romney is the one that is honest? that was fun for everybody. you can watch more of that on current.com. have a great weekend. [ ♪ music ♪ ] >> eliot: good evening i'm eliot spitzer this is vie point another month and another lousy jobs report just what president obama and nearly 13 million unemployed americans don't want to hear the employers added a paul try 80,000 jobs in union leaving the unemployment rate unchanged at 8.2%. that adds up to fewer jobs needed to manage the population growth let alone work for millions who desperately need it. an average of 75,000 new jobs a month created in the quarter just ended. the weakest performance

since 2010. especially compared to a monthly average of 226,000 jobs created in the first quarter of 2010. campaigning in poland, ohio, president obama tries to spin the numbers as best he could. >> obama: we learned this morning that our business created 84,000 new jobs last month. that means businesses credit evaluated 4.4 million new jobs over the past 28 months, including 500,000 new manufacturing jobs. that's a step in the right direction. [applause] that's a step in the right direction. >> cenk: but a baby step at best compared to what we need, and a step back for the public sector which lost 5,000 jobs, including 4,000 cut by washington. there were few pal try numbers which could almost be calls positive. for people already who have jobs, average hourly earnings were up six pennies. and the private sector workweek

ticked up a tenth of an hour professional business services added 47,000 jobs and manufacturing jobs added 11,000 jobs. with congress all but catatonic and economic stimulus may have to come from the federal reserve and chairman ben bernanke without some spark the economist known as dr. doom, could be right when he says, the u.s. economy headed to a stall speed. recession risk rising. let's head to dan grows columnist and economic editor with yahoo finance and for. and felix salmon. dan, i want to start with you. the name of your book, i read the title when i'm fundamentally depressed. make me feel good about this.

>> you have to look at the context. private sector has added 4.4 million jobs since 2010. jobs are being added. a lot of people think that a lot of those jobs added in the first three months were taking from the second quarter because the weather was so good. >> cenk: i have to interrupt you. i've been hearing this weather explanation, it's warm and we're adding jobs. i never met an employer who said the weather report is good, i'm going to hire someone. >> well, home construction, things like that can be pulled forward that might not otherwise happen in may. seasonal stuff going on. people think because the jobs losses were so severe in early 2009, do you remember back then hundreds of thousands were lost that now effects--you have to remember, these are surveys. this is not a scientific measure. they sample and take surveys.

there are all sorts of reasons why we might be underestimating. but the bottom line, more jobs were add: people are working higher wages, and they're working a little more. >> eliot: can i put this in different context. context is everything. this is death by thousand cuts instead of your head being chopped off in one swift blow. this is a stagnation that is debilitating as you see unemployment among teenagers and unemployment among african-americans 14.14%. horrendous numbers. we need something fundamental to shake us out of the grip of long-term-month old class income stagnation. we're not getting it. that's the problem. >> that is the problem. and it could have been worse. >> eliot: felix, can you do better than this? >> it could be the recession. we have what is essentially a massive stagnation or recession in the jobs market. people who have jobs are actually doing okay. but the people coming into the

workforce, the teenagers that you're talking about, and people who don't have jobs, they're not getting jobs. the longer they don't have jobs the less likely they'll ever get jobs. we're creating this under class of unemployable people. because wages are stagnant. people are not retiring as quickly as they have. and the entry jobs are not there. >> wages have been going up, but it's not enough--it's not great if you have a job. but it's certainly enough to make employers reluctant to start paying those higher wages to new people who don't have jobs right now. >> eliot: we have tried a lot of different policies. they cut payroll taxes. they said 2.7%, whatever it was will induce employers to hire. we've had q 1 2 and 3. we've. had stimulus that we all agree worked. what is left? what can we do? you say you're there. you get a call from the president tomorrow morning.

