we're also joined by john herrmann president of herrmann forecasting. d ron insana, portfolio manager at thestreet.com money movers. john, let me start with you. this employment data tomorrow, what's it going to look like and what's it going to mean about the economy? >> here's the deal. right now what we're thinking about is we're at the low 3 handle decline. we have been thinking there was a chance we might be able to hit a 2 handle decline but we think that's more or less in line for the next -- one of the next one or two months. so it's very nearby. and then within two to three months we should be at declines of about 100,000 and we think we're actually going to see positive growth in payrolls before the year end. >> positive growth in payrolls before the end of the year. ron insana, do you agree with that? >> yeah, i don't disagree at all. i'm pretty bullish on the economy. i'm concerned about the stock market having run too far too fast relative to where we are in this economic cycle. having said that late in the day both deutsche bank and goldman

to do that is john herrmann, president of herrmann forecasting. undergraduate economic studies at harvard university and senior fellow at the cato institute. welcome, gentlemen, nice to have you here. john, let me start with you. you do think that perhaps this was the appropriate way to stem the blood not only on wall street but on main street. >> i had an unusual -- economists at merrill, and i sat on the floor while we basically watched all these grenades go off all over the financial market. >> last september. >> last september. and it was just tremendous wounds being inflicted in everything from commercial paper to repo to the municipal bond market to the credit market to every form of collateral. it was unbelievable. it led to the nastiest recession since 1948. >> so you can definitely tie that -- because some people are saying you can't tie that to the recession that's followed. >> no, we just basically shut down the avenues of credit throughout the economy, and without some kind of temporary boost there would be no way to get a loan. i did s

we debate the topic right now with john herrmann, president of herrmann forecasting., senior economist at bml capital markets. and cnbc senior economics reporter steve liesman at jackson hole. gorgeous shot behind you. tell me what you're hearing there with all those economists. >> maria, the basic story here is people see stability in the financial system, certainly compared with last year. people are not arriving here with a sense of panic that prevailed at the jackson hole conference last year. there's a sense the next couple quarters could be positive but what happens next, the big concern we keep hearing is the growing deficit, how the fed is supposed to operate and how it conducts monetary policy when the treasury and fiscal authority is going to be issuing trillions of dollars of debt. >> sal, how worried are you about that deficit? >> it's certainly a concern, and it's unlikely the government will act concertedly to reduce the deficit while the economy is trying to dig its way out of the recession and until the recovery is much more durable. so yes, it is a co

herrmann is not with us today. we'll see if we can handle this on our own. a number of interesting cases, one including john edwards, former presidential candidate, but this involves a grand jury testimony. that also involved his ex-mistress. even though richard is not here, he did send me some comments on this. i'll read a couple and then i'd love for you to weigh in, as well. he said never a good sign when federal authorities poke into the possible use of campaign funds. knowingly converting money to a action political is a federal crime. edwards says he has no idea this was made. >> he is correct in the sense when you divert campaign funds to personal use, that is a felony under federal law. the question that is presented here is how is the government going to make the case because the key witness, fredericka, is fred barren, the financial director of the edwards campaign. the governor's got a slight problem, he's dead. the government is going to try to build their case by inference in reille hunter, who was the ex-mistress. she appeared before a federal grand jury. >> with her child in tow. i only under