have helped prevent the financial meltdown....how they dropped the ball on risky subprime loans. plus...the link between education and economic empowerment...one organization that's pushing to level the playing field. and...the government commits more than a billion dollars in stimulus money to wind energy...how long before that money pays off? ....and viewers upset over new healthcare law...it's ahead in today's firstbusiness. good morning everyone and thanks for joining us. it is friday, april 9th, 2010. and the bulls are once again in striking distance of 11,000 on the dow, thanks to the retailers. and banks also appear to be doing pretty well too. and angie, it seems like the more traders are skeptical, the higher the market goes. and i know you and paul talk about wind energy a lot on this show. and i just saw the numbers were released for 2009 and wind energy is up a whopping 41%. so we are really going green. exactly, the government is spending a lot of money on it. we'll talk about

that later in the show. also, china is reportedly getting ready to announce a change on its currency policy. possibly allowing the yuan to strengthen. this move would come after a lot of pressure from congress, calling on taxes on chinese imports. while the obama administration is trying to take a more diplomatic route. a check up on the financial markets now with bob iaccino, lotus brokerage. bob, we've seen we tell us continue with their winning streaks. some of those stocks at 52 week highs. do you think that strength is going to continue? i do. i think it's sustainable. the same-store sales numbers that came out yesterday were very strong. they came out at record levels. discretionary spending is increasing in the u.s. and that goes mostly to retailers. there has been kind of a cap on consumer spending for a while now. as the jobs number improves, as people discretionary spending

increases it goes mostly to retailers. they're winning streak will continue. ok, yesterday we had a trader on saying he thought stocks were in a bubble. obviously you're on the opposite side of that opinion? i am. i don't think the market acts like a bubble. when in the 20 some odd days of increases in the dow, we've only got three triple digit days in that entire mass of trading. three triple digit days to me is not the activity actions of a bubble. it's a slow steady increase. once again i think in the medium-term, the next six to 12 months that sustainable. let's turn our focus to the government bonds market. $82 billion worth of treasury debt issued this week and a demand is pretty strong. foreign demand is strong, the market is absorbing it. 10 year note touched 4% a couple of days ago and retreated from that. the absorption of these bonds is coming from japan. china still buying, whether outwardly or through agents. the u.s. owns a great deal of that date. at least in the short term the market is giving the data free pass from the u.s. equities perspective. let's turn to greece now. continuing to have problems and

yet investors are not fazed. greece is going to get bailed out. i said it over the last few weeks and i will say it again. whether through the imf, whether through the e u, there's a political forces at work here. where certain people like angela merkel have to tell the population that they're not for this, but they're going to get bailed out. they've gotten the high interest rate they deserved. but, a country with a profile like greece, the globe cannot afford them to default on their bonds. ok thank you very much for your take on the markets. thank you. the chicago urban league is working on ideas that could help people who are struggling in this economy. the group met this week for its 2010 spring summit to talk about how to solve the education crisis that is leaving millions at an economic disadvantage. similar to schools across the nation -- some chicago classrooms, especially in african american communities, are in crisis mode as cities and states fall short on education funding. at this years spring summit, the chicago urban league is focused on improving education

for economic empowerment. herman brewer, acting president and ceo of the league says waiting around for a government handout-- is not part of the plan. "i advocate we not look for the rescues and the parachutes from the white house. " instead, the urban league is taking matters into its own hands by creating ideas the white house will want. this administration is looking for models, looking for new ways for work to be done for change to occur and they are looking at chicago and the urban league for maybe what those models can be. two models already working include the urban league's partnership with the kellogg business school which is graduating its 3rd class of african american entreprenuers and its youth intervention project.

" 100% of the kids have graduated high school 80% have gone on to take on business majors in college. and they have been extraordinarily successful. we believe that program is transferrable across the nation. john rogers chairman and ceo of ariel investments believes the next step for the urban league is to encourage minority hiring in the growing financial services sector. to maybe encourage hedge funds to reach out and be more diverse and some of the private equity funds to be more diverse. also spotted in the crowd-- dr. randal pinkett -- season 4 winner of nbc's hit tv show the apprentice. " and, i'm here to tell everyone that, i don't care what you do or what your walk of life, you have got to act like an entreprenuer" to be a survivor in this economy-- the author and business owner's advice is to work more than one job... - that may not be your day job things you can do on the side and if you lose your job that can be your primary activity.

