tv The Willis Report FOX Business May 26, 2015 5:00pm-6:01pm EDT
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adding 121,000 subscriptions. ended quarter with 5.8 million. up 27% from a year ago. liz: not bad. thanks so much for joining us. "the willis report" is next. david: we'll see you tomorrow. gerri: hello everybody, i'm gerri willis and this is "the willis report," the show where consumers are our business. tonight, dozens of people still missing after a massive storm leaves record flooding in a small town in texas. we'll hear from a homeowner who has seen the destruction first-hand. and is someone at gm going to jail? reports criminal charges may be filed bense the auto giant allegedly covering up problems with ignition switches as the death toll rises. another move to take control of time warner. will this deal happen? will you have to pay more as a result? taco bell promising no more artificial ingredients or colors. so what is left? "the willis report" starts right now.
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gerri: third people are still missing. nine are now confirmed dead after record rain and severe flooding across oklahoma and texas. hundreds of homes were swept away in central texas. another foot of rain fell on houston today which already has seen some of the worst flooding in years. in hayes county, south of austin, raging floodwaters tore through communities like wimberly. wimberly resident keith mcnab is joining us. great to have you on the show. i know it has been a very difficult time for you. at least for your family, at least good news your house was spared tragedy. tell us what happened in your neighborhood. >> it was of course memorial weekend. we have lots of folks in town being holiday weekend. most of wimberly vacation property is centered on blanco river as much as any.
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it was kind of a perfect storm of conditions of already wet ground. we've had unusually wet spring out here in the austin hill country southwest of austin area. with the ground already being as wet as it was, when the storms came through, that evening you know, and dropped as much rain as it did up river of everybody on the blanco river, we had reports of anything from neighbors saying they were receiving 14, 12 to 14 some odd inches of rain in period of three days. gerri: wow. >> when that much water comes down and ground already wet as it is, all of that water poured into the blanco river. it came down in a wall of water. and you know, being nighttime you know, you don't see it coming. you can hear it coming but, you know, we get some floods out here in the texas hill country area. people get a little bit, kind of used to hearing flood alerts
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come out. and, didn't think too much of it until you know, the sheriff and other people started coming by the doors and telling folks they needed to get out. luckily we happened to be in an area that is on a hill. so our house was spared but, my wife and i wound up staying home that evening but a lot of our friends were immediately to the right side of the fisher store bridge in wimberly, when that wall of water came down. and, you know, they got all the kids out of the house and managed to get -- gerri: evacuated. >> a few belongings. that was about it. within a matter of 30 minutes that wall of water came down. so every house on his street and sent it down river. gerri: keith, let me ask you a question here. i'm familiar with the hill country there. it is beautiful. beautiful rolling lovely area. and you say, that you could hear the water. what do you mean? >> yeah. you know, when water starts to
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get high, you can kind of hear the rapids and hear the roaring of the water. you know, you kind of, most of the homes are fairly, you know probably 50 60 yards off of the river's edge. just because the floodplain will only let you build so close to the water. and any i'm a builder out here in the area. i know dealing with the county and other folks that we have to kind of stay outside of what is considered the 500 year flood pain. and -- floodplain. you watch the water creeping up into the yard and it gets higher and higher. when it starts to rise that fast, you know, you just have enough time to get out. but, it was -- luckily all of our really close friends managed to get out. of course all the children got out. gerri: thank goodness thank goodness for that. keith mcnab your story, amazing. we're very pleased to hear from
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you. glad you and your family are safe and we're prey praying for 30 people that haven't been found, keith, thank you so much. with us now, another guest on the same topic, mark fox from the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. he is coordination meteorologist for the national weather service in the dallas-ft. worth region. first of all to you, mark are there issues in the area that you are studying and taking a very close look at? are there flooding issues there. >> absolutely. the trinity river down near down dallas, 40 feet. flood stage is 30 feet. most of that is contained in the levees. we have definitely had our share of water deal with the last couple of weeks. we have had a couple of people unfortunately pass away because of flash flooding in the last two to three weeks. and we're definitely water logged just like the rest of the state. gerri: you know mark, flooding is no joke. you understand that flooding
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kills more people than tornados. why is it more dangerous? >> i think keith had a pretty good story right there. number one these things happen semifrequently, maybe not as bad or big as what we're seeing at this time around. but flooding alerts are relatively common. you tend to kind of not really think too much about them. so, what we say at the weather service, every warning is what we want is, well every warning is a call for us to hopefully have people do something different with their lives for the next 20 or 30 minutes or so to help save their lives because those warnings are issued for a reason. we want people to do something just a little bit different. the other reason i think is a lot of stuff has been happening at night. in the day time especially with severe storms and weather like that you can see it coming. at night, you can't really see it coming.
