>> susie: as the foreclosure paperwork mess heats up, the obama administration says the problems aren't deep enough to threaten the economy. >> we have not found, to date, systemic issues that would call into question the underlying mortgage market or housing market in the country. >> tom: coming up, our interview with housing and urban development secretary shaun donovan. you're watching "nightly business report" for wednesday, october 20. this is "nightly business report" with susie gharib and tom hudson. "nightly business report" is made possible by:

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>> susie: good evening everyone. the nation's top housing official said today there are no signs of "systemic" troubles with u.s. home mortgages. tom, that comment from housing secretary shaun donovan came in response to concerns about the impact of the foreclosure crisis on the economy. >> tom: susie, donovan also said the obama administration is investigating foreclosure and mortgage practices at major lenders, including j.p. morgan and bank of america. >> susie: he's prepared to "take action" to force them, if necessary, to fix paperwork problems. our stephanie dhue caught up with secretary donovan after a high-profile meeting focused on the foreclosure mess. >> reporter: the players were here. that's treasury secretary timothy geithner leaving a meeting that included s.e.c. chairman mary schapiro, f.d.i.c. chairman sheila bair and top justice and housing officials. the goal? to coordinate the government's response to the foreclosure fiasco. housing and urban development secretary shaun donavon was also

there, and he says it's a big task. >> the issues around documentation of foreclosures are only one part of the broader concerns that we have and what we're looking at. we today assembled almost a dozen agencies from across the federal government as part of an ongoing process to look comprehensively at this. >> reporter: the federal housing administration is checking to make sure mortgage servicers are following procedures. specifically, it wants to make sure borrowers are contacted about their options when they fall behind on loan payments. so far, the f.h.a. has found significant differences in performance at different firms. sources tell me you've reviewed bank of america's processes, next you'll move to wells fargo and down the line, where are you in your investigation? >> i'm not going to comment because it's an ongoing review. what i can tell you is we began

right when the president came into office, in stepping up our oversight of servicing. it had never been done before this kind of review. and that we are very close to having completed these reviews, because we undertook them early on before these issues came to light. >> reporter: the fha's investigation won't be complete for another nine weeks. well past the mid term elections and into the holidays. why wait? >> look, this is not political. we began this review in may. we expect to have the results much sooner than that. but we will follow due process in our procedures, we'll present the findings to the servicers. give them the chance to respond, which is required for us to do. and then to take action based on those. >> reporter: in the meantime, attorneys general across the nation are pursuing cases, and bond investors are putting pressure on banks to buy back loans that weren't properly documented. is the government coordinating with the bond investors who are

trying to recover funds? >> it is not our role to pick sides or to get involved in private disputes of private entities, and those suits and those other processes will continue. our responsibility is to enforce the law and to make sure that we are requiring servicers to live up to their responsibilities under the law, under our requirements, and frankly it's our responsibility to make sure that homeowners aren't being cheated out of their homes or aren't being displaced when they should have been given a chance to stay in that home. we're not going to save every foreclosure, but we need to make sure we're making every effort to do that. >> reporter: donovan says the review should provide clarity. >> we have not found to date systemic issues that would call into question the underlying mortgage market or housing market in the country.

and we should feel confident that given the kind of priority we're giving to this, the focus that we have on enforcing the law and all of our other requirements, that we will get this right as quickly as possible, and ensure that every homeowner has the ability to stay in their home when they should. >> reporter: secretary donovan, thanks. >> thank you. >> tom: here are the stories in tonight's n.b.r. newswheel: earnings optimism led the way higher on wall street. the dow added 129 points, the nasdaq rose 20 and the s&p 500 was up 12. we'll have the latest earnings, including boeing's improved outlook, in tonight's "market focus." meanwhile, trading volume on both the big board and nasdaq pulled back slightly from yesterday's pace. oil prices bounced back from yesterday's drop. crude for november delivery rose almost 3%, putting it just below $82 a barrel. modest growth continues, but the economy is still too weak to generate new jobs.