still, the president of the urban league says it all goes back to getting a good education. he predicts without creative ways to better fund schools, in a couple of years some schools will no longer be able to afford text books, while affluent schools could one day be moving forward by giving students i-pads to down load books. as hearings at the financial crisis inquiry commission continue today - top former executives at citigroup said they did not know about problem loans until it was too late... this despite warnings from one employee. charles prince, citi's former ceo and robert rubin, a former advisor to the company - testified thursday. they said many people working at citigroup never believed they were putting anyone at risk with subprime mortgages. "i do not recall knowing before september 07 that these super senior tranches were on our books. i feel confident that the relative personnel believed in good faith that more senior level consideration of these particular instruments was unnecessary because i said a moment ago, the positions were rated aaa and appeared to bear the minimest risk"

both rubin and prince said they didn't know until late summer 2007 that citigroup held bad mortgages. "regrettably we were not able to prevent the losses that occurred." those statements fly in the face of what a former citigroup employee told the commission earlier this week.. richard bowen iii - former citigroup senior vice president and chief underwriter said "in mid-2006 i discovered that over 60% of these mortgages purchased and sold were defective. i started issuing warnings in june of 2006 and attempted to get management to address these critical risk issues. these warnings continued through 2007 and went to all levels of the consumer lending group." citi's former ceo said he was deeply sorry for their failure... but did not accept blame.

the government invests more than a billion dollars in wind energy...but when is it going to pay off? plus...viewers question the government's move to force all americans to buy health insurance or face fines.

the u-s government has invested heavily in wind and other renewable energy projects through the american recovery

and reinvestment act. analysis of the stimulus plan shows uncle sam spent just over a billion dollars on renewable energy development in 2009, with another 3-billion plus planned for this year and nearly 4-and-a-half-billion more on the books for 2011. but is that investment paying dividends? denise bode is the c-e-o of the american wind energy association and she joins us now. now denise, according to the department of energy, of the 2.2 billion in grants spent so far, roughly 86% has gone to wind energy companies. is this money well-spent? absolutely. in fact it's interesting that you ask this question because it's really an investment tax credit which you actually have to build the generation a facility. then get it on line in order to apply for the tax credit. it is characterized as a grant, but it's a tax credit very similar to the kind of tax and benefits that, the fossil fuel industries been receiving since the 1930's. and the kind of support equivalent to the kind of support the nuclear industry's been getting since the 1950's. so we've had very short term, on-again off-again tax policies in the renewable

industry. it's nice that tax policy wasn't allowed to expire. by renewing it and putting it as part of the recovery act, but certainly the renewable industry is the least supported in terms of policy by the federal government than any of the source of electric generation. so it's really a great investment and last year we basically maintained and grew. the industry, 85,000 new jobs created in the last several years. we've added new jobs in building these generation and wind arms. and manufacturing jobs that could of been lost if we had no policy support at the federal level. and putting us at a disadvantage all all the other electric competitors were allowed to be maintained and we believe great opportunity for growth in the manufacturing sector in the united states. so it's a great deal for america. now concerns about those jobs invested in renewable energy jobs projects are actually staying in the united states have four democratic senators

last month wanting to stop the stimulus program for renewable development because they argue that much of that spending is going overseas. looking at your groups numbers, of the first billion spent on wind energy projects. just 53 percent of the value of the turbines and 63 percent of other equipment on wind farms went to the u-s. what can be done to ensure more stimulus spending actually stays here? let me mention one thing about those numbers. the four senators, i think one of the things they think. the misunderstanding is that the tax credit that was provided went 100% to the people building wind farms in the united states. to wind farms that were building and constructed and on the grid. the value of some the parts and components are not all built in the united states yet because we are a brand new industry. so we moved up over the last four years from 25% to

over 50 percent being built in the united states. we're on an upward path in terms of having those parts and equipment made in the u.s. so we're getting much better. can we do more? yes, part of what we have to do is put a national policy in place that can really kickstart the manufacturing sector to growing even faster. that's how the renewable electric standards. we just need a national policy that mirrors all these national policies everywhere else in the world. that say we want renewals as part of our portfolio. that's all we really need to do to kickstart this whole sector in the united states. well certainly, will be keeping an eye on the wind energy sector.

thank you very much for joining us. thank you for the opportunity. tiger woods' return to the golf course has a lot of people on watch....including traders...see how the golf pro's downfall and comeback are impacting theplus...a specialty paper companyand....remember if you missed any of this week's episodes.. you can find them in their entirety on our website...it's all on firstbusinessnes.com. still ahead on the show... comments coming up in today's viewer mail segment...next.