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almost, you can get your clues from the sounds or anything. gerri: that's what keith said. he said he could hear it coming. >> you can hear it coming. >> could hear the water coming. he has lived there a long time obviously. he knew the signs and signals. to your point at night you can't see anything really. apparently keith told us that he could hear people yelling are in in the middle of the night calling for help which is tragic. you say once those alarms are sounded, once the authorities start saying you know you have to get out of there, it is too late to plan ahead. is there anything these people could have done ahead of time to save their families, to save their homes? >> that ace really tough question because everybody has a different viewpoint, different way they approach things likes that one thing we stress from the weather service make sure you have those plans in place. you can't wait until the sheriff or whoever comes knocks on your door. if the rain is heavy, and you're in that flood-prone area you
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should have that plan in place and have the predesignated spot to go to before the water really starts to rise up. once, you do get the warning, once you do get the signals something bad is happening then time to act on the plan and take cover, get to higher ground do whatever else you need. gerri: you say a place, the whole family knows where they're supposed to meet if trouble does arise, correct? >> absolutely. everybody in the family, everybody in the household knows we're meeting at this place if something big and bad happens. no questions asked. you essentially know what you're going to do long before anything bad happens. you can get out in front of it. gerri: wow. tragic down there. mark, thank you for coming on the show. thanks for describing what is going on there. we appreciate your time. >> anytime, thanks. gerri: turning the page now, moving on to breaking news as the irs says thieves have gotten access to tax information from 100,000 taxpayers.
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they used an online system called get transcript to steal tax returns and other information. the thieves managed to clear a security screen requiring social security numbers, addresses dates of birth, and tax filing status. the system had been breached from february to mid-may but has now been shut down. so mystery solved. that is how the bad guys got into the irs system. meanwhile, general motors as you may have heard under pressure as it possibly faces criminal charges from prosecutors over recall faulty ignition switches. they may have to pay a record fine to safety defect linked to more than 100 deaths. we have a managing partner and business law attorney. seth, welcome back to the show. so glad to have you here. i look at this all this information has been out for sometime. why criminal charges, why now? >> well roughly a year ago the
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criminal division of the justice department launched an investigation into the behavior that was going on at general motors behind the scenes. and what they determined alongwith reading the internal report, that gm also created with a lead by a former u.s. attorney was an unfortunate pattern of concealment and deception, which tragically led to the deaths of whatever 100 individuals because of this ignition issue. so really this is really a very tragic situation. the criminal division of the u.s. attorney's office at the justice department is involved in this. and it looks like they're on the cusp of a historic settlement that could be reached as early as this summer. gerri: i understand could be as much as a billion dollars? a billion dollars? >> right. well that's true. there are two main components to these settlement discussions between gm and justice department. one, whether or not they're going to plead guilty or potentially enter into what is known as deferred prosecution agreement or dpa. naturally gm wants to push for
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the latter. that is more of a direct agreement as opposed to guilty plea. as you said it will be what is probably historic fine. toyota recently entered into an agreement for $1.2 billion. look for a number that might go north of that in this case. gerri: we're talking billions of dollars. >> right. gerri: as we know the company already paid a 35 million fine to nshta. where does this money go? if they pay a billion dollars or more fine, does it just go into the treasury? >> yes, it goes into the main treasury account just like money going in through the huge multiple big bank settlements that were announced last week. if it is not agency specific and goes from the justice department, it goes into the united states treasury. gerri: now i understand that general motors has something like $25 billion cash on the balance sheet to pay for any kind of liability, any criminal finding against them. one of the conversations going on today is that maybe there would be criminal charges against an individual at gm. who would that likely be in your
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view? >> well, i think that one of the lead targets would be some of the senior engineers who allegedly concealed this defect in the car approximately 11 years ago. there were a small handful of engineers. one in particular. his name was mentioninged over 200 times in the internal gm report. i think there is really going to be likelihood at the end of the year you will see someone indicted individually corporate responsibility at its hallmark requires individual accountability. these were deaths that were not only tragic but were avoidable. if this was handled in the appropriate way and wasn't actively concealed it would be far different story. don't are surprised to see individual indictments in this case by december. gerri: the company itself didn't initiate recalls until early 2014. that was 10 years after the problems came to light. this went on and on and on. seven years after the fixes to the switch were implemented. if you're going to blame engineers, boy you wonder about
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that chain of command. surely other people in the company knew since this went on for so long. do you think justice will really be served by this. >> i do. this is one of the biggest high-profile cases in the history of the automotive industry. remember, there were about 15 terminations as a result of this report being issued by gm. not only people within the engineering department but also people who were in the management chain. so i agree with you completely. there has to be accountability within the management chain. you really can't have another case of prosecution light where you just cut the check and you hit the road. i do think given the high visibility of this case and the tragic facts you will see heads roll in this case. gerri: 107 fatalities in this case this switch that did not work correctly. it is truly tragic. seth, thanks for coming on the show tonight. appreciate it. >> always a pleasure. gerri: now we want to know what you think. here is our question tonight should gm be held criminally responsible?
