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tv   The Willis Report  FOX Business  March 14, 2013 6:00pm-7:00pm EDT

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ban it. i bet he will. we saw him eating in a restaurant, by the way, and guess what he did? he went right for the salt. >> because he is obsessed -- this is bloomberg, obsessed with salt. >> do what i say, not what i do. >> we're agreeing on every subject here. >> this is great. he salted? >> did you scream at hhm? i would have let him have it. >> my wife is more demonstrative, and i didn't want to scene so i didn't tell her. i let him go. reached right for the salt. there he went. >> if you go to mcdonald's, you're not worried about calories; right? >> i don't know. see i take the kids in for a fun happy meal. they get apples in there. it's delicious. i'm not getting a big mac, but it's something i could get. >> i was a vegetarian because it was cheap, and i was not going
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on food stamps. once a week, i treated myself at mcdonald's, i i remember how good and delicious that fried fish sandwich tasted. >> burger king double cheese burger. >> i go with mcdonald's. >> the mcdonald's fries and burger king burger. >> in and out burger. you were a vegetarian to save money? >> lentils and vegetables and once a week mcdonald's. it was 78 cents a day for food. >> that's a faint vegetarian. >> i was not official. >> you ate once a week. >> i was not making money. it was cheap. >> you were a cheaptarian. >> on that not, that all the money we have for you. tune in tomorrow because we are going to report on every aspect
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of the business of vice, alcohol, gambling, adult intertapement, we have it all here. >> sin city. >> don't miss it. we'll see you back here tomorrow. can't wait. gerri: hello, everybody. i'm gerri willis. tonight, a backlash, a new plan to let the feds dig deeper in our lives than ever before. government agencies seeking full access to our personal financial records: also, remember when internship meant working for free or minimum wage? not anymore when you work for the federal government. in a new deal that could dramatically change retirement plans, we're covering your assets next on "the willis report." ♪ gerri: all that and more later
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in the show including another record day on wall street. the dow up 83 points closing at 14539 and s&p 500 closing two points shy of the all time high. first tonight, our top story. a new privacy warning for you tonight. the feds eyeing you under a microscope. the obama administration planning to give spy agencies complete access to a data base containing financial data of every single american, including you, according to an exclusive report today. currently, only the fbi has access to the treasury's financial crimes end forcement network data base, but pretty soon the cia and national security agency could get full access too, but is it legal? fox news senior judicial analyst, judge andrew nap napolitano, judge, it's got to be an infringement. >> it is. is it legal under current
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federal law, and the other is is it constitutional even if it's legal? it's legal because congress has said it's legal. in statutes enacted before and since 9/11, the federal government authorized itself to gather information from us without using search warrants, financial information, to store it, and to share it with other aspects of itself, but prior to today, the presidents of the united states have told us, if you trust them, that they will keep that information just in the hands of the fbi and the treasury department. gerri: that doesn't make me feel better. >> well, no, it doesn't, but the fbi has indicated that because this information was not obtained by a search warrant, it can't use it in a federal prosecution because they know that a judge wouldn't permit them to do so. gerri: so what's the point of collecting it? >> because the government wants to know what we're doing. the government's looking for a needle in a hay stack because if the government is going to let the fbi and the treasury
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department share what the 16 -- 16 federal spy agencies that we know of, then between those agencies, they will have all the financial and personal information about all 330 million americans, particularly, they'll have records of every bank deposit and every check cashing that any of us in the ordinary innocent course of our commercial dealings engaged in, and they will have that information when they are not entitled to it because though it's legal, it's profoundly unconstitutional because the statutes that make it legal violate the constitution, and the basic law of the land is when a statute says that the government can do something and the constitution says it can't, the constitution prevails. gerri: well, timely, you get to the nut; right? you think it's unconstitutional. information that's all being collected and stored and stashed, it's never -- parts are never renewed or taken away, you
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don't take out names of innocent ameeicans in the data alongside the names of bad guys. why do these agencies need this? the treasury department says an important aspect of the u.s. department of the treasury's mission is to detect and thwart threats to the national security, including financial crimes and terrorism. so, do you think this helps that goal or is it over reach? >> well, i mean would the country have less crime if the police could break down every door op a whim and arrest people on a whim and prosecute them and convict them without a trial? yes, we would, but who would want to live in a country like that? government is always looking for shortcuts. government views the constitution as an obstacle, not as the supreme law of the land. if you give a little bit of power to the government, it will find a way to expand that power and to make its job easy. is it easier for them to get information from us by demanding it rather than going to a judge, presenting evidence of why they need it and getting a search
