thats next with bill moller. the funding of renewable energy...large solar systems or wind farms. it's mostly indirect government funding or the money comes from wealthy investor groups. but wouldn't it be cool if you could invest and earn interest helping build a clean energy installation yourself? for a few months now a start-up in oakland california, mosaic, has made that happen through crowd- funding. and the interest and the money raised has been explosive. billy parish is the co-founder. give us a sense of how explosive the growth has been for you in such a short amount of time. > > our first round of offerings which was $400,000 worth of investment was fully subscribed in less than 24 hours by over 400 people. so it's been hard to keep up with the interest. > > now you're scrounging around for new projects. do you have greater demand than the projects to be funded balance? > > we have over 12 thousand people already signed up for the next round of projects which show up next week so we're excited. we think it might happen again. > > is this because of the improved cost and

but first, bill moller steps in with simple solutions republicans and democrats can both agree on to improve government. that's coming up. it's so easy to complain about government - about waste and bloat and inefficiency - hey, the loudest voices of criticism are often people in government. politicians, sure, they've got a lot of political solutions, but there is a new book out called "simpler: the future of government," and it kind of takes an apolitical approach on how to fix this bureaucracy of government. it was written by harvard law professor cass sunstein, and you were a former insider with the obama administration as the head of the office of information & regulatory affairs. let me ask you, how do we fix this big, bad, complex thing we call government? - one thing we can do, and we've started to do, and we should do a lot more of, is make it simpler. if you look at the best consumer products now, they are often ipads and tablets, and even a child can use them. they have a lot of complicated ingredients, the people who produce them did a lot of complex work, but to interact

but first, bill moller takes us to the blogosphere, where moms are blogging their way to a six-figure salary. that's next. it's called "mommy blogging." it's a real potent, prolific part of the blogosphere. there's money to be made, and many of the top bloggers now are represented by kind of like their own talent agency. sway group it's called. that's the firm started by danielle wiley, formerly a senior vp at the pr agency edelman. you told me figure i'm not sure i believe. how many bloggers on the mommy circuit are there? - i have heard that there are between 100,000 and 200,000 new ones created every day. - oh my gosh. now why is it so well crafted as its own distinct personality as a blogging topic area? - i think mostly because marketers want to reach moms, moms want spending money in the stores, so they have kind of created this monster. in reality, it is the only type of blogging that is defined by who is writing verses what they are writing about - you don't have fatty bloggers or geeky bloggers, it's food bloggers and technology. - how much money can a blogger who you agree t

bill moller has the answer right after the break. sequestration - doesn't that sound like a disease? the brutal federal spending cuts now kicking in that congress cannot seem to solve. the cuts are supposed to hurt all aspects of the economy. how about the real estate sector that's been on the mend? ernst & young along with the urban land institute just finished a survey of 38 economists about that. dean schwanke is senior vp of the institute. is real estate sequestor - proof? > > i think that the fact that sequestration has addressed some of the budget issues. it has given some confidence to the marketplace. and its not such a big hit that it's hurt the economy. so real estate is viewed as a sector that is more stable right now than the stock or the bond market. real estate is on a good run lately and its immune from some of the ups and downs of things. it does vary from one month to the next.six months ago we saw some pretty poor job growth numbers and that hurt our forecast. this time we've seen better job growth although certainl

what parents need to know, next with bill moller. everybody's in a hurry to get their taxes done. think about this, your child's social security number is particularly vulnerable this time of year. thieves know just what to do to steal their identity and you might not know it for years. the details can be learned from the book, bankrupt at birth: why child id theft is on the rise and how it's happening under parents' noses. joe mason wrote it. joe what's the typical story you've seen? > > the first thing is identity thieves really don't discriminate on time of year but they are particularly interested in tax time. there is a lot of sensitive information being shared, a lot of money exchanging hands and what they're doing with respect to children is they are obatining social security numbers of children that are issued typically at a very early age. and they are using those social security numbers to file fraudulent tax returns. and they are the ones collecting the refund checks on behalf of your child. > > why is a child's id so attractive to bad guys? > > the reason why a child's