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log on to gerriwillis.com and vote. i will share results at the end of tonight's show. still a lot more to come this hour, including new warnings taxpayers may be on the hook, for get this, more than $25 trillion. and next, more than 1000 ps -- tsa badges disappeared. airport officials are downplaying concerns. could these i.d.s have fallen into the wrong hands? tweet me what you think. gerri willis fbn or send me an email through our website at gerriwillis.com. we'll be right back.
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ask your doctor if adding once-a-week tanzeum is right for you. go to tanzeum.com to learn if you may be eligible to receive tanzeum free for 12 months. make every week a tanzeum week. jo the very people hired to protect flyers are creating new security concerns. investigation by local nbc affiliate in dallas uncovered more than 1400 security clearance badges that were used by airline, by tsa agent and other employees of the airport have gone missing. here to weigh in, former new york homeland security director, michael balboni.
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michael, good to see you. what are the danger here? these are simply badges employees use to identify themselves, get inside entrances at these airports. what is the sphere? >> you have to appreciate is that the whole operating environment of an airport is one that is tightly tightly controlled. for some different reasons. even before 9/11. these airplanes are millions and millions of dollars of pieces of equipment. obviously passenger safety and concern is paramount concern. and, who gets on the air side in particular but throughout these terminals, is absolutely essential. so having these types of badges go missing without any type of inventory taken on them whether or not they're turned off so you can't use them anymore can't get access this is a real concern. gerri: it's a real concern, obviously and we were talking about atlanta hartsfield which is the busiest airport in the world, really. some 90 million passengers pass through there each and every
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year. there are 60,000 employees at that airport. i mean it is a huge operation. and seems to me that it is essential that the folks who go in there to work every single day we know who they are when they're coming when they're going. why isn't the tsa more locked down on employees themselves? seems like that is a easy part to control? >> we spent so much money and resources and effort on trying to secure the way that people travel by air. and, this is one component now. tsa can sit there not a major component there is a lot of others. it erodes the confidence of the flying public. to think gee, you set up all this security in the system and now these badges go missing and you don't know where they are? gerri: exactly right. let me tell you the tsa itself is saying you have to have a pin for this. there is a picture on the i.d. makes it much less useful to terrorists, to bad guys who
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might get into the airport to get into an area and hurt people. are you buying that? is that an adequate excuse? >> well, again these types of things they with all of the money resources that we've spent, seems to be something that you could really lock down better to use your words. we have seen in new york state in particular the theft of uniforms. there has been threat information in the past about folks trying to impersonate a pilot trying to get on the planes. so is this a part of it? that is really the biggest concern. is this part of a larger effort. gerri: for example, there was a horrible event where people were impersonating airport security personnel and using those very officer uniforms you're describing. the other thing that tsa says you know, look, you know these badges are turned off. they're basically made completely not useful after a couple of days. but michael, i read, sometimes they wait to demag advertise
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those i.d.s because people are hoping that maybe they will turn up somewhere. you know, it is not something that is handled, well, what i would call in professional way. >> any type of permanent security is always a difficult thing to assure 100% security, no matter what you do or what you protect. it is one of those elements here, that you really sit there to wonder, why can't we have better system to make sure we know where these badges are and what happens to them. gerri: what we're hearing from the federal government tonight, they wish thateld in atlanta had not spoken to the media. they're telling everybody else not to speak and not share information which is too darn bad because the public deserves to know what the real situation is. michael, thank you for coming on the show tonight. very good to see you. >> thanks. gerri: coming up later in the show, taco bell says no mas to artificial ingredients and colorings. is this good pr or good for health? coming up next the
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call liberty mutual for a free quote today at 1-888-438-9061 see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. gerri: you, me, every other taxpayer could be on the hook for $26 trillion. according to the federal bank of richmond. bailout barometer all liabilities guaranteed by the government. that number has skyrocket since the 890's. are we headed foreanother bailout -- '90s. steve moore, fellow at heritage foundation. good to see you. i saw this, oh, my goodness, didn't dodd-frank stop all of this? you're asking me to stand behind all of these assets of all of these banks that we bailed out in the first place?
