as dominos continue to fall in europe and the big banks appear to be on those trades. hunlg funds raided today as part of what could be seen as a large scale trading investigation. show starts right now. breaking news this afternoon, the house of cards showing a further well weakness on wall street. the fbi today reportedly raiding the office of three hedge funds -- and lock capital management, based out of boston. we're learning it's all linked to a much broader insider trading investigation that goes back to the sam berg and the gallion and the busts from a year, year and a half ago. they're basically spidering they way through this.

the targets, mutual funds, investment banks. the wall street reporting -- not clear whether that includes the most famous of the milken area that led to lots of dollars. let's get more perspective from krista freeland. is everybody dealing with the some pool of speculation? >> i think the fbi does -- and i think it's important for us not to rush to judgment. the phenomenon is one we've been waiting for. in the bust x you start finding out who was swimming without their swimming trunks. >> it's tough turn down easy money.

when someone says put 50 on black, it will be 200 tomorrow, people think, i worked my whole life to go from 50 to 200, whatever the scale is, or do what krista told me, not that you've told me anything. and make easy money. is there any easier money than insider trading? >> the most recent bust, it is classically what happens and as the stakes get higher and higher, the money gets easier, people forget about the milkens and -- >> you're back at the party. how much has force been an issue? there's a comment i guess out of the seattle papers, following 9/11 when they talked about how years later, five and a half years later, the white house and justice department, the bush white house, have failed to replace at least 2400 agents

transferred to counterterrorism squads leaving fewer on the trail of criminals including financial crimes. may not be a fair question to ask you, but how much does reallocating these resources, in other words, taking cops off the beat can't make it so people don't want to be insider traders. >> absolutely. and i think it's more than that. i think during the bush era, there was this notion of what economists called cognitive capture. this notion that overly zealous enforcement was anticapitalist. what i think we're rediscovering as people always do after these busts is actually really stringent enforcement is better

for everybody. >> peter goodman at the "huffington post" -- >> congratulations, by the way. >> yes, congratulations, peter. had an interesting observation about this reporting and surely it will be -- and the word is that it could be so big it goes into the tens of millions of dollars. meanwhile, we have a credit speculation chamber. bailouts in ireland. the ongoing perpetuation of the american financial system and bonuses -- is peter's observation of the absurd in the sort of breathless indictment of these criminal insider traders, we're pretty much okay with the entire banking structure sucking

the money out of this country. >> absolutely, i hate to refer to people who have written themselves, i wrote a piece "the new york times" book review this summer making this point. as human beings, we like stories, especially with the financial crisis, which has had such a devastating effect on people. we want there to be villains. we would love if we could name five or six guys whose hands were in the till and it was all their fault and just put them in jail and everything will be okay. i think our problem, as you talk about all time, is systemic. something that everyone who took out a cheap home mortgage they couldn't afford, too. talking about that systemic problem really makes people yawn, right? >> isn't there still a unique group of people who are the bank ceos who have been able to pay

themselves on amounts of money? as a homeowner, if i borrow for a home and don't have the money, you could take my home away, but if i bonus myself a billion dollars running a bank, like, oh, sorry, i'm going to keep the billion and i'll bail out my bank, ireland today, am i missing something? >> obviously, the systemic flaws benefitted different people to different levels. you can't, clearly, wall street benefitted much more than some lower middle class who was able to buy a bigger house. there was the argument that part of the people were complaining about this, the system was organized so everyone got a small piece out of it. >> any way, insider trading, the

story of the day on wall street. may be the distraction of the day from the actual crime being committed in the financial systems of the world. our other big story today, if you thought tensions were high at the airport last year, wait until this year. the obama administration running damage control once again today about the body scanners and the dreaded pat-down. >> we will make adjustments or changes when called upon, but not changes that will affect the basic operational capability that we need to have to make sure that air travel remains safe. it's only a small percentage of passengers who get patted down. >> well, a small number of passengers whose complaints have ignited a national debate between the two so-called solutions, neither of which may address the threat. forget about that. things are about to get messier,

too. a national group is planning to boycott is scanners on wednesday, opting for pat-downs. that would easily gum up with works. the scans take ten seconds while the pat-downs can take minutes. clearly, both are catch ago hot of eat. here's the problem. pat-downs and scanners don't catch terror attempts like the ones we've most recently seen. like the underwear bomber or those cargo plots. you're not going to catch the cargo bombers, not to mention the massive amount of money we're spending on false solutions. the budget, $8.2 billion. the amount of money al-qaeda spent on those two cargo plots. $4,200. let's talk about the passenger perspective with the director of the consumer travel alliance.