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warrant? of course it is. if they find a way around the constitutional obligations, they'll do so. yesterday, we learned they're going to do so on a massive scale, to all americans who engage in financial transactions. the people should not accept it. the kicker, gerri, is, unless the government finds information about you and tells you they have it or uses it against you or attempts to in a criminal prosecution, you don't know they have it, so you're not in a position to go to the judge to get the judge to stop them. it's a catch 22 that will be going on and on and on until we have a president or a congress that honors the constitution which they've sworn to uphold. gerri: a tradeoff you're not willing to make. judge, thank you, always a pressure having you on the show. thank you so much. >> oh, pleasure to be with you. thanks for having me. gerri: what do you think? here's the question tonight. should the feds be able to spy on your finances? log on to gerriwillis.com, vote on the right hand side of the
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screen, and i'll share results at the end of the show. two speaking out on privacy rights, and the co-chairman of io dealtty theft 911. adam, starting with you, is it an envision of privacy? >> no question. people say they balance national security issues against privacy issues, but i'm always concerned that under the cloak of national security, you have a situation where privacy is being eroded, and, again, while it's important to have the ability to do something when there is probably cause to do it, when it's just sort of a fishing expedition, it becomes scary, and banks over report to this network. gerri: unbelievable. >> in order to protect themselves, and you don't want to be caught -- gerri: legally required to report the information, so, obviously; it would make sense they over report rather than under report. john, to you. you say there's a lack of
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effectiveness to this. what do you mean? >> yeah, to judge's point, there's a needle in a hay stack here. that doesn't mean you're going to find the terrorism of needle in that hay stack. to do it simply for the sake of having it doesn't mean it's going to be effective. there needs to be a great deal of thought put into it and a lot of oversight of how this would work because, listen, it's not just privacy issues here. it's a security issue. are we comfortable letting one governmental body have all of our records in one single location? that's a little troubling, and like adam said, you know, this is a balance here betteen every time we give up -- get a little bit more security, think of tsa, we give up a little bit of freedom, and that's a really important balance to be conscious of. gerri: a slippery slope for sure. >> yes, it is. gerri: the story this week, though, that shows you the degree to which we're exposed to hackers who might want to take
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our information. annualcreditreport.com, the website that federal law required be set up so you could go in and get your credit report, they all report into the annualcreditreport.com. it was hacked, and information of major celebrities was given up. unbelievable. beyonce, the president's wife, michelle obama, a number of people have perm data out in the public marketplace. adam, to you. what do you think of the story? >> what happened is it's less of a hacking story and more of an improper use of information that may have been the fruit of hacking that was used to fool awe tent -- aweauthentication systems. there's so much information out there about us that either we mistakenly give or data bases that go all levels of government, and as well as
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businesses, have been hacked, and this points out the fact it's no longer an issue if someone a victim of identity theft, but when. gerri: wow. it's interesting because essentially what the fellows, i assume, did was they went on the website and pretended they were michelle obama and filled out the forms to get their data. now, some of the information was accurate, some was not. this is what equ ifax said. we're aware of the reports retaining nonauthorized access, and there's four consumer credit reports occurred. more names were reported, but, john, to you. what do you think of this story? what's the lesson for consumers? >> you know, i think to some degree this is the same story we've been hearing for the last ten years. it just so happens it's been to celebrities and stars and so we're paying really big attention to it. there's a lot to have learned
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there. listen, take steps that we wouldn't have otherwise because it's getting publicity that we had not had before. gerri: what step should we take? john, to you first, and then to adam. >> you bet. number one is, you know, obviously, be aware of what you share as adam said. it was a social hack. make sure that when you're putting that stuff up on facebook and filling in your profiles and working online, the more you put up, the higher the risk you have. secondly, you got to pump up the passwords, long and strong, and you got to vary them site to site. don't use the same password on every sight or you'll be stung, not just in one place, but your bank and every place out. be a skeptical clicker. when you click on what you think is a link that a friend sent you on a facebook post or a tweet, if it is too good to be true, too bad to be, you know, real, if it's -- you just don't click on it if it's out of character. gerri: adam, what do you say?