that's the word from the federal reserve. the latest beige book survey of regional economies found flat to slightly higher retail sales, even though the housing market remained weak and the british government unveiled big spending cuts today. included in the plan: a sharp drop in welfare benefits, upping the retirement age to 66 and cutting half a million public jobs over the next four years. still ahead, the story of a minor league ballplayer who rarely made an error on the field, but struck out on his social security records. >> susie: how does your doctor learn about new medications? often the answer is "from other doctors," doctors hired by drug companies to criss-cross the country talking about treatment. but how carefully are the speakers themselves screened? washington bureau chief darren gersh asks. >> reporter: pharmaceutical

companies say they hire highly qualified and respected medical experts to teach front-line doctors about brand-name drugs. but a closer look suggests some drug companies may sometimes fall short of their own standards. propublica, an independent, non- profit newsroom, reviewed records from 18 states and found more than 250 doctors paid to speak on behalf of drug companies have been sanctioned by state medical boards. pro publica's tracy weber spent six months digging through the records of hundreds of doctors. >> we found an ohio physician who had, who was accused of performing unnecessary nerve tests on more than 20 patients. the ohio board voted to revoke his license. he's appealing that right now. we found a psychiatrist who was accused of gross negligence in the care of one of her patients and is on five years probation. we found a doctor accused of giving drugs-- pain killers-- unnecessarily to his patients. >> reporter: weber says five of the seven drug companies that disclose payments to doctors do not review state medical board disciplinary records.

>> it's pretty simple to do a lot of these checks. these are public websites and what was surprising is that they don't check them. it would take a few minutes for each doctor. >> reporter: in addition, more than 40 doctors paid to educate about brand-name drugs have received f.d.a. warnings for research misconduct, lost hospital privileges or been convicted of crimes. at least 20 have had two or more malpractice judgments or settlements. >> if they can handpick the best of the best to choose to be their experts, why are they choosing these doctors? >> reporter: diane bieri is general counsel of the pharmaceutical research and manufacturers of america, the trade group for large drug companies. i asked her if patients should worry their doctor might be learning from a speaker who's been sanctioned. >> i think physicians who attend these speaker programs, and patients who benefit from their physicians attending, should rest assured that companies are doing everything they can to have these programs be

beneficial to physicians, to have them be informative, to make sure they comply with all federal regulations and really to make sure they are a source of helpful information to physicians. >> reporter: while many doctors who speak for drug companies have high-powered credentials, some lack extensive research associated with leaders in their field. online searches for research and academic postings done by propublica and "nightly business report" turned up little public information on some of the industry's highest paid speakers. dr. adriane fugh-berman is an activist and critic of drug company influence on prescribing. she is not surprised some drug company speakers have modest resumes. she says more and more top medical schools are telling academics they can't speak for drug companies. >> there is a growing awareness that this is promotion. this is to sell drugs. this is not actually about education.

and so the best researchers and the best physicians are not participating in this anymore. >> reporter: harvard medical school professor dr. tom stossel disagrees. a specialist in markets and medicine, dr. stossel says cooperation between industry and doctors helps patients. and he worries patients will be hurt if top doctors and researchers stop speaking for drug companies. >> patient care is better because of the tools we've got. we get the tools from industry development and industry working with physicians. no other way we can do that. if we put barriers in the way of that relationship, we slow down innovation. >> reporter: in response to the issues raised by propublica about company speakers who have been sanctioned by state medical boards, both eli lilly and glaxosmithklein say they have started their own investigations. darren gersh, "nightly business report," washington. >> susie: our "dollars for docs" partners include "pro publica,"

"n.p.r.," the "chicago tribune," the "boston globe" and "consumer reports." to see responses to our stories from other drug companies, and to see if your doctor is on the list of thousands of physicians paid to speak or consult for drug companies, go to our website: n.b.r. on pbs.org. >> susie: so, tom, stocks on the up side on wall street today, and the daubach above 11,000.

