect their values. when we announced the 501-c4 yesterday, i got calls all over the country because we're talking about not only raising money for candidates but the infrastructure to fund their campaign and hold them accountable once they are elected. your caller is right. if they don't vote the right way, we will run somebody against them in the next election. it is not to be authoritarian, but to say, look, you said you would vote this way, we expect you to legislate as such. host: our next call is from a

member of the tea party movement. caller: you don't really join the tea party movement. my husband and i went out to -- i also question whether the previous caller was a republican. the point i want to make is a lot of the tea party are ross perot people who see the economic troubles ross perot warned us about in 1992. nafta, the problems to the south, and economic issues, not rainfall, to flood the country with cheaper workers. you look today, the people most hurt by it are black citizens and legal hispanics. so i haven't heard a lot from him. how does he view the situation, the economic issues?

i feel many people try to take these issues and then try, because they didn't refute them with facts, they brand them with words that are rainfall, restrictionist, or xenophobe when every other country has a right to protect the citizens in their countries. and i'm not talking about legal immigration, which i do think there is probably too much of it. i think 140,000 workers brought into this country each month at a time when we were in a recession, that's too many. i appreciate what he's doing. i do wish you would clarify his position on that. host: clarify your position for pat in jacksonville. guest: that's a lot to talk about. i have lived in six different countries. i will tell you, i opened the soviet union's united parcel service and watched the berlin wall go down. i opened operations in india and

certainly opened up china. your caller is right, what is the education process by which we are preparing workers. this issue of illegal immigration tends to get overblown. yes, it is a problem, without question, but the tea party movement is focusing on the responsibility of government to use tax dollars wisely, to not have earmarks put forward, not to use our tax dollars to pay and incentive votes. the truth of the matter is, labor is fungible. that is, money is fungible. it goes where the most skilled workers are. in india you can put a job application up, and you will find you get almost 2,000 people that will apply for a job with a masters degree. you have to be realistic about what is going on globally. it is not about nafta per say. it is about america must be prepared and drive the

educational system. and people must pull themselves up, get educated, and be diligent about the skills. let me also say this -- if we can reduce the size of government, if we can reduce the amount of legislation and regulation that occurs, we can free up the productive capacity of this nation. there is a study at my heritage foundation that suggested that 60% of all new jobs are created in companies from zero to five years old. that is enormous job formation. with a $1.6 trillion budget deficit this coming year, $1.4 trillion the previous year, $3 fril trillion will be taken out of the economy, the entrepreneurship, and of course, the lack of jobs that are now being translated in the existing numbers. over time, it will charkse but i don't wish to sound pessimistic, but the truth of the matter is we need to get government off our backs, and we need to allow people to inknow vate which your

caller pat are certainly lacking today. host: our next call comes from maria on our line for democrats. if caller: let me say this, if i never speak again, let me say this -- the only people that are trying to save this country are the boys that are going overseas to fight for this country. the people that move like a thief in the night and move away after they made their profits, and moved away to another country, that put the people down here that earned that money is a liar. and the ones that help them get out like a thief in the night is a liar. host: we'll leave it there. mark skoda.

guest: well, look, there is a lot of frustration in the voice, i can hear that. money can go where the best returns are. i freeshate that frustration. i work with a number of black churches in memphis, tennessee. we have a large african-american population. to train people, to give them hope, to allow them to get the education that's necessary. the truth of the matter is, we have to involve ourselves one person at a time to provide those opportunities that your caller suggested are being moved out of this country. it starts as an opportunity to make this an attractive place to reform -- to find employment that is so lacking right now in the current recovery. host: in the "tennessean" jennifer brooks is writing about the tea party convention drawing worldwide interest and scrutiny, and she quotes the times of

london from friday, "they will proudly boast of how they have galvanized ordinary americans against run-away government spending, but a dark underbelly of xenophobia has been exposed," the "times" reported on friday. that was in response to tom tan creed owe's -- tom tancredo's opening speech to the convention in which he called president barack obama a socialist and declared cultures are not the same. some are better." >> i did hear this report in the times of london. let me say this -- i think there will be different voices in this movement with different perspectives. sometimes from my perspective, having lived overseas and having worked in many countries, the

fact is i have less concern over that. the enact is many people come to this nation and provide the knowledge they have, provide the skill set that sometimes is lacking, has been a wonderful lever of advantage for this nation. i think tom tancredo is right. it is the best system in the world. it is a place where people are getting -- coming because there is a great opportunity. my family came from yugoslavia and poland. i'm the first one in my family to get a degree. i ran a billion dollar company. all that in three generations. it is not possible anywhere else. in germany -- the word is kindergarten -- which literally means the garden of the children. that means you are growing up into an expectation to do one thing or several things well. here in our country you can come in, you can community organize, you can become a senator and a president within one generation, as our president obama has done. this label of xenophobia or

rainfall, while some people may attempt to place that label on members of the tea party movement, it doesn't ring true. while tom tancredo may have offered some perspective he has shared openly in many, many years as a congressman, i don't believe from my perspective that the issue of multiculturalism, that is the experience of people coming to this nation, is problemmatic. i will say this -- we are americans first, all of us. i am not a polish-american or a yugoslavian-american, i am an american first. as long as we maintain that point of view, and i have lived in london -- and as the caller is very much aware. london has a problem with people who look at themselves first as muslims and then british. in this country, we look at ourselves as americans first and then we self-identify among those deprupes. that is a unique and different model weçó would not see evidend in many countries around the

world. host: our next call is from shelton, connecticut. caller: i am a retired teacher, and i could see by traveling, i did travel quite a bit overseas starting 40 years ago to japan, especially, and i can see that our culture and our educational system is poor and lacking. but i think this party should limit the terms of anybody that goes to congress. they voluntarily limit themselves to two terms. i think that would be a positive benefit for the party. and i'll hang up and wait for your response. guest: my own view is that the world -- the politician who makes a career out of politicsç