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>> first, minimize the risk of exposure. i agree with everything said. secondly, monitor, seriously monitor, and that is going to places like annualcreditreport.com, think about getting credit and fraud monitoring programs, enroll in programs in banks and credit unions that notify you when transactions occur. gerri: do i have to pay for the service, or can i get it free? >> you know, you can get services free where they notify you when transactions occur. obviously, credit and fraud monitoring you pay for it and you decide what you want to pay for. you can go to sites where there's free credit reports that are really free where they actually give you access to information, and you can sort of monitor what's going on, but then there's a really a third element. you got to have a damage control program, and many people don't realize they actually have those programs that their insurance companies, banks, credit yiewn youses, employers offer
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assistance if you have a problem, but -- and in many cases, it's free as a perk of the relationship of the institution. gerri: freedom appeals to you. thanks to both of you, john and adam, for coming on. great information and very informative. thanks so much. >> thanks. gerri: a programming note for you. we'll have fun here tomorrow, all day long, talking about the business of vice from alcohol to porn and pot. it's big business, live from atlantic city looking at the business of gambling from the economic impacts of casinos to how to make money. it's game day here on "the willis report" friday. we have more to come here including president obama making another trip to capitol hill today, and whatever happened to internships? i'll break down a new report showing how much dough you can make interning for uncle sam. what was that about a sequester? ♪
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♪ gerri: well, the imam administration, which claimed its hands are tieded by the sequester, which they say they had no part in, pays 139 people at least $100,000 each, and the federal government posted more than 2600 job openings over the last two weeks. now, they are looking for interns as well. according to a fox news search of the usa jobs website, uncle sam has 84 open internships, and these are not your urinal r usual internships where you work strange hours getting coffee with no pay. the department of agriculture has an internship opening for a student trainee at the animal and plant inspection service for $24 an hour. one nasa internship pays more than $83,000 a year.
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that's two-thirds higher than the median household income in the country. okay, well, maybe it's nasa and offer the salary to get the best of the best; right? a 2.9 grade point average, only a b, my friends, and have to be enrolled in school on a half-time basis. the national oceanianic and atmosphere administration has an internship with a salary of $63,000. with all of these expensive internships and calligraphers, why are they close #* closing the white house to tours? they are not. as usual, obama and company blamed everybody else. they claim it was the secret service and them alone who decided to cancel the tours. the secret service has such a great history of good decision making, as we talked about in the past, and boy did that plan backfire. reason -- rather than being an example, this was an opportunity to point out all the other ways the white house is wasting money, like
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hiring 84 very expensive interns. unbelievable. up next, could president obama and california governor, jerry brown, change their mind on energy policy and sigh the keystone pipeline and more fracking? we'll have more details after the break. ♪ understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) scottrade. voted "best investment services company."
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all statstep seven pointo mithis itwo one two.his time. rify and lock. command is locked. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. emens. answers. otherworldly things.
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but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪ gerri: president obama thinking the number of jobbings keystone would create might be off. details coming up.
