hi, everybody. welcome to the "the wall street journal report with maria bartiromo." i'm maria bartiromo. the markets were off to a great start in the new year, but how strong is the market's economy? are europe's worries behind us? i'll get two takes on the story. ou your favorite website wasas blacked out this week, could it happen again? we are talking about the fate of freedom on the web with the beman behind wikipedia. and is the sky rising cost of an education worth it? the "the wall street journal report with maria bartiromo" begins right now. >> this is america's number one financial news prprogram, "the wall street journal report with maria bartiromo." now maria bartiromo. >> here's what m making news as we head in to a new week on wall street. we are in the thick of earnings

season and an economic bellwether reported mixed results them largest industrial company beat expectations but hef knews were less than expected. $38 billion. the company showed strength in the industrial businesses. general electric owns 49% of the parent company that produces this program. a big week for bank earnings, wells fargo beat estimates as d did goldman sach and. microsoft and ebay beat expectations though ebay's outhook was disappointing. the markets got off to their best start in nine years. the s&p closed above the 1300 mark midweek for the first time since july. mostly on optimism about earnings and little news from europe. if you are driving a clunker, you are not alone. americans are driving cars longer than ever according to a survey. the average age 11 years.

good news for automakers who may see pent up demand when the cars finally wear out. how is the economy doing and where is it headed from here. we have two guests that see ings differently. joining me is laura tyson and former economic adviser for the clinton administration and mort zuckerman chair and ceo of boston properties and u.s. news and world report editor in chief. good to have you here today. we are seeieing signsf life in the economy. jobless claims a the lowest number since 2008, the unemploynt rate moving lower recently. there seems to be less worry about europe, as well. earnings season not so bad. where do you think we go from here? >> i thihink there have been so signs, tentative signs and i feel they are e overexaggerated and overstated in term of economic kons senses. the rncc reason the jobless claims have dropped is fewer people are fired but few are

being hired. that's where the choke point is on unemployment and that kind of weakness, i hope it turns better, , but it is hard to predict. >> what do you think, laura? how do you see it? i think that the situation is very fragile. i think there is a degree of maybe exaggeration of the stren the -- strength of the economy. the economy's potential growth rate is cyccal up or downturn is in the 2 1/2 range. that fraths for 2012, that's enough to absorb the growth in the labor force. it's not enough to really do any significant reduction of the high unemployment rate we already have. ththat growth rate even if we g it 2 1/2, 3% se people have it around this, we have a huge gap between our actual output and our potential outt level. it's estimated to be in the 5 to

7% range. that really means we have lost and have no way of getting back right w the goods and services we could have produced if we hadn't been in this terrible recession and anemic recovery. the other thing i'd say 2012, the fragile nature of the recovery, the slow nature of the recovery there are major risks out there. we all know about the risk of europe. right now it's looking a little better, but the underlying problem has not been solved. mort mentioned the savings rate. i was quite concerned that one of the reasons there was such strength in the fourth quarter of last year is people drove their savingsing rateses down. americans are saving much too little any way. is is not sustainable. >> reporter: the u.s. economy really not out of the woods by any means. it's interesting. you both are sort of showing skepticism here. i'm hearing mixed reviews on housing. i want to get your take here.

last week jamie dimen came on and said he is seeing a bottom in housing. all week i have been speaking to ceos of different banks and one told me he doesn't expect prices in housing to settle down until 2015. where are you on housing? >> i will take a crack at that. if you look at the case schiller index and speak to people in the field they still see pricices declining. we don't know how many homeses today, i have seen estimates as little as 8 million and as many as 11 million where the mortgage exceceeds the price the home. people aren't willing to buy homes even though the affordability is the best in years. we are in a quagmire when it comes to the industry. >> we have a lge inventory of unsold houses out there. we still have a foreclosure problem which continues. we have a large number of

mortgages in theirst half of 2012, which actually get reset because they were adjustable. this will actually make it more difficult for many people in terms of meeting their house payments. so i do think that what i think is for sure is that normallyy w come out of a recessioion and housing is a major driver of getting the high growth rate. this is not going to happen this ye or next year. we may be at the bottom. that's a little hard to tell. we're coming off at a very slow rate. that's going to continue. >> the president this week, big news, rejecting the plans for the keystone excel energy pipeline, which would have taken oil frfrom canada, through the united states, but he rejected it on environmental grounds. he says it may still come bk to life, a he blames, naturally the republicans, saying it was a question of the deadlines set by the republicans. do you think it will come back?

