his stride. thank you very much for watching. please stay with us and stay safe this weekend if you're in the path of the hurricane. matt miller is here for diylan and ready to take us forward. >> martin luthe bashir. eloquent tribute. a lot more coverage ahead including an expert with concrete advice how your family can best prepare. show starts right now. big story this friday -- bracing for impact. good afternoon. i'm matt miller in for dylan ratigan. it's a beautiful end to the workweek here in new york. hard to believe hurricane irene is just hours away. further south, the time is now. this is wrightsfield beach, north carolina, where conditions are already going downhill. winds picking up along the surf.

folks will feel the full impact of irene late tonight. the beginning of a long weekend for some 65 million americans in the storm's path including big cities like philadelphia, new york and boston. leaders, including president obama, are urging calm. give a listen. >> i cannot stress this highly enough. if you are in the projected path of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now. >> the sun is shining, but don't be misled. there is a very dangerous storm headed in our direction. >> first, of course, there was an actual earthquake on tuesday. and now we are faced with a hurricane, the likes of which we've not seen or experienced in at least 50 years. >> weather channel meteorologist and hurricane expert brian norcross starts off our coverage. >> it's offshore of north carolina and moving to the north

right on track. take a look at radar. now it's come close enough to the carolinas we can actually see it on the radar and there is the center of the hurricane there, moving right towards cape hatteras. now, a little bit of good news. although i don't want anybody to read too much into this, is that in the center, the way it looks like, they are weakening some. but this is a huge wind machine that's going to push tremendous water, ten feet or more, over the land as it moves to the north. so it's the track we talked about yesterday, unfortunately, right over cape hatteras, on a path to ocean city, on up to the jersey shore, long island, involving new york city, you've been talking about and reporting all day and on up into new england. and folks away from the coast, the amount of rain up to a foot of rain on top of that very saturated ground, and the wind over a vast area, of hundreds and hundreds of miles of this incredibly strong wind we expect to take down trees, take out

power, which could be a long-lasting problem. one more thing to look at, because of the life threatening conditions really are at the coast. this white area is waves over 30-feet high, and we've seen some of the 42 feet, and right there at the coast already on those buoys just offshore, you see 20 and 25 feet. so as that core of the hurricane comes up the coast, that power of the ocean is going to come along the shoreline, and that's why all of those evacuations have been ordered. including there in new york city for the low-lying areas when the water is forced into the corner between long island and the jersey shore. matt? >> brian what will you be looking for in the next 24 hours to see if anything is changing in what seems to be a very threatening path? >> well, you know, every six hours we get new computer programs, new computer forecasts. so far there's just been no change. we honestly don't expect much change, and we understand the hurricane, where it's going to

go. where it's going. the only thing we can sort of say, there is signs of weakening in the core, but we see the height of the waves and the water. we know there is a tremendous amount of energy in the water, what causes the extensive damage at the coast and we see a vast amount of rain already just beginning to impact north carolina and spreading north. >> very good. brian norcross. we'll be back to you in the hours ahead. now to nags head, north carolina. nbc's mark potter. what's there? >> reporter: we are just now starting to get the winds kicking up, misting in the air. the seas are starting to kick up. we looked at radar and found the outer bands of the hurricane are just to our south. with a half hour or maybe less we'll start getting those stormy conditions. it will get a lot worse tonight and much worse tomorrow assess t the hurricane passes over this area. the biggest part emergency

managers fear is where the eye of that storm goes. if it goes just to the west of us, blew pam lick coe sound, big trouble here's. let me explain. what the hurricane comes up on that path, the leading winds could push water from the atlantic on to the eastern side of the outer banks, and then as the hurricane passes through the hailing winds coming from the northwest could push all the water there on to the western shore of outer banks and affect sandwiches this area with water. that's the problem they're expecting, is a water event here, some wind. they're expecting damage to homes and to roads, and urging people that haven't left to do so now. there are some residents holding out. emergency managers say that's not a good idea. they want them to leave and get out now before getting trapped by the storm. >> are people listening to authorities about the intensity of the seriousness of all this or laggers who look like they're try and stay put and ride this out? >> reporter: a little bit of