he says, dan i like your book. give me three things or one thing that is going to have an impact between now and november? >> well, writing checks to people. people tend to spend it when they have it. they'll put it into the economy. what does writing checks to people? rebates, one of the proposal is to give money to the state so they can stop laying off teachers. the idea that we have too many teachers in this country is absurd. there is a vast amount of infrastructure investment that is needed and necessary. so those sorts of things can boost--but you know, the federal reserve can't do that, and the congress won't do it. >> eliot: you gave us the answer and reason. the fiscal stimulus, the sort of thing that we tried when the president was just elected. stimulus, the congress isn't going to do it. right? the republicans are adamant that we're not going to approve major government spending. >> we have gridlocking in congress, but i was completely struck by the president's

mention of just over 500,000 manufacturing jobs which have been created in the past 28 months. that's exactly the same number as the number of government jobs which have been lost in the last 28 months. it's not the government's job in the recession to fire a bunch of good middle class government workers and put them on the unemployment. >> eliot: you sound like--you guys are steep in this. are we learning that they're simply putting their head in the sand. >> canes was right whatever the federal government does it won't be enough to increase the number of jobs between now and the election. that's for sure. >> the reason why the feds are hamstrung is because interest rates as close to zero as ever being. no one is creating a new plan because the cost is too great.

>> every time something comes out, it's full ofber any can i should do. he is exhausted. he's cowed by political criticism from the right. he comes out and he begs congress we've done all we can you guys have to do something. the expectation that the fed is going to provide some meaningful booth. they allow people to refinance their mortgages if they have equity in their house. >> eliot: that's exactly right. they permit many people, they think a lot of non-wealthy folks have been able to refinance their home, which is a good thing, even those less wealthy but what it does it puts profits back on the balance sheet of companies. but we have 2 trillion-dollar in profits that are sitting there

and no one is investing. that's the crisis. it doesn't stimulate the investment. congress isn't going to do it. the fed can't effect this. >> the fed has to stop paying interest on reserve. there are technical things. basically what you need to do is make it very painful for these companies, both companies and banks to refuse to lend out money. if the fed says we're going to have an inflation target of 2.5% to 3%, if you keep your money on deposit, then you're going to lose it in real terms. you're going to lose 2% of that money every year. that will force people to invest that money into something productive. >> eliot: you're saying inflation is what we need because it will force people to buy to invest and solve a debt crisis. >> inflation is a tax on doing nothing with your money. what we have right now is way too many people doing nothing with their money. >> eliot: how do you stimulation inflation. >> come out as chairman of the

fed and say i'm targeting inflation. people will believe him. >> eliot: interest rates would% go up, which may have a negative impact. >> they would go up. they're already at zero. it wouldn't make a difference. >> eliot: with china's economy looking like it may hit a bubble that's a negativesive influence on our economy. we're depending on them not only for our debt but to buy our exports. >> in many areas especially agriculture, soybeans, their demands has kept prices for commodityies very high, timber grain, food, and that is what let us out of recession. the exports went up and they've been doing very well. >> eliot: paul krugman likes to say 8 percent of our economy and 14% is export. is there anything that you think that the weather effect is going

to be warm and will that bring hiring. >> there are 3.4 million jobs open in this country according to the labor department. there are 4.4 million jobs being advertised online. if america's human resources staff could get more aggressive and efficient about hiring and maybe the government should just pay these people a bribe. hire someone, and we'll give you $10,000. >> eliot: that will work. we'll cover half the cost of taxes. he always makes me feel optimistic. felix, your turn. >> it's not that hard. you give big tax break to any company which increases the number of people that it employees. it's not rocket science. >> eliot: republicans relishing every day that goes by with the recession.

dan gross and felix many thanks. what is mitt romney's plan? that's one of his many secrets. stick around. this week, failing is good and wall street is bad. what else does vc billionaire vinod khosla think? of sununu, you're wrong. mitt romney, you're wrong. we need more teachers, not fewer teachers and more cops and more firefighters that support our [ train whistle blows ] [ ball hitting paddle ] [ orbit girl ] don't let food hang around. yeah! [ orbit trumpet ]