is this politics playiying out again? >> i think here's the really important part. the politics came in terms of trying to press the deadline on a project thatat needs verier vy serious analysis. the canadianss are looking at eir own east-west pipelinine and they are looking at it slowly anderiously a saying this is a major issue. we have to look at the environment environmental issues. jobs, environment, safety, spills, all of that stuff needs to be looked at carefully and politics puts a prpressure on timing making it impossible to do the analysis them president proposed the americans jobs act in september. the economists out there, macro advisers, a number of major macro firms, estimated that package together would have created 1.9 million american jobs, much more than the keystone pipeline. that project was -- that american jobs act has largely been killed by the politics of

the congrgress. >> mort -- >> i have to say something. >> yeah, go ahead. >> first of all, the canadian government w went off the chart when the pipeline was delayed and they have indicated they are going to sell that energy to china. >> if we want to have these kinds of reliable supply sources. secondly the american jobs act. if the the president wanted to get a jobs act through he should have done what most people would the under those circumstances, h had a private meeting with the leaders of both houses, democrats and republicans and said, okay, look we will all take the credit and the blame. instead he goes to congress in a nationally televised address and attacks the republicans a day later and he campaigns against the republican leader eric cantor and his district and against john boehner. at that point the republica knew what it was about ak political presentation to try to the gain an edge on the republicans and the republicans said you want top play that way we're not going to do anything.

to you have the worst k kind of politics on both sides not just one side playing politics. i could not have thought of a worst way of trying to get a jobs act ththrough. i support laura saying the extension anand higher taxes on the wealthy but this is not the way to get stuff done. >> good to talk to you. the conversation continues and we will see you soon. >> thank you so much. up next on the "the wall street journal report with maria bartir" omo," internet blackout. can a dk day for the dot-com community keep the on-line community free and open? i will talk to a founder of wikipedia. and higher price tag for higher learning a look at the student loan debt in the united states. is affordable education a thing of the st? we will look at the stock market. back in a moment. i'd race down that hill without a helmet. i took some steep risks in my teens. i'd never rideithout one now. and since my doctor prescribed lipitor,

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to counterfeit goods or certain material. jimmy wales is the cofounder of wikipedia. thank you for joining us. >> good to be here. >> that was a big move. going dark for 24 hours them world had to survive without 20 million articles on wikipedia for 24 hours. have you gotten the response yu expected to wednesday's blackout? >> yeah. we have had an enormous response.. we have had 90 million people view the prost page. we have had 4 million peoe look up the phone numberf theirr representative. so we hope that translalated ino an enormous number of calls in to washington to let them know how the publilic feels. >> tell me about this supposed legislation. it doesn't seem like a bad thing to limit piracy of copyrighted materials or products. so where's the evil here? why do you think these two pieces of po tenialegislation go too far? >> yeah, i think it is important to realize that it's one thing

to say we want to fight piracy and i don't have any objection to that. what i have an objection to is doing it in suchch a way that involves building the entire infrastructure for censorship of the internet and there were a lot of provisions in these bills that allowed websites to be taken down without even a court hearing. those things are dangerous and i think we need to go back to the drawing board and look at the more respononsible ways that we may deal with ththe problems. >> film and tv studios spend millions of dollars on projec, writers and journalists, spending time and rresources, wy shouldn't content providers be compensated for their work. >> i think they should be compensated for their work. my view is that, you know, the system that we have in the u.s. with the digital millenniuium copyright act which has a no notice take down provision and orderly d worked well for ten years f somebody posts something that is copyrighted material and

the copyright holder objects to it that the ho isn't responsible other than hear adhering to the take down notices. if you have a regime under which people are respoponsible ahead the fafact before they are notifieded of something a user s done wrong it makes it difficult for people to allow users to do whatever they are tryining to d >> the debate is pitting hollywood and sicon valley againsnst each other. both sides say it is about jobs. is yourr take on that? >> i doo think it is about som of these economic factors. hollywood does per sieve a big threat. i think e threat is wildly overstatated and i think what ty need to doo is think of their business models and finally drag themselves kicking and screaming in to the modern world and take advantage of the opportunities of digital distrition, digital platforms rather than trying to shut it down. >> wick media run by donation

and the content crowdwd source. how many jobs are you creating? tell us what this means for ou. >> we are acharity. our goal is to give a free encyclopedia on the planett in their own language. what's that do for employment? i'm not sure but i think having an educated work force and knowledge at people's fingertips is important for economic prosperity for the entire world. we're not just about creating jobs but changing the world for the better. >> how do you get consumers to write to congress about dangerous legislation and get consumers to make purchasing decions geared toward, you know, openness on the internet? >> well with, i think theyy do. what we see from really active inteet users on places like twitter and wipedia is people are passionate about the free and open internet. they are living the benefits and realize anunderstand what it is about. generally speaking, they are aware of t issues around piracy and understand it is a

complicated issue. so getting people to react wasn't that difffficult. we had to ask them. >> that's great. good to have you on the program. thank you so much. >> very good. thank you for havavinge on. >> jimmy wales joining usus, cofounder wikipedia. many companies support the legislation including nbc universal parent of the company that produces this program. my tanks to wikipedia's jimmy wales. up next on the "the wall street journal report with maria bartiromo," americans owe more bartiromo," americans owe more in student loan debt than their forty years ago, he wasn't looking for financial advice. back then he had something more important to do. 40 years ago he wasn' looking for financial advice. back then he had something hg more impmportant to do. he wasn't focused on hii future but fortunately somedy else was at usaa we provide retirement planning for military, veterans and families. nonow more than evert is important to get financial

