or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and increase in psa. see your doctor, and for a 30-day free trial, go to axiron.com. thank you orville and wilbur... ...amelia... neil and buzz: for proving there's nowhere we can't go. but, at some point... giant leaps gave way to baby steps... and with all due respect, you're history. if you taught us anything, it's that you can't cling to the past... if you want to create the future. that's why, instead of looking behind... delta is looking beyond. pushing u.s. aviation to new heights. all 80 thousand of us. busy investing billions in the industry's boldest moves. it's biggest advances in technology. bringing our passengers the best, the most spacious fleet in the sky. and earning more awards than any other airline...

to show for it. so rather than simply saluting history... we're out there making it. melissa: so as we have been reporting breaking news venezuelan president hugo chavez is dead. monica crowley with us. sandra smith. give us your reaction. >> i don't think anybody apart from sean penn is mourning hugo chavez. but it has impact on the global market because he reached out to russia, china and iran. >> the biggest buyer of venezuelan crude. although production there is declining. we will see some sort of reaction the market but keep in mind he has been on his deathbed for quite some time now. the market has had some time to react and futures began trading in seven seconds.

melissa: wash the streets in venezuela. here is "the willis report." >> our top story tonight, hugo chavez is dead. full market reaction. also tonight on "the willis report." >> can the rally last? and will small investors get hit again? government tax collections hit another record, so what are our politicians doing? why they plan to spend it all and more. a big change coming to your cell phone, hold the phone, we are on the case next on "the willis report." ♪ gerri: we begin tonight with the latest on the story breaking in the last hour. venezuela's president hugo chavez has died. the leader has been fighting cancer for nearly two years and

declared a socialist revolution in venezuela and crusade against u.s. influence in his more than 14 years in office. his death will have a huge impact around the world since venezuela is one of the top suppliers of oil to the united states. kt mcfarland joins me on the phone, phil flynn on skype, senior market analyst and with me now, david asman. i will start with you, venezuela the fifth-largest oil exporting country tonight right now we have the oil market just opening, what are the oil market is telling us? phil: they are telling us we jumped up higher. despite the fact we have a bearish report from the institute as far as the supply depth. the market is uncertain what will happen next, who is going to take over, what that will mean for oil prices. gerri: all right, to you, uncertain what will happen.

we had an announcement a 50-year-old bus driver will take chavez place. do we have any idea if that is true or what is likely going to happen? kt: for the immediate future, hand-picked successor will take charge. the question is how long can he keep it going? and will the system that chavez set up, recently robin hood, take the oil money, take our resources, cold, uranium, give it to the poor. but it is a fragile economic system. highest inflation rate in the world. one of the most dangerous, corrupt cities on the planet. what will happen now that you don't longer have the charismatic chavez pointing his finger in america's eye. gerri: let's go to david asman was actually interviewed chavez. here's a fellow incredibly

charismatic, incredibly controversial and very critical of the u.s. what is your reaction to tonight? david: people made a mistake underestimating him. he was a clever person. everybody from politicians to journalists to the general population. when he first came in, i first interviewed him in jail in 1992 trying to pull off, six years later he became president. he became president by pointing out the corruption of the venezuela economy. what he did was he turned into my own at all. under the ruse of socialism by doing it for the people, given all the soil to the people he learned from fidel castro who was his mentor. teaching him how to use pr to make it seem like you're doing everything for the people but then a lot of it for yourself. gerri: we will recall hugo chavez called george w. bush the

devil. so the relationship between these two countries are rocky. what does this mean for the u.s. going forward? kt: the bigger question is what it means for cuba and iran. cuba received a lot of oil subsidies from chavez, from venezuela. look cuba continued to receive those if the new eader in venezuela has to cut back on the social program to deal with the economic problem. the bigger connection and the one that has always worried the national community is iran-venezuela. what is relationship between the worlds two bad guys. was there a connection. there was always a report has blah dumb accomack hezbollah were coming down to the training camps. will they remain? will there be some sort of a soft underbelly to the united states from that terror