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gerri: the ppesident facing a round of questions from republicans on the keystone pipeline, and the white house
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says no to the idea of congress taking the keystone pipeline decision out of the ad mings' hands. here to weigh in is congressman of nebraska, and, welcome to the show. great to have you, sir. tell me, do you want to be involved in the decision? >> it needs to be. it's been 1600 days, and it looks like they are setting up for more foot drags and delay. congress needs to take over the issue. gerri: well, you met with the president. did you get the sense from him he's willing to modify his position? >> no, he didn't signal any way. he criticized it. he would talk off the environmental talking points about it doesn't really create jobs. it's all going to be exported, and just that everyone exaggerated. gerri: that squashes that hope. let's go to governor brown in
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california who said he might go with the mining of the california shale deposit, do you buy that? >> i think that's a smart move on his play. it's shocking to me, really, that he would make that decision as tight as he is with their environmental community, but the reality is 60 years of this technology being used, a million wells drilled, and, yet, no instances of ground water contamination from dpraking so it is safe. i'm glad he's looking at the science rather than the rhetoric. gerri: you know, i cannot imagine that the california governor will not buckle under the pressure of the greens, the environmentalists, who no doubt will be coming out of the woodwork here. >> you'd think so. they are basically all headquartered in california, and so that's why it's shocking that he would even play with that notion, but the reality is that the science does show it's safe,
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experience shows it's safe, and it's such a great job creator. why wouldn't the governor approve that? gerri: well, and that's certainly part of the debate, i think. you know, it's a job generator, a boost to the economy, and now we see china trying to grab a piece of the action. what do you think of that? >> well, it shouldn't surprise me. they have invested in the oil sands and in alberta, there's a pipeline in canada. it seems like a natural move for them, but i have to tell you i'm uncomfortable with chinese company, which is probably state owned or at least has state money involved in it, setting up a fuel stations in the united states, at least, i hope they use american equipment and american people to build them. >> it's an open question. i'm sure they will, but, you know, to what degree, because i know a lot of countries had issues with the chinese coming in and making a move on natural resources in their country.
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do what degree do we oppose that or get in the way of that? what makes sense? what policy should the government pursue, frankly? >> well, if they want to buy them, that's fine, but i permly have a problem with them coming in and buying our land, and they are doing it right now with oil reserves in texas and oklahoma, so i got a problem with it. i just don't know as a free trader that you shut gown foreign investment because we don't like the chinese way of doing business. we don't want them to own our oil and our land, but how do you stop that? that's the real issue that we're wrestling with. gerri: well, is it we don't like the way they do business, or we realize that they are an adversary of ours, a competitor of ours? is it more about the conflict there than just, we don't like them? >> well, that's a veried -- very good point. it is about -- this is an economic competition. it's more than a competition. it's the new warfare, this
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economic warfare, but our investments in china in doing business over there is given them so much money they just go around and invest it in ways, and that's the part that i said we're trying to deal with. i don't know how we shut them down from buying our land and our resources, but we should at least start looking about it. we need to be concerned about it. gerri: well, i agree with that. congressman, thank you for coming on tonight. a pleasure chatting with you tonight, thank you. >> my pleasure. gerri: coming up, another record day in the markets. never sick of saying that, and, next, president obama trying to get congress on his side yet again with another trip to the hill, but will it work? ♪
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gerri: president obama turning on the charm on capitol hill for a third day in a row, this time meeting house democrats where he reportedly told the members he has their backs on entitlements. it's great to see you, and what do you make of the state of relations between obama and republicans right now. is he making headway on the charm sen sis? >> no, very little. you have republicans going out and saying nice things about the fact the president came to capitol hill. he's not been there much. i think they appreciate the fact he's trying to start a conversation, and, you know, against the backdrop of all of these conversations is the fact that the campaign team made clear that the second term