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but there was. the islamic school of greater new orleans turned up on the list of voucher-approved classrooms, and the louisiana g.o.p. exploded. that school has since withdrawn from the abraham. but republican state representative valerie hodges wants to make sure that the vouchers can't go to muslims. well, too bad. representative hodges, once you open the door between government and religion, you open it to all religious, not just christians and muslims but snake handlers scientologists rastafarianss. you don't want tax dollars going to muslim school? well, a lot of other people don't want state money going to christian fundamentalists. that's exactly why we separated the church and state. >>we talk a lot about the influence of money in politics. it is the defining issue of this era.

the candidate with the most money, does win. this is a national crisis. >> eliot: with another disappointing jobs report, republicans have begun to spell the political blood in the water. they went on the attack led by think presumptive nominee for president. >> room we have seen the jobs report this morning and it's another kick in the gut to middle class families. the president doesn't have a plan. atlanta proposed any new ideas to get the economy going. just the same old ideas in the past that have failed. >> eliot: an attack echoed by

romney's brethren in the house led by speaker boehner who said, and i quote. the president needs to stop betting on his failed police and startpoliciesand start working with republicans to remove the government obstacles to job creation. the housey leader eric canter adding. ahead heading into november there is a clear choice about the direction of this country and that will empower small businessmen and women to succeed. grow and hire. the president pushed back and pointing his finger at the republicans asking how do you think we got here in the first place? >> obama: my opponent and his allies in congress and the special interest that support them, they got a particular idea of how to grow an economy. but we tried it, and it didn't work. and if you look throughout history that kind of top-down economics never worked.

>> eliot: let's bring in political correspondent molly ball and political reporter joe williams. his plan is not working either if you ask most americans whether that's right or not that's a separate issue. how bad is this news for the president? >> well, it certainly isn't good. if you're president obama, any job growth is good job growth and something that you can point to and we'll hear about next week going forward. he would prefer to have a more robust number of what he was able to get past the republican republican-controlled house and republican-dominated senate. what he has been able to guess past them has worked so far. what he's going to do on the campaign trail from here on out i expect is to continue to accentuate the positive. some growth is happening as

opposed to the record number of jobs we were losing when he first took office and point to places like detroit and importing, things that indicate that job growth is on the way. it may not be as robust as they want it to be, but it's not going to be a really backwards stride yet any way. >> eliot: joe, i accept that intellectually. as someone who studied right. what he has put in place has worked. the recommendation have been wrong and created the crisis. but molly, if you look at the last week or two where the healthcare victory was dominating the news. mitt romney didn't know the distinctions, they may have been met physical. now romney is playing defense defense, defense. how does he deal with the reality that the economic situation is the bread and butter of the campaign. what does he do to create a narrative to brinks enthusiasm and hope and change. >> he tried to change the

subject. that's the only thing he can do. as joe said, it is a positive number technically but it's not keeping pace with population growth and inflation. we're slipping back on the economic treadmill. you had the president giving a 40-minute speech in ohio where he devoted one sense to the jobs number. he mischaracterized and then he talked about the vacations he took as a little kid and painting romney out of touch by comparison. talking about healthcare and absolutely anything else. as you said. also talking about the bush administration and the forward versus backward thing. so i mean, i do think as you sort of mentioned with healthcare the obama campaign has been very skilled at changing the subject whether grabbing on to opportunities and being adroit to turning things bang around onback around on his opponent and

talking about the immigration but on the economy, the president is on the defense. >> eliot: when it came to the same-sex marriage and the things that have dominated our political discussion, the president has been winning and putting together a great coalition. but when you take the things as a given the politics of this race will hinge on the economy. he has not given a good concrete answer. when he says this is a step forward, i fear he's lapsing into the same mistake he made a couple of weeks ago when he said the private sector was doing pretty well, when it was doing fine and he was lambasted by that. why not say it's lousy and blame, blame blame. i hate to say it, negative politics can work. why doesn't he go after them tooth and nail and don't distract them. >> because if you say things are lousy, that's the next commercial the romney campaign will run. he has to find a way to walk