both. the tourists yesterday decided that they were going to go. they were ordered yesterday and they left. a lot of locals are also leaving, because they've been through this before. they fear this particular storm, they're going. but some old timers, through lots of storms say we've been through them all, never left. we're not leaving now. others say they know this island will be cut off to traffic returning because of water over the roads and damage to perhaps roads and bridges. they know they can be get back, another reason people are staying. they're staying here, riding out the storm. emergency managers oppose that and are urging them not to do that, but that's the reality of the situation. there are some people who are just not going it leave. >> all right. that's nbc's mark potter. stay safe there as this comes into the land. for those chasing after irene, and there are people who chase these storms, the adrenaline is pumping today. with the discovery channel the ar storm chases" on the hot line, where are you now?

>> right now about an hour ots of or target. in nags head, on the barrier islands, and we're starting to get some of the outer bands even inland, these cells popping up. we drove all night to get out here and we've got our armored vehicle to get inside the eyewall and take measurements. >> now, what drives someone like you, i'm curious, to actually be involved in chasing storms at the height of what for many people will be one of most dangerous situations in their lives? >> well, weather's been a passion of mine for as long as i can remember. especially the science. i went to study meteorology and began storm chasing there. basically, as soon as i had a car that i could drive. normally we chase tornadoes. that's what this vehicle is designed to intercept tornadoes and keep us safe from those strong winds and debrises to record measurements inside but

we can apply the same science to hurricanes. rear trying to get inside the eyewall and mesh are the horizontal and more importantly the thrust, vertical winds, inside eyewalls to see how strong they get. >> what will you be doing in the next 24 hours, both to our audience, obviously benefiting from the insight you can bring, but science, also, i guess learns more about how we can think about these devastating potential situations? >> definitely. in all the data we could collect inside hurricanes and tornadoes, can be used to better understand them. and if we know just how strong the winds get and from what direction they are, the horizontal and the vertical, that data could eventually be used to design better structures to withstand those winds. and not to mention this is my personal curiosity for what makes these storms tick, and over the next 24 hours, we'll wake up in the morning very early and scout out locations on the barrier islands that we know will be above the height of the

storm surge, because i lost my, lost our vehicle down in hurricane katrina, because we weren't experienced with chasing hurricanes and learned the hard way. now today we have this armored vehicle we know it can't withstand the water and we have to make sure we stay well above that storm surge, in case it's unexpectedly higher. >> about 20 seconds. quickly, what surprised you thus far about what you've encountered in hurricane irene as opposed to the other hurricanes you've experienced? >> an interrupting storm. the only one i've ever chased, had a chance to impact in new england. we kind of had a choice. on whether to intercept it at the north carolina outer banks or go north to new england and intercept it there where it's likely going to be slightly higher wind speed, but the flooding tract longer, just as lorg if not possibly greater,

depending how it intensifies through the weekend. but we chose north carolina outer banks, because we're more interested in the wind speed inside these hurricanes and it could be slightly stronger in terms of wind speed here before it goes northward, and faced with that decision has definitely been a stressful one, because the models have changed so much. they've had it just offshore, curving and missing altogether and in a matter of less than a day, suddenly it's hitting north carolina. so we will to drive all night last night and i've been awake about 30 straight hours. probably almost to our target area and about to test our radar and mick sure it's working properly. >> thanks, reed timmer. be safe out there. much more on the hurricane coming up, including tips for city folk high aren't used to this sort of thing. first, an anemic economy and how we'll survive that storm. and a young man hauling cash in the hauling business, jus