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agenda is dependent on throwing republicans out of control in the house of representatives, and on the first four years of president doing nothing on entitlement reform. if you believe he's willing to cast aside the political agenda and take up something not done to this point, you think there might be a grand bargain. e ri main a skeptic. gerri: were you surprised to hear the president welcomedded tax reform, a bipartisan effort on corporate tax reform in >> i'm not, he made hints about it before. it's some of the areas he and mitt romney had overlap. the president seemed open to corporate tax reform in the past. what we have not had from the president is anything in the way of specifics. if yao the president of the united states, and you want to actually orer in a -- usher in a series of reforms, whether it's taxes or entitlements, get out and make your case to the american public by giving us specifics, tells us exactly what you want to do. think until we do, we should be
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skeptical. gerri: what john boehner said in an op-ed quoting all the bipartisan discussions are encouraging, but presidential leadership is needed and shifting from charm to courage and action we can guarantee the children a future where everyone has a chance to find work and pursue their piece of the american dream. it's about leadership at the end of the day, isn't it? >> yeah, i mean, i think that's right, and this is -- the president has not done this, and not only that, but when he's had the opportunity to talk about entitlements, to talk about deficits, to talk about debt, he down played them as a problem, as a general rule. you 4 it in the state of the union, in the second inaugural, you had it in the interview with abc news a couple days ago where the president said the debt was not an immediate crisis, recon pitchlating something said to david letterman in september. he doesn't treat this debt as an urgent problem, and until he does, he's going to have a hard
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time bringing republicans on board. gerri: that's true. today was jack lew's first outing as treasury secretary, everyone listening to what he had to said, including fbn, we had an exclusive interview with him. here's what he had to say. >> it's there's a meeting of the mind, they are going to come from recognizing we have to do hard things on entitlements, and they have to do hard things on revenue side. we need health care reform, tax reform, and a balanced approach to finishing the job. gerri: how do you read this? you know, it's interesting to hear him say we have to give up something, but when you look at how it's negotiated, that's not what people offerment they don't offer to give up part of their positions. >> right, and, look, i mean, republicans say they already gave up 650 billion dollars in new revenue, and if they made the gives. look, any time you have someone like jack lew, for all of his smarts, is regarded as a
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partisan. when they say we have to do hard things, that's a good moment. i mean, it's a good thing that at least he's making the basic recognition there's a job to do that entitlements are the problem. the -- i think the remaining question is what are they going to do? give us the specifics, tell us what the hard things are. it's not enough to say we have to do hard things. we know that. we've known that for years. what specifically, what hard things are you willing to do? i think if he -- if they make an initial offer, you can have additional interest from republicans, but until they do, and i'm skeptical they will, republicans are just not going to buy in here. gerri: well, sounds like rhetoric and that's it. steve, thanks for coming on tonight. great to have you on the show. thank you so much. >> any thyme, thanks. gerri: meanwhile, microsoft co-founder, bill gates, is bashing the federal government. he says he would never run a business the way they are running washington. the philanthropist told our neil cavuto what he thinks of possible plans to do away with
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charitable deductions in the tax code. listen to this. >> both sides revisiting all of the, i guess, the sacred cows including the charitable deduction, whether it's limited or capped. does that worry you? >> well, i really wonder if the american public's ready to give up the major deductions. gerri: interesting. you can watch all of neil's interview with bill ggtes tonight at 8 p.m. eastern time right now on the fox business networkment don't miss that. when we come back, some can't miss advise for small business owners, and the dow, 8th day of record highs, a few points away, we have advice for investors out there. stay with us. ♪
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gerri: another record breaking day for the dow, closing in the green for ten days in a row, ten days, eight with record highs. the s&p 500 logged gains, just two points show of the record closing back in october of 2007. wow. market watch senior columnist chuck joining me with the latest. chuck, you're in the market all the time, talking to people, experts, pros, strategists, what are they saying about how long this rally can last? >> well, actually, they've been saying the rally can last a fairly long time, but that we're sort of overdue for a set back. i hate to call it a correction because that would imply that the market is only correct when it goes down. let's call it a retracement or retrenchment because what they
