tv The Willis Report FOX Business March 13, 2015 5:00pm-6:01pm EDT
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round for 35 years. tough day on friday this, david. we'll see what monday holds. david: well the markets did come back at the end of the day. judging by this week next week will be just as wild. liz: we'll be here. "the willis report" is next. gerri: hello, everybody, i'm gerri willis and this is "the willis report" the show where consumers are our business president obama goes to the va hospital as a snort of center of the veterans health care scandal. why is his administration still ignoring one of the most critical issues facing our vet. >> veterans should get private care if they can not get mental health care immediately at a va hospital. gerri: we'll investigate. from hillary clinton's email scandal to secret service agents acting more like keystone cops. dysfunction in washington pushes competence in government to record lows. "national review"'s john fund is here with analysis. also, the fed says we're all richer than ever before. >> household net worth rose to
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$82.9 trillion last year. that makes americans richer than ever. gerri: so is social security and retirement savings crisis over? march madness, how to score big on your march madness bracket. that and more coming up on "the willis report," where consumers are our business. ♪ gerri: president obama visiting the phoenix hospital that was in the middle of the veterans affairs scandal last year. the scandal uncovered veterans dying while waiting for care at that phoenix facility. staffers of va clinics across the country keeping secret waiting lists to cover up problems. is the problem solved now? here to weigh in bank up pedal. jessie jane duff, retired gunnery sergeant, center for policy research. dan caldwell, marine corps veteran legislative director of concerned veterans of america. welcome to you both. jessie, i will start with you.
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today's event was billed as input from reformers for the va. was it? >> i don't find it reformed anything. the president neglected to go to phoenix on last visit. now this is a do-over on his part. this did not get national attention with scandals going on with the va until 40 veterans died. phoenix is ground zero of all the veterans scandals that happened. yet this is his first attempt to show he is sending apolive branch over. right now sharon helman was on paid leave and made over $90,000. she was director of this facility until they fired her. so this has gone on for a very long period of time. there were 75 people investigated. and yet only eight have been fired, who were handling these backlogs in appointments. gerri: dan, i want to go right to that with comments directly from the president only moments ago. what he said is, the fact his there have been a few bad apples like the woman you just
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mentioned. i don't want that to detract from the fine work individuals have done within this organization. dan, does that ring true to you? >> no. this is not just a few bad apples. there are over 1000 employees across the va under investigation for manipulating wait list for covering up true wait times at va hospitals. this is two thirds of va hospitals are under investigation for having some secret wait list or appointment manipulation. this is not just a few bad apples. this is rotten toxic culture across the department of veterans affairs. there are good employees. we would not know about this if not for brave whistle-blowers. the fact of the matter this is not a few isolated cases. this is systemwide. gerri: we'll have one of those whistle-blowers on in a few moments. meantime jesse, i want to remind people what is at stake here. what happened. 1700 people kept on secret waiting lists in phoenix. 18 died waiting for care there. the average wait time for first appointment, 115 days.
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now last time we had you on the show, jessie, i got tweets from people despondent, terribly upset. people who were either veterans, related to veterans saying, they're just warehousing us. they are keeping us in the queue, they don't intend to give us coverage. people have lost faith in the va, do you agree? >> absolutely. veterans have little or no confidence in the va. there are 22 million veterans in the country. everybody knows a veteran or is a veteran. the fact of the matter this isn't a partisan issue. this is an american issue. many veterans have died waiting for care. many we will never know about because some records have already been destroyed bit va itself. this is culture that we have not been able to correct in itself. the president, has been negligent because it took him years to address the problems. it wasn't until the 40 veterans died in phoenix, that secretary shinseki resigned. yet scandals had been brought to their attention since he had taken office.
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gerri: right. i agree. i agree. dan, to you, so your organization is quoted or described actually on the editorial page of "the arizona republic" today they say, concerned veterans for america has produced the most the most significant reform proposal for the va hospital system. what is it? >> last, the end of last month we rolled out what we call the veterans independence act which is a comprehensive, 100 page document that will fundamentally transform how veterans receive their health care. we'll make several key recommendation. first is to turn the va health care system into a non-profit. to offer, veterans a private health care insurance option. and provide better oversight for the va. most importantly, in my mind, reorient the the va back towards original mission of caring for service-connected disabled veterans. you have never seen a document like this before. most of the other reform plans are very vague. they only make changes on margins but "arizona republic" endorsed it.