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it turns out the bad news is not restricted to the east coast and it's hurricane warnings. today announced the usgdp grew at 1%. adisappointing number. fed chairman brn bernanke didn' instill confidence saying, "the

country would be well-served by a better process for making fiscal decisions and supporting robust economic policies outside the province of the central ban bank". not my job. more like a punt than plan. what does this mean? joining me with clashing view what's we need to do now, jared bernstein on budget policy priority as a forden biden aide and the president of american action forum and former mccain adviser, douglas eagan. welcome, gentlemen. super fast analysis because we got a hurricane to track. jared, let me start with you. very depressing gdp numbers. bernanke sounding like he's going to sort of watch and wait. what do we need to do? >> actually, bernanke had a great paragraph in there, matt. i pulled it out on my blog. he talked about how actually right now what would help is some short-term fiscal measures targeted jobs measures to help bring down that high

unemployment rate, he particularly mentioned high long-term unemployed folks and alluded to things like, not by name but i think between the lines, extending the payroll tax holiday. getting something quickly up and running on the infrastructure side. maybe school repair, something i've been talking about. so he actually tipped his hat as much as i've heard a fed chair do at the need for fiscal policy help for the economy. >> douglas, i actually read this speech, you at home don't need to. jared, you might be looking at a rorshach test when you read into bernanke's speech, and i like your agenda. 0 not sure bernanke was there. douglas what do you make of it? >> one of the most boring speeches you could imagine. there wale much there. he really did say we've done what we can do and i think he's pretty much right. the ball is not in our court. at least he's not going to do more damage. i think that's fine from the brn brn point of view.

>> whbernanke point of view. >> i'm curious doug. do republicans just have obama where they want him with ownership of a lousy economy, or -- >> if you look inside today's gdp report, one of the silver linings is that business picks investment 1 percentage point of growth. all the growth was on the second quarter. despite the fact the obama administration has been anti-business and none of the policies supportive of a real business expansion. it was -- >> like saving the banks and gm and the auto industry? >> let's face it, they did not save the auto industry. they saved two auto companies that probably deserved to go down and saving the bavgs. what we need to do, fix the financial sector. i don't think they played that card right at all. what we really need to do going forward, provide permanence, permanent not temporary policies. cut the corporate rate. out of line with the world. move towards territorial tax

system and compete internationally. pass trade agreements without handstringing more spending. things the administration can do it has been unwilling to do that would help the president enormously. he needs a better economy and he's shooting himself in the foot. >> let me ask you this. jared, i want to put up -- >> too serious? >> i want to put up a point. surly, not too surly. put up a fact about household debt. in a blog the other day. households debt now is 90% of gdp at the beginning when we went into the recession, 100% of gdp. some improvement. in 1982 trying to get out of a derecession in the reagan era, is there any way to get the consumer engine going again when you've got that dramatic difference in magnitude of folks feeling stress? >> exactly the right question. remember, this is a 70% consumption economy. s with households sitting on

that much debt, into a balance sheet mentality. a technical term. they're not going out to do much in the economy. until they get their spending in line with their debt. so the idea here is to try to do something on the jobs side. doug is way off on this point. by intimating that somehow the measures that the administration has taken thus far haven't helped. in fact -- by the way, interestingly, doug, a former excellent director of the cbo. cbo released analysis this week showing that the recovery act is kind of fading out of the system helped shave about two percentage poits off the unemployment rate. that helped. all of that stuff stopped way too soon and we have to do more on the targeted jobs program side to give those folks leverage, a little more income in their paychecks and pocket, a little better outlook on the job market to both go out, contributed to the economy and

bring their balance sheet back in line. >> ewant to give you -- i want to give you the last word on this. i'd love it if you could address the housing crisis. we hear proposals, considering to try and let folks refinance even those under water at these low rates. do you have a benevolent dictator housing -- >> i do not believe there is any large scale housing policy that would be effective and timely in a macro sense that it's politically feasible. the things we propose on the campaign turned out to be unpop harry lar. the reality is, we will fix the housing market by getting the economy going and getting homeowners back in jobs and getting better growth and we're going to have to muddle through otherwise. there's nothing else you can do. jar we have to get income to these houses not through the temporary gimmicks. the government's broke and the households are broke. the only part of the economy hawaii a balancing working orltder, the business community,

