>> business news from the capital region. this is "washington business report" with abc7 7 nationonal correspondent rebecca cooper. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> and thank you for joining us for a look at business d finance here in the washington region. new onomic data and giving us insight whether or not we are going to double dip into another recession. plus, those two words that people dread. "government shutdown." we w will take that up at our

roundtable. rst we want to look at resources available to anyone who wants to make progress in the business world. some of us seeking advice from some who have already done what we want to do. joining us today, lindseyyas the founder and a ceo of ladies amica. th have now grown chapters all around t the couountry.. marissa levinf informatioion experts, a girm thtfirm that landed her r on the lip of top firms. and sarah gordon of gordy's pickle jar, a a business that was recently picked as a a business of f the month. there were too many different

waysys we hado set that upup. lett me start withth you. not to alienate half of our audience out there you arere planng an n upcomimingonference for some things that won need to know. what can men been a tip from as well? yoyou have many topics coming up. water you trying to tch people? >> i want toto start fir with the men component because we have done something ththat is not a normal model. we have brought in quite a few men. >> you were very inclusive. >> for the first time, we are putting together an entire panel of deaf men were they can tell us why they thk is importantnt we do well. >> water they seeing? >> that is part of our model in everything that we do bebecause we

really do belve iis allll about balance in business. the pel on executive women and entrepreneurss is really to help young women who aretriving to start a new business. how did you me it? one of them is a fortune 50 company. we want to hear from her about how she made in such a large corporate environment. >> learning from entrepreneurs. you write about this. you have a new book coming out next week. that is going to teach how top companiecreate growtwth. you have seen it on every different vel. wawater sosome of the -- what are some of the most fundamental

lessons that any business entrepreneur needs to know? >> one of the biggest impediment isis the businesess owner himself. >> or herself. >> when the business is scaling it is very importantnt to delegate to others around yound reach outt for help. it is a sign of strength to reach out foror help to others to do the things you are not really good. i am greaeat at vision i in andd seeing where we can take the company but i am not great at operations. really being able to hone in on ththings that you do well versus the things that you don't. you can get to where you want to beat. that is the key to scaling a business whihich is why i wrote the book which explains how to build an advisory board. >> i see this wi some of my smartest entrepreneurial

friends. they get to bogged down in the day-to-day. one entrepreneur said he jusust guardea manual, asking every question that employees came to him every single day. is there a shorter test to look at the bigr picture? >> i do think businesses need to be looked at from a 50,000-foot level. they need to be lookeded at from a holiic perspectitive. regardless of what industry you ar in, every business as a fundamentatal requirement. business development finance sales, marketing infrastructure h.r. every single business has all of those components. one e person cannot do all of that. they will go from practitioner and then they will realize they

cannot do everyththing. then they will s i anot really good at managing pple. so they bring in additional executives around themoving to a leader position. if you run a well oiledd machine that is processed-centric, then you really are able t move into an advisory capacity. >> g good advice. i want to bring sarah in on this. you have received a lot of attention in a sht amount of time. what did you have to l learn the hard way? >> a lot of things. we are big fans of pickles. we grerew up on pickles. >> you have admitted you are in thwrong city to have that kind of a business where rent is high and distribution is not t easy.

how have you overcome some of the challenges? >> we have collaborated th some great people and we have some fantastic ptnerships. for instance, commercial kitchen space is hard to come by. we are thahankful to havave collaboration. we are w working out of a house r extrtremely reasonable rent and we are thankful forhat. ststarti of small, it is all about networking, collaborating , and building partnerships th lastst. >> our p producer told me that to get into whole foods, a lolot of people would have to try every different avenue. theyey came to you because they read about you on twitter. >> they y reached out to us viaa

facebook and we d a rare opportunity to p pitch our company to a store. >> you areey were readading about you from other people. >> from our social outreach. >> a lesson thahat many entrepreneurs can take from what you have done ght. >> y definitely have to get dirtyyour hands dirty in social media. we are not doing it as much as we would like to. it is real t time. sit is free and easy and it builds your brand. so o many l lessonsns to bebe learned. ladies, we tnk you for sharing all your knowledge. i hope to have you back on the show again. there is more i had. ben bernanke says we might be headed over a cliff. our roundtable covers these topics and more after the break.

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adding g clear calorie labels so you know exactly what you're choosing... and in schools, replacing full-calorie soft drinknks with lower-calorie options. with more choices and fewer calories, america's beverage companies are delivering.g. >> we got the news on friday that the u.s. economy grew more slower in the first quarter of 2012. ny are wondedering if that will happen here. the market on friday morning shgged off those numbers.. is there more good news or bad news i in the e american economy? two of the be to tackle that topic is wk -- peter morici pressoof economicscs at

e university of marylyland, and josh boak of polititico. momore gooood news or bad ns? >> the private economy grew at 3.9% which is pretty strong. ththe new drag rns ouout to be reductions of government spendiding. that iss going to be a head wind up goi intoo november. >> the private economy grew because consumer confidence was up by business investment was down. how do you keep u up consume confidence? >> is essentially, consers were dipping into eir savings inin january and february to buy soline because of the high price. business investmenttas shrinking, non-commercial construction was shrinking. a g lift came from busininess inntories. that will likely be worked ofoff in the second quarter. my forecast is the growth will fall below 2% in the seconond

quarter. >> below 2% when the fed was predicting earlier in the week that the overall numbers wouldld look like 3%. >> i think we have to go back to the maxim about hollywood. "nobobody knows anything." the fefed gives a range of estimates. they use those to shape their policicies. those are not the final word onn what the fed is going to do. if i it really knew, they would be able to shape their policy in a beer way instead of maintaining zero o interest rates through 2013. >> the fed does forecastinby asking thehe fed presidents and governors for their forecasts. many of them are political.

this being an electionon year, i was not surprised that the scenario got rosier. mr. ben bernanke verwas trying to be neutral yesterday but i give him a failing grade on that. >> josh boak, 11 straig quarters of growth. there is something t to be said about that scenario. >> the p problem is, if we look at anan economic growth, it is not enough t to susin the drop in the employment rate that wee need. you also do not have ge growth. >> 80% in the reduduction o of unemploymentnt since the recession gan has been fro few adults looking for work. the most s successful jojobs program -- they really do not want a job. >> what should washington do?

