who needs a paycheck from work when staying at home might work out to be a better deal? welcome everybody. good to have you. good luck getting folks to leave home. not if a new study says welfare related benefits are topping $38,000 in several states. that doesn't mean that everyone getting welfare is lazy. but i trust a good nanny can do math. the math doesn't make it all that compelling to get off the couch. to ben stein, melissa francis, along with adam lashisty. charles, what do you make of this? >> i talked about this a long time. i've been blasted on comedy central for being heartless. the fact of the matterers i've

seen it in my own eyes. >> medal of honor, wow. >> they figured out what we already know about you. >> all right. >> john, go ahead. you were saying. >> the bottom line is it's just, listen, we should be making it where people are urged to get off welfare instead the idea of making it comfortable. i've always said they made poverty comfortable enough not to get off of it. it's not the one where they pay for the house, food, rent, cell phone and sit at home and make a lot more money than people doing minimum wage jobs. it's simple math and it crushed generations of people. crushed them. >> it does make it tough to leave that because even if it isn't exactly the same, child care issues, it doesn't have to be. it's daunting. >> in new york, especially. you receive the benefits, of course, you're not getting taxed. in new york, you have to make $21 an hour in order to take

home the same amount of money as if you were on all these programs. and then i mean because they're talking about a single mom with two kids, you also have to find someone to watch your kids. so it's just impossible. the real thing is then you have no incentive. how are you going to go from a total stand still of having no job at all to leaping up to a job where you make more than $21 an hour? that's impossible. >> you have to make sacrifice and transition. >> that's what people have to be incentivized to understand. the first step you take an economic hit. now you're in the system. now you work your way up the system. it's a hard sales pitch. >> whatever happened to the welfare to work program? >> welfare reform, right? in the early 1990s, you had all the great thinkers, people saying we need to change the system. we need to incentivize people to go to work. deincentivize people to stay home and collect welfare. in five years, barack obama has essentially changed that. we are now going away from -- >> this trend has been going on through the bush administration, as well.

but i guess this time -- it's a bipartisan sort of a rant here. benefits are out of control. ben stein, here's what i heard from a lot of folks who were noting fox is condemning this new trend. well, obviously for reason to dramatically hike if not double the minimum wage. what do you make of that? >> well, that's a good way to double the unemployment rate. i mean the situation is very difficult for poor people. we can just start at the beginning and say if you're a poor person, if you're a person who does not have much education or much ability to earn money, you're screwed no matter what you're doing. you're not going to live well on $38,000 a year. you're not going to live well on $21 an hour. you have to go back farther and start explaining to people they must get education. education is the capital from which people build careers, lives, homes, families. that somehow has to be drummed into people's heads. we don't know how to do it.

we don't know how to do it. >> i don't think we should be incentvising people to do this stuff that puts them into welfare. >> having kids, starting a family -- >> that's one of the problems. you get paid more money when you have more kids. >> go ahead. >> ben was starting to make an important point which is we sort of -- >> then i guess he did. >> i'm going to finish. >> all right. >> we overgeneralize. ben said it's hard to have a good life on $38,000, especially in some of the states that we showed on screen. we're also overgeneralizing here. these programs are not a bed of roses. it's not like you sort of lounge around eating bon-bons. and the check shows up. they check up on you every day. >> what, go out and do push-ups every day? you get the money, dude.

you have to enroll in the program. you have to participate. you have to check in, et cetera. >> oh, come on. >> if we're saying that our public policy should be to encourage people to work, to not work, i completely agree. by the way, i think most people who were on welfare would rather have a job, would rather have that good feeling that you get from working. that's absolutely what we should encourage. >> i'll give you the benefit of the doubt. i hope that is the case. what worries me is we live in a society where at least some of the major protests over the last year have been for government aid and benefits and not for jobs. >> exactly. or to skew the pay system somehow so that the kid who drops out in tenth grade can be rewarded at the expense of someone who worked their way through college. i have to disagree with adam. the way it works, it's not just one person in the house over $38,000. there are two or three brothers and a mother. soon the household income gets around $70,000, $80,000. people can buy $200 sneakers. let's talk about the real world for a minute. deincentivize. how do you do it? i know too many people who dropped out of school won't take a job at mcdonald's. they tell me flat out. they want to work.

they want outlandish salaries. for their skill sets. >> how difficult is it to get into the programs? >> you can get a new phone almost every month. go back to the program with a new cell phone. >> fill out a few papers. that's a big thing is absurd. >> the bottom line is the benefits are very generous. they're getting more generous to adam's point. i don't think they're life sustaining. they're clearly not. i think it's very hard to breakaway when they get so generous and to your point on childcare issues, you actually can make a very good math argument not to, right? >> you can make a fantastic math argument not to. it's impossible to go from that stand still to having a job where you make more money. like everything else, it goes back to parents trying to teach kids the only way they get ahead and sustain a middle class life is to get out there and get the first job and get promoted and get the n one and work their way up. they have to accept that no matter what you can get for free, it is not as much as can you do on your own. you have to be willing to work hard.