is -- has never been envisioned by ourñr founders. my own preference would see and as an individual citizen, he would love to seeñr a senator r and representçó you for two ter. that's 12 years. i would love to see congressmen say i'm only going to stay in six years. tha(/j pl two terms. late wisely and go back to their day jobs. the truth of the matter is, these career politicians tend to institution lies their power. we saw that with the likes of the $300 million new orleans payout to -- for health care as a vote. mary landreau vociferously defended her position. there are other issues as w i believe the best way to term limit is by ensuring that you organize to vote them out when

ultimately they are not performing in a way that we would imagine. and by limiting government, gaining government with a smaller government fingerprint, we can change the face more rapidly. my own view is that i would rather not see career politicians. host: next up, bruce. i think a -- preface my statement, it people would understand economic theory, they would be able to put a stop to government intrusion and the cost of the boom-bust cycles we find ourselves in. a book by thomas woods "meltdown" explains basic economic theory, and a follow-uó to that would be crashpoint 2.0. if we were able to get off the

paper fiat that we currently use and retie it to the gold standard, i believe we would able to stop government intrusion into our lives. right now we have set up the treasury printing a bond and the federal reserve buying it with money they print. this allows for pligs to influence sectors of society and it disproportionately -- in a disproportionately political way, and this causes the imbalance in the economy that we currently find ourselves in. guest: i am not an economics professional, but i am aware of the monetizing of our debt. we brilliant the money and the bonds and the government buys this back. this is why we see dollars flowing into the market. ultimately the market will devalue the dollar or we'll see inflation, as you described. in the 1970's, i am young enough to remember jimmy carlter, and

we saw 21% interest rates and we saw the famous jimmy carter many lays of america. we cannot sustain that kind of debt. whether the gold standard is an appropriate action, i can't speak with any degree of competence in that respect. i know this much -- when you begin to inflate the economy with so many dollars coming in, can you look to other countries where that action resulted in economic chaos. i agree with you, i think the dirty little secret is, and many people are seeing this in the terms of government of goods, the cost of food stuff, et cetera, there is an undercurrent of inflationary pressure that is coming from the result of printing so many dollars and moving so much debt across our government. for me the solution is going to be a self-correct because the government cannot control that successfully.

host: a call from dallas. caller: i appreciate the opportunity to speak this morning. i have two short questions. one is, how many people exactly are at this convention, and two, you should disassociate yourself from the comments of mr. tancredo about people who voted for obama being illiterate and not even being able to spell the word "vote." i do not consider myself illiterate, and i deeply resent the divisional type of approach, and i just would like you to comment on both of those, and thank you for the opportunity. guest: well, let me say this, the comment you are referring to, i did not directly hear, first of all, and there are people who were in that meeting that said that wasn't quoted properly. what tom tancredo did say, if i understand, is that one must be

an informed voter. i fully support the idea of an informed voter, and the ability to understand what you are taking. beyond that, i am not going to comment on tom tancredo. and i think as a sense of disassociated myself from tom tancredo. this is a free country. a lot of people say some very nasty things. our speaker of the house talked to us and suggested that we were carrying nazi signs. this is unacceptable on both sides of the equation. i do not use pejoratives. i do not degrade people. in my tea party area, i encourage people to be informed. i was speaking ' "times" yesterday. i said you and i can disagree, but i will not attack you personally. regrettably, this is the problem with the dialogue today. when we see a person like sarah

palin being put up in a picture with a continue foil hat, it does nothing to help the dialogue. it creates emotions that are unnecessary. so to the caller's point about this idea of feeling of rainfall and xeno -- of racism and xenopobia has to stop. this dialogue is not appropriate. i appreciate your caller's point. indeed, i encourage po people to have an informed dialogue, respectful, and there is nothing wrong with being courteous even in 2010. host: sarah palin will be the keynote speaker tonight and that will be covered by c-span at the national tea party convention at the gaylord opryland hotel. that will be tonight at 9:00

p.m. on c-span. regarding sarah palin and the tinñr foil hat, mark skoda, are these same people upset when they see pictures of president obama charicatured as the joker from batman? guest: we have 600 paid delegates attending the convention, and it will be just over 1,100 at the banquet tonight. i would suggest this. i think the movement is maturing. while i don't appreciate those kinds of views, the fact of the matter is, people's sensibilities, if you will, and the political czar chasm we see and some. signage that we see going around is just that. we have gotten to that level,

because the left sees the right one way and vice-versa. so we tend to degrade the dialogue so quickly. having said that, political discourse takes all forms. i think sarcasm and even some of the signage we saw is not bullets. i spoke yesterday at the opening session about tiananmen square and the great picture of a man standing before the tanks. boris yeltsin who stood on the tanks in moscow as he began to open up that country. you look at the berlin wall, people taking that down. i was there when that occurred. you look at venezuela in a mass protest, with the addition of chavez' desire to be essentially enshrined in the presidency, and in every case, those people who protested, in many cases, were killed, take whien -- taken away and put in prison. the good thing about america is we have tinfoil hats and we go

about doing our business. as i talked to many in the foreign press -- we had 11 different countries represented. we even had aljazeera english represented. they see this as discours. so while one may have their sensibilities tested. and i found the things on cnbc with sarah palin to be ludicrous, the fact is we're not firing bullets at each other, and i praise god for that. host: while you are saying this you are hoping it doesn't become a third party, sth sarah palin throw her hat in the ring and decide to run for president, would the overall tea party members be supportive of that candidacy or looking for someone else? guest: i don't know. i will tell you my own opinion. i think sarah palin is an extraordinary woman.