connection that may or may not survive if there is a new leader. gerri: we don't even really know ultimately who that' that new lr will be. we are not certain of it. you mentioned uncertainty before and what is going on in the oil market. yousing oil prices have popped higher. do you expect them to go even higher here? might it continue? and could we see uncertainty in opec? how far does this go? the fifth-largest oil exporting country in the world. phil: not as far as you would think. the one-time it would have sent shockwaves throughout the global oil market. not so much. in a weird way that goes with chavez's legacy. he made venezuela and oil exporter a secondary cost because of the production under venezuela. year after year after year.

instead of being a major oil producer, the production actually fell. he squandered what could have been the famous oil run in history under the leadership the price of oil went from $10 per barrel to $147 per barrel and he did not take advantage of it. david: he is right on target. replaced all the competent engineers and leaders with his cronies. he was a crony and socialists. you put all of his people in a commanding positions in the economy and they ran it into the ground. putting them in positions these people had no ability in and rent all these industries primarily oil industry into the ground. gerri: it is not just oil, it is also gold. it is a country full of natural resources. will this change, this coming

actually benefit the rest of the world, and will it benefit, and as this i think is a critical question, venezuela? what about them? kt: the question is what happens, this is an economy, a country that has failed to do anything but take the resources and fast riches under the ground and use them to hand out the good of the people. the question would be six months from now, this summer, this fall when iran gets to the redline about the nuclear program. is there a crisis in the persian gulf. at the same time potentially have a leadership crisis in venezuela because whatever may happen in the immediate term, where is it in six months when they can't keep the music going. david: i love kt, but i think there is a positive possibility. the oil company could not get worse.

it can only improve if they bring back some managers and the other thing is there is n nobody to replace chavez. they had been fighting very hard, some ended up in jail, beaten up. they will come out and challenge. without chavez, they're going to be in an excellent position to possibly take over the government so this could end up being very positive. gerri: thank you so much for coming on tonight, great job, fascinating conversation. we will just have to wait and see all this play out. a lot more still to come in this hour including the dow went in with a loss of the great recession today, but is this run with bulls running out of time? stay with us.

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record high closing 14,253, bypassing the record october of 2007. look at that chart, my friends. the last time the dow was this high, apple sold its first iphone. the new highs close a chapter to our financial crisis, but what is tomorrow going to bring? skeptical investors are already looking at an exit strategy and small investors, many of them have stayed out of the game. maybe because another rally is being fueled by ben bernanke and the rest of the federal reserve. every time bernanke lends money, stocks take a leap higher, and the fed balance sheet up to $3 trillion. the stock market and the fed balance sheet getting juiced while the economy keeps getting squeezed. i guess between wall street and main street is far from narrowing. more on this, mark at the cato institute and the ceo of fearless wealth. welcome to both, glad to have you here on this historic day.

i was watching our own coverage of this and longtime stock trader said it is nice and we do realize we are running a play. the take away is we were here five years ago, give me something else. what do you say, is this an important moment? >> it is an important moment in the sense so much manipulation and money printing pushed up these levels. i do think it is funny and 24 hours we will hit the four year mark of the market automate in march of 2009. gerri: good point. >> if anything, to increase volatility. whenever something hits a lifetime high, there will be increased volatility. the reason that concerns me is i don't think people who are necessarilnecessarily coming inw jones today really want to be in. i think they feel like they have to, which means they don't really have conviction.

