personal finance expert, the emmy winning tv host of the suze orman show, seen saturday nights on cnbc. "new york times" best-selling author has not been with us since february, which was hard to believe. when you were on that time obama was set to sign the $787 billion stimulus plan. how has it all worked since then? how are we doing? >> actually, if you look at it, we're a whole lot better than we were a year ago. we're no longer falling off the cliff. the banks have been saved, they're starting to repay a lot of the t.a.r.p. money. however with that said, forget about wall street, forget about the banks, how are everyday people really doing, larry? we still have a high unemployment rate, people are still under water in their houses, they don't know what to do. as far as the home loan modification program is going, i think that has been a horrific, underline, underline failure, but overall, we're doing quite a bit better than we were one year ago. atlantic recent cnn opinion poll shows 43% of americans still think another great depression is likely. that's a high number. >> i don't t

he is third with cnbc. bob franken, whom i have known from the years, was recently inducted into the society for professional journalists and washington's hall of fame. our second panelists is margaret brennan, an anger and reporter from bloomberg television news in new york. previously, she was a general assignment reporter for cnbc and a contributor to nbc's today's issue -- today show and nightly news. she is also a graduate of mr. jefferson's university of virginia. [inaudible] [laughter] alan murray is the executive editor online for the wall street journal 3 he was previously assistant managing editor for the "wall street journal," and offered a weekly business column. he has served as the washington bureau chief for cnbc. we're fortunate to have al-anon are governing council at the miller center of public affairs here at the university. a distinction of many years. next we have robert samuelson, compared shooting -- i comparative -- a contributing editor to newsweek. his articles appear in the los an

former chairman of the democratic national committee and now a political analyst for our sister network cnbc and consultant to mckenna, long and aldridge and democracy for american and i should probably mention you are a doctor but the rest of the intro used up too much time. good evening, governor. >> thank you. thanks for having me on. >> of course. first senator brown's position on the public option, your thoughts. >> he's exactly right. sherrod has been one of the real champions of getting real health insurance. look, what tom carper is doing is silly, a trigger and all this business and opt-out or opt-in and all that. this is silly. harry reid has got a decent bill on the floor. it's decent, not great but it's decent. it needs to pass. if they can't pass it without real insurance reform -- and there isn't any in the bill right now to speak of -- then they just should go home and use reconciliation, which is what they should have done in the first place. to let four senators hold up the works in addition to the republicans who we know aren't interested in health insurance is a silly way

previously she was a contributor to cnbc and nightly news as well as msnbc. she is also a graduate of mr. jefferson's university of virginia. alan murray is executev editor on line for "the wall street journal" and author of the papers weekly business column. he has served as washington bureau chief for snbc and "the wall street journal." we are fortunate to have him on our govern n counsel ill here at the university. next we've robert sam uleson, contributing editor at "newsweek" and "the washington post" where he has written about business and economic issues since 1977. his articles have appeared in the wall street journal, "new york times" and other papers. his latest book is on the past and future of american avenue will youence, in case you are wondering about a holiday gifment paul solomon is occasional correspondent for the pbs news hour. he answers questions on the business desk. recently he has become a fellow at yale's berkeley college and for those of you who were why our discussions this afternoon you know that he was a loud -- lovely moderator i