>> tom: yes, driven there by some earnings, a bits of a reversal as welcome paired to what we saw yesterday. so let's get everybody updated tonight in our "market focus." >> tom: the major stock indices made up almost all of what they lost yesterday, led by a rebound in the material sector. we'll talk about earnings in a moment, but yesterday's big losers were the winners today. iron ore producer cliffs natural and fertilizer maker c.f. industries added 3.5% each. c.f.'s jump more than made up yesterday's losses. and steel maker a.k. steel added 3%. boeing helped spark the rally overall with better-than- expected earnings and a better outlook. results were six cents over estimates. orders for both commercial airlines and military equipment jumped, increasing its backlog of orders. s&p analyst richard tortoriello thinks boeing has two tailwinds helping it.

>> i think what's driving boeing right now is primarily commercial airplanes, and there are two big trends there. one is that we really need a lot more planes in the emerging markets, and the second is that there is a need for more fuel- efficient planes in developed markets, particularly in the u.s. >> tom: boeing was the biggest percentage gainer inside the dow industrials today, adding more than 3%. over the past year, it is the second best performer of the dow. second only to dupont. boeing builds the planes and delta and others fly them-- and made money in the recent quarter. delta's results were much better than expected, thanks to higher fares and more traffic, easily offsetting more capacity and higher fuel prices. these results pushed delta stock up almost 11% to its highest price since june. the move came with a big jump in volume, more than four times usual. apple shares saw a small gain, to over $310 a share.

c.e.o. steve jobs today announced a series of developments focused on its macintosh computer line. the next version of the macintosh computer operating system, called lion, will be out next summer. the newest macbook air laptop will use chips for storage, instead of a standard hard drive. and a new app store for the software and hardware will be online within three months. morningstar's toan tran says apple's mac is becoming more popular. >> apple continues to gain p.c. market share here in the u.s. i think apple is probably about 10% or a little bit more right now of u.s. p.c. market share and i think that continues. kind of the advent of the internet and web-based applications has kind of rendered the desktop operating system a little bit irrelevant. >> tom: a couple of after-hour earnings were moving shares of ebay and netflix. ebay beat the street by three cents per share. it also predicted a strong end to the year after cutting estimates earlier this year, due to the strengthening dollar.

netflix missed by a penny, but it also lifted its outlook. it also added more than one million net new subscribers. here's how these two stocks did before the news. but they both added to these gains after hours. ebay was up another 7%. netflix added another 8%. finally, another setback for a long-acting version of the diabetes drug byetta. the f.d.a. wants more information before it decides the drug's fate. that news was disappointing for the two companies selling it. lilly fell 4%. that pales in comparison to amylin, losing almost half its value. alkermes also involved in the drug's development. its stock shed more than a quarter of its value. the winner may be novo nordisk, which sells a competing treatment. its stock gained 10%. and that's tonight's "market focus."

>> susie: social security payments are a lifeline for many retirees, but the amount of that check isn't fixed. it depends on how much you paid in social security taxes while you worked. in tonight's "money profiles" segment, benno schmidt has the story of a widow shortchanged on social security because of a mistake made years ago. >> i don't have nothing now. nothing. everyday is a hassle for me. >> reporter: miami resident dorothy miller never imagined retirement like this, living month to month, barely getting by. >> living on a social security check, believe me, my bills are more than my check!

>> reporter: and dorothy miller's social security check might be a lot bigger today, except for a mistake made by her late husband decades ago. back in the 1950s, james miller was a 17-year-old baseball-playing phenom in miami. at this community ballfield, he attracted the eyes of eager pro scouts, including one for the san francisco giants, who signed up miller for the giants' farm team. as a minor leaguer player, james miller was told that to get paid, he had to provide a social security number. the problem was, he didn't have one. so instead, he gave his younger brother's number. and for many years, social security taxes on james miller's earnings from baseball and odd jobs were credited to the brother's account. miller would later regret that action-- when he retired and began to collect social security. david certner of the a.a.r.p. says it lowered his social security payments. >> your social security is based