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now i'm still on the hook? >> yeah. you know gerry, i almost fell off my chair when i read this report this morning. what i was thinking, wait a minute, this is deja vu all over again. 10 years ago we were insuring all the mortgages and assets held by banks and investment companies. guess what, we're doing the very same thing. turns out 80, 90% of the new mortgages, gerri carry with them virtual 100% taxpayer guarranty of repayment. doesn't it sound like we've seen this movie before. gerri: oh, boy. >> people say these risks. these are small risks. freddie mac and fannie mae taking out record amounts debt, don't worry about it. that is exactly what they said eight years ago on the eve of the financial crisis. it is very disturbing. >> i heard all that before too. >> exactly. gerri: so we're guaranteeing 60% of the financial industry's total liabilities. we stand behind it. we are the lender of last
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resort, taxpayers are. >> we are. gerri: that is up from 45% in 1999. why can't we get out of this? i thought dodd-frank was supposed to fix this. >> it hasn't done anything to reduce taxpayer risk. as an economist i find most frustrating, if you have 60% of these deposits, essentially guaranteed bit tax payers, you know what that incent vices banks and investment companies to take on riskier assets right? because after all, there is a safety net there to catch them if they fall. this is the very kind of insurance premiums that created the financial crisis in the first place. i can't say this loud and clear enough. ladies and gentlemen we're doing all of the same things we did on the eve of the last financial crisis. i'm not saying we will have another financial crisis. i'm saying we do and same kind of catastrophic losses for taxpayers. >> catastrophic losses for taxpayers. the fed's gun will be had the.
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-- empty. i don't know what they will do. there is no last resort. >> right. this does not include the national debt gerri. this does not include, does not include unfunded liabilities of the social security and medicare systems. you're talking about adding 25 trillion on top of that. we're talking about truly tens of trillions of dollars our federal government could be liable for in the future if we don't turn this around. >> mentioned it before. you are an economist. i want to get your voice on some of the news out today. let me go over it quickly. first of all the s&p case-shiller numbers on housing. housing prices rising 5%. >> yep. gerri: their 20 city index, that's important. new home sales are jumping 6.8%. new home sales only a part of the whole pie. new homes five times more than new homes. >> yep. gerri: so you look at those numbers what's your takeaway? i look at those numbers, i say those rising prices in housing are still keeping those people
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who want to get into the housing market for the first time out. >> well i guess i'm a glass half-full kind of guy here. as a homeowner i see rising prices of homes as good thing. that is one of the principle assets that i own. gerri: true. >> this is sign of recovery, in my opinion, gerri. that people are sticking their toe in the water. they're starting to buy homes again, taking on larger mortgages. but circles back to the first part of our conversation gerri. yeah people are taking, on bigger mortgages but guess who is standing behind those mortgages? you and i. why not cap this as say, $300,000 homes and above that, people on their own? one thing to encourage homeownership. another to encourage people with taxpayer dollars to buy homes with swimming pools and luck sure russ homes that cost a poll dollars. we're insuring those today. gerri: exactly right, steve. great to see you. >> thanks, gerri. gerri: coming up next, pizza hut and taco bell the latest chains
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to nix artificial ingredients but will this fix their unhealthy image? later the cable wars heat up. charter inks a deal with time warner cable. will that cut your cable bill? i think not. (vo) rush hour around here starts at 6:30 a.m. - on the nose. but for me, it starts with the opening bell. and the rush i get, lasts way more than an hour. (announcer) at scottrade, we share your passion for trading. that's why we've built powerful technology to alert you to your next opportunity. because at scottrade, our passion is to power yours. the real question that needs to be asked is "what is it that we can do that is impactful?" what the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers. it used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day.