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are all talking about is that the market is overvalued, it can stay overvalueddfor awhile, but at some point, it has to take a breather. that breather, though, most are not expecting to be, like, a bear maaket. they are expecting it to be maybe 10-15%. gerri: i hear 2-5% from our sources. these guys are never right, you know? you hear this all the time, and it never coming true, so word of wisdom to people out there. >> let's point out, he's the important thing, back ten days ago when the market was reaching the high and everybody was celebrating it, everyone said at the same time, oh, it's gotten to a high, and now it's got no place to go but down. that's not really true either, and the biggest thing is for folks saying now that it's reached a peak r it's going to immediately go on a downturn. well, let's hope they didn't get out of the market because of the nice run. gerri: i want to talk to you about fidelity and black rock group together in a new alliance to offer etfs. good news for consumers to give
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them more options? >> well, this is fantastic news for consumers because it really sort of escalates, hate to use the term "etf wars," but that's what we are seeing. we talked about the one source program, expanding the number of free etf offers. this takes that a step further, and while they are not offering as many free etfs, they are offering some really popular etfs, and that's a big, big difference. gerri: that's a big step forward. >> exactly. if you want to do etf trading, those with big liquidity and big market share is the places you want to go, and now you're going to be able to get those on a transaction free fee basis, so no trading costs, and, ultimately, that's where we want to see the entire industry go. it's a big step towards that. gerri: more competition, good for us. we showed the folks, and i want the numbers in. the free etfs offer the, union,
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65, 105, and now you were not thrilled with what they were doing. why was that? the problem with swhab is they only represent 3% of the total at #* assets, 3-4% of the total assets, and the fidelity represents 18%. whatoff have with schwab are funds thinly traded. okay, great, they were available for free, but if you buy into an eff with a liquidity problem, you don't have the execution. you saved eight bugs on commission, but spent more because you dent get a got price. yeah, and, you know what? there's a very good thing that's going to come out of schwab which is eventually, they'll have more than 105etfs in the one source, and you'll get more and more big names to help get the industry to where you're commission free, but -- gerri: this is how competition
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helps individual investors, more people trying to make the offerings. it's good news. chuck, thank you for coming in tonight. fascinating stuff. >> always a pleasure. gerri: appreciate your gauging what's going on with individual investors. thank you. >> you bet. gerri: well, as the markets reach the near all time highs tonight, we look at the best public companies according to the investing website with a list compiled not just for rising stock prices, but for how it treats customers, employee, and the rest of the wrld. it's tonight's top five. number five, skyworks solutions. this company has a $4 billion market cap and gets high marks for the treatment of the environment, compensation for employees, and the sippet quality of its products. number four, google. the site says google creates a good work/life balance for employees and gets high marks for philanthropy. the stock chart topped $800 bucks a share, up 33 #% in 52
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weeks. palmolive. they have an a for treating employees and offering a good return on call, up 20% over the past year. number two, the computer company, tera data corporation, a $10 billion market cap with an a for the way it treats investors even though the stock is down 1% year over year. the number one best public company is cumi inc, that service and manufacture engines in related technology with a $21 billion market cap with an "a," for customers, and consistency in pricing and a fair score for how they treat the world. the stock is down 2% for the year. more to come, my two cents more on history repeating itself on the high seas issue and the state of small business in the country with advice for owners and those looking to start one up. don't go awe. ♪
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gerri: big companies on fire, but small business floppedderring. advice to push your business aaead in today's economy, next.
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gerri: it's about who you know in the business world, and the next guest helps owners and advisers meet the right people. an online marketplace connects businesses across the country to capital and flood warning data. the ceo, peter, joins me now to give small business owners at home insight into today's economy. thanks for coming in. tell us about your company. what is it you try to do, and who are the companies you are serving?
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>> of course, yeah. i mean, what we've developed is essentially a website that helps owners of private companies figure out organizations or people or institutions that might be interested in providing a loan, making an investment, or acquiring the business so we think about this as -- imagine if you were selling your house, and you could go to a website and immediately know who would be interested in buying your house, the broker best served to represents, you, and the most likely banks to provide a mortgage to the buyer. we do that. gerri: like an instant rolladex for owners. you have 500 introductions and deals a month. does the website serve small businesses or investment bankers and others who would like to serve theming? >> well, it's focused on small and medium sized businesses. the biggest businesses tend to be businesses worth not more than 50-100 million dollars, a big business, but not a multibillion dollar business.