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others have endorsed it, republicans and democrats. this was a bipartisan document. this was not just one group of people from one party getting in a room, putting something out. gerri: dan, you were not even on the panel today? where was your organization? why weren't they there? >> i'm actually glad we weren't involved. gerri: you weren't invited, right? wasn't that the issue, you weren't invited. >> yes. i'm glad we weren't invited. quite frankly would have been a waste of our time. this was a dog-and-pony show. something they did for cameras to show the president and secretary are actually making real effort to reform and fix the va. but they're not. they promote this new commission or excuse me, this new advisory committee. that is a last thing the va needs is another committee. another layer of bureaucracy. it is completely worthless. gerri: jessie to you there is something that has been recommended called a choice card. >> yes. gerri: seems to me just from what i'm reading that the government is trying to prevent people from using it. >> yes. gerri: explain what it is and what is going on here.
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>> this is what is fascinating, just a few months ago congress passed legislation that was signed by the president to allow veterans to get care waiting over 30 days or live more than 40 miles from a hospital. $10 billion. guess what? the obama administration in the 2016 budget, has already tried to reallocate that $10 billion into other programs. so $000 million they don't want to even allow these veterans to get care. they make it very difficult. the paperwork is extensive. many veterans have even had derogatory information on their credit reports by the va because they haven't failed, the va has not paid the bills. and it has gone on their credit report. so we have got a problem here. when veterans don't even have a choice to what care they can get, left waiting in limbo by the veterans administration. gerri: it is appalling. it is astonishing. 22 million vets. a quarter of them use va facilities, 22 a today. >> 22 a day are committing suicide. >> yes. gerri: astonishing.
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jessie, dan, thank you very much. >> thank you, gerri. >> thank you for having me. gerri: it was a doctor at the va hospital in phoenix that sounded the alarm and brought the world's attention to the neglect facing our heroes at the hands of their very own government. the main whistle-blower in that scandal, dr. sam-foot joins me now. dr.-foot thanks for joining me on the show. appreciate your time. will today's meeting, will it make a change for veterans, do you believe? >> thanks for having me, gerri. i like to set you straight on the number. there were nine thousand or 10,000 veterans caught up in this scandal. 5,000 plus were never seen at the va. and i had originally alleged up to 40 patients may have died while waiting for care of two lists i was looking at. the actual number off the two lists that died was 83. the total number of veterans who died at the phoenix, phoenix area while waiting for va was 293. gerri: wow. you know how this works doctor
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foot. the administration says how can you say from not getting care? they decide from whatever the disease was. what is your response to that. >> that's correct. the cause of death is never delay in care. the cause of death is cancer, coronary artery disease. the delay in many cases we feel strongly the delay contributed to the demise he especially in couple of coronary artery cases. but again that is just semantics. gerri: right. >> numbers released in the ig report nowhere you see the 293 unless you take extensive five, read it five times, add them all up. gerri: unbelievable to me. do you believe any reforms put in place are actually working at this point? >> i think secretarying macdonald got it right. downsizing vision system. there were 22, they are going down to five. give him strong marks for that. fortunate the in phoenix the current director glen griffin is working very hard. tough understand he has many of the same people who caused this crisis, who have vested interest
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in not necessarily being fully candid with him. the situation that he has to sort out what is going on and take care of. i have got to applaud him for his efforts helping to settle many of the cases of veterans and employees who had been harmed by this. gerri: doctor? >> yes? gerri: doctor, i just have to ask you listening to you talk about this, and changes that are taking place, i think we failed to say you were working in arizona. you were working at that facility. you're retired now. you're very familiar with it. what made you put up your hand and say i've got to talk about this problem publicly? >> well, it kind of snowballed on us. we first figured out they were lying because they were saying waiting time was under two months and dropping to 30 days when in asking patients they said we've been waiting three, six, nine, 12, occasionally 15 months. when we realized that people were actually dying off this list, we realized that people
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were being hurt. veterans were being injured. it was time to say something. gerri: are you satisfied with changes that have been made? do you think the work is done? >> work is not done. i would say that they have started to make a dent in it. but how hard they're trying and how, vigorous their efforts are to really rid the system of, as dan would say the bad apples and in sharon helman's case they had a slew of evidence they did not use. they were fortunate that they were able to find inappropriate taking of money from outside vendors to terminate her on. >> sam, thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me. >> still a lot more to come this hour including a sweet briar college sophomore. she is joining us to tell us what she will do now that her school is shutting down. next what is the biggest problem facing america? according to a new poll, the answer is clearly the government. john fund joins us next with his take. plus the latest on hillary's
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email scandal. let us know what you think. tweet me @gerriwillisfbn. end us an email through our website. go through gerriwillis.com. we'll be right back. ♪ at ally bank no branches equals great rates. it's a fact. kind of like shopping hungry equals overshopping. in one year 5.6 million hospital workers helped perform 26.6 million surgeries deliver 3.7 million babies and treat 133 million e.r. patients. now congress is considering cuts which could increase wait times reduce staff, and threaten your community's health. keep the heart of america's hospitals strong.