gerri: i really want to get mark in here to think about these things very intensively all the time. today i was thinking what happens when the federal reserve tries to unwind the $3 trillion balance sheet? predictions today, even today, the 10-year treasury 3.5%, there could be big changes with big ramifications to th for the ecoy and individual investor savings. >> that this was a fundamental question. the market dominance they being driven by the federal reserve. the income growth, so the real question is when we get the point the fed begins to withdraw liquidity, will the fundamentals have caught up? will the income growth by then, plymouth growth by then? i don't think there will be so in the fed starts to pull way that liquidity, you will see interest rates go up, you'll see the market starts to come down

and i want to emphasize the thee things can actually happen quite quickly. the fed is betting on a gradual withdrawal, the market will not overreact and they are playing with fire. i am very concerned we get to a .6 weeks, six months, might be two years or longer, but we will get to appoint this could quickly turned ugly. gerri: i don't think anybody was thinking of a quick change coming from the federal reserve. what do you see as the impact of the fed unwinding this debt? >> the fed encourages bad behavior, dangerous behavior, so doesn't want people to save, and wants people to spend, it is actually targeted inflation for the currency. this is amazing they want to lose 2.5% in purchasing power per year. this whole thing is being held together by deficit spending and money printing. in the last four years, think about this, on a cash counting

spending $8 billion to get the dow to go up. the second it pulls away, what will hold it up? 1.8%? gerri: it is not even that, my friend. it was fairly positive. but they go back to mark for a second, if i could. they ripped right through it. now to what's going on in the marketplace you have to set yourself here we are, get. is there another bubble that will burst and take it down? do you see anything like that on the horizon? >> equities are the only place to be in the long run and all the other alternatives look bad. the real tell mama facing investors is almost nowhere to put your money. if your traces or put it in

treasuries or corporate bonds, it is even worse. very hard choice of what you can find, so do think the race starts to go up, you will see some of it taken out of the housing market and the equity market and that is going to hurt, to hurt consumption, a drive on the economy. gerri: rc, to you quickly. are our stock the best place to put your money right now? the point mark is making is it is in the factory. >> if you had 10 years, do you put your money in a ten-year treasury or procter & gamble? to put it in procter & gamble, mcdonald's, exxonmobil. but i would rather have my money in procter & gamble then in ten-year treasury. gerri: mark and rc, good job, i feel limited. all you did not make me feel all that much better about what is going on.

thank you so much. well, now we want to know what you think. here is our question tonight, is this bull run for real? i will have the results at the end of tonight's show. and this bull run began in 2009, believe it or not four years old. around the average duration of bull markets since 1929, but it certainly is not the longest. looking at the s&p 500, that list is tonight's top five. number five started in 1982 also followed a recession and lasted exactly five years and was famously brought to an end with black money when the s&p lost more than 20% of its value. number four, the last bull run in 2002 lasted five years ending with a great recession and the

financial crisis in december of 2007. number three started back in 1974 as the federal reserve raised interest rates, stagflation happened leading to an inflation in 1961. going back a ways. 1949. and that bull run lasted seven years, this featured the s&p 90. the number one longest bull run started in 1990. you've got to remember that. it lasted a decade. great for stocks but following the dotcom bubble bursting in 2000, the record long bull run ended. tragically. hopefully this one last 10 years. john stossel on why universal pre-k will not work. and it was supposed to be armageddon, pink slips supposed to fly, so why is the government hiring during a sequestered?

all that coming up.

gerri: the president says budget cuts are hurting the economy and destroyed jobs, sweating to mention the government hiring spree? that is next.

gerri: deep concerns, that is what president obama said yesterday about his feelings on the automatic federal spending cuts that started taking place friday. he said "we are going to manage it as best we can try and minimize the impact of american families."