get them moving to hire people and that will create growth. >> very quickly -- >> ten seconds. >> in today's gdp report, corporate profits accelerated with past where they were before this recovery told hold while wages were down. that tells you -- >> why is that? jared, why's that bad? what about -- >> gentlemen -- >> there's nothing on the jobs side. >> gentlemen -- >> people own those companies and people get those profits. >> we need to see -- >> there's no -- >> you're an economist. >> nobody owns that. that's a good thing. >> you know, i late it when economists lose their temper like this. we're going to -- obviously a passionate issue. we'll be coming back. thanks for illuminating the different visions where we should go. we'll be back to you. now let's bring in our mega panel. democratic strategist and former congressional candidate krystal ball and msnbc contributor toure. all right.

ari, let me start with you. you just heard a spry exchange where the economy is and where we need to go. who's right? >> they made you look less surly. when they yell at each other like that. i think the problem, of course what you have from some of the mainstream economic leaders of this republican party, obviously, john mccain also worked in a more non-partisan capacity in the cbo. >> back in the day. >> back in the day. he's saying, you heard, well, the obama administration is anti-business except for the hundreds of billions of dollars they took a political risk on to support business. there is a little distance for anyone listening closely to hear your anti-business, as you pointed out, but then, by the way, you know, this isn't enough and then, you know, you own the bad economy. >> krystal, what do you take away from that? >> i have to say i'm on team jared on this one. i wanted to pull out something else ben bernanke said today. not verbatim. he said there is nothing at odd

between short-term stimulus and long-term fiscal restrain. there's nothing about those two things contrary to one another. that's what we're arguing for. we have to get people back to work now. not only is that the right thing to do, not only is that good for america but it helps us get our deficit problem under control in the long term. something we need to deal with. >> what i hear, a proxy for what will happen when obama comes back and makes his jobs speech sometime in early september. it's hard to imagine substantial stuff passing. so isn't this all battle lines for 2012? >> yeah, absolutely. everything, of course, to this point is battle lines for 2012 and it's been that way for months already. for years. well, years, and you late to see the things that people need compromised in the name of, we're setting up our pawns for 2012 or 2016, or whatever. real people's lives are in the balance here. >> if we were benevolent

dictators, a test i always like 20 apply, i would do something eclectic. i would do deep payroll tax cuts, eliminate over time. higher consumption taxes over time, do more public spending as fast as you can on folks doing service work. notes inially on the infrastructure, but which will take a long time to get shovel read, et set virginia. odd to what we want to do on the mega panel but may not get done? >> stimulus spending is hiring people by the government itself, by state government or creating funds to free up private industry to hire people. whether on the tax side, or the direct employer boofrst. what you heard from bernanke, the ball the not in our court. we've done with fiscal policy, to unfreeze the credit markets. fed supporters say that was great and a lot of people feel it was a back-door bailout. whatever you think of that, what he is saying clearly, he is the decision-maker is, we did what we could. we're done, and it's up to the

congress to spend money, if they want to. this is a congress that's interested in drastic cuts, not spending. >> go ahead. >> i just want to piggy back on that a little. you were talking about public sector. the public sector is shedding jobs. and that's something we have complete control of. states, municipalities as the stimulus fnds run out are having to lay off people and it's putting a huge drag on our economy. continuing to keep our unemployment rates elevated a and that something we have with our control. i don't understand why there's not more of a push to help our state and local government. >> and the last idea i put on the table now, we're going to come back on it in a second. a friend of this show had on his bleg, a whether related infrastructure thing. everybody talking about the hurricane. why don't we do nor to put utilities underground, like in new york, less fear of all of these blowout adages and create jobs? another idea that won't happen now but we'll come back to. our panel sticks around.

up next, where it's safer to be in the hurricane. or is it safer? the big city or the suburbs? we'll have a disaster expert. that's next. to keep in balance after 50, i switched to a complete multivitamin with more. only one a day women's 50+ advantage has ginkgo for memory and concentration, plus support for bone and breast health.

