i'm alice rivlin. >> tom: just a reminder, you catch us online at n.b.r. on pbs.org, or follow us on twitter, @bizrpt, or my personal feed at @hudsonnbr. if tweeting isn't your thing, friend us on facebook at "biz report." that's "nightly business report" for monday, february 28. i'm tom hudson. good night everyone, and good night to you too, susie. >> susie: good night tom. i'm susie gharib. good night everyone. we hope to see all of you again tomorrow night. "nightly business report" is made possible by: this program was made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. captioning sponsored by wpbt captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> more information about >> more information about investing is available in "nightly business report's" video. to order this dvd, call 1-800- play-pbs or visit online at shoppbs.org. >> be more. pbs.

. >> reporter: alice rivlin knows that from experience. when she was nominated to serve as vice chairman of the federal reserve, she says even some of her very sophisticated, inside- the-beltway friends were unclear on exactly what she'd be doing. regular press conferences are an opportunity to change that. >> one of the problems of the fed is not just that it often has to do things that are unpopular, like raising interest rates to halt inflation, but that people don't really understand what it is, and if you don't understand what it is, then you tend to think it is a negative conspiracy or something. >> reporter: more openness will help address those concerns, but only to a point. vincent reinhart was a senior staffer at the fed. he says part of the communications problem is that people do understand what the fed did when wall street collapsed. >> in the crisis management, the design principal was to keep the large institutions afloat and that really looks unfair. >> reporter: even though ben bernanke was a college professor, reinhart do