she's come from simple circumstances to run for vice president. her family has been attacked. they have called her the worst kind of names. they have joked about raping her daughters. the absolute insensitivity to her downs child has been borne by her entire family, and through that all, she has persevered. through that all she's become a best-selling author, she's a fox news contribute tore, and on three different polls she's the number one candidate for a 2012 primary. i think it remains to be seen if she wants to run for the presidency. she certainly has been vetted. from my own perspective, the common sense conservative values are things that the tea party movement and many people certainly at the convention who are excited to be there appreciate and can identify with. it is up to sarah palin if she wants to run for president. she certainly will be carrying the banner of the tea party movement.

she recognizes that political action, the newness, if you will, of this absolute inknow vague through the tea party movement through participation is important to the political dialogue in america. so to that extent, i hope and pray that she will continue to support the tea party movement. and i think she will. caller: in the beginning of your statement you made a statement, they asked jesse james why do you rob banks, and they -- it wasn't jesse james, it was willie sutton during the 1930 great depression because my grandfather used to work on his car. he took the money, robbed the banks, and he brought it back to the community and he shared it with all the community. he got caught. jesse james got a bullet in his head from his own boys.

i want to correct you. if you say that again, it was willie sutton. caller: thank you. have a nice day. guest: i appreciate it. thank you for the history lesson. host: our next caller from junction city, california. caller: fas for c-span. i wish you guys could be a little more balanced some of the time and watch what goes on out there because some of the reactions from all the people get to be over the top. you guys do such a good job. as for the caller and as for the tea party, i think this is something that is a grassroots movement. it has seen a lot of names and labels from a lot of people on the outside, and when you have those kinds of situations, it's usually because you have something people are afraid of. that's kind of what sarah palin goes through, too, i think,

because there are is a lot of fear from a lot of the mainstream media and the mainstream parties out there. what my question is, the person there, mark, is that maybe someone should straighten out what exactly sarah palin is going to get paid for her visit tonight and for her keynote tonight, and where that money is going. there has been a lot of speculation about that. host: before you go, and mark skoda, before you answer, why is it important for you to know what he's being paid? caller: i think it is important for her -- she's been pounded by lawsuits and all sorts of other things. keynote speakers typically make pretty good paychecks most of the time, when they go to

places. to me it is the focus has been so strong on this people saying, she is doing this for money and she could care less about party or people, she's just doing this to get bucks. i think you hear a lot of that. i think that should be straightened out a little bit. host: mark skoda. caller: first of all, i haven't asked, and i don't care. the contract was done long before i got to this. i am amuseded -- amuzzed about the discussion of the price of tickets. we are contributing $600,000 annually to the local economy. we haven't asked for a tax break or an earmark. we are people that have believed in capitalism and have peaceably assembled at the great place, the graylord hotel, and we have a great speaker who should be

compensated for her engagement. us be clear with your viewers. let us stop this nonsense that we have socialized america that capitalism is bad. we pay people who run around with a football millions of dollars and we show up to buy $6 beers, and suddenly because sarah palin is getting an honorarium, we have a problem with it. nashville as a community is getting a $600,000 influx, plus the cost of rooms, plus point taxes paid. frankly speaking, i think tea party people are proud to be assembling here. and the fact c-span is broadcasting this live, and fox news, and cnn, and 11 different

news organizations, the interest here, the skills we are developing and ultimately the message we are p spread sg that cap flimple works, people can choose, and i will tell you that the excitement is absolutely palpable. host: the d.c. bureau chief of "the new york post" writes "t.e.a." is for "toss them out." he says all the idealism falls against the rocky shoals of reality. the political word they want to influence is a world of compromise and is no place for purity. that is precisely how the american founding fathers designed it. at best, these tea party folks have just one success at the ballot box, scott brown's

come-from-nowhere victory to take the massachusetts senate seat once held by ted kennedy. your response? guest: i think he's behind the curve. yesterday we announced the 501-c-4. it's a nonprofit. we understand the need for compromise. let's look to the facts here. in the initiation of ferks when the first tea party started to the million and a half people march into washington, and then the tea party movement got involved. i was directly involved, as well. i made phone calls on behalf of the new york 23 district where it was decided not only to withdraw from the race, we took a guy from nowhere and almost got him to win. people need to understand there should be a more responsible way to organize and influence elections. scott brown was a very good example. because these tea party movements resulted in those wins

as well as great candidates. let me be clear about what we are doing, and to his point, which i think is behind the curve. we looked in my own district where we -- in west tennessee, where we see district six and eight having seen retirements from the likes of bart gordon and john tanner, when we look at marion barry, when we look at blan much lincoln who is having trouble as a u.s. senator in arkansas, where chambliss is a freshman congressman and we'll probably see a major announcement on monday. those are five key races that we can very quickly influence and indeed organize around this common model and put people in the congress and senate around these values. i don't believe there is a security test. there are some that would believe that we need to be absolutely clear as a litmus test on what should be undertake yefpblet but the pragmatic people here at this convention

here in particular recognize that first you have to have someone with the integrity and character to defend those first principles i have been speaking about, and then secondly, to the greatest extent possible, vote those acks at the legislative level. finally, if they don't, people can choose once again to suggest other candidates and or be able to take them out of office. so this notion of -- that the tea party movement is irrationale or has a purity test, i think we have moved well beyond that. there is a maturing in the tea party movement that will be evidenced in 2010 through the primaries and ultimately thrut general election. caller: let me see if i can explain to you why i think the tea party mosme is a racist mosme and a false movement. first of all, your first major

protest was three months after president barack obama took office, and the majority of the signs that were held up denigrated this president before he even had a chance to institute any of his policies. number two, you people have chosen sarah palin as one of your icons. you are run by tick armey. fox is not a news channel, per se, fox is a propaganda unit of the right wing republican pearlt. you are not rad vow indicating holding any of the republican candidates accountable for the shambles they have made this economy in. as a matter of fact, you are distinctly anti-left, anti-democratic, so you aren't holding any of the criminals accountable. host: mark skoda, go ahead.