the president told his reporters monday meeting with the cabinet. the opposition the $85 billion in spending cuts is well-known and oh, by the way, really only $44 billion according to the congressional budget office. the president called a sequestered kryptonian and drastic. gerri: not that drastic. not as bad as all that. for example layoffs may be in the offing, but guess what, the government advertising for workers. advertising for recreation aide, this summer while the internal revenue service advertised for an office secretary in maryland he was meant onto her 20 people

to help press claimed in the agriculture department says it needs three insect production workers, whatever that is to help in phoenix. it sounds scary. all in all it monday a loan the shocking cuts took place, government advertised 400 new jobs by 6:00 p.m. 400, things can't be that bad if uncle sam wants you here 24 people to press claims. in february, our federal debt rose by $253.5 billion. that is right. so our government was borrowing at a rate 44 times the puny cuts we were talking about in sequestration. and don't worry about the government going hungry. on pace to collect a record 2.7 billion in tax receipts this year, 11% higher than last year. it is not just the hiring of the

tax collections, it is the waste. the usda planning to conferences in oregon and california in the coming weeks featuring guest chefs and wine for department employees. and then there are the duplicated programs and the reams of programs they run 33 different housing programs, 21 programs to provide food, ate health care programs, you know, it is really hard if i program it doesn't run an antipoverty program. there were nearly 1400 programs that duplicate others for $364.5 billion in wasteful spending. maybe. just maybe it is time to stop spending so much, maybe this its time the government stopped producing cooking shows. maybe it's time to get the shrimp off the treadmill.

we spend a half-million dollars studying. the president worried about cuts hurting regular americans. he wants the government to keep growing and growing and growing. you get the point. now coming up next, loo a look t some of the biggest obamacare taxes ou out of their already starting to hurt you and me and john stossel is here with a look at how obama's latess plan is bad for your wallet and your kids, how universal pre-k will backfire. coming up.

. >> from fox business studios in new york, here again is gerri willis. gerri: venezuelan president hugo

chavez has some publications related to cancer. the fiery leader is 56 resort. a president obama just said that venezuela is a top producer of oil in the world, and we will do everything we can to support him. there is still volatility in the market. be sure to stay with fox business for the very latest. there is no doubt about it that obamacare is starting to the middle class hard. the house ways and means oversight committee, part of the committee for writing tax laws. we have douglas holtz he didn't with us. regarding how the middle class will be treated with obamacare,

it turns out the promises are not true. >> i think that is unmistakable. obamacare has a lot of taxes in it. this is $800 billion in taxes and when you hear that that is kind of a number, you wonder who will foot the bill. a lot of these will turn out to be higher insurance premiums, some of them will be taxes directly on the policy. a lot of them are going to harm economic growth. in the end, we know how many workers are out there and we know how poor the income growth has been. gerri: even now, people don't really understand what we are going to be on the hook for. health insurance premiums taxes, which you've just mentioned, medical device taxes, it is quick to be devastating to companies. people are going to lose jobs and employer individual

insurance is going to rising costs as well. we were promised that it wasn't going to raise the deficit. but will it? >> i don't see others how there's any way that they can't raise the deficit. there is no way that we can have an economy that grows at a double-digit rate. if we got better health care, higher quality and lower costs, better economic growth, it was enacted at a time when we really need a better growth policies and we really needed to get health care spending under control. most people agree it doesn't do that. gerri: interestingly, the idea of keeping spending under control, we have been talking to people about this issue all week

long. i was promised i could keep my doctor comment but it looks like i may not have a doctor and i might have to go for a nurse. there may not be a health care plan at my company anymore. some of the ceos are saying it may be cheaper for them to get rid of their plan and pay the tax or penalty. whatever you want to call it this week. this is going to transform health care as we know it. a lot of people think not in a good way. >> it is going to transform health care as we know it and the insurance as we know it. i don't think anyone believes that we have the type of reforms that would give us the freedom of choice for our doctors ,-com,-com ma lower-cost, higher quality, but i think the most important thing is that it is going to transform the workplace for a lot of companies are getting out of the business of health insurance and that is going to raise the cost. all that will be subsidized and will cause a lot more part-time hiring. it is going to completely

transform the insurance policies that you have in this is a revolution. it begins in 2014. it is no longer going to be a hypothetical and i think that many people are quite afraid of the consequences. gerri: company-sponsored health care was not perfect. but it was in place for 60 years come and we didn't have to pay for it. amazing to me that we are making this choice. doug, thank you for coming on. always good to see you. well, first universal health care. now universal pre-k. john stossel, host of "stossel", joins me about how this push for cradle to grave government and how it isn't the answer. you are detailing this in your next show. what are the consequences of this remarkable accost me? >> well, we don't know. but really cradle to grave government is not the answer. k-12 education, you know, the results are flat. the math always stuns me.

