as darren gersh reports, two of the world's biggest companies, apple and google, want to lead the way. >> reporter: open or closed? now publishers have a choice. yesterday apple offered publishers a chance to sell subscriptions through apple's tightly controlled app store-- it's the same model used by newscorp's recently launched ipad newspaper "the daily." google responded today with a much more open system dubbed google one pass. >> reporter: one pass makes it easier for everyone to get the quality journalism they value. >> reporter: google lets publishers set prices, control terms and offer content on tablets, phones or the web. analyst ned may says google's goal is clear. >> they are addressing and placating the concerns of publishers by saying "here is an alternative approach, we're going to play nicer and better." >> reporter: by throwing the doors wide, google hopes to appeal to more developers and content providers. as more companies write software for google platforms, the hope is more customers will find a reason to switch from iphones and ipads to androids. but there are ri

and as darren gersh reports, the political unrest is making the economic pain more severe. >> reporter: egyptian banks have been closed all week and many people are running out of cash. few are going to work. and for the poor, who often live day to day, the standoff in tahrir square is hitting hard. the economist's max rodenbeck says the test of wills between demonstrators and the government is increasingly economic. >> the core of the protesters is really middle class people who-- they can go a couple weeks without work and stuff without going to work. but for the vast majority of egyptians who are poor, it is getting increasingly difficult and the government is quite successfully trying to blame all the problems on the protesters. >> reporter: and those problems are mounting. this is the height of egypt's tourism season, last year, a $12 billion industry. but cruise lines have canceled visits and tourists have left by the thousands. some rich businessmen have fled the country, but others have been slapped with a travel ban. responding to demonstrators demanding an end to official cor

darren gersh, "nightly business report," washington. >> tom: a big day for verizon tomorrow. it starts taking pre-orders for the iphone. the carrier is breaking at&t's exclusive hold on apple. it becomes the iphone's second u.s. carrier. verizon also unveiled pricing plans today. basic voice will run $40 a month. add text and it's $60. email and the web? an additional $30 a month. and using your iphone as a wifi hotspot? expect a bill for another $20. >> tom: in washington, uncle sam's checks will be good a bit longer. the treasury department says the government won't hit its $14.3 trillion borrowing limit until the end of may. that's about two weeks later than originally thought. but the treasury says not to worry, there are lots of accounting maneuvers it can use to push that timeframe back. some house republicans have threatened to vote against raising the debt ceiling. the bonds uncle sam sells to pay off that debt were also in focus today. some of wall street's top banks are asking the treasury to think about adding an ultra-long bond with a 100-year maturity. one treasu

darren gersh examines what a new government role in housing will mean for homebuyers and anyone making a living in real estate. >> reporter: the new direction for housing laid out by treasury secretary timothy geithner hinges on a government that is far more careful about who it helps and how. >> i think it is absolutely the case that the u.s. government provided too much support for housing, too strong incentives for investment in housing and we just took that too far. >> reporter: $150 billion too far. that's how much it's cost taxpayers to support the shaky mortgage giant's fannie mae and freddie mac. in a report today, the treasury laid out three options to reform the housing market to make sure another bail out never happens. they include strictly limiting the government's role in housing to guaranteeing mortgages for low and moderate income americans; supporting the mortgage market directly, but only in times of stress or providing so-called catastrophic insurance on mortgage securities that kicks in after private investors take losses. james lockhart used to head the government

as darren gersh reports, bernanke was doing his best to reassure lawmakers, and everyone else, that the fed has the economy under control. >> reporter: it was the first time federal reserve chairman ben bernanke has testified before a house committee since republicans took back control. and it was clear from the questioning by budget committee chairman paul ryan that the fed will be under much tougher scrutiny. from the top, ryan said he doubted the short-term boost from the fed's bond buying program, known as quantitative easing, will outweigh the long- term pain. >> you're going to see inflation after it's already been launched and given that you have a huge balance sheet and given that we are in uncharted territory... that we're going to catch this after it is too late. >> reporter: fed chairman repeated his strong commitment to keep prices stable. and he said, for now, markets believe that. he said investors are signaling through bond purchases that they expect inflation of about 2% over next five years. >> so there is not any indication in our financial markets that in the united s

