>> business news from the capital region. this is "washington business report" with abc7 national correspondent rebecca cooper. rebecca: thanks for joining us for this we look at business and finance in washington region. coming up, an investigative reporter tells us how bususinesses may be implicating in a corruption case of a former pennsylvania mayor. and our smsmall business spotlight turns on focusining media attetention to money. in the roundtae, wages and housing pricices are up, but donald trump is out, according to one majoror media site, with warnings from some of washington's top business leaders. one big story this week focuses on the corruption of a public official but the story b behind

steven reid and have you drove pennsylvania's capital city into bankruptcy also raises troubling questions abouthe world the business community played in the saga. prosecutors announced he is facing 499 criminal charges including theft bribery, fraud, and the use ofliublic moneys for personal gain. pennsylvania's attorney general called in n one of the mt disturbing cases of public rruption her office had seen, but who else sres in them lay beyondnd mayor reed? our own reporter chris pap wrote a book about the regts he called "capal murder based on his years of covering the story, he says business leaders often look the other way and participated in the plunring of this american cicity. it's a great read, "capital murder," but it a real tragedy y and everyone suffers the consequences, most of all the taxpayers.s. the mayor wawas using bonds for scschools, rrofitting

incinerators, and doing what with all the money? chris: largely whatever he wanted. he was taking out massive loans and was siphoning parts of it off, happened away here and there, 25 million here7 millioion there, and puttining it into another pot, and then distribubuted that money. largrgelyhat he was doing with that money was investing in other aspects of the city, consuction high-rises investing in people in the business community and people around the arere that he thought could make the city y look better.r. you take out, let's sasay, $125 llion loan o on an incinerator, trh to seem -- steam incinerator. it is siphoned off part othat and give it to some construction workers, you have them build a high-rise now something more tangible that people can look at and people will say the mayor is great.

rebecca: wrong way to do with the navin the best interest of the city, but wrong, according to your book. many of the projects he was siphoning money off t war notot well considered. you give the e example oa local contractor, , wanted mon to invest in a retail space. he ended up guaranteeing up to $95 billion in principal plusus interest for that development, even as they were losing retailers. chris: he was getting this money to developers, and then the deveveloper was if he still, he would guarantee the debt on that money and would usehe city taxpayer as collateral, if you will.. this is what the attororney general said is completely wrong. not onlthat, what makes this even more significant, peopople may look at harrburg pennnnsylvania and say, it is a pity -- city of 50,000, it is not detroit.

50,000 people, ok. but the significance is the attorney generalaid, when thatat first round of charges came down, there is another round to come. that will be the consultants the contractors, the bond attorneys. rebecca: members of the business community benefiting from m all of this. t only looking the other way but in many cases participating. i wantnt to get to one crazy part of the story. you say this was a mayor that not onlyived in a typical rowhouse but a rundown home, sosomemebody that was not lining his own ckets. but he was spending bizarre amounts s of money on tifacts, memorabilia, a rundown home, somebody that was not lining his own or all of the different museums that he wanted to create. he h had things ke a vampire kit in his own home. was he mentally unable? chris: that was his hobobby. he did create two new museums, the national civil war museum, anand the firemen's museum.

his idea was to create many more and to make harrisburg a destination city rebecca: as the post pointed out, or things like the wild west, which they were not even a partf? chris: his argument is that ey once were. hundreds of yearars ago, pennsylvania was the wild west. you had to cross the susquehanna to go west. rebecca: clearly, people in government were, as you outline in your book, people in the bubusiness comnity were culpable. what is the lesson for the rest of america and the business community aut looking the other way or even participating when therere is easy mey to be had? chris: p people in a city significantly suffer when a government health them. it is really ever the problem of one person. in harrisburg, you had a mayor for 28 years. he was a dictator to the fulle extent. nothing in the city got done

unless it t went throuough him. city council, treasurer. businesses could not come in without m. he was the ringleader. but the people working with hiitm re also involved. they were taking tenof millionsf dollarfor projects at they knew the money was not borrowed for the project. if these indictments come down itit could set a different president in americahere cieses go bananupt and the people of the city suffer, the contractors and the business community involved can also be heldccountable. rebecca: the other lesesson from your book ot just that business leaeaders who were directly involved, but those whoho looked thehe other waythey all pay the ultimate price because they ended up with a bankrupt cityty. everyonene e endnded up being g hurt by the largess they thought ey were benefiting om. chris: they were benefiting from it. $16 million payout in fees for just a a couple ofof these bond transactions. rebecca: once you have a

businessn a bankptcy, it will not be very successful. if you see something say something, even as a business leader. a great book, lots of lessons for all of us. when we come back, how to turn media attention into money.