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gerri: from the secret service run amok to hillary clinton's email scandal, no wonder this week americans view of washington plunged to an all-time low. issue trumps all else for folks around the country is chronic dysfunction in our nation's capitol. "national review"'s john fund joins us right now. john, we just got talking about the va and president talking to people about the va today in phoenix. what he wants to do is put in another layer of government. a commission he thinks will be solution to the va problems. true? john? >> yes. the va is complete disaster. it has been that way for years.
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even though they knew it was a disaster, they brought us obamacare for the rest of the population. how in the world do they think they can get one right when they have not gotten the first right? gerri: people are apoplectic about veterans in this country and today's meetings was no sole last. when you look at "gallup poll" we referenced earlier, what is the most important problem in america today? the government. economy two. people are so angry over the government, that is number one. does that surprise you? >> sadly not. ronald reagan began in 1981 his inaugural address saying government is not solution to our current problems, it is the problem. i think we're there again. once again, we have allowed the government to become so big that it can't do base beings right because it has too many frills and too many sidelines and too much micromanagement t
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can't possibly address the underlying problem. it should stick to the basics before it decides to take on new responsiblities like obama care. gerri: we talked a lot this week about hillary rodham clinton. you've been writing about hrc for the whole week. it's a big story. what does this tell you about our government that we have to really watch out for? >> transparency is the key to our government. knowing what fish officials are doing. having the opportunity to look over their shoulder. having media examine what they're up to. and, the clintons complete opposite of all of that. they're nixonian. next son didn't destroy the tapes. hillary clinton destroyed emails. >> she destroyed emails. she had her own email system. essentially running a department within a department it seemed. why aren't democrats really
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rallying behind her here? >> they should be careful. remember, there is enough evidence to, before us, that a hillary clinton administration would get into some major scandals that could be politically troublesome for democrats. first eight years of the clinton administration was great for the clintonss but messed up the democratic party disasterously behind republicans. they lost both houses of congress. lost a whole bunch of governorships. do democrats really believe you can teach a old hillary new tricks? i don't think so. gerri: to that point, are we going to see her in front of a house committee testifying about benghazi, testifying about the emails? will she come forward? will she come clean? >> well, she will be negotiating for a long, long time about about the ground rules. republicans have to be careful. always a chance she become as martyr and chance they're picking on her. gerri: picking on the girls. so tired of that i can not tell you. it is ridiculous.
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get you to talk about one more story. secret service blowing it again. interrupting an investigation. officers drunk. not paying a price for it. what do you make of this shocking story? >> worst part of this, after drunken officers about the investigation and rolled over the bomb in their car, the supervisors basically let them off the hook. officers in charge for the white house police wanted to give them a sobriety test. supervisor, said no no, let them go home. that is kind of thing that should infuriate us. if we have to take sobriety tests when we get into car accident, they don't something is wrong. gerri: you make a very good point, john fund. thanks for coming on the show tonight. >> thank you. gerri: later in the show why disney is in hot water over one of the "toy story" characters. we'll full you about that. putting a face on special investigation we brought to you yesterday on colleges going bust. we'll hear from one sophomore
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gerri: i've been reporting all this week on scandal of colleges that are teetering on the brink of financial ruin. all the while, taking in millions of dollars in tuition money. some of these universities have already gone bust, like sweet briar, a college in virginia. it is closing suddenly after 114 years. with us now one of the students attending that college bree marshall. thanks for coming on the show. we were chatting in the break. you were telling me why you were attracted to this school in the first place. it had really good rankings. tell us about that. >> well, sweet briar college was ranked number three for having most accessible professors.