that deft line saying things are getting better, although not as quickly as we would like, but acknowledging that there are still a lot of people hurting and there is still not as much progress as we need to make in order to keep pace and accelerate and in order for people to feel a substantive change in their lives. that's why he's going to ohio, he can tell those people with a straight face that his policies are working. but if you're going to accept the blame strategy, he can't point to republicans and congress saying we would like to bring policies that would bring real relief and positive growth and accelerate things. all the they want to talk about is these things would require more money. they call it spending. we call it an investment, an investment that would have made a difference by now. the down side then the republicans come back and say you're blaming everything and

you're not owning the economy like you need to. >> eliot: you're right. it is a very fine line and you have to thread that needle. but molly, i think he can do more that mitt romney has been as devoid as any candidate. i love this quote from the wall street journal that lacerated mitt romney. one of the quotes was the biography that voters care about is their own and they want to know how a candidate is going to improve their future. that means offering a larger economic narrative and vision than mr. romney has so far provided. mitt romney has not given us a single idea, and i think the president should be pounding him on that, unless i'm missing the secret plan that mitt romney has. >> well, i think first of all the editors of wall street journal would have their hearts warmed that you are taking their side. >> eliot: probably not. they're probably shocked and will rethink their entire

editorial. >> mitt romney was not the one who got us in this mess. even if you think it was the republicans, it was not mitt romney. obama basically is running against the republican congress and george bush. and he has to associate romney with them. in doing so he has to say that romney does have an agenda. he has this extreme-right agenda. he has the agenda that the republicans in congress has. he has the agenda that is the ryan plan and everything, the whole philosophy that it represents. it's hard to say that and then say he doesn't have a plan. that's more benign. i think that mitt romney would like us to believe that he has some fresh new ideas that we have never tried before that are secret or magical in some way but do represent--that's what he's offering, this hope for a change. something that can get us magically out-- >> eliot: i heard that every american citizen will get a swiss bank account, and this

will bring us back. >> that and a jet ski. >> eliot: there you go. i like that. and answer this question for me. why is mitt romney going to europe or going overseas? it would seem to me when he finally gets away from healthcare immigration, same sex and the economy is front and center, why not stay here and get in his bus and go to every one of the swing states. i just don't get this foreign trip. joe, does it make sense? >> it makes sense if you look back at 2008 and president obama making his grand tour through europe. although i think the reception that mitt romney is going to get is not close to a couple of thousand people. basically he's trying to do this for two things. number one to highlight where he thinks he's got a strength on foreign policy, which is europe. there may an visit to israel, but also to look presidential, to try to look the part, let people see him in the role of a world leader and international statesman. we've not seen him in this role.

we've seen president obama in that role. this is an attempt for mitt romney to show that he looks the part. he's meeting with heads of state and talking to people and he gets the international prestige of the united states. >> eliot: i get that from that point of view, and i remember when president obama went on the overseas trip in '08. there was some push back because people thought it was presumption because he did get adoring crowds. many thought it was a bit too much, too son soon. molly, unemployment among kids is an outrageous number. that's the demographic that the president needs to have turn out. is there a chance he'll have the same turn out among younger voters. >> i have a hard time believing that he'll have the same turn out. this is yet another one of these base groups that obama is

spending the summer doldrum period to activate. the youth vote falls in the same democratic base groups where obama will run up the margin to make up the more gin that margin he's losing white voter without college degree. >> eliot: same sex, and those that you mentioned will get the younger voters. i will tell you the kids simply do not have the same level of enthusiasm as in '08. they don't care any more and they're giving up hope and change, it's a distant memory. molly ball and joe williams. thank you. >> thank you. >> eliot: many empeople are talking about the higgsboson particle. but what does it mean? it means stephen hawking lost a

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>> eliot: coming up, working hard is hardly working. did germany get it right, and do we get it wrong welcome but first. john stossel is a free loader, and healthcare is shoved down our throats, and congressman joe walsh is a stammering fool. when it doesn't fit anywhere else, we put it on the view finder. >> are you regretting making those comments? >> oh, god no, ashley. >> mandates, tax monstrosity ever since it was shoved down their throats. >> they're shoving healthcare down our throats. >> i'm moving to canada. i'm moving to japan. there is healthcare everywhere. every industrialized country wants to shove healthcare down our throats. >> i'm not going to back off. >> are you saying that this is a slip up. >> no, ashley, this is not a slip up. i do not regret anything i said.