>> they need to drill foril and need to do something about trade with china. you can decrease gdp by half trillion dollars a and create 500,000 jobs. mr. obama talks a lot about those things. looking at mitt r romn' advisers, i am aery skeptical guy. >> these are long-te policies that peter is talking about. nono president c can turn things around with the flip of a switch. tim geithner and bill clilinton will be e in china to discuss these economic issues. > they have beediscusussing these issues now through three presidents. therneeds to be a differerent approach. what is the defifinition of insaninity? >> that said, there is nono guarantee thamitt romney's

solution is going to address these problems in a wa that is productive. >> i think if you lifted the ba on drilling inhe gululf, you would get a dramatic infrastructurere program that would create a lot of jobs. if you put a tax on conversion,n, that w would realign their currencies. there are substantive thing that can be done that this president t has chosen not to do d as a consequence, the long term solutions have not happened. >> label me as a skekeptic. let's talk about what can be done domestically. some people suggested at the gdp numbers woulspur the fed to go back and buy bonds. you said they cannot afford to buy any mo bonds if ey wanted to. >> bank ofof america, an economist, looked at the numbers and said the fed does not have

enough on hand to ctinue operation twist. >> not an option? >> they y would be highly controversial, the other things they cou do. they could start printing money. the fed has put a lot of liquidity in the system. the notion that printing money causes inflation g goes back to the ancient series of economics. i thinink we will not s more operation twist because this is an election year. >> we have more to talk about with our ran cable system with us. ere is more right after the break.

>> we are going to jump right back into our topic with our roundtable. peter morici and josh boak. i want to talk about ceo pay. good news in the midst of other troubling signs in the economy. you were rakg in median of $3.2 million if you wer a ceo in the a area. you say there is controversy of foot nationwide. they unions are pressuring presidenbama. >> the basic sment says publicly trade compapanieses have to disclose how much their ceo makes compared to a typical woer. the word is "medidian."

>> in thmidst of a recession and failing businesses. >> the pblem ithrule has nonot been falized and will nott be any time soon. regulators a still g going throh tons of elements of dodd-frank like the voker rule noobama and congress he a bunch of more rules to go through with a 90-day deadlinene. >> b businesses do not want to turn over thenformation. you talked to a think tank and they make the compelling case that if you compile that da, it is really not worthwhile when they want to focus on other objectives >> this requires all kinds o calculions. these companies are going to say we need to d do everything we can to make it accurate and as inexpensive as possibl to say to the government this is unnecessary. >> it t is not a waste of f time.

it could be made simpler. you could come up with the average wage e and d measure that against thee ceo's pay. have a compensation cartel and america. they tnk they are smarterhan god and y themselves as if th were. they have trashed american capitalism. ceo pay is way out of wack. >> send the emails to peter morici. let's switch topics to the little guys who are trying to afford to get loans. the republicans pulled a fast one on person obama. paying for student loans out of healalth care. >> the democra and the senate prproposed it by doingdoing tax breaks.

inststead of being forceto the loans, "they were for rich oil companies." they do it every week up their. they need to ce up with a new routine. >> youay studedent debt t is one of the four b biggegest risks to the economic recovovery. >> absolutely. americans are paying for it by borrowing too much. they cannot pay off t these loans because they are not getting jobsnd this struggling economy. a lot of thingngs they study in school do not lead to well paying jobs. kid d is going to pay $8000 to $100,000 a year for law school. i am 6 63 years old. >> it would end with them a filing forankruptcy and is

ill being saddled with student loans. >> absolutely. you cannotet rid of them m in bankptcy. >> you have an overarching problem. more than arillion doars in student debt out therere. repaying that t means youngng americans have lesess to save for buying hououse or veststing in retirement. >> i i am going ended their the young kid a and thehe 62-year-old. thank you, gentlemen we will be back with the number of the week.

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>> welcome back. 4.2. we told you it is something chilling in your refrigerator. your milk. production will re 4.2% this spring which will force down prices. falling milk prices have been linked to lower growth rates in our overall economy. we say grab a bag off oreos and break out the milk to wait out this economic slump. we hope e you will be right back here again next week for "washington busine rort." as always, thank you rejoining us.

♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] for our families... our neighbors... and our communities... america's beverage companies have created a widede range of new choices. developing smaller portion sizes and more low- & no-calorie beverages... adding clear caloe labels so you know exctly what you're choosing... and in schools, replacing full-calorie soft drinks with lower-calorie options. with more choices and fewer calories, america's berage companies are delivering. [ male announcer ] this was how my day began. a lite bird told me about a band... ♪ ♪ an old man shared some fish stories... ♪ ♪ oooh, my turn. ♪ ♪ she was in paris but we talked for hours... everyone else buzzed about the band. there's a wireless

mind inside all of us. so where to next? ♪ ♪