bill moller investigates next. just released, somewhat troubling data about the new and aggressive ways that the bad guys are breaking into our electronic records and stealing our personal data. bryan sartin is the director of verizon's risk team. they are the ones who conducted this study. they looked at 47,000 different incidents. bryan, tell us what we need to know. what were the main findings? - the main findings are, if you have a connection to the outside world, if you have an ip address, you might be a victim. but the big story this year is cyber-espionage. more than 20% of the cases that were tracked involved state- affiliated cyber-espionage campaigns. - so, is this coming from out of the country, do we know, or typically domestic? - it comes from a variety of places, but clearly one theme is common across all the contributors to this year's study: the very, very vast majority of cyber attacks we're tracking are coming from china. - and what are they typically going for? - generally speaking, they are goin

thats next with bill moller. 7,000 high-school students drop out every school day. let's catch them before it's too late. to start helping students in your community, visit boostup.org. bet you never heard of this term its a chargeback. i happens to be the scourge of retailers. primarily online retailers. every year consumers disputer billions of dollars of charges on their credit cards. each dispute results in a fee that the merchant has to pay whether or not they're at fault. it is a big and costly headache. for that reason, it's also an opportunity for an entrepreneur to start a company that helps retailers minimize their charge back losses. monica eaton cardone's business is called chargebacks 911. monica, you were a retailer once, how big of a problem was this for you? > >it was a huge problem. needless to say we made every single mistake when it came to being able to manage our chargebacks. and we always thought that the very biggest barrier to having a successful online business or any business for that matter was just getting customers. however when it comes

but first, bill moller joins us with a taxing hangover. what you need to know about next year's taxes is coming up after the break. not only are there new income tax laws that affect those forms you hopefully filed on time this year, there are new estate tax laws that will affect your estate planning. steven peck is an estate planning attorney. who would worry about this? i thought estate planning was just for the super rich. - almost everyone needs to be worried about estate planning, even if you are not over the tax limit - very few people actually are over the tax limit nowadays with the new exemption of $5.25 million. but, other people could be subject to it in the future. - there are aspects of estate planning that do affect a lot of people. for example, gift taxes. - right. the gift tax exemption was raised to the same level as the estate tax: the same $5.25 million. it was supposed to go down to a million, so this is a good opportunity for people to take advantage of this, because with the new budget proposal, there is a good chance

but first, we have bill moller on a serious search for silver linings from the great recession. how the collapse of the financial system changed our spending habits. we'll be back. th a deadly disease. i was one of them. i'm a nurse and i knew how damaging the disease was to my life. nothing i tried seemed to work. my brother died. from complications of the exact same preventable disease and i knew i had to do something to get healthy. my disease was obesity and after consulting with my doctor, i received the effective treatment i needed. obesity is a second leading cause of preventable death in the united states. but it's a treatable disease, and there's effective treatment options available. now is time to get help. please join the obesity action coalition and acknowledge obesity as a disease for acceptance, for access to all effective treatments, including diet and exercise, pharmacotherapy and weight-loss surgery for obese adults with at least one obesity related comorbid condition. visit obesity action dot org and sign an open letter pledging your support and for more infor

that's next with bill moller. you hear that? there's a shake- up going on in the television industry. a brash little upstart called aereo has the networks & cable operators running scared right now. brian tallerico is the tv critic for hollywoodchicago.com. why is this david causing so much angst and chaos among all the goliaths? - the goliath's already being attacked by other davids in the form of hulu and netflix, and now this one comes along, and it's such a shake-up. the courts have gotten involved in saying whether or not it is even legal to do what aereo is trying to do. - but they have been granted court permission to go ahead. - they have been granted court permission, the idea being that no restrictions were put in place when they said "hey, we can take these broadcast waves and watch them in our house, so if we turn them into internet traffic, that is ok too." - so what they are doing with aereo is they take the network signal and just rebroadcast and sell it, so they are pirating a signal legally somehow. - yes. pirat

that's later with bill moller. but first, charity scams are exploding in the wake of the boston marathon terror attacks. what to know before giving your money. that's next. charties may feel the effects of the terror tragedy in boston. lisa dietlin of dietlin and associates is back with us to talk about marathons and charity money. welcome back to the show. - glad to be here. - do you suppose there are charities out there right now that are scrambling because of what happened in boston, they are fearful perhaps that runners might back down, might not show up in the waves that we have seen in the past? - i do think charities are thinking about that. we have our own chicago marathon coming up in the fall, angela, and i do think that charities are putting plans of action in place, primarily through communication. - all right. and what do you do if you are an organization and you are concerned? what kind of communication do you want to send out? - i think, first of all, you need to communicate to your runners that you