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and it was also ranks at number eight for having the best classroom experience. and, i just love sweet briar because of the environment as well as the students and, the professors who were just amazing. and, i'm, i might seem like i'm just talking about my college just because it is my college, but i have had the best experiences of my life at this college. it is not just students, or classmates. it is like our family. gerri: i get that impression from seeing what people are saying about this school. i know from my own experience that it was a very, it has been a very well-regarded institution. people thought they gave great educations to folks. did you have any idea that the school was experiencing financial difficulties? >> no. we had no idea until last tuesday. we didn't know anything about like, their financial difficulties. we had no idea.
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nobody told us, that we were in that bad of a shape. >> so how did you find out? how did they tell you? >> they told us, the president called us into a meeting in the auditorium and i had just finished lunch. we were just going to the auditorium. they told us that i regret to inform you that your school is closing. gerri: wow. >> and we were in shock. nobody gave us any warning whatsoever. and it is like, disrespectful to us as students and peers, that they didn't, even bother to tell the faculty or the students that your campus, which you've lived on for so long is just going to be you're not going to be able to see it anymore. gerri: i mentioned it is a 1 is 4-year-old school. it is an all girls school -- 114. that is unusual you don't see that much anymore. you have scholarship money from the school itself. >> yes. gerri: you were a student in
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good standing in sophomore year. what will you do now? can you go to another school? will you accept the credits is. >> sweet briar is doing agreement with other schools like holland college hollands university and randolph. they're accepting your credits and your gpa. >> do you want to go there? >> i'm, i actually applying to hollins right now. because, i'm in lynchburg. i'm like in the surrounding area. so. i feel, i feel like this is bittersweet but i still feel like there is still hope we can, you know, raise enough money to save sweet briar. gerri: wow. brea, you are one impressive young lady. thank you so much for coming on the show tonight. good luck to you. >> thank you. gerri: good luck with your future studies. thank you so much. >> and also, can i say something real quick? please do #save sweet briar
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about our causes and go to savingsweet briar.com. >> thank you. wow, what a story. coming up a new report shows how out of touch america is -- the government is with america's middle class. a problem with the member of the "toy story" gang. our panel is next. ♪ it's one of the most amazing things we build and it doesn't even fly. we build it in classrooms and exhibit halls, mentoring tomorrow's innovators. we build it raising roofs, preserving habitats and serving america's veterans. every day, thousands of boeing volunteers help make their communities the best they can be.
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: ♪ ♪ ♪ tigers, both of you. tigers? don't be modest. i see how you've been investing. setting long term goals. diversifying. dip! you got our attention. we did? of course. you're type e* well, i have been researching retirement strategies. well that's what type e*s do. welcome home. taking control of your retirement? e*trade gives you the tools and resources to get it right. are you type e*? . gerri: welcome back to "the willis report." in a moment our legal panel weighs in over a fight over a well-known disney character. time for a look at other stories in the news. a drop in oil prices and worries about high interest rates led to a sharp decline on wall street today. the fed meets next week to discuss interest rates.
