ben jackson is the chief operating officer of ice futures u.s. tshs intercontinental exchange began trading agricultural futures for the first time this week. why decide to tray ag product now when a competitor, the cme and board of trade in chicago has been doing it for more than a century? >> thank you for inviting me here. so we decided to launch our grain contracts alongside our long standing agricultural contracts in sugar, coffee, cotton, cocoa and orange juice, based primarily on customer demand. we were inundated with customers that asked us to provide an alternative venue to trade these types of products. >> tom: so who are those customers, growers, speculators or overseas traderss? >> no, it's primarily the customers, the commercial interests. so think of your large farmers, your small farmers, your grain silos and el variouss, all those types of markets came to us asking us to provide an alternative venue. then as we received that type of support, it branched out from there to banks, market makers, brokers and other market participants

head of i.c.e., the inter- continental futures exchange, ben jackson joins us. >> tom: thanks to j.p. morgan's big trading loss, banks are back in the headlines. as the summer olympics approach, other financial names will be front and center, but for a different reason. the financial services sector is among the biggest spenders for the summer games. here's rick horrow. >> reporter: four financial firms have signed on as sponsors of the u.s. olympic committee: citi for retail banking, visa as the worldwide credit card sponsor, td ameritrade as the online-broker, and deloitte as its professional services sponsor. the reason financial service companies are so quick to align with the olympics is simple. viewers with household incomes over $100,000 are 400% more likely to watch five or more hours of olympics coverage daily than lower income viewers. it's these same affluent consumers the financial firms are spending millions of dollars to reach. a u.s.o.c. sponsorship alone costs $10 to $15 million for a four-year cycle, and that's before companies spend another $10 to $15 million on mark

ben jackson with the intercontinental exchange. >> susie: our look at the agriculture economy continues tomorrow on "nightly business report." from the cows to the production line, we meet the people behind the petaluma creamery, a family farm and cheese making business thriving in california's wine country. >> tom: as we reported earlier, the federal reserve is worried about government inaction on the u.s. debt problem and the impact on the economy. tonight's commentator has a plan for balancing the books. he's bob pozen, former chairman of m.f.s. investments. >> after the november elections, congress will face a fiscal cliff. the expiration of various tax cuts, together with automatic spending reductions, could take $500 billion out of our fragile economy in 2013. to avoid this disastrous result, congress will need to pass a ten-year package of revenue and spending measures which will gradually put us on the road to fiscal discipline. the core of this package should be a progressive reform to social security, which currently faces a long-term deficit of $8.6 trillion. we can dramatica

jackson is 56. mrs. warren beatty better known as oscar nominated actress annette benning is 54. rupert everett is 53.layed the facts of life. this country was built by working people. the economy needs manufacturing. machines, tools, people making stuff. companies have to invest in making things. infrastructure, construction, production. we need it now more than ever. chevron's putting more than $8 billion dollars back in the u.s. economy this year. in pipes, cement, steel, jobs, energy. we need to get the wheels turning. i'm proud of that. making real things... for real. ...that make a real difference. ♪ >>> good morning. welcome back to 9news now. it is 5:47 on this tuesday morning. back to work for a lot of people but no relief from the heat we endured over the weekend. >> not even 6:00 it's 76 degrees. >> it's hot. >> you'll need water. >> it's not budging at all. it's going to be a very hot, humid and sticky morning, even into the early afternoon i think we're still going to feel the effects of this high pressure system with us and the moist southwesterly winds. things will improve, though, beca