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the potential that emergency services may not be provided due to the closing of bridges. bridges aren't going to fall down but there is a point where the winds get so strong that they close because cars and trucks could be blown off them. >> new york mayor michael bloomberg preparing for the worst but hoping for the best from hurricane irene. in addition to the bridges all of mass transit including new york subways shut down as of noon tomorrow. for the first time in the city's history parts of manhattan are actually being evacuated ahead of the storm. those in zone a, the areas shaded in orange, told to get out by tomorrow afternoon. the concern, these low-lying areas will find themselves under water as a result of 9 storm surge. weren't of those areas being evacuated is battery park city in low are manhattan. that's where we find the weather

channel's jim cantore. jim what would be the best to hope for at this point? >> reporter: the best to hope for is a storm that does not go further and potentially weakens a bit before it gets here and also this is the key. this is why we add to the evacuation order issue, if we can get the storm surge in here at the time of low tide. all right. which would be sometime in the afternoon. not at 8:00 in the morning or:00 at night. that would be the best case scenario hier. that said, that does not take away all the issues. because this storm that is about 450 miles wide, you're going to have to push that whole wind field across the city. so a long duration wind event will batter these buildings. once you go up past ten stories you can almost add another category to the hurricane. category 1, for example, a category 2 up above ten stories. that means some of these buildings and certainly some of these windows will take a beating. it's going to be dangerous for

anybody walking around through the streets. there will are areas where there won't be much wind at all but areas where the wind is twice as strong because it's being funneled through the building. just because it's the best case does not mean we will be void of issues here. we got issues in maryland, jersey shore, all the way up through mungnew england. it's going to be a big deal that wou could be actually washing over jim in the days ahead. new york isn't the only northeast city prepping for irene. an unprecedented event. new york has seen five hurricanes wth with 75 mimes since 1851. how tr present themselves and their families in a major hurricane and whether the city is adequately repaired. our specialist, a disaster expert and former coast guard, center for national policy. welcome, dr. flinn.

>> thank you. >> what should families concretely do to best prepare for what may be ahead? >> most importantly, recognize before this thing happens time is your ally. as soon as it happens, it becomes your enemy. use the time we have, another day and a half, to get informed. am i in a flood zone? where would i evacuate to? what the plan i have to communicate with my family? people need to think it through now. if you have to get out, do you have the things you really like that are important to you, identity documents? medicines are critical. a lot of us have chronic ill insides and have to have the medicines. going out now, making sure you have a week, ten-day supply. you're not going to have a medical emergency and show in in stress. it's a lot of getting prepared. another important thing actually is be a good neighbor. reach out to your neighbor, how can i help? how can we work this together?

it happens automatically in a crisis or disaster. there are not enough professionals to go around. it's your family members. the bystanders and strangers who have to come together to get you through all these. >> i don't want to go on irene. you called this closely. i want your opinion on this. seems to me as compared to katrina and a hell of a lot of other really big hurricanes that rumble around, this one is getting a ton more media attention because it's hitting the northeast. do you agree with that or am i wroever reacting? >> it is probably true. first one of the season almost always gets a lot of attention as well. you can see it, coverage of storm. the realish u, as we saw with the earthquake on tuesday, we are, haven't had one in a long time. over 100 years. new york has done exactly the wrong thing. they went outside. same nithing in washington. you're supposed to stay inside. we're out of practice. especially the bay area like