since this is the business channel, let's do it. $12,000 per student in america. do the math, 24 kids per high school, that's about $300,000 per classroom. you could higher five teachers for that. what are they doing with the money? it's the government monopoly and they make money disappear. the president says that it's based on this preschool study. fifty years ago, 100 kids, they had intensive intervention and the kids did better. but there is no evidence that it will work. two states have it, oklahoma and georgia, they are not doing any better. gerri: are the effects very small and they don't last? >> they do not last. what fights it is that our intuition says that of course it's good. a lot of kids don't have good

parenting. they will be more ready for kindergarten, as they say. obama's own education department, they have no results by third and fourth grade, but they still want to spend more money on it. gerri: i have to tell you that i think people feel guilty. they want to feel like something should be done. >> some don't have parents to read to them. that is headstart, so that should help those kids. gerri: but headstart hasn't worked either. >> it's more likely that that would have worked because i was for the kids that had maybe one parent. this is for everybody. how is that going to work? gerri: you have someone with the union on with you. i'm shocked they agree to appear on your show. what are you going to talk to him about? >> ahead of the new york evening came on to explain that he will not cross the classroom and he's

not for education. gerri: thank you for coming on today. i can't wait to watch. be sure to check out john stossel on the fox business network. every thursday. when we come back, making tax time easier. and the white house showing the thousands of consumers in calling for a new law to let you unlock your cell phone. stay with me

♪music plays thank you orville and wilbur... ...amelia... neil and buzz: for proving there's nowhere we can't go. but, at some point... giant leaps gave way to baby steps... and with all due respect, you're history.

if you taught us anything, it's that you can't cling to the past... if you want to create the future. that's why, instead of looking behind... delta is looking beyond. pushing u.s. aviation to new heights. all 80 thousand of us. busy investing billions in the industry's boldest moves. it's biggest advances in technology. bringing our passengers the best, the most spacious fleet in the sky. and earning more awards than any other airline... to show for it. so rather than simply saluting history... we're out there making it.

gerri: the white house has responded to an online petition on its website, saying that it

agrees that unlocking cell phones should be made legal again. on january 26, it became illegal to unlock your phone. that means if you bought your phone with one carrier, and you wanted to transfer to another carrier, you cannot do that. my next guest spearheaded the online petition, which has received more than 114,000 signatures. thank you for being on the show. >> thank you for having me. gerri: what are the penalties for breaking this law. it is pretty severe. as much as a 2500-dollar fee per violation and criminal penalties of 500,000 and/or five years in prison for a first offense. why is this such a bad idea? >> first of all, the prohibition is on users unlocking their cell phones. so it's not actually about you jumping carriers, it's just the technology of unlocking their phones and the terrible ruling and it really inhibits

innovation and a violation of property rights. >> people in this industry say we make this so cheap to consumers. otherwise they will be paying so much money for these phones. how do we respond? >> we support contract law involving this movement. that is between you and your provider. even after the contract is done, we will send you to jail for five years is what they are saying. gerri: it seems extreme to me. i'm wondering if the cell phone industry would be as big as it is today if consumers carry the full cost of those cell phones. hundreds of dollars. >> no one is talking about getting rid of the subsidized

model. gerri: they are not going to pay the whole great if they are not getting out of you what they want. >> that is incorrect. unlocking cell phones has been lawful for the past six years and we have had subsidized phones. it should remain unlawful for you to unlock your phone. they can fine you, they can take you to court, that business model has worked quite well for the phone industry. and in fact, over 100 wireless carriers have come out in favor of this, including the organization representing t-mobile and sprint. gerri: t-mobile is about to stop with this contract. let me ask you this question. because i think a lot of people