we won't make you deal with the whole kit and kaboodle here, but just from the passenger's perspective and i harken back to a conversation i had saying that the israeli population would never put wup this as a way to live, as a result, they had to figure out another way to do this because they couldn't handle the heat. from a consumer perspective, what is a reasonable way to think about what is happening to you when you travel in your opinion? >> i think we're having these problems today because tsa and the government didn't listen to advocates telling them this isn't going to fly. they kept telling and assuring themselves that oh, no, the american people will accept it and they'll accept having a pat-down baecause it's needed fr

security. fortunately for consumers, people are getting upset and the government the starting to listen to them. that's what makes me happiest about this whole issue. the government is now paying attention to what it should have been paying attention to two years ago. >> what would that be? >> i think we should examine what the whole role of tsa is, they started to keep terrorists from taking over a plane and using it as a missile. what they've done is fortified the cockpit of the airlines, so we can't get in with a box cutter, a pair of tweezers, knitting needles, baseball bats. so, the terrorists have shifted over to using explosives. unfortunately, most of the tsa searching today is all searching for things from the last problem. they're searching for instruments that might be used

as a weapon against individuals, but not against an airplane. i think that needs to be change. >> doesn't that then basically indict this debate as absurd, if either protects you from the plastic explosives that the guys in yemen want to put on our planes at $4,000 a pop? >> i guess i really feel that the whole operation we're running needs to be re-examined. year ago, i used the term security theatre. they came out with a right terment we need to go back and look at what we have and what is effective. the little swabs they use at the airport to, those make sense. having people look at gels, maybe that still makes sense because we haven't quite figured out how to counteract a bomb made by liquids and so on, but

this other whole search of patting down people and stripping them naked in machines just has to stop. they justify it by saying, we found people with $12,000 and they're only allowed to take 10,000 overseas we foupd another guy with a baseball bat or somebody else with drugs or something else that has created you know, had some other crime. well, that has nothing to do with tsa. tsa is not a law enforcement operation. it's simply a security operation to keep us safe when getting on airplan airplanes. >> mission creek rears its ugly head. thank you so much, charlie. charlie's group, the consumer travel alliance. >> thank you very much. coming up, a helping hand for folks facing foreclosure. what homeowners need to know about banks and their own property rights to the extent at which they exist in this county tru. we're back after this. gecko: good news sir, i just got an email from the office

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home for the holidays, hard to do when you don't have a home. more americans are now falling behind on their mortgages large di due to the unemployment crisis which come frs the trade system designed to suck money out of our country, which eliminates jobs. states in the northeast seeing a sharp rise. new york, new jersey and connecticut among those experiencing the largest jump in late payments. lucki luckily, there are some jumping

in to help -- and are in the process of working with congress to try to eliminate property rights all together in the view of many in this country. joining us now, matt widener and mark stopa. this weekend, they held a free conference to education homeowners. what did you hear? >> the same story we hear every day. consumers are not getting a fair shake. every day, we sit and hear stories of consumers who work their butts off every day with their banks to try and get modifications. we try and solve this problem. the banks just aren't working with them. >> if you were to look, mark, at the justice system in this country, and the ability for a rapist or murderer to get away because of a technical failure

in the collection of evidence or any other aspect of a criminal trial, do you find it entertaining or tragic i suppose, that while a murderer can walk for a technical failure, a technical failure in the foreclosure process is no reason to kick somebody out of their house. gl they get these lengthy trials and the courts say all too often they're quick ie hearings, so these homeowners are getting thrown out of their homes with little due process. that's why they need lawyers. >> matt, what can you tell us about the property rights issue and this system they use to churn through this and the degree to which property rights are in question in this country. >> terrifterrified, dylan. attorneys like mark and i have been screaming for years about the problems that exist and now, it's finally bubbled up into

congress and congress is admitting the fact we have real problems. i'd encourage every to pay attention to the new november report issued last week where congress is taking note of the systemic problems that exist within the mortgage market. in fact, the entire residential real estate market. on one end, they say it's technical problems, but on the other end, systemic and catastrophic failures of the remarket and entire country. that's because we have aggregated our property rights in this country. one of the fundamental principles this country was based on was a clear and open system of property ownerships and that has been thrown in the garbage in this systemized securitization process. >> aren't property rights the very foundation of capitalize m?