rebecca: it is a tried and true axiom in business that m media covege can be good when th bottom line but our expert today says too manyusinesses do not make the most of opportunities for media coverage to capture new customers. geeta nadkarni is here. her website baby got booked teaches business leaders on how to better leverage pr. converting media coverage into real money. welcome back.

i love that you also include in the tutoris some of the very basics. you say, get a copy of what you have donone. so glad you thehe number of gueuestst who want to useppearancesn this show to levererage business but then call us after the fact asking for doves and other things like that. geeta: it cost them thousands to do because you want to didiscscourage tha rebecca: we do not even do it. the technology we use is differen thethe ones tha they use at home. all they have t tto do wa record on a dvr. they don't do that d then they are not sure what to do with the links. first and foremost, cover the basics. geeta: whether i'm speaking at conventions, coaching clients one-on-one, or taking online course, baby got booked this is wherpeople are the ball the most. nobody does it.

grab a copy, scan it, make sure you have it inin some kind of central folder. record your radio, vidideo. people have this fallacy that because of the internet, what is on there tomorrow. rebecca: when our show moved from news channel 8 to abc 7 our websiteoved, those links one away. once you have got it, it is important to disseminate it because you cannot assume all the right people saw it. what are some of the key ways to disseminate that coverage? geeta: the obvio when if you are brick-and-mortar business is to make sure that you have wall art wh you. tells you how you serve y your client, if the anchors have said something nice abobout you. the other thing is, put links in your e-mail signature so that everyoyonene that e-mail has a way to interact with you as a media expert. rebecca: one of our favorite guests still gets hits for appearances from coming here

months ago. he put it in his twitter profile, and it works. you say, in e same way, when we wk into a retail store and they say -- as seen in a magazine --do the same thing with your own brandiding. geeta:a: it makes you feelood to have come into that shop. it the magazine says that they are good, it must be. i really encourage peoeople to set up a system that then takes that a little further. so that you are creating a nurturing g latiship with people who are jusust potential clients at this point. that is the big mistake people make witith the media. have been tv, i s should have been famous sterday. rebecca: what are some of the ways to actively disseminate this information to make sure you get more eyeballs? geeta: if you don't mind, i will demonstrate this tip.

we talk a lot abouleveraging the media. if you are doing media interview, youou want to be following the subject you have been talking aut, and then offer something for free. if people were to go to bababy got booked you can download a guide bookhat i have, just by giving me your e-mail address, and it is five tips that you can use with a few minutes work that will g get you some local and international coverage. rebecc one of the clients yo were advising was nogetting ough covere or her business you went a little deeper into her own personalal story, and you ended up pitching her to media organizations, a story about how to start your own business while in c college. it was done with the busininess itse was about- geeta: now she is a local hero. rebecc look for every story anangle and actively contact people and let them know your story. geeta: i have a podcast where i interview people --

rebecca: like our executive producer. she was sharing her expertise on how to get shows like this. geeta: i t tell people how to find me. now, they will give me their e-mail address, so i am building a list, and that allows me to send them valuable content and growhat relationship. it is kind of like dating. they want to date me a few tes before i ask the question. rebecca: it was the whole question behind amazon prime. i checked and there were no good deals. lots of great titips today. thank you for coming on. when we come back, the surprising place ithe region seeing some spikes in housing prices. and a word of warning when it comes to donald trump.

rebecca:elcome back. this week we heard good news from the dead when it comes to the tlook for the overall economy, and a spececial bright spot when it comes to worker wages. and more good newsor the housing market and more questions about whetherome key business partnershs will survive the controversies surrounding donald trump. joining us today are two of o regugulars, peter mororici, reprsor of economics at the robebert h smith school of bubusiness, and a.p.'s josh boak. leme start with a janet yellen stimony before the house financial services committee. she was merely there to talk about interest rates and when the fed may see some easing

theicontrol over them, but she pointed to wages as a bright spot in e ecomy. peter, i know a lot of people ththat have not felt that wages have been the right spot. what point issue trying make, and is invalid? peter: if wages are rising, it is the equivalent of a snake going from its belly to s back. in it t could be temporaryonly a femonths. we have e to see more. becca:a: even jobs are rising ju eugh to almost beme to what is considered a normal recovery. is this really a bright st? josh: there is no such thing as a normal recovery anymore after the great recession. weave issues that go beyond the federal reserve regarding wages. younger workers who earn less are coming into the maet and older workers are leavaving. that includes the fact that we have globalization, so we are competing with people who are paid lower wages, and we have