as darren gersh explains, it's part of a trade story as complicated as a lover's quarrel. >> reporter: we'll get to the roses in a minute. first, we have to start with sleeping bags. about ten years ago, harry kazazian decided he could retool a factory in alabama to make sleeping bags for a lower price than his competitors in china. >> we started bringing back our production from china to the united states and hiring more employees and expanding. when everyone else was offshoring, we were re-shoring. >> reporter: but kazazian now claims those chinese competitors have shifted production to bangladesh to take advantage of a trade preference aimed at supporting poor countries. rising imports of duty-free sleeping bags from bangladesh now threaten to put workers at exxel outdoors, the last sleeping bag factory in the u.s., out of business. so kazazian is asking lawmakers in washington for help. >> really, they're not trying to cause a problem; they're trying to fix a problem and make sure that american workers should never be put at a disadvantage. >> reporter: and this is where the roses

darren gersh has more on the spending drama. >> reporter: as you would expect, democrats and republicans mixed it up pretty good today. one of the hottest fights: whether to prohibit the obama administration from spending money to implement health care reform. new jersey's scott garrett called it a question of freedom. >> this is the first time in the history that the price of being an american is that you have to buy a particular product that some unknown un-faceless bureaucrat in washington ordains you have to buy. >> reporter: minority leader nancy pelosi fired back republicans are protecting insurance companies. >> it is again this congress saying to the american people we're here for special interests, we're not here for people's interests. >> reporter: republicans even took some swings at each other. tea party activists like joe walsh pushing an amendment to cut non-security spending by 5.5% across the board. >> we are broke, we are $14 trillion in debt, and we know it's more than that. >> reporter: hal rogers, the republican chairman of the appropriations committee, says an across

but as darren gersh reports, the president's plan makes a modest start on filling a budget hole that can only be described as huge. >> reporter: when you are in a hole, stop digging. that's rule number one. rule number two is figure out how deep you've dug yourself in. on the federal budget, the answer is very deep. over the next decade, the obama administration figures we're $9.4 trillion in the red. speaking at a school, the president defended spending on education and technology, but said his cuts will cut in half the red ink he inherited. >> the budget i'm proposing today meets that pledge, and puts us on a path to pay for what we spend by the middle of the decade. we do this in part by eliminating waste and cutting whatever spending we can do without. >> reporter: here's how the president proposes to fill the budget hole. freezing spending for everything except defense, medicare, social security fills in $406 billion. winding down the war in iraq and afghanistan saves $1.1 trillion. the budget assumes the bush tax cuts expire and calls for tax and fee changes worth $544 billion.

as darren gersh reports, one key concern-- the fallout from the mortgage crisis. >> reporter: after digging through the records of the nation's 14 largest mortgage servicers, federal regulators found servicers did, indeed, break state and local foreclosures laws. but acting comptroller of the currency john walsh told the senate banking committee there was no wave of illegal foreclosures. >> despite these clear deficiencies, we found that loans subject to foreclosure were, in fact, seriously delinquent and that servicers had documentation and legal standing to foreclose. >> reporter: walsh said regulators are now talking about finding a way to settle all the legal claims from the mortgage crisis. regulators are also ordering mortgage servicers to clean up their operations and pay homeowners who lost money. >> our work identified a small number of foreclosure sales that should not have proceeded because of an intervening event or condition. >> reporter: walsh was just one of the regulators telling congress today how they are keeping a closer eye on the nation's banks. federal reserve chairman

darren gersh, "nightly business report," washington. >> susie: here are the stories in tonight's "n.b.r. newswheel." investors shrugged off worries about inflation and rising consumer prices. the dow rose almost 30 points, the nasdaq added six, and the s&p 500 was up four. big board trading volume fell to 880 million shares, while nasdaq volume settled just below two billion shares. we're paying more to fill up at the pump and to stock up at the grocery store-- consumer prices rose four tenths of a percent last month. take out food and energy, and prices still went up two tenths of a percent. that's the biggest jump in over a year. jobless claims rose by 25,000 in the past week to 410,000, slightly more than expected. the treasury wants banks to follow the money, when it comes to former egyptian president mubarak. the idea is to find money linked to the deposed president or his family. and the man overseeing b.p.'s $20 billion spill fund has a new critic-- b.p.! the oil giant says kenneth feinberg is giving out too much money, overestimating future damages. feinberg's been under fire fo