this, a lot of infrastructure. it's fragile. getting old. not rather well maintained. a hit like this, even though it's not category 5 or category 4, when you get a lot of people in a lot of space, they dependent upon transportation, energy, power. there's a difference being in the outer banks and riding it out than on the 25th story apartment with no power. how do you get down it spares and up it stairs, where do you get your supplies. not like we'll see death, destruction and mayhem. people lives very much disrupted and it's a good idea to figure, can i camp in my home three days or so and what's the plan for doing that. >> right. speaking of the earthquake, i'm a native virginian. my home town, about 40 miles from the ep ircenter of the earthquake and now hunkering down for the hurricane. in all seriousness, i'm planning to drive down to virginia for the weekend, and wondering, is my family safer in sort of the rural area in virginia, where i would be, or in a big city where

there's lots of buildings to presumably break up the wind but lots of things that could fly around and hit you as well? >> "the dylan ratigan show," personal travel advice as well as broad or social interests issue. >> that's right. that's what everybody really wants to find out. >> in are millions of people in this situation. >> that's exactly it. it really all depends if you're not prepared in countryside and not prepared in the city a problem for bong both of you, right? basically use to having a few extra -- have a generator. get it out of the way from the house. more people die of carbon monoxide poisoning and so forth because they're not used to working the generator or have it too close. if you have a plan out will in the country, you can essentially camp out the rick is small. once things clear up, you get back on with your life. urban area, people have very small apartments in new york and not a lot of stuff. people may not realize, new york has only one day of food

basically on the shelves. every day the trucks come in and resupply it. >> come down, just in time -- >> exactly. unique to new york, from long island, connecticut, speaking of locusts, consume the food and then -- >> like a locust. >> but then after -- as the mayor said, bridges get disrupted, things slow down. you really want to get some stuff you need for riding it out. commuters won't be in the city. that's good news. >> talk about the importance of thinking through how you'll connect with your family? i'm historically bad at that. my mom has called, you haven't call immediate in a week. that's should improve over the weekend. >> it should. >> she'll be happy to hear that. when you hear about an unusual weather "vent happening in new york and this sort of thing, is this evidence of global warming to see this massive storm happening here? >> i think the evidence is a bit overwhelming that we're seeing climate change, generating more

significant events in terms of frequency and scale. we can debate the cause, we don't need to. we have a big event right now. my own view is we're causing man-made -- the reality, no matter what we stop or start doing we're going to see more of this frequency. >> more of these as time goes on? >> absolutely. whip higher intensity. the other issue, we we live and how. we're concentrated. a long time ago, cast about. being prepared is key. and recognizing, what you depend on and then building a plan. >> thank you for coming by, for sharing your expert advice. both personal and more widely applicable, and thanks as always to our mega panel. toure, see you a little later. krystal, good luck with your drive, ari, walking out on the limb with the hurricane. ready to play the video monday. see it irene cuts it off.

thank you for your input. up next, into the eye of the storm. our storm chaser back on the hot line. that's next. i love all the gadgets. check out the backup cam.

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we're back with the latest on hurricane irene. the storm now starting to batter the outer banks of north carolina. landfall expected later tonight. then all eyes turn to the northeast. major cities like new york and boston in the storm's cross hairs this weekend. states of emergency declared up and down east coast. let's get our storm chaser back on the hot line. extreme meteorologist reed timer from discovery's "storm chasers." what's changed since we spoke to you last? where were you now?