doesn't that fundamentally undermine our ability to function as free and independent country of people? >> i think we've seen that over the last several years with how the economy has functioned. all these problems with the housing problem and now the crash, until people in positions of authority can fix the problems with loan modifications and the mortgage crisis, then we're going to continue to have problems. that's why we're out there trying to help people realize they should defend their case and create change in the system if they fight for it. >> but isn't the problem with this, let's say i'm a homeowner, lost my job. so many of the foreclosures are not willy-nilly subprime. they never should have bought that house, all this nonsense. it's going to be 2011.

the reason the foreclosure crisis is getting worse is because unemployment in this country continues to explode. if somebody does not have a job and is late on their house payments and is trying to get to a modification, how can they hire a lawyer to defend themselves? are the people the least able to get the help they need. >> dylan, this system of laws that we have in the country, our courts are open and accessible to people whether they have an attorney or not. part of the message we had this weekend is whether you think you can afford an attorney or not, you get to the courtroom and fight to keep your home. if you can afford the fees, pay those, but if you can't, at a minimum, get into that courtroom and fight for yourself. >> show me the note and reconcile the dual track. >> absolutely. let's keep in mind these banks

and institutions have received billions of dollars of our money, so they may not ahave a be foreclosure. homeowners need to wake up and understand this is war we're. the banks and these constitutins are fighting against ou way of life. >> thank you both for coming on and me share this story and we look forward to having more conversations with you guys. ckudos on the work you're doing. up next, looking for the truth in the age of truthiness. when everyone has their own facts, is it too easy to do whatever you want when you can discredit anyone's facts as easy

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the truth is out there, the only problem is that you have to sift through a lot more junk to get to it. for example, reports churning in the blog es fear that the tsa is exempting women in head scarves from the pat-downs. now, they're setting the record straight. they say no one is exempt -- never theless at a time when headlines and misinformation spread at lightening speed and can turn into money in a heart beat, how can we separate fact

from fiction and focus on the issues? joining us now, co-author of the new book, "blur." >> we're in a user controlled wor world. we are all in affect, our own editors. we can go to any of a wide range of media now. we say there are really six questions that people need to can of any piece of content they encounter. the first is what am i looking at. what neighborhood am i in. is this an opinion blog, or is it more straightforward journalism and then you begin to work systemically. the purpose of this really is that we all need to become much more conscious of how we interact with information. because we are to some extent on our own. we're no longer force fed and the things that make it easier

for citizens to create content also make it easier for those who want to manipulate us and spin us. >> and because having dealt with information if you will, in the political and creative university here at msnbc and having spent 15 years dealing with information primarily at bloomberg and at cnbc, information in the financial universe as we're learning, is the only place where good information is worth something and bad information can be a real liability. once you leave the financial universe, the user doesn't have much of an incentive to make sure their information is good because it's not going to cost them a bunch of money, they're not going to make a bunch of money. >> right. when information is all around you, you have to sift through

more of it to get knowledge and it's easier for people to say, i'm going to find comfort with what i already believe. this is part of the challenge of the new century, is how do we get people to open their minds and actually learn, because if all you're doing so going to places that comfort you, you're not learning anything new and we're not going to solve any problems. >> what is is graeest risk of the universe with decisions made based on what you want to believe as opposed to what may exist? >> if we're creating policy on myth rather than fact, then the policy's not going to work. >> if you look at what that allows, in other words, isn't there an advantage to small communities of people of the crowd being misinformed? >> absolutely. and it's easier to get a provocative thing that gets people you know, riled up, to move very quickly. we're in an environment where technology makes it easy to distribute the outlandish.

there's an old quote from edward r. murrow who was beginning to worry about speed at the advent of radio. he said a lie can spin around the world while the truth is still getting its pants on. that's all the more true in a digital age when you don't even have to wait for a radio broadcast. >> before i let this go, a quick checklist for an information consumer who wants to believe they're dealing with the facts and not with what made them feel good -- but would like to know whether wall street is lending to mesh or extracting all the money out and putting it in their own bank accounts or whether that's just crazy dylan ratigan's opinion. how do you draw those lines?