on your wage history, so they take your 35 highest years of earnings and, if you have essentially undercut yourself for earnings in any given year, that ultimately will lower your social security benefit. >> reporter: ironically, james miller's loss was his brother's gain. >> he used to tell his brother "oh well, when your check comes, remember who should be getting some of that money," and they used to laugh about it. and his brother used to say "oh well, that's what you did, you're the crazy one." >> reporter: the brother passed away two years ago. in the final years of his life, james miller's monthly social security check was just $500 a month, so he contacted social security in an effort to get the earnings from his baseball days properly credited. but after so much time had passed, he found it was nearly impossible. >> its very difficult to go back 10, 20, 30 years and recreate your work history, the employer may not even be there any longer. many tax returns may not exist anymore.

>> reporter: to spot a problem before it's too late, certner advises that you check the contributions to social security made by you and your employers. that's fairly easy, because your earnings history is mailed to you once a year, right before your birthday-- or you can request it by going to ssa.gov. if you see a discrepancy between what it shows and your records, get in touch with the local social security office. it will tell you how to go about correcting any mistakes. dorothy miller says, had her husband done that, her social security check-- and her life today-- might be very different: >> the lesson in my opinion is pay attention to your social security. you got to be on top of it. >> reporter: the moral of this story? to avoid striking out on your retirement finances in the ninth inning, don't wait to bring any errors to the umpire's attention. that's because in the social security game, it's up to you to

make sure that your scorecard is accurate. benno schmidt, "nightly business report," miami. >> tom: here's what we're watching for tomorrow: weekly jobless claims and leading economic indicators for september. along with quarterly results due from amazon, american express, caterpillar and u.p.s. also, the nissan leaf. will drivers branch out and embrace this all-electric car? frank sesno of "planet forward" joins us with the bottom line on buying and owning one. >> susie: it's day five of the dispute between cablevision and news corp, and no end in sight. talks resumed today, but there's no deal. the dispute has left more than three million cablevision customers in new york city and philadelphia without fox programming. so tonight, phillies fans will miss another m.l.b. playoff game. cablevision says news corp is greedy for wanting to double the fee to carry fox channels. news corp says cablevision won't negotiate in good faith. >> tom: a deal reached today has

taxpayers footing the bill to clean up dozens of old general motors plants. the treasury will use roughly $0.75 billion set aside to wind down the automaker's bad assets. many of those former plants contain hazardous waste. more than half are in michigan. the deal must still be approved by the judge overseeing the old g.m.'s liquidation.

>> susie: we're just days away from the mid-term election and a potential shift in power on capitol hill. many candidates are campaigning against big government and deficit spending. but as tonight's commentator explains, there's a dirty little secret about election politics and budget deficits. he's allan sloan, senior editor at large at "fortune." >> talk about role reversal. a few years ago, when republicans were in power, democrats were complaining about federal budget deficits, and the republicans didn't care about them. these days, with the democrats in power, republicans are running as the anti-deficit party, and democrats care about it much. the real deal, of course, is that neither party really cares about deficits. some individual republicans or democrats really care, but the parties don't. as a budget geek once explained to me, the party that's out of power is the party that cares

about deficits. the party that's in power doesn't care about deficits. they have an agenda to pursue. the one time deficits more or less disappeared was the late 1990s, when there was a stock market bubble that increased tax revenues, a booming job market, and political gridlock in washington, with neither party firmly in control. if we end up with gridlock this time, which is what the experts predict, i suspect we'll get the worst of both worlds. a combination of spending programs from the democrats, and tax cuts from the republicans. this wouldn't be the most efficient way, or the best way, to help us deal with the aftermath of the great recession. it certainly wouldn't be the right way to deal with budget deficits. but it would sure be the washington way. i'm allan sloan. >> tom: that's "nightly business report" for wednesday, october 20.

i'm tom hudson. good night everyone, and good night to you too, susie. >> susie: good night tom. i'm susie gharib. goodnight everyone, we hope to see all of you again tomorrow night. "nightly business report" is made possible by:

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