reed? do we have reed? >> hello. sorry about that. >> it's okay. >> yeah. a little closer to our target area tomorrow in nags head and as we were heading there, there these little storms firing up in the outer banks of the hurricane. "always have a chance of produce are tornadoes out ahead of the hurricane because there's so much wind shear. we're keeping an eye on these storms and watching for rotation to see if we can see tornadoes before spending the night and chasing the hurricane tomorrow in the outer banks of north carolina. >> reed, leafbriefly, you're in armored car? >> yeah, yeah. in a crazy looking car. kind of looks like a cross between the bat mobile, and a red shoe, and it's cover in armor. it has electric windows and hydraulics to drop to the ground and survive in tornadoes and apply that same technology in intercepting hurricane eyewalls. long as we keep a close eye on

the storm surge, because it can't hold up to water. we have to be very careful about that. >> well, fascinating, reed. stay safe and i know we'll be back to you in the hours ahead. coming up, one person's trash, another person's treasure. how your junk is translating into jobs for a group of exciting young inother vaters ♪ what you going to do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk ♪ >> i'm going to get, get, get you crunk ♪ you could save a bundle with geico's multi-policy discount. geico, saving people money on more than just car insurance. ♪

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it is no secret we're in the middle of a jobs crisis, and the

people being washed away by today's economic storms, the next generation. youth unemployment climbed upwards of 17% nearly twice the national average. if you watched this program before you know we believe the next wave of jobs will have to come from american innovation. in that spirit i give you college punks hauling junk. that's the name of the business. putting college kids to work and hauling over 10,000 pounds of junk over a year. they became the youngest fran xhizers in america. 35 branches putting 500 people to work from coast to coast pop joining me, anger of "effortless entrepreneur" work smart, play hard and make millions and co-founder of hauling junk, nick friedman. welcome. >> thank you. >> you're a young sucticess sto building a business. tell us how you got started. >> summer before senior year of

college. a buddy from high school trying to think of something to do. his mom had an old cargo van. get out, do something. you're not going to be sitting around the pool. we made computer printout fliers and college folks hauling junk. modest at the time. that night the phone started ringing and people would say, this is the hunk, we need you to toss out. yes, yes, this is the hunks. the lightning bolt hit for us there. we went back to school. always had been brought up to study hard get a good job and climb the corporate ladder. we graduated from college. got corporate jobs and decided that wasn't for us. we wanted to build a brand nationally. >> still thinking of this idea a couple years later and decided we're going to take the plunge and kmlly start this? >> we wrote a business plan our senior year of college. submitted it to an entrepreneur competition, won first prize, which gave us confidence. we thought it would just make our resume look good. three months later i e-mailed, what's the timeline for quitting our jobs and starting a

building. he e-mailed back, my time line is right now exclamation point, exclamation point. >> everything depends on you. tell folks what it's like to build something from the ground that's gotten you to where you are today. >> the most fulfilling thing i've experienced. waking up at 5:00 a.m. hauling the junk ourselves going to landfill and disposing of it. working from 9:00 until z10:00 n the evening. at the time doing everything inside the business. answering phone calls driving the trucks, hauling stuff sometimes all at the same time. people would call our 800 number routed to our cell phone complaining about erratic driving and we'd be the ones driving. and on the phone. you have to get by, get to to the next level to be profitable, hire employees and think about expanding. >> you have 35 branches? >> right?

>> 35 franchises across the country right now. >> is it mostly -- literally college kids, the folks hired to actually do the front line work? >> right. our franchise owners can be anybody from a college grad twoit a recently retired veteran, we expand the whole gamut. and then our front line staff, the guys doing the moving and hauling are typically college stuthts. >> what kind of stuff do you actually haul? >> it ranges from anywhere, stuff people want to get rid of. cleaning out basements, garages. we've done disaster cleanup. the hurricane is upon us. there's some chance we may get cams from disaster restoration companies, and also do local moving as well. moving items for people not just hauling unwanted stuff away. >> sounds like you've been expanding even in this very tough economy. what's that been like? what have been the challenges? >> one thing we realized, when we started the business in the boom times of tao 2005, all we need to do, put our truck out in