guest: look, we have to stop this, all right? this is far more complex than the suggestion the caller has made. we're not racist. the fact of the matter is, we've been paying our taxes, working hard, sending our families to church and school. barack obama in the first three months passed a trillion dollar jobs package and we still have 10% unemployment. in my city of tennessee, i am concerned because i work in the black community extensively. i raise money for private schools not funded by the government, and the reason i do this is because i recognize the government is not always the solution. we have unemployment approaching 17% in the black community, and that's problemmatic. those issues go across democratic-republican. it is about as i said earlier that this movement understands that government has so mired us in the legislation, the regulation, and ultimately has starved capital information, so

that these jobs that you want, that we're simply opposing the president, does ring true. i am not one to simply offer opinion. i think we have a clear strategy going forward. i hear the frustration in his voice. frankly there were no criminal actions by the proceeding administrations. bill clinton, george bush, barack obama, they are our presidents. i disagree with the spending that's going on in the current administration, and i disagree -- by the way, prior to the health care deal being brought down, i was working with lehman to build a brief, a filing, to actually litigate against the health care bill to the fact that there is nothing in the constitution that allows the government to mandate that you buy something. so let us have a dialogue. let us understand that we will

disagree. these people, like you and i, they work, go home, they pay taxes. i am proud to be associated with these people. host: our last call comes from matt on our line for republicans. go ahead. caller: good morning, gentlemen. mr. skoda, and c-span, two reasons why i know this country is going to be -- mr. skoda and c-span are two reasons i know this country will be fine. c-span provides an invaluable service, and the tea party does also. i know who sarah palin is thanks to c-span because i saw her on your show nine months before she was picked as a vice-presidential candidate. i looked into her background and said, hey, this is somebody this country could use. the administration that followed bush, the current administration , not just the president, not just the fact that he is a black

american, it's government in general. the tea party is america's way of waking up and saying, hey, government, knock it off. when you talk to people, they have demraints about republicans and the democrats. people don't like this over-reaching government and the over-spending, and the tea party is our way of speaking out. . we must have the discussion.

this will influence politics for the incoming cycle. i am pleased to share our views. i hope to represent the best way possible. thank you for your time. host: c-span will be covering a c-span discussion live at 11:50 a.m.. tell us about what they will be talking about guest. guest: and posted it remarks to me get back. i think she will be talking about the tea party movement and how people getting involved in politics and part of the process is much more than energy. it is about responsible citizenry. host: i am talking of the panel that happened this morning at 11:15 a.m. guest: i will be talking about many things today.

also, direct response with respect to the organization and ensuring liberty and how we are beginning to take the tea party movement and allow people, should they choose, to participate in a way to change the election cycles. we will have a good dialect. -- dialogue. you can talk and ask questions and we will provide hours perspective. i am looking forward to that panel. it'll be robust. i am looking forward to sharing our views. host: is to want to tune in can see that and 11:15 a.m. on c- span. live from nashville, tennessee. guest: we appreciate it. host: only come back, we will be talking about workplace flexibility with kathleen christensen. first, we want to show you a bet that the past week through the eyes of some national editorial cartoons.

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>> washington journal continues." >> kathleen christensen joins us. she is the co-editor of coeditor workspace flexibility. welcome to the program. guest: good morning. host: tell us about how this volume came together. where did the research come together? guest: that is a good question. this volume has a history that goes back 15 years the sloan foundation in the mid-90s recognize that we were looking

for a major change with the fact that middle-class women were not only entering the labor force, they were staying there after their children were born. even though we knew that culturally it had not begin predict academic scholars and realize what was going down with the american family. what was clear from the research that we supported beginning in the mid 1990's was that there was a fundamental structural shift within the families. it change arithmetic of the families. where there had been to jobs and to adults, one job breadwinner, one homemaker -- we now had three jobs and to adults, to bread makers, one homemaker -- two adults,, two breadmakers. the demand outstripped the resources of the two adults in the family. the situation was worse for

single earner households who were turning on much greater. what was clear from our research was a there is a structural mismatch between the way families had changed and the way the work place had not change the dough this volume -- changed. this volume was done to find out what was happening within the family. equally importantly, how businesses were beginning to change and what role government took to address these changes. host: when you use the phrase "workplace flexibility" what kind of flexibility are we talking about? guest: what we are talking about is for employees to have more control over the number of hours they work and when and how they work the hours. a fundamental principle of flexibility as we defined it is that it has got to be a win-win.

it has to equally work well for employees and employers. there are three types of flexibility, flexible work arrangements which a what people need on a day-to-day basis if they are working full-time, when you can control when you come in and when you leave, compressed workweeks or you may work for a 10 hour day. or reduce your hours and more part-time. a second type of flexibility has to do with time off. that could be short-term time of, let's say have to stay home because someone is coming. longer-term time not because there is an illness in the family. then there is what is not often thought of, a third type which is career flexibility. most people think career is a straight line.

