a lot of people thought when jeff boyer was named to this position they started announcing a slew of recalls, cleaning out anything close to questionable and now this comes out, five of them here. i had people say how do i know there won't be a slew of recalls in two to three weeks? >> i agree. it's disconcerting because they pretty much did the kitchen sync already. they added 35 additional staffers for their investigative team and brought issues to the front. they're not taking any chances. it's an industry-wide thing, everybody wants to be proactive, get any recall questionable rather than risk the consumer or government backlash later? great to see you and have you in the house. >>> failure to recall, investigating gm, how timely is that? sue, over to you. >> thanks, guys. >>> the battered biotechs, these high flying names are getting battered in the sell-off. how do you play this without losing your shirt? we'll talk about it. >>> plus, oil spills and wire fires, a leak in los angeles and southern kcalifornia blazes rigt around the san diego area. we'll have the very latest on b

and i just want to mention before you go, we asked jeff boyer, the head of general motors safety division, the newly appointed safety czar to come on. gm declines. thanks for being on both of you. >> thank you. >> good seeing you gerri. >> thank you very much. and if you're planning on hitting the road for memorial day weekend, brace yourself for some serious traffic. aaa expects the number of travelers to hit a postrecession high but the good news is this. gas prices will likely go down, putting more money back in consumers pockets. here with the summer forecast is phil flynn senior market analyst from the price futures group in chicago and fox news contributor. phil welcome back to the show. >> thanks, gerri. gerri: is it a good economic signal that more people will be on the road? >> either that or the entire country has gone stir crazy after this winter. i have got to get out of this house, i'm telling you. they wouldn't leave their house for six months. gerri: that's true. >> no i think that is part of it but when you look at the consumer confidence number, usually gasoline and consu

this increased emphasis on quality control can be credited to one person, jeff boyer, the new head ofty at gm. he is trying to expedite current reviews and identify potential new problems to show that the new gm is concerned about safety around making that a number one priority, jon and heather. jon: but it is going to cost the company a bunch of money sounds like. >> 200 mil and going up. jon: lauren simonetti. , great to see you. heather: "fox news polls" that show how americans are feeling about the economy right now. registered voters split down the middle, with 49% of registered voters saying we're still in recession while 48% are saying an economic recovery is underway. for president obama, some 46% of voters approve of the job that he is doing while 50% disapprove. that is a big jump from his lower rating in march. and then we asked voters if they're satisfied with how things are going in the country today. those numbers improving from march of this year and october of last year. now 43% of voters saying that they are satisfied, while 57% say they are not. >> more of those poll

. >> brown: the company's new safety chief, jeff boyer, acknowledges the investigation prompted the avalancheother actions. he told the associated press: we're not waiting for warranty trends to develop over time. in the meantime, g.m. has conducted its own investigation of the ignition switch issue, but has not yet released any results. that's expected to be released in the coming weeks >> brown: we look at the re- calls and the impact on g.m., with erik gordon, a professor at the university of michigan ross school of business. and daniel hill, president of ervin-hill strategy, a public relations firm here in washington. erik gordon erik gordon, let me start with you. what are we to make of this run of recalls, some even very small. what's happening from a business perspective? >> well, it's a disaster for general motors. it's damaging their reputation, will end up damaging their sales, hurt their stock price, and i think the damages will last a long time. >> brown: and what do you see them doing in drawing out these recalls at the moment? >> you know, i think the game of drawing out the rec

but, if you're thinking about buying these cars or maybe you're hoping gm will come around, jeff boyer is really saying, you know what? we had only 25 safety inspectors. we now have 50. they have doubled safety inspectors and finding all these recalls. gerri: they didn't know about this before? they didn't know about this before? i mean, come on! i don't even own a gm car, okay? >> i don't own a gm car either. that doesn't mean anything. every manufacturer has recalls. we can't blame it 100% on gm. the fact that a lot of these have been sitting around from '09, 2011. and nhtsa comes up with a recall with a data blip -- this is old gm before mary barra because she can't be blamed for all of these problems. that is ridiculous. gerri: all right. okay. mary spent her entire career at company was also a safety engineer as well. >> true. gerri: look, it is true the government demands a lot and recalls are common but gm has 10 million recalls. 10 million cars recalled and it's may, okay? it's may. for 2014, 10 million recalls. it is only may. this is performance i don't know that we've ever s

it is 30 million back in 2004 but for gm what they're doing is they have a new safety feature, jeff boyeren and testing cars and getting in front of quality control and going to find out about a lot more recalls. you have a car and if you have a car -- stuart: but the stock stays right there at 34. barely breaks below it, holding down. l.a. times, people are saving up for health care, they have less to spend at the shopping mall. are they right? >> of course, you have to save up and we are saving for health care, sitting for your kids, saving because of cost of living going up, you don't have enough money for anything else. retail shopping numbers are down and will continue to be down because when you suck that many of you create a stagnation in this economy and we said before and i will say it again we have stagflation in this economy into will get worse as health care costs rise. stuart: the market is listening to all our people because we are down 185 points. that is it for the halftime report. thank you one and all. now this. n.y. times executive editor jill abramson reportedly ousted