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and the founder of lumber liquidators tom sullivan calling for new standard for testing wood floors. company under fire after "60 minutes" tested flooring and said it contained dangerous levels of formaldehyde. sullivan called for the new real world test on the fox business network. >> deconstructive testing which is not reliable not recommended by carb. carb does test the core. they don't really test the finished product, and what we need is one standard test to test the whole product as it's being used in the real world in the home. gerri: and general motors recalling some chevy volts to fix a problem in just over 64,000 cars. gm says if a driver exits the car and leaves it running the gas generator could kick in leaving to dangerous buildup of carbon monoxide. and disney won't let it go. it announced plans to make a sequel to the animated mega hit
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"frozen." since november of 2013 "frozen" made nearly 1.5 billion dollars and generated a massive merchandising revenue stream. no details of the widely expected film have been released not yet. and those are some of the stories in the news tonight. this from disney, headed to court over one of the characters in their beloved toy story franchise. lots of hugging, you know this character. the bear or lotso premiered in toy story 3. a new jersey-based company claiming they had a trademark on the bear and the judge is siding with them saying the case should go forward to a jury trial. debating with us legal eagles eric guster and lis wiehl fox news legal analyst and the author of the brand-spanking new book, look at this lethal beauty. lis, this is complicateed. >> it is complicated. gerri: give us the basics. >> the basics are the consumers will be confused and it's lotso
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hugs and lotso hugging. those are very, very similar in name. gerri: do they look the same? >> they don't look the same but names are very much the same. the confusion is there that's unfair competition and trademark infringement trademark on the name, on the idea. they have two problems to go here and damages. one of the affiliates tried to lease out their lotso hugging and were turned down because of lotso hugs. i am confused trying to go through. gerri: eric you say disney is in the right here? >> disney has a good leg to stand on. the world is coming to an end when mickey mouse gets sueed. >> oh! my goodness. >> shame on them for suing mickey mouse. the likeness and the likeness is not similar enough for them to be held responsible. gerri: lis said that.
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they don't look, but the name is something. >> did i want lotso hugging? you have a parent a grandparent for example and they don't know what they're getting. gerri: eric maybe you can answer. this lotso, the original came out in 2007 and the disney character didn't come out until 2010. who's copying who? >> it depends. [ laughter ] >> of course, as lawyers we say it depends. this case comes down to what a jury believes is reasonable. whether disney copied off of the other companies. >> they might have. gerri: absolutely. >> the names are extremely close. when the characters don't look alike and big business is going after a small little company. i doubt that. >> think about a grandparent buying something for a grandchild. all they have is get lotso hugging. they don't know what the thing looks like. lotso hugs, lotso hugging. >> they are picking the thing out. >> they chose a name that is similar.
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here's big corporation versus a tiny company. gerri: who might say an entrepreneur with a business of its own. why harass the poor person? >> the poor person is harassing disney because disney has the deep pockets. >> they're losing business or shirt on this. >> i bet the small company is make more money now since disney -- people would more than likely confuse the small company's character with the disney character and buy theirs. >> you said something that is key, what the jury would find. that's what's key. what disney tried to do is get by on summary judgment. the judge says no. there's a fact here to be decided and let the jury see it. good for that judge. >> i doubt this gets to a jury anyway. these are cases that are settled so no one can talk about it i believe they would make this one go away. >> settled and sealed and somebody pays up, lis, who's that going to be? >> disney. >> disney may have to pay a little money to make the
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problem going away. >> the great american way. >> they're going to pay a little. >> you are right. a settlement of who knows what the money is going to be and confidentiality agreement. the point is disney was wrong deep pocket or not. they can't squish the little guy. >> dli will make more money because of the confusion. i would love if i created something and disney marketed something just like it. i will make more money. >> why sell it out to different affiliates, you can't sell it you think they're copyrighting trademark off of disney. i'm getting confused here. that's the point, they're not make more money. >> the confusion is a problem for disney so they are -- gerri: the bear is really cute. don't sick on mickey mouse. the morale of the story. >> and snow white, too. >> throw them all in there. all the disney characters. gerri: you are going to go on and on i can tell.