for most people, it is not a straight line. there is a need for multiple points o entry. host: i think we discuss it with a giant snowball. who benefits from this research? who would want to take this book, on a snowy day that we have in washington today and plow through this? how would that benefit them? guest: there really are three audiences for this book. there are those families who are really trying to understand what is happening. in most cases, the issue of work family conflict has been seen as a private problem that recalls private solutions. and let people think it is just me. in fact, it is a structural problem. the workplace has not changed to

keep pace with the work force. there are also scholars who will continue to try and understand what is going on within the american family as well as what is going on in the american workplace. there are businesses. there are interesting chapters about what businesses are doing with regard to workplace flexibility. one of the intents of the sloan foundation has been to fund. we are a grand making foundation. one track is to try and increase voluntary employer adoption workplace flexibility. in the second is to really support the creation of a national conversation around workplace flexibility. host: we are talking with kathleen christensen about workplace flexibility in the 21st century workforce. the title of the book that she wrote with barbara schneider.

if you want to give us a call and get involved, the numbers. you can also send us an e-mail or eight with your message. our first call comes from cape coral florida. republicans. good morning. good morning. thank you for taking my call. >> go ahead. caller: i am involved in multilevel marketing. i want to know where that stands in the marketplace today and how you feel about it. host: winnie's a multilevel, what kind of company? caller: i am talking about there are several out there. one is an way 40 years ago

another is shocked to learn. guest: thank you for calling. i'm not that familiar with this company20 for the2 -- with those companies. caller: it is said to the industry leader how we make it in the marketplace. i am talking about or the flexibility is, if the government would get involved. guest: at this point, the major role for the government is to really start a national conversation about the workplace. as evidence from the secretary of labor when they talked about what constitutes a good job, jobs are going to be a major issue in the coming year. she is talking about workplace flexibility being one of three critical elements of a good job i think what the government really has the opportunity do is

to start this national conversation and to show what they have been involved in and what the government can do as an ideal and clear with regard to workplace flexibility. host: our next call comes from atlanta for democrats. go ahead. as linda? -- elan and? caller: thank you for taking my call. i work in the service industry at a restaurant. a couple of days ago, and they had extended our opening time from 9:00 10:00. i work in the dishwasher. no one came to me and asked me if you wanted to stay open earlier. the management arbitrarily agree

to stay open a whole hour earlier. how am i supposed to get home from the airport and now among the other side it is time? then i'm concerned about my transportation home after work. there is not flexibility. it is not a win-win for me. it is a win-win for them. guest: that is a really good point. flexibility has to work both for the interest of the employer but equally well for the interests of the employee. there are a lot of examples where that has been the case. companies have been able to increase their profits. in your case, one possibility might be that perhaps not the entire work force has to be in

at that earlier hour. they could ship the hours for some people some weeks. i know you were saying is what many companies around the country. it is a concern. host: 1 of the tables in your book talks about labor market hours with two-parent families with children under the age of 18. yet two categories -- those go for the fathers hours. in 1965, the fathers were 41.7 hours per week and in 2005, the fathers were working 39.4 hours. mothers hours ago from 10.4 in 1965 to 22.7 in 1975. how is that affecting the family and the productivity of

the family as working members of the society? guest: that is an important point. i think oftentimes we are so used to thinking about it just being in individual hours. when the fed work household hours. on average, they have gone up from 52 hours per household to 62 hours per household. there are certain percentage of families in which is is 80 hours of paid work. that is not counting on the unpaid labor that needs to be done. there are consequences. for both the mother's and the fathers. the mothers compared to the unemployed mothers, they are getting nine hours been added to hours a week of leisure time. mothers and fathers are doing much more multitasking.

as a result, it is taking a real toll on the families the do what both parents are really trying to do is ensure that the children is not -- are not shortchanged. the one thing i want to stress is that, although what really triggered the interest in workplace flexibility were working parents. this is an issue that is now a concern to an aging work force. if you look at the data on older workers, over 2/3, 80%, of baby boomers expect to work beyond retirement age. the majority of them are doing it for financial regions. they do not necessarily want to work full time. they are going to be exerting a great deal of pressure on the

workplace for both jobs and flexibility. host: our next call comes from the truth for independence out in new york city. caller: thank you for having me. in respect tibet's, i'm a father of two children i have a wide. i worked with rigorous hours. picking good to 8:00 p.m. in the evening. when the numbers are down, you may have to work in the evening. that is 48 or 50 hours a week or more. it into a lot of stress for me and my woman to get through that. now they laid me up. since then, i've been on unemployment. now i find myself not confident in what obama is saying with the stimulus creating jobs.

he is saying one thing. when you open a newspaper in new york city, bloomberg is saying it is inevitable that you have to let go of 19,000 city workers. it is hard to have confidence in the government's. you open a newspaper and what you see is the opposite of what the president just finished speaking about. guest: thank you. thank you for telling is what has been going on in your life. i am not an expert on the administration's stimulus plan our job creation. the only point i was making was as they continue in these efforts, and they see workplace flexibility as a critical element of that. host: our next call comes from tucson, ariz. on airline for republicans. caller: i have been a social worker for many years. i have worked in the community.

i think the problem that we have is that we have democrats and republicans never trying to do anything. the problem i would like to see that would solve the issue -- put them on the work force with no pay. senator mccain does not care about the health reform. he has had a government insurance and he was born. i would like to take them all of the medical system and let them buy their own insurance. this is what is happening to our people out there. they need to learn that once a year when they go on vacation, they have to go out there on work. said they know what is like to be -- so they know what is like

to be host: the people thank you. our next call comes from new york. go ahead. caller: when i grew up, i come from a family of five kids. my dad had a job. with the general of budget. he made enough money said that the one parent working was able to raise and educate all of this. my concern about this possibility thing is definitely in need to be more flexible. my concern is set by focusing on this, you are expecting that this two-parent full-time job family is the norm now. there is nothing we can do about it. frankly, i would prefer if we focused on having a job where one parent -- which ever -- is