a visible location and the phone would ring. now more sta strategic. who needs our services? not just a catchy idea. becoming more toorargeted and i made better business people out of it. >> a minute left. two quick questions. use expanded and have catchy names. college packing boxes? >> haven't unrolled it fully. come in and pack items, hunks come in, move the item to another location and the foxes come in and, you know, pack and organize for them. >> briefly, what's your message to other young potential entrepreneurs with an idea, see someone like you and thinking, how do i know if i can take the plunge? >> no better time especially in this economy to take entrepreneur option as opposed to going to grad school. parents are starting to is a sort pa that being so passionate you're willing to do whatever it

takes to make it into a reality. >> the time of your life when you don't have the burdens of family, the joys, also the responsibilities, the financial burdens. >> you're never going to have more responsibility than you do -- less responsibility than you do right now. every day your burdens and responsibilities get more and more. better to take a risk when you're younger and have less responsibilities. >> very wise words, i think. that's nick friedman of college hunks hauling junk. you wear that shirt every da day? >> every day, hunked out, get you a hat and t-shirt, you can join the team. >> congratulations on all you're building and sharing those thoughts with our audience. coming up on "hardball," continuing coverage of irene. first, from earthquakes to hurricanes, it's been a rough week. toure is here on the adventure of living in new york. [ groans ] you okay? try this. bayer aspirin? it's not a heart attack. new bayer advanced aspirin's for pain. it has microparticles and enters the bloodstream faster. works twice as fast as before. did you invent this or something? dr. eric first, from bayer. wow.

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just back now, they just issue oured a hurricane warning for new york city. meanwhile, hurricane irene is approaching north carolina right now where we see the waves are crashes, rain starting and winds picking up. irene is expected to make landfall tonight along the outer banks. we'll have full coverage throughout the night and weekend here right on msnbc. the upcoming hurricane and the east coast earthquake has toure ready to rant. take it away. >> thanks, man. new yorkty is the biggest, baddest most macho swaggering city in all of america. if you can make it herish as franky said, you can make it anywhere. but right now we're kind of cowering. you can almost see this great

city shivering, workers heverring to put up barricades and moving in a panic because there's no time. it's not like new york would cower in fear of anything, but this weekend we're cowering for good reason. we're anticipating a powerful no good very bad date with a wet dominatrix, a total bitcm named irene. the song says, we'll see about that. ready to beat us into the humility she insists on with her winds made of wind and strength made of rain. no, i would not like another. new yorkers are a tough as nails bunch of people and most new yorkers make me proud to be one. i move here 20 years ago to find what felt like a jungle with all sorts of lurid crimes going on all the time pap city living in the shadow of past grisly crimes like the son of sam murders and infamous that saw the city

running wild. now it's clean are and more free than the rock wellian '50s. many things have come to try to knock us down and prove our meddle. 9/11 showed me who new york is. stoic, not scared. took a blow to the state, fell down and got right back up. grieved for those we lost and vowed to build back up stronger than ever. anything a human can dish out, new york city can take. but a big, nasty storm? what are we supposed to do with that? how do we prepare? i had to call my friends in california. it, ask, what are we supposed to stockpile in case of a hurricane in new york city? i think of the hurricanes coming for the yankees. not a beatdown from a storm. you know what? it's just water and wind, people. a mean, angry storm, but it's just water and wind. start spreading the news, this, too, shall pass. >> my friend toure, you take the daily rant to a level of performance art.

i love that, and when you're setting up us for the weekend with sex, death, a little bit of crime. it's like it's -- should be an hbo series at some point. you know, you'll figure out what to name it. how are you preparing for this? besides having fun figuring out ho put it in poetry. >> number one, letting my wife handle the details. she said, get water. milk, bread and cheese, non-perishable thing for the kids and emphasized we have to have new toys for the kids to play with on sunday, perhaps monday, so they're excited about being cooped up in the house all weekend and not like, we want to get out of here. when can we go out? >> about 30 seconds what do you think, the lessons, we'll know basically monday whered storm clears on all of this. is this going to be a new chapter in the new york sensibility of -- further having another piece of our arsenal that's tough enough for noers? >> we'll see how it goes. other things we afraid of and nothing real