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kiplinger's personal finance magazine . it is good to have you on the ogram. >> thank you very much. >> it used to be we worried about crit card debt and now student loan debt is exceeding credit card debt. let's talk about tha americans dethe leveraging on a lot of things these days giv thank you the fragile economic story and borrowing for education has doubled in the last decade. how big of an issue is this. >> numerically is a huge economic issue. the demand for college education increases and demand for a product increases price increases and other things that we won't get in to but the point is young people know that it is important. therefore, they are willing to pay almost anything it would seem to go out and get an education and they tend to borrow more money without thinking how they will pay it back. that's thereal critical issue. >> let's talk stregy from lightening the debt, if you are

having trouble for federeral, private loans, lik those provided by sally mae. talk to us about that. >> federal offer the most flexibility. because the standard repepaymen term is ten years, but you can change that the. you could for example extend the reyment period which lowers the payments. you will pay more interest over the term othe e loan but the payments are more manageable and fit in your budget. one of the neatest thing is the income contient plans where your payment is contingent on the income you make.. so if you make a lower income in a lower income job you can make your payment more manageable. >> private loans like those provided by sally mae. what's your take this. >> they don't have the same f x flexibili flexibility, but get in touch with the lender, particularly sally mae.. they havan advoce for student loans. they say if you cacall them and you are having trouble paying loans they will try to work something out with you.

if you are having problems and you don't know what to do the about it don sit there and stew. >> one strategy is to avoid racking up debt entirely. w do you find the bestle value for your education dollars? >> that's number one.e. pick a school your family can afford. we at kiplinger's do best value in private colleges and universities annual rating and pick school that fits in to your budget. that's number one. a lot of families make the mistake. kids-their heart set on a particular school and parents say we will make it happen because that's yourdream. wellll the dream involves a lotf debt they can't repay. number one is pick a school you can affoford. >> with all of the talk about educion and competitiononing in the world, new conversation is talk taking place across the country. is it worth it to have a college degree? private colleges on average cost $37,000 a year. you are talking about some colleges approaching $60,000 a

year just for aollege education, is a private college education worth the price? >> a higher education is definitely worth the price. you definitely need post secondary education to function in today's world. the type differs depending onn what your talents are and what you want to do and the major you want to have. a private college education that costs $50,000, no, not everyone needs that type of education. you can get, because as you can see with our best values list a good education from public schools for half of the price, sometimes less thahalf of the price. some private sools are very good about the amount of financial aid and you can pay less going to a private school that gives you financial aid than a public school. the point is, what do you want to do with the degree e afterwards. i tell people if you have to borrow $100,0,000 to get a colle degrgree, yocan'n't afford it. you really have tocome up with a plan b. you can not get yourself in to that much debt. >> interesting and iortant

conversation good to have you on the program. >> thank you so much. janet bodnar joini us on college educations and the cost. w will look at the news this upcoming week thatill have an iact on your money. and the world's largest cut emerd is being cald a gift from god, t at what price? stay with us. what makes scottrade your smartphone's

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for more on our show and our guests check out our website. hope you will follow me on twitter and google+ @maria

bartrtiromo. a flurry of fourth quarter earnings reports. it will be a busy one. dupont, , johnson and johnson, mcdonald's, travelers,veron, boeing, starbucks, apple, at&t, chevron, 3m and proctor & gamble. ththe earning flow will set th tone for the markets and the presidenent will address congre and the markets with the state of the u unionddress on tuesday. the open market committee will wrap up the meeting with a press conference fro chairman bernanke. he will be discussing monetary policy. friday the first reading of the fourth quarter gross domestic product the broadest meure of the strength of the u.s. economy. that is tippic lay market mover. and a gem that if you like it you can't put a ring on it. it is too big. this watermelon size emerald weighing 25 pounds is going up for auction in canada later this month. it is valued at $1.5 million.

the stone is called god's gift. it came from a mine in brazil. at 57,000 krarts, the stonone i bebelieved to be the largest cu emerald in the world. thank you so much for joining me. next week i will be reporting from the the world economic forum in davos, switzerland. we will have a sense on what is happening on the global stage. have a great week, everybody. see you next weekend.