>> i'm sorry, ben. charles wrote a brilliant thing about this in his book and experience growing up in harlem. it does get to be a cycle, doesn't it? >> it's generational. it's a shame. it's sold as a way of caring for people when, in fact, at some point you're not caring for them because you're enabling something that -- see, the idea that people won't ever live the american dream or attempt to is heartbreaking. it is called subculture poverty. sociologists have been talking about for years. if you incentivize people to do things, they keep them in poverty. like having kids out of wedlock, they stay in poverty. >> i know. but it's not realistic we're going to break this cycle any time soon. any time you talk about changing this, what are you going to take the food out of the single moms with kids? no one is ever in favor of that. any time you want to cut back on programs -- >> rudy giuliani did. >> so if that is the case then ben stein, where are we going with this? >> we're in real trouble.

americans are not acquiring human capital in the form of education and skill sets to use charles' very wonderful phrase that is going to build this country and build up self-esteem and self-worth of the people of this country. we have a whole culture that's not starving but it's starving for self-esteem. they resort to violence, drug addiction, premarital and extramarital sex. we have a whole culture that is just dying from lack of self-esteem and that's from lack of work. >> people like him perpetuating it, right, adam? >> i know you don't want to comment on that for me. >> i don't, indeed. stick around, we're going to take a break. in the meantime, no way to the nsa. why the lawmakers are saying the best way to defund the agency right now. the "cashin' in" crew is all over it at the bottom of the hour. one of the largest stock exchanges stopped cold for three

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live from america's news headquarters. president obama meeting top national security advisors on the escalating crisis in syria as the pentagon confirms the u.s. is preparing for a possible strike against the assad regime. today humanitarian groups are claiming nearly 400 people were killed and thousands injured in the suspected chemical weapons attack this week. last year the president said any confirmed wmd strike would provoke a u.s. response. also in the capital, tens of thousands of american s gatherig on the national mall commemorating since martin luther king jr.'s 1963 march on washington and his iconic "i have a dream" speech. he told the crowd "the journey is not complete. we can and we must do more." get you now back to "cavuto on

business." at least the nasdaq got ahead of naming its latest flub a flash freeze. sounds so much better than flash crash. i don't know if a three-hour shut down counts as a flash or anything. charlie, i don't know. not encouraged. >> this is really bad. the biggest culprit is the securities and exchange commission which three years after the flash crash, when prices imploded in 30 seconds, i can't remember how fast and how far. they've done almost nothing about market structure and we have a market that's convoluted and makes no sense. mostly computers, they break down all the time and we actually have many markets, not just two markets. how do you know the real price of a stock. >> the more you say this, you wrote a book "circle of friends" the more you say this, a smaller

and smaller circle. like two people. >> yeah. i will say this, though, you know, the securities and exchange commission needs to step in right now. they need to step in and do it like a blue ribbon study about our markets and whether they're working, whether they're functional and whether they're good for the small investor. you know, small investors are not engaged in this market not because of insider trading. they are worried about facebook blowing up and something like this. >> you have investors and you deal with this for a living. this is rigged against me y don't, i feel like i'm getting -- >> all of that, i've always tried to say, listen, let's just think of this in two different ways. a big difference between being an owner of a great american company and wall street and the shenanigans that go on there. flash freeze, flash crash, and insider trading. try not to let that impact you. to charlie's point, obviously, it does. for me, i think the problem was

after the fact the nasdaq had -- they weren't contrite at all. as i said, they're like, so what. we kept it closed for three hours. the big boys knew what we were doing. we're not putting in more money. >> the arrogance. be like the captain of the "titanic" saying, yeah, but we missed the big glacier. >> a lot of us who had sources there they went radio silent halfway through and not providing information. i had the ceo of bank corp right afterwards and just switched from the nasdaq on wednesday when this happened. he said he wasn't worried, which is great for a banker. you know, you want them to be solid and calm but at the same time he received one e-mail, maybe two e-mails from the nasdaq saying, don't worry. we're working on it. it is going to be okay. no further information beyond that. they went silent to the media and then also to the people who are paying them fees. >> get to the issue, so many of the names that dominate nasdaq

are big technology names and names you have written extensively about and the microsofts and the googles and on and on. they were kind of frozen in time as trading was all but halted. i am wondering whether it affects them, as well. interest in those stocks if there is a sense that, you know, you can't always trade them cleanly, whatever. >> i think this points up the pros and the cons of technology. technology has really lowered the barriers for all sorts of investors to be able to trade. but it doesn't, when it goes down, it really goes down. you know the pits are not going to go down like that. i think charlie is absolutely right. the sec has totally failed here. the nasdaq needs to have a fail-safe system. they, obviously, don't. they shouldn't be allowed to operate until they do. >> you know, ben stein, i do remember the days when you look at the floor of the new york stock exchange crowded with people and now tumble weeds. nicole and like a couple of guys. i'm just wondering, what has