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. gerri: welcome back to the willis report. in a moment a major announcement from fast food giant taco bell and pizza hut. time now to look at other stories in the news. those death tolls in texas from those storms now 11. after three more bodies were recovered in floodwaters. parts of the city have seen nearly a foot of rain and they're searching for 30 poom he. and the patriots act in the name of public safety within much of the law allowing the government to search americans phone records expires on sunday.
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and congress is out of town. and the pentagon says iraq forces to try to take the city of ramadi from isis. isis captured the strategic so unearlier this month as iraqi forces ran. and amtrak says it will install video cameras inside trains at engineers. the engineer injured a head injure and says he can't remember what happened. it left about 8 people dead and 200 injured. and those are some of the stories in the news tonight. well, as we promised, some big fast food restaurants taco bell and his ahurt with more on this marketing expert and host of the bean cast, bob. so tell me more about these changes. what are they doing. >> well, this is just a classic pr move. i mean they're trying to get some kind of response to the overall movement within the
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industry to to be a healthier. i mean, you know, all these decisions really come out to be economic decisions, though. i mean the reason that taco bell and pizza hut and mcdonald's and subway are all trying to get healthier is because the economy is getting better. and if the economy is getting better then people are starting to make decisions about where they want to buy their fast food . gerri: don't you think it's a lot of pressure to get rid of the trans-fat and the gmo . gerri: you know all about the green movement. and it's just, like, when people are asked whether or not they want to be healthier whether they to want be greener, they say, yes. gerri: they say yes, but they do something different in the real world. >> exactly. it all comes down to economy. i am essentially if the economy is going well does i've got a lot of money i'm making better decisions. but when the economy is going bad, i've got to feed my family for under $30 then . gerri: so let's walk through some of these changes panera,
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mcdonald's using chicken which i chipotle, on so here's my prediction. you're going to go to a fast-food restaurant in three months and severing going to look awful gray, terrible, not appetizing, and it's going to taste like crap. >> no. it's not going to taste like crap because it's essentially real food actually makes the products taste better . gerri: are you confident in that? >> i'm absolutely confident . gerri: i'm not. >> well, you taste the difference when you go and try a real . gerri: well, that's why they put all that you just can't put that extra salt and sugar to amp up. >> yeah. they amp up the desire to eat mores, and those types of decisions are based on economics. but when you actually eat something, let's taking taste face it, when i eat from crept, i feel better, my body feels better, but that doesn't
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make it that i'm going to go for the decision to go healthy all the time . gerri: that's right. >> i'm going to go to taco bell or pizza hut because it's cheaper and failures . gerri: good to see you. and when we come back today's selloff on wall street the start of more bad days to come? and next another major media deal announced charter and time warner, will you be paying a lower bill? i seriously doubt that. we'll it you will what it means to consumers when we come back. but first here's the consumer gauge with the fullbacks that mean the most to you do you want to know how hard it can be to breathe with copd? it can feel like this. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva is a once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that helps open my airways for a full 24 hours. spiriva helps me breathe easier. spiriva respimat does not replace
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charter in direct competition with comcast, which is the nation's largest cable provider. but what does this mean for customers inspect joining me now, pete the tech editor for mashable.com. good to have you here, pete. >> my pleasure . gerri: let's start with first thing's first, do you think regulators are going to go along with this because it had did put it on the last deal to buy time warner. >> yeah. i think they're going to prove this one, what this will do is create the entity that is about the same size as comcast. so they're going to look at the overall market, they're going to look at the other factors in this deal, the fact that charter doesn't own a major media company like comcast did sure they have stars, but it's not the same thing. so i think this will will work. gerri: but isn't it true that when you put comcast and time warner cable, you have 50% of the households, with this deal you only have 24% those were the numbers the wall street journal were reporting tied.