why does this have so much universal appeal? >> it is an issue that is really important that represents crony capitalism. it also violates their property rights. that is like why the tea party nation joined the coalition, then we also had others as well stay on. gerri: the president is on your side. so it is bipartisan. >> you should be able to do whatever you want. we shouldn't be able to ban technology that reason to do so. gerri: at this prohibition goes away, how will it impact the marketplace? >> i think that will lead to less competition and allow for new market participants, and

once you have a new unlock device, you can use it for the carrier of your choice. after the contract is on, most people for throw their vote away. that doesn't make sense. what if you had a provider that offered a sim card with 10 hours of talk time for emergency purposes. gerri: sometime you must talk to us about copyright law. you have some very interesting and controversial ideas. thank you so much, we appreciate your time. gerri: a top canadian government is telling the united states to approve the keystone xl pipeline and send canada was also looking to other markets for its energy. remarks by natural resource and minister -- and minister joe

oliver, canadian minister of natural resources, he joins me tomorrow right here on "the willis report." and tomorrow, "varney & company" talks about how the state department is wrong. >> the department says the they contribute 0.01%. >> it is not true. >> you say july. >> that's not true. >> in this case, yes. gerri: wow, hot stuff. much more tomorrow night on "the willis report." we will be right back

gerri: we will take a look at some of the best tools on your smart phone. that's coming up in a bit

gerri: i have a personal question for you. traffic in drugs, cash in 2012 -- if you sold some and made money, the irs wants to know. there is a line to reporting illegal loot on your tax form. if you received a bribe come included in your income, and it gets worse when you scroll down the page, income from illegal activities such as money from dealing illegal drugs must be included in your income on line 21. who would do anything as stupid? joining me now is rich coppa. okay, i don't have the legal income, but if i had the income if i was dealing drugs, i sure would not report it to the irs. what are they thinking?

>> you know, as crazy as it sounds, the reality is that the irs wants to record all instances of this. the only benefit of doing this is that you do avoid tax evasion and that is always a big pushback. there are laws that say that there is no sharing of information with what is on the tax return. but if there are audits and interviews with witnesses or any other investigation into it, that information, which is in the tax return for say, so yes, it can be concerning. gerri: i think they are trying to find any stream of income they possibly can.

i can't imagine anyone is going to fall for that. you have some interesting applications for the people out there. let's talk about an application that you put on a cell phone, on your ipod. >> absolutely. i have downloaded all of them to my iphone and many of them are available not only to the iphone, but even in troy. >> okay, so simple tax returns, if not for items until you have used turbotax for your college kids? >> well, college kids, plenty of people that have interest, you can take a picture of that with your phone. the good thing about it, because i have tried it, if you have more information than what the application is able to do, it will tell you that they can transfer the data to the website and go forward.

gerri: uk tax records, refund status, and you like this one? >> i'm in the tax business, so i like it. the one piece that i think everyone could use, what am i getting my tax refund. the most important is to check the status of your tax refund. gerri: picture received, expense reports, rated the number one application. obviously people like it, thank you for being on the show. we really appreciate it. >> thank you, gerri. gerri: it's the 50th anniversary of the hula hoop. a hip swiveling twin became a huge success across america. within its first four months of production in 1963, 25 million hula hoops were sold for less

than $2. according to ripley's believe it or not, a performer in boston simultaneously spun 100 hoops around her body. two people in tokyo and japan managed to spend hoops around their waists at least three times. from children to adults, the iconic hula hoop remains a classic american toy. the hula hoop was patton today ,-com,-com ma march 5, 50 years ago. check out these people hula hooping from our staff. we will be right back with my "two cents more" and the answer to the question of the day. is the stock markets will run for real

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