working full time and can take care and they care -- and make enough money to take care of the family. guest: thank you prad. that clearly was the case for most of the 21st century. given the fact that real income for men has really either remained constant, it takes two incomes for most households to survive. i do nessie that reversing itself. i hear what you are saying. i think the reality is that we are now in a situation where it does take to incomes. for single parent households, it often takes more than one job. the issue is how we can structure those jobs of people

can be successful at their work and families. host: kathleen christiansen is the co editor of "workplace flexibility of." she has launched a national initiative on workplace flexibility in 2003. she is a member of the conference board's work life leadership council. but the back to the felons. -- let's go back to the phones. caller: i would like to think c- span. you are the true voice of america and letting americans air their grievances are what their thoughts are. i love watching and listening to you every morning. the last caller talked about what i wanted to elaborate on. i do not know if anybody has read a report on the middle- class and the attack on the

middle class, how to families -- the mother and the father have to work. it seems that all of our jobs are being farmed out to third world countries, people that are making a lot less than the average american worker. how are we going to compete with that and we keep losing our jobs? i know the president has said that he has talked to small businesses that are trying to hire new people, but wouldn't it be better to ask the people like black and decker who took their company and formed into a different country to build the product? companies like that, given that in there so we can start making baseball bats and brooms and toys and whatever it is to get the american worker back to work. we have lost our manufacturing. guest: i think that these are

not either or situations. i think that is your reasoning -- many people are not addressing. some of the companies that we have steadied, one of them anticipated of assuring their work. this was in a mailroom. if the team came together and determine what kind of productivity gains they could really target. they were together to pick out what hours made sense to provide flexibility. they were able to reach those targets. i think that if employees were provided with the opportunity to also help solve the problem, that there may be ways in which it could be a win-win. job to not have to go offshore. host: 1 in the chapters in the book is work hours mr. matched in america and australia. what is that about?

guest: it talks about the preferred number of hours that people want to work versus the actual number of hours a day want to work. in australia, although there is a mismatch, there are more opportunities for realigning the preferred to the actual. in the u.s., that is harder to do. what has happened over time is that these officers have shown is that as people and of changing their preferences when the then been able to change their hours. they do not change their preferences because they want to is because they were not able to. host: indianapolis on the republican line. are you there. caller: a one to share my point. and in the previous caller midpoint on manufacturing. i applaud him for saying that. i think any factoring is the core.

if you get a community and the hospital in the middle of nowhere, you do not create jobs. i'm talking about 100 miles of radius. if you build a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, you did not create jobs. if you create a department store or fire department -- but if you build manufacturing -- it is not built in mocksville or national. it was built in spring still come a very small town in the middle of nowhere. it created jobs. you have people who have kids many to go to school, we need to build manufacturing. that is the core of communities. then you have restaurants the builder around that. it is just some of the other things about mismatched hours.

a fair tax credits the corporate tax. you bring companies here. they create jobs. in alabama, and they got $400 million from local government to build a plant. they got jobs out of that. they got a hundred jobs. -- 800 jobs. -- 2700 jobs. when you build the plant, 90 have hotels, restaurants, construction. here is another one. this was in ohio and illinois epidote the bad jobs there. -- illinois. they got jobs there. host: we will leave it there. guest: i think that what i really want to talk about today

is how you conjecture hours in the way the works for the company and firm. oftentimes the feeling is that is one was doing with hourly workers, production line workers, it is a possible to build and flexibility. we have evidence from all sorts of contracts as well as other line production but do -- protection. if they work as a team, and they can develop that flexibility. host: talk about flexible introduction in japan. can they applied the work life balance in the united states. guest: japan is an interesting country by now. women have not enter the labor force in the same way as the united states. they have a very aging population. they are really safe in how they are going to respond. one of the things that they have

done, which i think we should pay heed to, with regard to part time, and they have really do it part-time as more of what we call a contingent work arrangement. it is the ability to contract or spending were forced to expand the employers need. it is thursday purposes of the employer. that is what really here in this country we have been really trying to distinguish. what we are talking about is flexible scheduling. flexible staffing tends to benefit the employe year. host: chester, connecticut, on airline for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. as a comet and suggestion. with the major corporations getting ready to -- our working class people [unintelligible]

how do suggest the president have the secretary of labor cut the workweek down to 25 hours paid in overtime. i think you would come up with flexible schedules. guest: i think that is an interesting point. some companies have tried a variation of that but on a voluntary basis. in effect, rather than proceeding in these economic times with laos, they have offered a voluntary part-time arrangement for those employees alike to cut their hours for a transitional time. when it is done on a voluntary basis, it suits his purposes. if it is done in a mandatory basis, there will obviously be a great number of people who cannot afford to dial in those

hours host: wilmington, indiana. welcome to the program. caller: thank you for taking my call. the lady sitting there is a product of the late 70's. i was the coordinator on a line in the manufacturing area. i seen it when the government says we have to make jobs for women. when the women come on, i had all men under me. i did scene they had materials. i had men under me. they've done their job. along come the women. the first few actually needed a job. they worked. it did make a coming along, i cannot keep up.

well, the next thing the woman had to do was take $1 and split it between two women because they cannot keep up. host: what kind of work or they doing? caller: they was on an assembly line. host: what to the putting together? caller: parts for refrigerators. host: what kind of solution did to come to? caller: i will tell you exactly if you wait a minute. by the time we got done, we had all women on all the lines. we had about half as many people doing the same thing. maybe a few more. then they started running into flowers. then inserted bring in their kids' pictures in the workplace turned from a workplace to a family place to . first they needed the money.