>> the first thing you do is look for what is the source of this and how direct is the knowledge of that source. then you look at what evidence is that source offering. >> in my case, i would point you to the st. louis federal reserve database which tracks the lending activities of the u.s. banking system, then show you the capital outflows from the banks themselves to other countries and the compensation pool, which this year is $144 billion. >> then i ask you, what did you do to see if it's true and what alternative explanations are there besides the one you're drawing. the there another way to draw this and have you looked at it that way, so be more rigorous. >> anybody with a microphone or w website should be viewed very skeptedly, shouldn't they, sir?

>> those media types. >> you can't trust them. trust but verify. a pleasure to spend some time with you. "blur," the name of the book and appropriately titled in my opinion. how to you what's true in the art of information overload. a pleasure, sir. thank you. still ahead here, a new hint for a cia secret that has stubbed cobreakers for a generation. can you crack it? be right back. [ sneezes ] client's here. whoa! that achy cold needs alka-seltzer plus! it rushes multiple cold fighters, plus a powerful pain reliever, wherever you need it! [ both ] ♪ oh what a relief it is! at the walmart in marinette, wisconsin. that first job launched my career.

since i've been with the company, i've been promoted ten times over the span of 11 years. today, i'm a divisional learning and development manager. we can actually help people develop in their own careers. my job allows me to make a difference in the lives of almost 100,000 associates in the northeast. if you think about it, that's almost 8 times the size of my hometown. my name is nick and i work at walmart. ♪

a new hit for those trying to solve what could be the world's hardest puzzle. it was built at cia headquarters in 1990 with a secret code. the fourth part has baffled code breakers all around the world. now, the creator is getting tired of waiting. he's given a clue.

the letters in the clue, nypvtt. when decoded, he says they read berlin. see, it's easy. if you think you've cracked it, logon to cryptoclues.com. if you get them right, he will reach out to you. maybe some of us here will give it a shot. up next, securing profits. former government officials including michael chertoff are cashing in on the fear mongering around safety and flying. plus, sarah palin. >> better bleed them fast. >> scaring me. >> just go. rest in peace. we need to calm these boys down real quick.

that hurts like crap! >> when she is not clubbing halibut on a reality show, she might be your next president. we'll talk about it with the monday megapanel. let's support the small business owners getting our economy booming with the first ever small business saturday. on november 27th, shop small. it's going to be huge. [trumpet playing "reveille" fades to silence] with beauty... ♪ ...and brains. ♪ a phone that gets you to the stuff you love faster. only from at&t. rethink possible.

stella: hmmm. we're getting new medicare benefits from the new healthcare law. jane: yea. most people will get free cancer screenings. and 50 percent off of brand name prescription drugs if you're in the donut hole. stella: you read my paper. jane: i went to medicare.gov. it's open enrollment, you know. so i checked out all the options and found a better plan to fit my budget.

stella: well, you know what they say...knowledge... jane: knowledge is power. spending time with a tsa agent couldn't be any easier. simply book a flight departing from any american airport. when selected for a full body scanner, say no.

