neil irwin?is part of the policies that the federal reserve are pursuing. it is true that retirees suffer as a result. it means you are not able to earn the interest rates you would normally get from a bank. the reason people do not put money under a mattress, is because it's something goes wrong, your bank -- your house its route, you are all of long -- you are out of luck. you might run to be cautious about leaving the bank system entirely. that said, the issue is exactly right. rates are very low. that encourages investment, but definitely retirees, and those with big savings suffer as a result. to lakeland,o florida. caller: i am really worried about journalists, economists, and political leaders not factory near peak oil and gas prices increases. in florida, our new governor wants to cancel the high-speed train because he does not think there will be enough riders. should there not be enough -- more talk about peak oil? where is that being factored in? host: neil irwin, can you speak to that

host: neil irwin is our guest. he wrote a piece for "the washington post" that the savings trend is on the optic. the consumer financial protection bureau is having a conference today, and the keynote speaker will be elizabeth warren, special advisor to the secretary of the treasury for bob consumer -- for the consumer protection bureau. she will talk about the one- year anniversary of the credit card act, outlining the priorities of her agency. we will have live courage of that started around 9:00 a.m.. neil irwin, what are you expecting to hear from them today? guest: this is an interesting agency. they were created in the dodd- frank act. they are just getting rolling. there are a lot of questions about how this bureau will work. they have some tricky things to juggle. they do not want to limit credit availability to watch, because they want people to be able to use a credit card when their car breaks down. they do not want days to stop extending credit entirely. on the other hand, there have been exported to of

host: neil irwin and michael fletcher have this in the post. guest: i think they are twofold. they are two different issues. you know, like i said, the oil price rising, that definitely has an impact on gas prices which directly impacts the consumer. the issue about cutting back state and ll budgets and government spending and that sort of thing is more of a local issue and really depending on what each state decides to do would affect consumers differently. and not necessarily have the same sort of impact across the country there. host: our last call for jennifer comes from jackson, mississippi this morning. ed on our line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. my question or i guess somewhat of a theory is dealing with jobs is the fact that i think that so far as investment has changed in this country, i think that we have a situation where the major capitalists do not necessarily invest in the stock market. the stock market is now for the average joe. that's with the internet and all this. i think the major capital lists are now investing in derivatives as we

tomorrow on the "washington journal" neil irwin will be here, an economics reporter, to talk about economicues. gilbert will also be here. he is the geo-political -- bill births will also be here. he is a geo-political writer. he is a geo-political writer. and finally, rebecca mckeow

host: neil irwin. guest: with the wall street bailout, the impact of helping the stock market comeback, and the markets have been up a lot since the low in march, 2009, i do not think that was by design. if that was unexpected side effect. the main goal was to try to keep the lending and financial system from breaking down. you go from the stability of money to slow the the system, and they've learned to keep that from breaking down. the stock market has had some other benefits. on gdp, it is not just consumption. gdp numbers reflect all of that. consumption is about two-thirds of gross domestic product. there's also government spending and business investment. also, and net exports. those are actually extract it. -- extracted. economic statistics are not perfect, but the ones that people used to capture some of the things you are mentioning. .ost: this tweet guest: it is true that many of the wall street firms may not have been able to pay off debts if the financial bailout had not happened. which wou

. >> tomorrow, washington post economic reporter neil irwin.rt's talks about the patriot act, and rebecca mackinnon talks about how the u.s. government is using social media to compact farm policy. "washington journal: " begins live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> i ask you to come here this evening so that we could immediately hear a firsthand report from the secretary of state regarding negotiations going on in europe. >> you can look at this as a harsh for curiosity, or you can look at this as in many ways of forerunner of today's managed news. >> find something you did not know about the 43 men who served as president of the united states with the c-span video library. thousands of hours a presidential programming all free online. watch which you want when he won. -- when you want. >> editors say that they would stand by julian assange if he is prosecuted for releasing secret documents. they made their -- they said this during the publication. columbia journalism school is host to this event. it is about an hour and a half. half. [captioning perfo