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. gerri: believe it or not, america's total wealth has reached a new record, that's according to a new federal reserve report. yet there are still concerns over a retirement crisis. with more on this fox business' peter barnes. peter, what are the numbers? >> hey gerri. the fed's latest report card on wealth says household net worth rose to 82.9 trillion dollars last year. that's a 4 trillion dollar increase from 2013 and makes americans richer than ever. and get this, household net
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worth is about 25% higher. about 16 trillion dollars more than its 2007 prerecession peak mainly due to the stock market's big six year rally. last year the value of homes, which is most families most valuable asset rose 5.5% to 23.5 trillion. iras are flush climbing to 7.3 trillion last year, and 401(k)s increased to 6.4 trillion gerri. gerri: i got to tell you, this flies in the face of everything i know about the retirement crisis. how do you square those two things? >> you're right, you're right. experts point out rising stock prices have more helped the retirement accounts are higher income people who have more money to save and save more but for many others there is still a crisis out there. the national institute on retirement security released this report just yesterday. it said that nearly 40 million households have no account of
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any kind. the median balance of a retirement account was just $2500. >> it's amazing but it's not surprising. when you look at real median income in america it's down still 9% lower than 1999. >> reporter: and so, you know, with adjusted for inflation with incomes down people are not just struggling to pay the regular bills, they're struggling to try to save, right? so while millions of workers still count on a traditional pension from their employer according to the fed. those pension plans are underfunded by more than 3 trillion, gerri. and just to remind everybody, social security likely will only cover about a third of a typical person's retirement and even with the value of their homes included the institute says that two-thirds of families two thirds face shortfalls in even conservative retirement plan targets, gerri.
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gerri: it is not good news there. peter, thanks for coming on. >> reporter: you bet. gerri: with his reaction to the retirement crisis, the numbers from the fed. personal finance expert and best-selling author larry winget. the federal reserve says we are super wealthy. what do you say, my friend? >> that would be a good talking point for the obama administration. they can take credit for people being rich! listen, this is going to be a laughable number to most americans. 50% of americans don't have any money in the stock market so this doesn't matter to them. when you realize that 68% of americans say that they are not prepared for retirement? and it's not surprising that they're not prepared. considering the fact that they have so little money saved, most of them have a lot of credit card debt and other debts, and i think i read the other day that 60% of older americans are still supporting their adult children financially in some way. people are -- 50% of them are
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planning on working part-time after they retire which doesn't seem like retirement to me. gerri: no, it doesn't. and one of the most astonishing numbers i hear over and over again is the proportion of americans who consider themselves lower lower middle class. larry, not middle class lower. when did that happen? >> you know, i don't know when that happened but these are alarming numbers for anybody approaching retirement right now. people need to start paying attention much earlier than they have to their retirement accounts and preparing better. gerri: that's for sure. i got to get you onto another topic here. a democratic bill that would ban first class flights for lawmakers. they go home every weekend. we pay the tab for their airfare. shouldn't they just sit, not on first class for goodness sakes. shouldn't they be for the rest of us? >> well they should be. i think this is a banner day. this is the first thing i've
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seen that has true bipartisan support, and that's only because none of them on either side want to be heard saying out loud that taxpayer dollars, their voters, constituency should be buying them first class tickets or paying for luxury car leases. they don't mind doing it they like to sit in first class but don't want voters to been it they are going to support this bill. gerri: embarrass you to death so you do the right thing. i love it. talk about the secret service. talking earlier in the show how government is out of control, seems to have its own will and the secret service proving it today. couple of drunk agents drive over a criminal investigation scene and a bomb for goodness sakes! what do you make of this story? >> i think the average american is a little tired of scandal after scandal. at some point, you lose faith, and we have to be able to trust the secret service to be able
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to take care of our president, and i don't trust them anymore to be able to do that when it's scandal after scandal and the ridiculous things we see. on top of that i believe the average guy sitting back saying i couldn't get drunk and drive through a police tape and drive through the gates of where i go to work and get by with it. i'd lose my job, and i think that's how most people look and all the stupid things we see government employees doing. not enough are losing their job. incompetence should have a consequence. gerri: we see it over and over again, and seen it before with secret service. they go out of country they get hookers. it's astonishing to me that we have -- what has to happen? what would change the culture of the secret service, larry? >> it's got to be overhauled from the bottom up and the top down and the new guy said he would do that, yet this still happened. again consequences. if there aren't strong enough consequences, that's the way it is in every area of life.