welcome back to the show everybody. paul and i are back for viewer mail, finally. let's get our first caller here. of course the viewers continued to gripe about the health care law. here's a caller from kentucky. yes you are right, you are

absolutely right. there does need to. so let's take a look at the breakdown of the fines if you don't have health insurance in 2014. but there are some exemptions. keep in mind, this viewer did mention that its extremely expensive considering we are in a recession. nobody knows what's gonna happen in 2014 when its gonna be required. let's take a look at some of the subsidies. for a family of four making up to 88,000 and a single person making up to 43,000, there will be help for those of you who do decide to buy health insurance in order to avoid that fine. now of course those subsidies and those penalties don't go into effect until 2014. the viewer also asked if there will be a cap on insurance premiums. unfortunately that will not be the case. but what will go into effect immediately is there will not be lifetime caps on what insurers paid out in your health benefits. so if you are to fall ill with a

serious illness, the insurer is going to have to cover 100 percent of the way down the line of coverage on that treatment. so that is a bit of good news here. the comments continue. let's get to our next e-mail here from arnold. who writes about an interview i did earlier.

this was a professor from the college of law at the illinois institute of technology and he is a constitutional scholar. there have been many other constitutional scholars who say that the federal governor requiring people to buy health insurance is legal. the other thing i would point out is that if you read about it, paul, is the federal government really gonna know if you buy health insurance or not? the government can't even catch terrorists. they're not gonna know if you buy health insurance or not. well certainly we're not condoning not to get health insurance when those fines going to affect in 2014. but it's interesting that the law professor points out, and i would point out that although states attorney's generals that are challenging the federal health-care law. all those states have auto insurance laws on their books that you have to have minimum coverage. so it's gonna be interesting to see how this debate works out. but, i think the legal professor that we have on, his advice is

wisdom. yes, i mean as a matter of law. it's not unconstitutional. i think what he's going to, it's just not fair. a lot people just think it's not fair. i would agree. now moving on to another issue. you know, i think its just politics as usual, right? when we have a democratic president in power, the republicans are gonna do everything to block what the president wants. and vice versa if it's the republicans in power. yes, certainly nothing new. i think the republicans will argue that maybe the way this tax break is structured won't bring the jobs and maybe will put more strain on the fiscal deficit. well, you know what there, its all this brouhaha about fiscal this possibility with the republicans. it's too bad that

they weren't bringing that up during the bush administration. perhaps we could avoided this multi trillion dollar deficit that were sitting on right now. i would agree with that. thank you very much, keep those calls coming in. we always love to hear from you. trader andrew keene is bullish on this market....find out what he has to say...next

in our chart talk this morning, trader andrew keene/katl group to talk

about a spider. its the s p y and its the s&p 500. great to have you on the show today. thanks for having me back. so are you a buyer or a seller of this e t f andrew? i am flatted right here, but if i had to choose one way i would be a buyer august buyers. i will be a buyer of the market of generalizations. we haven't had two down days in over two months. we were down on wednesday. yesterday it looked like we're gonna go lower, the dow was down about 40 points. the spews were down about six or seven handles and we just roared right back. we don't go down. we had big down day on wednesday. but recovered very nicely yesterday and i think going into exploration we're gonna go higher. from what i could tell, yesterday's rally was sparked by those retailers. so it looks like the consumer may be back. is that going into your play, and your thoughts? yes i had a position on best buy. a small one. which, the dow was down and the spiders were down. then it rallied like a dollar. best buy is not a big player but it is one of the retail stocks. the retail index

looked really good. financial really strong yesterday as well. goldman saks was up again, up about three and a half dollars. so goldman's trading around 180. amazon was up $6 to. it looks like we're going to go higher. is there anything working out there that could change the situation? any triggers you're watching for as a trader? obviously there's something lurking. we've had this greece situation for like two or three months. i wish it would just kind of go away. we have earnings next week, alcoa always kicks off the dow component. last time we when down on alcoa, didn't have good earnings. so earnings do start next week, the majority of them are gonna be after expiration. so i think we're gonna have some slow movement on monday or tuesday, maybe will pick up we have alcoa earnings. we have google earnings out next week as well. the majority of them are after expiration. so expect more movement in may then we have seen in april. thank you very much, have a terrific weekend. and that's it for todays show - thanks for joining us everyone.. have a great weekend...we'll see you monday.