then they had to have a better car. but the where we are at today? none of them today can raise a kid the to do anything. a host: we will leave it there. do you want to address this? guest: [applause] 0 -- [laughter] host: i'll take that as a know. caller: i'm a first-time caller. this woman is one of the people who is a blind man looking at an elephant. without the nine states competing globally, there is no hope because we cannot keep selling to ourselves. sooner or later, a blue-collar worker is going to have to cooperate with the employer to try to get costs and wages down to the point where you can compete globally. the jobs will come back. a corporation is not there for

the benefit of its employees. it is there to make money for the stockholders. the stockholders complained that the corporation is to make a profit. if they cannot compete with the sales of products coming in from outside, then they no longer can sell it. the only opportunity they have is to go out to the country where they can produce things and make a profit. all this is really a cultural situation. as long as the government in the service people who work in the service industry continue to demand more and produced nothing, then this condition is going to continue. they do have the leverage to force it. when they do for sick, the free market system does the work. guest: i am really pleased you called. you are getting to the heart of

what many people believe. that is one actually put in place flexibility and it will be as a favor or nice thing to do. it to and the costing money. it is a not be economically viable. in fact, we have study after study that shows were improperly designed, flexibility is good for business. we had a steady at 29 major corporations including ibm. all of them have found that the flexibility they have been able to reduce their paid time off. they've been able to increase retention. they have been able to reduce the cost of attrition, because they do not have to train or retrain as many people. they have increased retention. that is a really important

point. in many of these services, keeping employees is a way of keeping customers. the first tennessee bank really showed that the death flexibility is not economically costly to the company. it is in their best interests. host: another part of this book is called flexibility, a voluntary employer practices in the united states. is this a road map for organizations that want to try to offer their employees flexibility? what success are they seeing? guest: they have in awards program in 30 regions around the world. over one dozen companies have been recognized from their good practices. they have been good for

business. in many the companies, and they are blueprints. what is going to eventually happen is that companies will learn from their peers by their peer companies within the community are within their industry. these companies have put in place practices that work for them to do the work for the bottom line. host: in all of these programs that you talk about, none of this is mandated by the government? guest: there is one federal law that is mandated. that is the family medical leave act. it was adopted in 1993. that is the only federal law with regard to flexibility at this time. host: atlanta, georgia, and jason on the line for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am very happy to see that this book has come out. i'm a big proponent of workplace

flexibility. i think it can alleviate many of our traffic and environmental issues as well as the economically viable for employers. in the course of research for this book, did you interview any employers who are hesitant to implement flexibility programs, for to go a telecommuting? if so, what was their biggest challenge? if an entrepreneur were interested in developing tools to help alleviate these challenges, where would you suggest that he or she go? guest: thank you. if we look nationally at companies, it is clear there are three groups. there is a good size a growing number of companies that seek flexibility as good for the company and they are

implementing it and they are going strong with it. the majority of companies are going to see the flexibility is good, including telecommuting. they are not sure how to implement it. i was surprised at how few companies said this is not something that we want to do. the question is as i hear you presenting its is what to do with the companies in the middle. one thing is technical assistance, learning from peers. there are website available which has a guide to new ideas. it is a guide to the housing companies that have won these awards and what they are doing. tamar's the commerce are partnering with them. >> line for independence. caller: my adoptive were set top -- my daughter were set talk

about. she is five kids. sometimes she worked three or four nights a week until 5 in the morning. i was wondering if some of the restaurant could do better with that? i worked at macy's. they support the military. i am 53 years old. i have flexible hours. i work 30 hours a week. that works very well for me. my husband works full time. my problem with that is i wished they would work on lunch hours to d. sometimes you do not have their lunches. some people's -- i think they

should look into that and disability. i have some disability problems. host: i'm sorry to cut you off. guest: i think you raise a number of issues that are important. the disability community in washington pills that flexibility is one way to really keep people with disability issues in the workplace and keep them so they can remain productive. with regard to the flex time, there are different ways of implementing those. with regard to lunchtime, that is something that would really have to be worked out with supervisors. host: our last call forecasting christiansen. good morning. caller: i wanted to know, as a

stockholder, -- i'm sorry. i cannot hear you. as a stockholder, i am wondering why they have not already put the wages backlight the deforest -- wages backlight 54 cents an hour. this is going to have to be done. my uncle cannot afford to pay the social security to these people. it just seems like that is something that you are going to have to do. newton gingrich said that is what he was going to do. he said he could rule the whole world through morals and religion. people would sit on their doorstep and be happy and moral and good. they would not make very much money in the worry about it. why do not hurry up and do this?

guest: it is a good challenge. i just think i'm the right person for that. thank you for calling. host: thank you for being on "washington journal." her book "workplace flexibility guest: thank you. host: we want to take a break. first, we want to show you a little bit more from our interview with david axelrod. he is our guest this week on " newsmakers." in this part, he is talking about differences between attorney general eric holder and others in the obama administration over holding trials of the alleged 9/11 co- conspirators in new york city. >> the of the story about the decision to try the 9/11 co-

conspirators in new york. there is unhappiness in the white house. was that a mistake on his part? >> the attorney general was responding under the protocol that was developed between the department of justice and defense for the prosecution of terrorists. he made the decision on that basis. rahm has a different perspective. he looked at it from the legislative perspective. we have disagreements all the time it in the white house administration. people have various perspectives and various points of view. host: you can see the entire

interview with david axelrod sunday, tomorrow, at 10:00 a.m.. we are going to go to open phones for the next 15 minutes. it is your chance to time in on the things that you have heard or seen or read about this morning. hear the numbers if you want to get involved. this is in the washington post this morning. e-mail detailed todd palin roles in the last this role

[unintelligible] before she resigned to office in july, the first dude weighed in on appointments to state boards, labor disputes come in the use of government aircraft according to the documents that were obtained by msnbc.com he also forbid, and a financial information about his long-term employer bp to a state attorney. our first call comes from kentucky, beverly for it the independent. what is on your mind? caller: everything that is going on in america. host: we only have about 13 minutes. caller: senator mcconnell is my senator. i was a lifelong republican.