>> we have never been a country looking for handouts. >> we are a country of free loaders. i collected floating insurance because i have a beach house. >> ashley, ashley, ashley. >> obama: if you do the responsible thing then you can find a job that pay as living wage. >> will you increase the minute wage? >> probably not. >> how about getting a job. >> do you want to hear it, congressman? or do you just want to rail on me. i got the list here to talk about the supreme court-- >> ashley. >> i had a bet that the higgs particle would not be found. it seems that i have just lost $100. >> ashley, ashley, ashley, hey ashley.

>> why don't you want to talk. >> henry gonzalez, bush's attorney general. >> alberto. >> yes congressman. >> ashley, ashley, are you ready? >> obama-care, obama tax, which is what we are now calling this law. >> who are you to suggest what a veteran's mind is when he or she decides whether or not to talk about his or her service. >> oh, ashley, i'm confused. >> eliot: joe walsh is worse than confused. easy an embarrassment. he should not be in congress. get out of the race. the germans have job advice. don't work so much. that's next. spitzer." >>questions, of course, need to be answered. >>we will not settle for the easy answers.

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>> eliot: according to today's jobs numbers 8.2% of americans are still unemployed. here is an idea we have not tried. work less. as my next guest wrote this week in the guardian. if americans worked the same shorter hours as workers do in germany, we would eliminate the problem of joblessness overnight. dean baker author of the or the "why americans should work less the way germans do"." thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me on. >> eliot: explain the counter intuitive idea. >> we're too rich. we produce what we need, the goods and services that people are buying, and we still have 8.2% of our workforce unemployed. one way you deal with that is you try to increase demand, and this is the idea of stimulus. we get the government to spend more money. help state and local

governments. we know that basic story. i think that's a great idea, but the reality is that that is not happening. we have a political roadblock and we're going to see a big stimulus any time soon. the question is can you go the other way. given how much work we have, suppose people work fewer hours. suppose everyone worked 10% fewer hours, we would have 10% more jobs. that's basically the story you have in germany. people talk talk about germany is the economic miracle. it's not because it has had great growth. it's because germany has policies in place that encourages employers to cut back work hours rather than layoff workers when they face a shortfall in demand. >> eliot: the notion that germans work fewer hours than we do is so counter intuitive. this idea that they work 80

hours weeks and we dug up some numbers. germans work less, if we took those hours spread hem them out among the unemployed workers everybody would have a job. >> exactly. i am not trying to be simplistic about it. it's not as if we snap our fingers and all the unemployment disappears p but we can give incentives to shorten work hours rather than lay people off. >> eliot: now let me ask this question. somebody will say if we take ten people who are working 100 hours and we say we want you each to work nine hours and another person is going to come in and write that extra ten. do i get paid less? am i takeing a wage cut to distribute part of my job to somebody else? >> the model in germany is you

take some wage cut but not proportional. the basic story in germany, you make up most of your lost wages. let's say you were to see a 20% cut in hours. germany's standard model, they would make up 80% of the lost wages. you would work 32 hours and you take home roughly what you would get working 38 or 39 hours. some pay cut but nowhere proportionnal to your cut in hours. instead of paying someone unemployment insurance, instead of saying we're going to give you money for being unemployed, we say work some of your hours and make up most of your wages. >> eliot: if someone if 11 people are doing the work of ten and we're all earning 95% of the wages, you're paying higher wages, where does that extra money come from?