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even if you look at it in a apples to apples comparison, it won't be as big as a comcast deal for time warner. >> yeah. exactly. so you have, like, you know, you have something that -- an entity that can go tow to to toe with comcast now, i mean they're stronger because they're ruffle in the same size and, you know, can do similar things and you don't have one sort of monopoly sort of dominating the whole industry, and i think that's fair to look at . gerri: so as you were saying, 23 million customers that is with what they're calling the new charter comcast was in 27 million, so you can see the difference there. you know, and look at this and i know that customers in particular, consumers really, are so frustrated with their cable operators. >> right. gerri: they want what they want, they get 200 channels, 250 channels, they watch a small fraction of that. do you think that consumers going to have the last revenge
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here? >> yeah. i think part of this deal, and this is what happened regardless of whether this deal goes forward or not is that we're moving to a a la carte world we're moving closer to that model, you saw what verizon was doing a few weeks ago with offering these thinner slices of channels. which is not quite all acart but it's getting there . gerri: they're inching their way there. >> yeah. they're radiating to these over the top wases 60-day hbo now and those are chipping away at the cable business models . gerri: absolutely. well i'll tell you what i want them to chip away at, is my cable bill. the industry has been raising prices by about two times inflation for the past 17 years. take a look at these numbers. basic cable service $2.78 right now that's 26% hire year over rear.
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these numbers go higher and higher every year. it deifies logic that more combination in these fielding are going to lower prices. >> yeah. i mean very skeptical as well whether this will lower your bill, but there is a sliver of hope . gerri: really? >> because charter basic level broadband package is cheaper than time warner. now, they offer broadband for about $5. that's their cheapest dollar. charter offers it for 40. so there's a slight chance that charter might bring those to biggest markets like new york and l.a. where time warner am has a big presence. will they? we'll see. but if you want to a little bit of hope to cling to, there it is l, i guess the delve is in the details we'll have to wait and see it happen so great to see you. >> thank you . gerri: and also this morning from goldman sachs chief strategist anticipating the
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s&p 500 will zero out with zero gains, and the expectation not so great either. so rick, i know you're ain't big mover in and out of stocks on forecast. what do you make of what goldman sachs is saying tonight? >> well, on the one hand, gerri, didn't i it's a lot of financial noise. you know, and ten analyst, you get 11 different answers. i'm not sure any of us should make a decision based poth. but at the same time it does reinforce the diversification you shouldn't make your decision on what a single analyst says, but also stocks aren't going to be in their view all that exciting, that's mange a long term focus not just the 12 months, but having a broad portfolio. that will defeat get it you through anything . gerri: answer me this because i think the experience of the last market selloff in 2008, a lot of people were out there
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were close to retirement, no, they didn't have their entire portfolio necessarily in stocks but they had a decent slug in it in stocks and they god harmed. so people close to retirement, should then doing something different than somebody who is 25? >> no. because if you're close to retirement, you're still very far away from dying. if you're in your 50s or even early 60s you've got a 30-year life expectation. if you're married, one of the two of you can be expected to live to age 95 or 100. so the fact that you're in or near retirement, that doesn't really sway me very much. you still need to maintain a highly exercisified portfolio you need to make sure that you're not going to go broke before you die. so that's why a good financial plan is a vital importance for people who are in preretirement or early retirement wages . gerri: so i'm investing my life expectation or retirement plan? i'm changing my retirement plan for my life expectation;
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right? you said it the opposite way. >> some are going to live a lot longer than what you otherwise would have thought . gerri: i'm going to talk for a second about these roboadvisories out there there's a lot of venture capital going to companies that do this, and essentially we're talking about computerized portfolios because the power of computers these days. you can come up with a diversified portfolio for folks, and that what these services do. not a lot of hand holding but if you want to pay for a point, being you get it. what do you make of these? >> well, i think that there are threat to transitional brokers and many investment flyers as well who see only value proposition is price and performance. brokers who is i'll get you stocks or cheaper or i'll make you more money than the next guy, those guys are out of business because as the advisories are demonstrating they're going to build a
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highly diversified portfolio as good as anyone else, and they're going to do it really cheap. that means the financial advisory has to offer something else as a key value proposition. and our firm, for example our clients are getting a huge amount of personalized service, they're getting a broader range of advice,an not just on their invert has, if you're going to call them, they don't have a phone number, they don't have somebody will to help you. so if you need a broader range of services, you need a financial planner. if all you need is a portfolio, then, yeah, go to a roboadvisor . gerri: this seems to make a lot of sense for people who are young and just beginning to put this portfolio together, and let's face it, when you're 25, 35, you're just stocking the money away and you don't have a lot of financial obligations out there. it might make sense for folks
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like that. >> yeah. i won't disagree with that at all gerri. we have our online service on the same basis. we have edelman online, for consumers who want our management without having access to a human being. they can do it 24/7, its easy, and our firm which people really enjoy, but you're absolutely right. if your needs are simple, you just want an effective management, it's available to you. and as your needs change and grow then that's when you're going to want to go to a full service financial planner . gerri: thanks for your time today. >> thank you . gerri: and still to come, why aren't people going to the movies? hollywood coming up. the worst memorial day box office in nearly 15 years. is this the new norm?