for some perspective on this crisis, our washington bureau chief darren gersh spoke with world bank's managing director, ngozi okonjo-iweala. >> the world bank recently used the word dangerous to talk bob the level of food prices around the world. define dangerous. >> we really believe we're in a kind of danger zone now with these volatile and rising food prices because we see an extra 44 million people who have been turning to extreme poverty as a result of the rise in prices. this is on top of 900 million people who are already going to bed hungry. >> when you say food has risen to dangerous levels, what does that mean in terms of people's incomes and what they're experiencing? >> many poor people in developing countries spend 50% to 66% of their income on food. so when the price of food rises like this, it means real tradeoffs. it is not a question of: do i eat this cut of meat or a poorer one? it's a question of: do i even have three meals a day, or one or two. we find that people drop meals, you know, when these prices rise. and that children, you know, are malnourished. they don

washington bureau chief darren gersh went through the world's worry list with johnson, beginning with egypt. >> well, obviously, there is a lot of dissatisfaction among the egyptian population, they have not had a good deal economically. they're feeling squeezed, higher food prices, and they don't have a lot of jobs. in terms of what it means for us, not that much. if it stays in egypt. if it spreds to the other part of the middle east, you worry about oil prices. if the suez canal shuts down, that would disrupt the oil. >> you mentioned food prices. they went up around the world about 25%. we're hearing aa lot of people concerned about that. what is causing that and what are the implications around the world and here? >> mostly it is the rebound in the emerging markets, china, india, brazil, russia. these countries are doing fine. they are commanding commodities that people like to eat. and many of the commodity producers, including in africa, are doing very well. but people who consume food, particularly poorer people, and in the united states as well, are adversely affected by this

darren gersh spoke with mayors from mesa, arizona, and elizabeth, new jersey, as they brought their case to washington. >> reporter: mayor smith, you're here, you're a republican, you're here opposing budget cuts proposed by fellow republicans. why? >> i'm not opposing budget cuts, i'm opposing what i believe are the ill advised budget cuts. and we cut a lot in mesa, arizona, but we've done it in a way we believe was responsible and that really got to the meat of the matter and cutting those areas that truly where waste truly existed. the kinds of things we're talking about here we believe are ill-advised. >> reporter: mayor, one of these programs you're here talking about is the community development block grant which sounds hopelessly bureaucratic. can you is explain why is that is so important to the mayors for that program. >> when kennedy was president they were funding programs that went directly to the city. it was a funding program for cities with 50,000 or more people that got money directly from the federal government. there was a myriad of ways that they work in the community.

darren gersh, "nightly business report," washington. >> tom: job growth is key to so much of the economic recovery. despite the stubbornly high unemployment rate, the demand for some skills is growing. scot melland is c.e.o. at dice holdings, the company behind e-financialcareers,com. gautam godhwani is c.e.o. at simplyhired.com, an employment online search engine. both of them join us tonight, welcome to nightly business report. >> thank you, tom, it's good to be here. >> tom: we want to start with you, scot, how would you describe the hire environment right now? >> well, it's interesting. overall it's still a struggling environment, if you compare it to historical labor markets. but the good news is that it's improving. we've had private sector job growth for the last 13 out of the last 14 months. and especially if you are in the professional segments of the labor market, you tend to be doing a little bit better. >> tom: gautam would you agree with that assessment. >> i would. i think we are dro going through a lot of struggles but from simplyhire.com perspective there are reasons to be

darren gersh spoke with immelt after that white house meeting and asked him how soon we'll see action. >> what you are goinging to see is a range of different things we do over the next 90 days that would include things like putting a big focus on energy efficiency and creating shoringt term jobs and the construction industry, all the way to what are the programs going to be required to increase the number of engineers. and you'll see probably four or five initiatives. >> the he talks a lot about technology but a lot of the people lost their jobs, like you said are in construction, autoworkers, so are they going to be able to find these new high-tech jobs. >> there is going to be have to be a massive retainin retaining-- retraining effort that goes on and businesses committed to doing that in concert with community colleges and things like that but there is going to have to be some retraining that goes on. because i'm not putting the death nail on the construction industry but it probably is unlikely that all those jobs come back. so training is going to have to be a key part. what we