>> two points. some of it would simply be in lieu of unemployment insurance. take the simplest case. we have this in 23 states. we have short-work programs that are part of the unemployment system including new york and california. they have that in place. in those cases you say you have half pay for not working. instead of not working we're going to have you work 20% fewer hours, and we'll help you mick up for that. iit would be great to see us go further. germany makes up 70% of the lost wage, but if we say make up half of it, that's a with a wash. that requires no extra money than with what we have in the current system. >> eliot: just so i understand. the funds that make up these lost wages are contributions that come from workers during the period they're working partly from government, partly from the employer? >> exactly. just as-- >> eliot: the unemployment

insurance. >> exactly. i should point out, i don't think this is one thing that people are aware of. the bill that was extended that congress approved back in january, earlier this year. they had a provision that has the federal government picking up the cost of these short-work programs. what that means is states want to save money, this is a great way, cal california has big budget problems. rather than laying people off and having them go on unemployment insurance which costs the states money. they cut back hours the federal government will pick up the tab. it's the easiest way i could think of to cut the budget deficit. >> eliot: i read this and i thought about it. it seems to make sense. there are costs attached to, but they are borne by the federal government. why has this not had bigger attraction while states are crying out to keep people employed. >> it's inertia. i've been in washington for 20

years, and i talk about this across the political spectrum. kevin hasset, a republican economist, he agrees with me on this 100%. why on earth do we want to give incentive to lay people off rather than keep them on the payroll, working reduced hours continue to upgrade their skills and the economy recovers and the firms will need them so they don't have to go out and look for new workers. >> eliot: this is tv time, we have to cut it short. it's a brilliant idea. we'll follow it and talk about it more down the road. dean baker, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you for having me on. >> eliot: putting a tax on global warming. that's coming up. is bad. what else does vc billionaire vinod khosla think?

of sununu, you're wrong. mitt romney, you're wrong. we need more teachers, not fewer teachers and more cops and more firefighters that support our

>> eliot: coming up, our jobs numbers are an international story but first we'll check in with governor grand granholm in "the war room." what have you got for us tonight. >> we'll look for solutions to america's employment crisis. we have two great guest who is will deliver specific suggestions on how to bring jobs to america. we're going to unravel what it means for the presidential campaign with a couple of journals from the rolling stone. we've got those stories and a lot more at the top of the hour on a friday night. >> eliot: sounds fantastic. christian and mark, usually the guy who gets the numbers right. i think he has been more optimistic than the numbers have permitted recently but we love him. >> you have to watch tonight because we want to know how to

fix it. >> eliot: we got four months. all right we'll be watching. have a great show. >> thanks. >> eliot: >> eliot: now what? another month of pal try job numbers. we all know 80,000 net jobs created just doesn't cut it. either politically or economically. with interest rates about as low as they can go, government spending not about to tick up in any meaningful way europe slumping china's bubble bursting, it's kind of bleak to say the least. this engine needs to be kick started but there doesn't seem to be a spark anywhere. add these two additional pieces to the mix. first we added 11,000 manufacturing jobs of really bad in. second, an article in the number of times debailed detailed how chinese cars exports are making up 43% from last year, mostly to places like brazil.

and the losers in this battle, the u.s. nameplates gm, ford, and chrysler. i saw this when i was in peru last week. chinese cars from ubiquitous. names like "the great wall." they were everywhere. yet nowhere did i see u.s. cars. it's the same story in the airplane manufacturing. which might be the last repository of u.s. manufacturing export surplus. now we're losing out to companies from china and brazil. this is all part of the natural trajectory of chinese growth. first they used protectionist trade policies to build domestic market share and then market share established developed market. we had our own trade policies design to protect and lead to a manufacturing growth model.

what should we do now? it is time for us to take a hard look at both the substance and the enforcement of our trade treaties. they have left us open because we have been too red sox ax in many ways to be gamed by everything from currently manipulation to horrendous labor practices that cannot be tolerated to nations when we biff open access to our markets. the president has begun to make some meaningful moves in this direction. but we need renewed focus on the manufacturing. and some guests in the next few weeks will begin to flesh that out. it means different tax policies, new invests in r & d, and products that are designed for the markets we need to compete in. we need to get out there and compete. if we don't head out to peru with our cars, no one will buy them. that's my view. >> his camel had just eaten the last of his designer italian frames.