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gerri: the memorial day weekend. it's the kickoff to the summer movie season; right? but guess what? it turned out to be a weak one. bringing in $190 million in domestic ticket sales that's the lowest in 14 years. joining me now the host of in the flocks light. michael. michael, welcome back to the show. so what happened? >> the lowest since 2001 and ticket prices are 44% lower. so it's bad. i think part of it is tomorrow with the big temple for disney that opened up this weekend. you know, t kind of flopped. you know, people weren't sure what it was . gerri: so it was a big flop. >> big flop . gerri: from george clooney who you expect big from things obviously. >> yeah. gerri: but i've got to tell you one of the things i keep asking myself i'm looking at these pictures thinking what? >> it's based off of a amusement park attraction . gerri: what? >> yeah. it's disney's new tragic strategery, they had
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pirates of caribbean, which was a huge success for them, and this isn't doing it for them . gerri: clooney has something to say about environmentism. >> that was the other big complaint . gerri: and people don't like that. >> who wants a elect on memorial day weekend? shut up fun not a lecture on global warming . gerri: i like that. the like the oceans 11. >> yeah. you and i have talked about this a little bit. i think he's turned into part of a block for some audiences . gerri: how so? >> his -- ahead of him in terms of the movies, people see him and the politics as opposed to the movie and it's a block for some people . gerri: yeah, they don't like it. >> yeah. gerri: let's talk about other that things also opened this weekend. >> the only other new movie and this was my big fear -- well tomorrow land was the big movie, but the other movie was based off -- gerri: poulter guys. >> poulter guys. . gerri: a new idea in 40 years.
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i mean that's part of the probable. >> that's part of the problem . gerri: and tomorrow land doing so bad, you know, it's going to stick to let's stick with tried and true brands, it was made for that $13 million, it made about $27 million it came in 5th, but it over performed. gaits its money back. . gerri: and that's the standard today. another reality is some movies have so much competition of what's going on if on tv. >> yes. gerri: there's so much great stuff to see what's going on in television. >> and that's the problem. some of the best storytelling is happening on television. look at the rest of the list in the top five. the avengers, comic book stuff. gerri: i like that stuff. [laughter] >> possibly a $200 million write down for this movie the avengers, new disney pixar movie inside out. . gerri: i love that. >> they have star wars coming out in december, so disney is
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leading the pack. jurassic world is opening up, the minions based on despicable me, . gerri: i like it. >> we'll be back at the box office. we just want to be entertained when we go to the movies . gerri: i like it. popcorn. >> there you go. it doesn't get better than that . gerri: thank you. and we'll be right back with our consistency answered to the question of the day. we'll be right back
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gerri: class action lawsuits may be the least of general motors worries as the company can face criminal charges from federal prosecutors. should they? we asked the question on gerri willis.com and 80% of you said yes. log onto gerri willis.com for our question every weekday. and that is it for tonight's
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willis report. thank you for joining us. and making money with charles payne is coming up next. have a great night and we will see you back here tomorrow. >> i'm charles payne, and you're watching making money. secret to silicon valley billion businesses also known as unicorn, how big of these companies go from 0 to millions in a flash? they fill them, the hottest ipo2015 later in the show. this matters to you about b over the next year individual investors are going to be is he accusing to buying these hot ipos, that have already gone through the roof. now some of them are going to be worth chasing but a whole lot. but prap the biggest cautionary detail for investors, hot topic making 17.50 for gig net up 122%, premium sounds great. not necessarily.
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