happened and is that the problem. have we taken the human out of it and made it so high tech that it's high problem? >> well, the only way that there would have been something like this happening if there was the crisis and lots of live human traders and they the question -- >> that happens sometimes. >> the question we have to ask, it could happen. ask us how much better off are we with the computer system? i don't know that there has been any data showing we are better and there is more liquidity and prices are lower for the investor. for the very long run, stocks are certainly a heck of a lot better than the ordinary investor. >> but does it inhibit trading? you don't see it in volume figures, but could it inhibit trading? >> listen, it could be really bad. by the way, studies all over the place on net net, which is better the humans or the computers. yes, they'll say more liquidity

and you can trade easier so it's better. but execution and all these other factors go into what are stock prices. i will say this, though. i think the nasdaq did a great job with the big guys. they did a great job talking wall street and they did a great job with the regulators and dealt with the issue pretty well. like put a cork in it very well. they dealt very well with their big customers and list of companies. >> two e-mails. >> you got two e-mails. >> i guarantee the apple people were on the phone. >> i'm telling you, it's how in 2001 and the computer has just started taking over here. >> but it hurts the retail guy. that's who really got screwed here. the average investor sits back and says, why am i in stock? i'm not a guy that pumps stocks up, but doesn't take a rocket scientists to figure out it went from 6 to 15 in a couple years. if you were out of it, you missed making a lot of money. >> we like to have people think at home it does take a rocket

scientist. >> it actually doesn't. >> well, that's good. >> when we come back, the people working here can learn from this college sophomore in atlanta. still listening, washington? [ male announcer ] this is claira. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for her, she's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with her all day to see how it goes. [ claira ] after the deliveries, i was okay. now the ciabatta is done and the pain is starting again. more pills? seriously? seriously. [ groans ] all these stops to take more pills can be a pain.

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okay google now. call my droid. the new droid ultra by motorola. when strength matters, droid does. but as time passed, i stted to notice max just wasn't himself.e and i knew he'd feel better if heost a little weight. so i switched to purina cat ow healthy weight formula. i just fed the recommended amount... and they both loved the taste. after a few months max's "speal powers" returned... and i got my hero back. purina cat chow healthy weight. coming up, listen up. a wild speech from a college sophomore getting national attention. i'm just hoping it's getting washington's attention.

>> if you want to change the world, you're at georgia tech. you can do that. if you want to build the ironman suit -- you're in georgia tech. you can do that! if you want to play theme music during your congregation speech, we're at georgia tech -- we can do that! i am doing that! >> no matter how many times i hear that, i love it. days after nick selby's epic welcome to college speech he went national, naturally talking to me first for his television interview. what was your assignment here? just to sort of help the freshman, to prepare them for what life at georgia tech was like? what did the administrators think you were going to do? >> well, yeah, coming in these freshman had just gone through a

very exhausting but not necessarily exciting day. so, it was my job to just pump them up and get them excited about why they were here. >> a quick ps to that, i got hundreds of e-mail from folks after that, it was like neil and mini me, i don't need that. i didn't look like that. actually, he was a lot more handsome. charles, good lesson for d.c. or anyone in leadership? >> anyone in leadership, but especially in d.c. whenever someone in washington speaks, we can't, they won't, it's their fault, it's their fault. i have to tell you, they need, they should have been in the front row. everyone in washington, d.c. should have been in the front row. >> background music may have helped. >> somebody like this, he's not going to go to washington to be a politician where we would need him to pump people up. he's going to sell something useless on late night tv. >> he has no interest, when i asked him about that, no interest in politics but we did have an engineering major in the white house.

his name was jimmy carter, but my point was that, you know, there might be something to this. what do you think? >> talk is cheap. i agree. >> oh, no, no. >> didn't you used to write speeches, young man? >> i did write a lot of speeches and that's how i know that talk is cheap. >> but you never set it to music. >> but i never set it to music. but, look this guy is an inspiring entertainer and i'd love to see him on tv and love to see him have his own show and he's a country preacher and reminds me of a very famous old-time child preacher and god bless him for his speaking abilities. says absolutely nothing about the future. >> the fact that he goes to georgia tech and he's in the engineering school, that says everything about him. >> i found this guy so incredibly annoying. if i was sitting in the audience as a freshman, i would have thrown an orange at him. >> adam, as a fellow nerd, only slightly older than this young man. what do you think? >> it's so funny to me that most

of you criticize barack obama for giving lofty speeches, but we're celebrating this kid. i'm with charlie. >> you know, the fact he never proposed building an ironman suit, hello? that will do it. i want to thank charlie and melissa -- >> i'm a nerd and i loved that. >> you're not a nerd. up next, stocks go rocking for the year. even after getting rocked this week. time to rock with our gang safety stocks that will still [ all gasp ] oj, veggies you're cool. mayo? corn dogs? you are so outta here! aah! 'cause i'm re-workin' the menu, keeping her healthy and you on your toes. [ female announcer ] the complete balanced nutrition of great-tasting ensure. 24 vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, and 9 grams of protein. i see you, cupcake!

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rocketing through some play it safe stocks. charles what have you got? >> adam, what have you got? sdog an etf that mimics the ultrasafe dogs of the dow strategy, neil. >> ben, what are