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>> eliot: here's a crazy idea out of canada. the more you contribute to global warming, the more you pay in taxes. and all the revenue is used to reduce other taxes for individuals and businesses. it sounds just crazy enough to work. that's because it does work. so why don't we have a similar policy here in the united states? joining me now the coauthor, called the most sensible tax of all and the perhaps only stand-up comedian economist. you heard me right a comedian and an economist. thank you for joining me on this important stuff. global warming tax. explain how this works. >> well, basically works by market forces. so if you want to get less pollution, you make polluting more expensive. that's what they've done in

british columbia, and it's working. >> eliot: you mean technically you put a tax on carbon emissions and you say to oil companies, gas companies o consumers who are buying gas you'll pay a little bit more if your carbon emissions are intergradual to what you do? >> that's right. in british columbia the tax last sunday went up to the top rate of $30 per ton of co2. that's $.30 of gasoline roughly. all of that money is used to reduce personal and corporate income taxes in the province. >> eliot: you managed to reduce carbon emissions by 4.5%. which is a meaningful dent in the trendline for global warming. do you think we could do the same thing in the states with this policy? >> absolutely. i mean, it's a policy that economists agree on. economies love it. there's no reason why we can't do the same thing in the u.s.

we have plenty of taxes that people don't like that we could reduce and make up that revenue with the carbon tax. >> eliot: this is one of those economic ideas that works. they are few and far between. you look at this, and you look at the data, and you say wow let's do this. arthur lafer. wrote an op-ed in the times a couple of years ago with the republican congressman saying, here an idea for you. is there a possibility from both sides of the aisle saying use the market to drive down carbon emissions? >> i think the coauthor is trying to do exactly that. romney's economic visors are both kind of on board with the idea. certainly economies who are advising the president are on bore with theboard with the idea. i think you could have both

aisles saying you take these two things that are bad and put them together in a good way. >> eliot: economiceconomyic analysis, this is a no-brainer. but it's a hot-button issue for the republican party. you wonder if mitt romney would have the backbone to stand up and say, this is something we should care about. but put that aside. there would be political opposition from the oil companies since they would bear the brunt of this, i presume. >> and fossil fuel prices would go up for consumers. there is no free lunch. if you get your electricity from coal you'll pay more for your electricity. but you get lower taxes on the other side. that makes up for it for most people. you're not going to see that

much of a change. >> eliot: you're right. there is no free lunch. on the other hand, your costs go up on one side. your taxes go down on the other. it's kind of a wash, that's a good thing. i have to come back to something much more important. you're a self-proclaim economic humorist. i'm not sure what that means. you said you had 500 people show up who claimed to be comics. give me an example. i don't buy the notion that you two could coexist in one body. >> i know you've had quite a history with the financial and i do quite a show for banks. it's important to get the money up front. i did a show last week, and this is serious. for real, the banks asked me if i would take credit card payment. i said no, i can't take a credit card payment, but you can send me a check. the fellow i was talking to said we'll have to look into whether we have that capability.

>> eliot: live or based payment. they hadn't rigged the market yet. maybe they were trying to scam you that way also. >> well, they ended up--we ended up okay. >> eliot: did you get bankers to laugh? that's an accomplishment in and of itself. >> oh, yes, we had a fabulous time. >> eliot: well, i don't know. bankers don't have great taste these days. that does not persuade me. is there any audience you can perform for? or only bankers find you funny. >> i do colleges, corporate events and comedy. you can go to my website and see comedy clips there. >> eliot: your economy is spot on. if your humor is half as good, stay at it. i look forward to see you on jay leno. thank you for your time. and keep at it. >> thanks, eliot. >> eliot: that's "viewpoint" for tonight. stay tune to ent