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people will do whatever they can get by with as soon as we stop letting people get by with all this stuff we will change behavior. but as long as there aren't severe consequences we're never going to see a change. somebody needs to come out loud and strong against this and people ought to start losing their jobs. gerri: we aren't a consequences nation, we're a, oh that's okay, get to it later. you do what you want to do that will be fine kind of nation. larry, thanks for coming on the show. >> thank you. gerri: have a great weekend. here's our question tonight -- . here's what's some of you are tweeting me about our poll question tonight one viewer writes this --
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lots of people upset about that. and charlie simply says -- in addition to following me on twitter and facebook "like" fox business on facebook. kevin from alabama writes this -- oh go talk to the people on capitol hill. they'll find a few arguments. and dennis from north carolina -- dennis, thanks so much. we love hearing from you, go to gerriwillis.com. selection sunday time, if you're at a loss for how to fill out brackets for march
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needs and budget. sixty-five may get all e attention, but now is a good time to start thinking about how you want things to be. [ male announcer ] go long™. . gerri: it's time for march madness. it's that time the year when all productivity frankly stops and college basketball teams duke it out. no reference, for the ncaaa title. division one title that is. the madness starts march 15th, selection sunday continues through april 6th. which team will take the crown. j.t. with his predictions. thanks for coming back. you are going to be in vegas. what is that like? all the teams go to play. must be exciting. >> gerri it's the headquarters for the ncaa tournament when the tournament kicks off next
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week, everybody is able to watch the games in las vegas. the sports books are packed. this year we have an undefeated 31-0 kentucky team, the fifth youngest team in america they are on fire. no one can beat them they're a heavy favorite coming into the tournament. so if you're looking to pick a sleeper team or upset along the way this would be the year to do it because people will remember you if you get it right because kentucky looks unbeatable as of tonight. gerri: okay three week tournament 68 college teams. isn't the reality of the tournament that it's tough to predict? >> absolutely. typically, you have about six or seven teams and there are five or six teams that could win it all from wisconsin, villanova. arizona, duke of course but there's one team in kentucky that stands alone, and they're trying to do something that is so special trying to be the latest team to go undefeated since bob knight in indiana in 1976. and it just doesn't happen because the competition is so
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tough. gerri, there is a chance they can be beat. if they get beat it will be one of the biggest upsets in the last 25-30 years extreme pressure on kentucky to win it all. gerri: okay, kentucky kentucky, kentucky you keep saying that. last year it was the seventh seeded connecticut that won right? predicting this is not easy even if the team has a big lead. what other teams look strong here? >> i like wisconsin and virginia they play a defensive style. they're going to try to take a team such as kentucky or duke, get them out of their game. slow it down, lead with defense first, and then any team that beats kentucky are the best teams is going to have their best night of the year. they have to hit three-pointers and hope that kentucky or a great team misses free-throws. it's difficult. once you put your bracket together which the whole country will do starting sunday night monday, tuesday, wednesday before the tournament
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starts next thursday gerri, it's smart to pick a couple of upsets along the way because it's rare that all number one seeds make it to the final four. gerri: all right, here's my agenda on this dean smith passed, the venerable coach from unc. isn't it possible that somehow the ghost of dean smith comes back and makes unc come together and takes this whole thing? >> absolutely impossible but we'll root for you. and we'll root for coach smith. gerri: thank you. >> a great legacy. i don't think this is the year for a team like that. but there could be a team that comes out. wichita state the last couple of years. north dakota, butler in years past. there's that one team that gets hot coming out of conference tournament. they build momentum into the ncaa tournament. they get to the sweet 16. then there's another upset. they're in the elite 8 and knocking on the door for the final four, and hopefully get one or two of the teams that can do that and take away all
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. gerri: do you feel wealthier than ever before? we asked the question on gerriwillis.com. 9% of you said yes, 91% said no. robert downey jr., a superhero in real life to a seven-year-old boy. the actor dressed as "iron man" character tony stark producing a working bionic prosthesis to alex who has a partial right arm. it was created by an engineering student named albert minero. his company using 3-d printing to create bionic limbs and
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sends them to kids all over the world. such a nice story. that's it for tonight's "the willis report," thank you for joining us, dvr the show if you can't catch us live. "making money" with charles payne is coming up next. have a great night. . charles: i'm charles payne and you're watching "making money." another punch to the gut for the stock market but maybe individual investors are bracing for such a hit or maybe never came out of fox holes. you know life has a lot of distractions but in the end we're our own worst enemy. like college sports fans, they made the opponent an artform investors make investing layups and free-throws more difficult than they need to be. i know most of you guys missed the rally or got in it so late, you probably have more losers than winners right now. i think that's going to change. 43% of investors now neutral on the stock market. so while bullishness plunged 8.2 perce
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