i became an independent. i voted for this president. people are kidding themselves of it does not come into this. i thought the tea party was going to be something for average american citizens. after seeing the guy you had done today and listening to him, i see all this as just another offspring of the republican party. average people cannot participate in their conventions. i am aware how much it cost to go to opera land hotels. i just want people -- take a hard look. most importantly, read your constitution. understand that two unjust wars and to unfunded wars and private companies working over there,

not paying any taxes because it is tax free. everything in the wars is tax free. i have a family that served in world war roman one and world war ii. i husband served in vietnam. host: thank you for your call. i have to move on. robert on the line for republicans in dallas. caller: i just saw your guests about flexibility in the workplace. i had a few comments. airline workers are notorious for having flexibility in the workplace. they have part-time help, for the workweeks. the 11 to have changes schedules. they use positions like friday and saturday and sunday and monday off as opposed to saturday and sunday. airlines continually lose money. they lose a ton of money. flexibility in the workplace and does nothing but prevent workers

from having better jobs, more money, more overtime, and a more productive life for their family. host: why do think it is work place flexibility that is causing the airline is losing money as opposed to other factors that people not traveling? caller: the airplanes are full. what they do is continue to cut the number airplanes in operation. then you cut on the workers when the airplanes are damage. when you fly, you cannot get the best service anymore. 20 years ago, before deregulation, you had excellent service any paid little more. the consumers that is fine had a much better product. i think everyone would agree on that host:. let's go to arizona, and jack for democrats. caller: did morning.

thank you for c-span. i wanted to comment about one of the things that your earlier guest. if people -- he used the republican rhetoric of less government and less taxes. if you can recall, when carter left office as a democrat, the country's debt was under $1 trillion. then we had reagan and the first bush. 12 years of that. then it was over $5 trillion. then we had clinton. it would that is a little bit -- it went up a little bit and we had a surplus. then we have the last of bush, eight years our debt exploded up to $14 trillion.

out of 28 years, controlled by 20 years of republican it ministrations, that is when we went from under $1 trillion to over $12 train. look it up, people. inform your cells. the tea party people have their right to be very upset. yet, they do not take the time to study and see what has been going on. they are uninformed. host: texas on our line for independence. good morning. caller: good morning. host: what is on your mind that caller: the gentleman that just spoke still my thunder little bit. i am independent. i look at all the news out there. i want to be informed. a lot of times we blame the wrong people for things that is going on in government.

i'm not saying that democrats or republicans are right. the line he dismayed about 20 years of government being managed by republicans is true. you cannot blame everything on of a person who is an office for one year. some the things he is trying to do, we are not giving him a chance. when the talk about healthcare, yes, i am passat about some things. -- past of about some things. there things that can be done to improve whatever it is the one to do. i want to know the cause. host: thank you for your call. sylvia on airlines for republicans calling out of dallas, texas. caller: i was just calling about

the discrimination against seniors as far as getting jobs. i am in my late 50's. then they look at your health records. what has that got to do with the being asked to perform a job and do it well? host: what kind of real applying for? caller: i am a administrator for a certain car line. i do none of us to sit on line. host: go ahead. caller: it is honda and acura. when you walk in the door, and they go, they see the gray hair and they immediately think you are not going to be here long. you are a diabetic. yet had a heart attack.

host: how long were you at your last job? caller: i was at my last job three years when i had my heart attack and had to have a triple bypass. host: you'd still be there if you have not had a heart attack? caller: right. host: thank you. caller: i didn't think like employer should hold that against people who are very qualified. i was the one administrator for 30 years. host: democrats and nine out of north carolina. caller: there is a philosophy of the tea party when he said that the people who voted for president obama cannot sailboat or speak english. the organizer they had on this morning was trying to distance himself to try to fool the

public. i think everyone knows it was so interesting that the tea party move me -- movement started after president obama came in office, even though the budget deficit was so high with president bush. there is never this kind of movement. then you can see all of the signs. they decided not to bring. it is obvious they are trying to make derogatory statements about the president. they said it is about that. host: thank you. adam on the line for independents. caller: i am a former republican. i'm sympathetic to the tea party moment. i do not leave the current administration understands how well [unintelligible]

obama pledged to double exports. they have fallen into a misconception unless your building a physical thing you are not creating wealth. going forward, to be competitive, we are going to meet an economy that is based on creating knowledge, designing things. i do not think in 1950's model with the u.s. is the industrial engine of the world is productive. i think that money will be wasted and better given back to the taxpayer. host: the product that you are saying the u.s. will be producing is acknowledged as opposed to something physical? caller: i have no idea what it will be. the free market will dictate it. the idea that just because you

are not selling a physical object does not mean they you are not creating wealth. when a company has a great idea and the design a computer, it is because the computer is the manufactured in the united states, does not mean there are not jobs created in engineering. host: maryland on our line for republicans out of pittsburgh caller:. good morning. do me a favor and turned and a television. caller: sure. host: thank you. caller: i am still stunned on the workplace flexibility i work in a hospital. we are an outpatient department. we do in patients also. the lady that was on spoke

about different areas of what we could do in a 40 hour w week. i do that. i can tell you that we are on their feet, 58 years old. we are on their feet our entire time. we barely get half an hour for lunch in no breaks in between. i do not know what can be done about this. the day that i have all, i am so why i can barely function. host: you would rather go back to it by day, eight hour week? hostcaller: we were working overtime. it didn't even think our supervisor has any say in this. accustom above the administration. they are more concerned about a semblance -- assembly