automation. a lot of those middle skilled jobs dappearared in the recession and are not cocoming back. recca: i do not want to take this over lining and find the cloud. we are finding some good newews because we are seeing how much the national housing markeket is reboding. that i is because younger workers are at least feeling more confident theyill hal aob. that is because we have seen interest rates very favorable buying homes. peter, will that last? peter: it will last but let's be clear, the pace of buying and building houses is not an prerecession levels. not talking about the prices but the pace there is a change in the structure, boosting construction. young people l like to live in citiesso we are seeing a boom in apartment constructions, more than single unit housising. a change i in preferences. ople do not wanto be e in their cars as muchat leaeast these young people.. rebecca: the washington housing

market never really entirely one away but we have always seen pockets of growth and pockets of failure. anacostiaaw a 36%6% growth in housing prices in the last three months. th is astounding. that is an area you havbeen looking at every year. what is your take on these mbers? josh: this is thehe next page in washington-d.c. gentrification. anacostia is close enough to the nationals ballpark, more people are going g to the area and they are getting more comfortable with anacostia, and they are priced out of a lot of d.c. neighborhohoods. incomes have not risen fast enough in d.c. to match the appreciation in home naturally, you will have more people spread and we are starting to see the limits of gentrification tested. rebecca: for the family that have led in anacostia for cades and have homes, to have this increased value, does that compensate or justification drivg some of these families

out, or is it more lost than gain? peter: whenever you have gentrification, redevelopmenent of a region, whenever city folk go to a recreational area are away that they had nobefore, la values go up, and the people sitting there start to get prpriced down. if we arare worried about at, we would still one or 2 million people pressed between appalachian mountains and the tidewater. rebecca: we have to worry about that in the ty. there is notot enough housing in the city. unless we want to be aity that isis only for the wealthy, we have to worry about this. peter: they're will be displacement and they will go to other housg. the thing is this is a process of creative destruction. you cannot impve an area without raisising values. if you wt to outlaw raising values, we can go back to rent control and have housing shortages. josh: we e go through anacostia all the time and what yoyou see is a high level of foreclosures.

the family that historally have lived i in those neighborhoods are not benefiting from the price appreciation. itit is the developers and the people thaare able to buy the properties on the cheap that make o. becca: let's talk about the donald. we have talked a about h him for the last couple of weeks. he was unapologetic in our interview with him, as he has been in all her interviews about making outrageous comments. when we talk to him, he was still focused on the chinese. now his comments on mexican immigrants. yet, still trying to succeed in business. josh, you had annteresting conversation wit a real estate developer here in washington. he had a word of warning. josh: he said if trump continues on this course where he makes these bombastic statements, he willll isolate the kind of government leaders he need to

corporate with him on these real estate projects. rebea: public-private ventures. several in new york, concession stands, alsorts of things that lp his real estate property. need to corporate with him on these real estate projects. in washingngton, his biggest one gsa working in partnship with trump to take over the post office. hehe has a lonterm lease t to develop it. a lot of other hotels s wanted it. is there a basisis for government entities like thgsa to take away a contract from a private developer? peter: if you make racist remarks, yes. rebecca: legally?? peter: they can probably find a way. if the project becomes unviable and they cannot make money there has to be a workout. this is the thing. my feeling is the government should stop doing things like regulalate speech but rather the public, thugh s own actions, will regulat i by making it difficult for people tsay and do dumthings to do busess. rebecca: if it is a premier luxury hotel, will people stay there regardless if it is a truck property? pepeter: look at what haened in beverly hills and the sultan of

brunei. people objected to what he did regarding the sexual populatio confnferences, being that people staying at the hotel didisappeared. the same thing c could happen to trump, because he has the same kind of statements. rebecca: president o obama no longer sys up the mold of a story as it is owned by the chinese.

rebecc w were on theonald, so let's stay on the donald. the e victim post dropping him from their politicalal coverage,e, putting hiin the entertainment ction. as a business, right call or ong call? josh: in at really affects the fact thahat political campaigns are often like reality tv shows, and that is the donald. peter: wrong call, theedia shld i be picking our candidates. rebecca: not so su about setor cruz and his book, but i agree, if the donald is up there in the polls, belongs in the political coverage. thanksor joining us.

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] morris: tss week on government matttters, congress could pass the so-called christmas tree bil month ahead of schedule. >> she's popular with both sides of the aisle. morris: the road ahead for opm and federal cyber securi.. >> we might face resiststance from all the different government technology vendors that currently supply software to different agencies. morris: the push for consolidated online service. "government matts," starts now. >> this is "government matters." morris: to our viewers arou the world on the american forceces networand in the nation's capital, thanks for joining us. government is thengine that runs the c city, that's why government matters. every week we bring you the top headlines in tech security and managemement. i'