you'll be pulled aside by a tsa agent and that's when the fun begins. >> oh, not many travelers would agree. while many probably agree with the phone part, some are planning to opt out of the scans during the holiday rush in protest and here's something else that will stoke some anger. the man who ran home land security now represents one of the makers of the controversial scanners for which stimulus money was used to purchase. it did get the government to buy hurrica hundreds of millions of dollars for body scanners from his client, our government. so far, no comment from mr. chertoff, but i bet your monday

megapanel will have plenty to say. yen for sure he ran homeland security, we know that rapid systems is a chertoff client and we know chertoff has been instrumental in slis itting the government to purchase scanners. is this as outrageous as it appears, ron paul -- john duncan, this is more about money than security. >> it's a good story. it would be a little bit better if chertoff was working for the company. >> he's a broker. >> an attorney and former judge and it may be that he's gotten an attorney-client relationship, but it's revolving door stuff. going through that revolving door, making money one way or

the other. this is business as usual. don't need this. i'm sure that chertoff, who is a very partisan republican, was against the stimulus. there are 98 current members of congress who voted against the stimulus, then went home to their districts, they cut ribbons or issued press releases when the stimulus money would come into their district. which way do they want it? >> which way do we want it? for me on this one, matt lewis, jonathan hit it on the head with the millionth indictment of the revolving door, whether it's lobbyists and legislation and this case, homeland security and government contracts or here on wall street, the ongoing movement between the regulatory yeen verse and financial universe.

do you envision a world -- sucking a few hundred million down may not be the best way to solve our country's problems? >> i think you're right. it doesn't look good. nobody know what is transpired, but you alluded to this. i'm not a big believer in spending money in the sense of kenzian economics to stimulate an economy, but assuming you believe in that, assuming that you are a kenzian, you would spend the money to actually employ more people. these scanners don't do that. it's like a robot. it might actually hurt the unemployment rate. it seems to be like a ridiculous notion that you would use stimulus money to buy more of these scanners. >> it could create jobs in the porn industry. >> online -- i think to me, it points out the extent that for too long, we've given a free pass to anything associated with

security. we've said, okay, money doesn't matter. we'll pay anything, endure anything. >> that sentiment is well founded -- >> maybe it's not right to put it beyond the realm of rational thinking and maybe this uproar around these pat-downs, maybe it's people saying, enough is enough, we haven't really been thoughtful and what we are putting up with as a nation and what we are spending. >> you look at the yemen $4,000 plastic explosives scheme and our $8 billion body scanning business to prevent another 9/11, you'll never get in a cockpit with another knife again, but the investment in plastic explosives in the cargo hold -- >> and the idea that you can ever be, exactly. the idea that you can be perfectly secure, it just doesn't happen. >> the best example of how they

haven't thought it through, they had pilots. >> get my box cutter. >> he gets in the cockpit and if he wants to, he flies the plane into the building. >> if you can't trust your pilot. >> you think if they found a box cutter on the pilots they'd let him fly the plane, matt? >> it is an interesting topic. you have to look to what israel's doing. they haven't had an airline related attack in i think 30 years. it's a completely different paradigm. they questioned every single person and 99.9% of the people were fine and go straight there. it's only have you do something that's suspicious and they're well trained by the way, to detect body language. then it sort of progresses. if something tips them off, then it escalates.

>> it sounds like stimulus money for people in that case for robots. >> you would have real trained experts as well who know what they're doing and the israelis do know what they're doing. >> the heck with the israelis, we've got body scanners. let's move to another subject. ireland in another big bank bailout. if you're familiar with how bailouts work now, basically, lots of money is lent out. it is lent out in the public and private sector, it's used to do all sorts of things. when the money can't be paid back, those who lent the money say, well, you can bail us out or we will bankrupt your pensions, your future requirement, your financial system. what do you want to do? we got one of those again today and it is in ireland and once again, the taxpayer, in this case, the irish taxpayer, the

world taxpayer, more of the same sort of shah nan begans. >> and what i think is really scary about ireland, there is a real danger that this is not the end. you had a line there, european domino effect. it's really easy to see a scenario where the dominos haven't finished falling. the world's biggest bond investor, he said what he thinks it may come to is some of the weaker european countries having to take a sabbatical from the euro. that's huge and he is not a sensational -- >> he's not looking -- >> he invested trillions and he's a very serious guy and said that on the record. if people think that could be the end game, i think the europeans and the world needs to be really, really worried. >> it's more of the same.