but first, life after you say "i don't" - bill moller looks at the high cost of some high- profile splits. that's next. ehicle. when i came here, i... i couldn't move. [male announce david was broadsided on the highway. they weren't very hopeful at the time that he would survive at all.. [male announce an ied wounded mike in afghanistan. i don't remember all of the blast... was over 500 pounds of explosives. [male announce their physical injuries have healed. the traumatic brain injuries - tbis - haven't. the way i describe it is you're just afraid. am i going to start forgetting things? [male announce tbi is as serious as any battlefield injury. you're just not the guy you used to be. [male announce thankfully va has made important advancements in tbi seeing it, treating it, understanding it. and they're here to help veterans affected by it. i can see that what we're doing here at the polytrauma unit is to move from survivability to thrive-ability. [male announce if you think you or a veteran you know has sustained a brain injury, get screened. pre-nuptual agreements are back in the news

the reason is next with bill moller, after this "in the know" message. we know the economy is improving, but what about small business owners. their hiring practices are a major economic driver in this country. what do they think? what are they planning? every month we take measure of their thinking and what they're doing in the surepayroll small business score card - a sampling of tens of thousands of businesses across america. michael alter is ceo and president of surepayroll. michael as you look at the data, it looks kind of like there's a split in the numbers. > > there is a split in the numbers, and i think we are seeing some positive signs in that half of small business owners are looking to invest in the second half of this year. in the next nine months, they are planning on adding people, technology, spending more on marketing. this is the first time we have seen this kind of result in a long time. > you actually have a number fixed to the optimism index. what is that? > > the optimism index is just under 70% are optimistic about the future, and

thats next with bill moller after this in the know message. i wanted to be in the military since i was a kid. i served a total of 16 years. and at 19 years old, that's the first time i ever saw somebody die. coming back, i was raging. i started having pretty horrible nightmares. i started drinking a lot. i guess i never recognized it in myself. it all starts with going to the va. there's a whole community of veterans that just want to help you out. it's for the guys who couldn't come back, you owe it to them to live well. because they're not here with their families. fer with a deadly disease. i was one of them. my disease was obesity and after consulting with my doctor, i received the effective treatment i needed. please join the obesity action coalition to acknowledge obesity as a disease visit obesity action dot org to sign an open letter pledging your support and for more information about how to talk to your doctor about weight loss and treatment options. together we can make a choice to end obesity now. a public service from the obesity

but first, bill moller gets insights on some of the most tight-lipped individuals in charge of the global economy. that's next. late summer 2007, the beginning of the global recession. the world was in a panic. and in large measure, it was up to three men to stand in the way of a full global financial collapse: ben bernanke and his two fellow central bankers, the head of the bank of england and the head of the european central bank. "the alchemists" is effectively an insider's account of how they did it. it was written by washington post economics columnist neil irwin. alchemy and the mystical powers of turning things into gold. i assume there is a deliberate intent in choosing that as the title for your book? - there is. hundreds of years ago, the alchemists were these guys who tried to create gold and silver out of routine materials. turns out you didn't need magic or potions or any of the stuff they worked on. if you have a central bank, if you have the authority of the state, and you have somebody to run it, you can print money out of thin air, and that is what the central banker's be

that's next with bill moller. i wanted to be in the military since i was a kid. i served a total of 16 years. and at 19 years old, that's the first time i ever saw somebody die. coming back, i was raging. i started having pretty horrible nightmares. i started drinking a lot. i guess i never recognized it in myself. it all starts with going to the va. there's a whole community of veterans that just want to help you out. it's for the guys who couldn't come back, you owe it to them to live well. because they're not here with their families. cities & states fall all over each other brushing up their welcome mats trying to attract new businesses. they offer tax breaks, abundant resources, good transportation - those are some of the come-ons you often hear. but the state of colorado & denver have a compelling and rather unusual attraction - because of the state's remarkably low obesity rates, they offer up a very fit and healthy workforce. kelly brough is president of the denver metro chamber of commerce. kelly, is this something that companies want? why should they ca