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it can be businesses just starting, don't have any customers or revenue. gerri: you know, people out there thought that last year would be the ideal time to sell the business because the change in the tax code, what is the thinking this year? how do people feel about unloading the businesses? easier or harder? >> well, what's interesting is @%ere's a statistic where we have 47% more companies just in the last ten days coming to market, and than we had in the first ten days of february -- gerri: why would that be? >> we think for probably the reasons that you've been talking about on the show, eight record days of the dow, a huge set of high profile transactions, lots of companies bought and sold rights now. i think lots of private companies are thinking this might be a great time to actually sell the business. gerri: what add vies do you have for the companies, what do you tell them to do and help achieve goals? >> the number one reasons why companies go out of business is
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because they don't have enough capital to make the turn and become big enough to sustain themselves through highs and lows, so if you're struggling, the most important thing is to understand all your options, and to understand all the places you can access capital. it's not just your local bank. that's what a lot -- gerri: seems like big banks are less and less likely to give you money. you have to pound the pavement to find somebody to lend to you. that's what you do; right? >> making it much easier to find at terntive and nontraditional sources of capital for the business. the customers are not banks, but individuals and institutions that set up to help private companies, but they are not big banks or local banks. gerri: interesting. as you look for the balance of the year, what's trends going forward? do you see more and more of the companies selling? >> i think that if we see, you know, the kind of activity that's happening in the stock market and we think about more and more activity from big high
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profile mna transactions, i think that passes through and trickles to medium small businesses and small companies, and everybody else is doing it, stock prices are high, people are cash rich, and let's see what business -- what price line business and such. gerri: what everybody wants to know. if i cash out, what do i get? peter thank you for coming on. thank you so much for being with us. >> thanks for having me. gerri: on to this day in business history, on this business day back in 1794 when eli whitney pa toned the cotton gin. it is a wooden drumstick with hooks that pulls cotton fibers through a mesh. since the seeds don't fit through, they fall outside, and just like that, the cotton was transformed and the national economy. a single cot tin jen had 55 pounds of clean cotton every day. cotton exports boomed and
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remitted more than half the value of u.s. exports from 1820-1860. one of the most important technology advances, he pa toned it today, march 14th, 219 years ago. we're coming back with my two crepts more and the answer to the question of the day. should feds be able to spy on your money? stay with us. thank you orville and wilbur... ...amea... neil and buzz: by clinginto the past. and with that: you're history. instead of looking behind... lta is looking beyond. 80 thousand of us investing billions... in everything from the best experiences below... to the finest comforts above.
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we're not simply saluting history... we're making it. i work for 47 different companies. well, technically i work for one. that company, the united states postal service® works for thousands of home businesses. because at usps.com® you can pay, print and have your packages picked up for free. i can even drop off free boxes. i wear a lot of hats. well, technically i wear one. the u.s. postal service®, no business too small. well, technically i wear one. ♪ (train horn) vo: wherever our trains ,
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the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities.
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♪ gerri: a fox business alert now for you. the irs announced today, taxpayers have just a few short weeks declined almost a billion dollars in unclaimed refunds. almost a million taxpayers, 9,804,000 of them did not file
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tax returns in 2009. have until april 15 to file their returns and collect refunds totaling just over $917 million for that year. now, the irs says about half of the potential refunds a bigger than $500. the state of california takes leave with nearly $100,000 in unclaimed refunds, and vermont has the least with less than $1,600 an unplanned funds. get on it. it could be your money. carter says the obama administration is working to give spy agency's full access to american financial data, actually, anybody who banks in this country. should they be able to do this? here is what your posting and are facebook page. no and when is somebody going to remind washington, there are there to represent we, the people, not treat gasol as they're subjects and criminals. savageries, absolutely not without probable cause or a warrant. unfortunately that is just the tip of the iceberg of all that they're spying on. we ask the question on gerriwillis.com. 1 percent said yes.

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