privatizing the gain. socializing the rhisk and cost. it used to be when the united states sneezed, the rest of the world got a cold. now, it's basically any country sneezes, the whole world gets a cold and the impact on this as with the greek situation on the american economy is something that we need to get a better understanding of. maybe that this is going to be another con tributer to short circuiting our economy. >> it already is. the lesson of recent history, we always underreact. governments do too little. >> well again, we'll move off of this, but whether it's ireland, quantitative easing, mercantile,

or lending incentives here, housing debt, pension debt, there's a big meeting coming where there's going to be major restructuring globally and until we have that meeting, whatever year that meets happens, it's going to be a lot of -- >> should have done that already. >> should have done it in 2008. their only way out of this when you have 7 trillion in liableties in this country and however many in that country -- >> who gets the haircut? fighting over which country. >> it's the government -- or bankers as in ireland, it doesn't matter. everybody has to -- >> and you're going to have to change it. >> gold standard, anybody? >> yes. >> you're a gold standard guy. >> i would say synthetically, yes. we'll do it another day. >> it will give us something to debate next week. >> let's have a little fun with sarah palin in the meantime.

it's a holiday week and she likes to be made fun of i think. barbara bush getting us started. i think we have the sound bite. >> i sat next to her once, thought she was beautiful and i think she's very happy in alaska and i hope she'll stay there. >> matt, why would barbara bush want her to stay this alaska? >> barbara bush is entitled to her opinion and she's certainly earned it. barbara bush has never really been that conservative, so let's just say maybe that plays into her -- yeah. let's say the life issue, i think that barbara bush was always pro-choice. even george h.w. bush although he ran as reagan's third term, was never considered to be a hard core conservative. maybe it's fill cough cal. >> she has a very sharp tongue.

always been very assertive. second thing is jebby 2016. he's going to sit out 2012. if palin gets elected, you know, that's a problem for jeb. so that's -- >> i'm not so convinced he's going to sit out 2012 anymore. i used to agree. with that last time, it's tough for jeb bush. i'm starting to hear from people who say jeb is leaving the door open. >> barbara bush represents republican establishment. in a way, she's more of a threat to the republican establishment than the democrats. >> huckabee said if she gets in, she'll probably win. it's time for people to really take her seriously. she doesn't do well in match-ups against obama, doesn't marta. most of the primary vote rs are fine with that. >> also, she is a media genius.

>> or media figure. come on. colbert's the best. >> she doesn't pay for campaign ads, she gets other people to pay her money. >> so does colbert? >> but shehe's not running for . >> thank you. coming up on "hardball," chris matthews is back and will have more on sarah palin's presidential run for 2012, but first, why our views of marriage and parenthood have a disconnect. how can you not believe in marriage, but believe in having lots of kids? keli goff with the "daily rant." . . campbell's.® it's amazing what soup can do.™

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new numbers about love and marriage and what it means for kids in the baby carriage. >> in 1974, sib l sheppard caused a stir by appearing on "people" magazine with her then boi boyfriend. the two claimed that living together was sexier than being married. a new study confirms that a growing number of americans now share her views on marriage. four in ten americans believe marriage is becoming obsolete, yet an overwhelming majority are still not sold on the idea of single mother hood. what explains this? age. younger americans are more likely to define the american family. a family features two moms as it is to define it as the cosby

show. another disconnect is class status. it is emerging that a college degree is a leading indicator. over the last 50 years, the percentage of children born to single mothers has gone to 41%. before i get inundated from e-mail from single parents, let me be clear. successful parents come in all shapes and sizes and an extraordinary single parent is -- but the numbers don't lie and the majority of children born to single mother rs not being born to children like sandra bullock -- >> or my mother. >> they have the financial able toy ensure that their children will have access to educations and health care. many single moms do not. single mother hood remains a key indicator about whether a child will grow up in poverty.

in the inner cities, dropping out of high school is a key indicator for eventual inkars rag. i believe that whatever goes on between consenting adults is nobody's business, but when children are brought in, it's not that simple. this is probably why there's such a disconnect on this poll that as far as adults are concerned, sure, marriage is obsolete, but as far as children, the answer is not so easy. >> when you look into history, are there places where the stability of the adult relationships and stability of the child rearing relationships were notably better or worse? >> what's interesting is that they did compare it to europe, where you have countries like denmark where people don't get married, but the difference is it's the stability, where people stay in long-term relationships. they become lifetime partners. >> the stability of the