. >> this report is brought to you by prudential financial. middle- and high-school students from across the country and around the world are being honored. this is the 2013 prudential spirit of community awards ceremony in washington, d.c. these students all have one thing in common -- their outstanding volunteer service. on hand to make this celebration extra special -- two-time academy award-winner kevin spacey. >> and you should all be very, very proud. >> track star and olympic gold medalist allyson felix added her heartfelt praise. >> i am just truly in awe of all the things that you're doing right now, everything that you've accomplished. >> two students from each state, as well as the district of columbia, earned silver medallions and $1,000 -- students like krysta pritchett of delaware. >> krysta formed a youth service group called "teens roc." krysta and her group have gathered supplies for a homeless shelter. >> every year, prudential financial joins with the national association of secondary school principals to recognize young vol

. >>> breaking news we want to get to right now on prudential. >> in a te feet for prudential, the regulators upheld its designation, prudential financial's designation as a systemically important nonbacked financial institution. prudential has 30 days to respond to this designation. and it says it is considering all its options. prudential declined to say or to comment further. someone close to the company said those options might include going to court to challenge this designation. also, of course, they could just accept it outright. keep in mind there are only three -- or two other companies that have been designated systemically important that are not banks. those being aig and fwrksge. regulators are considering other companies as we. they argue as an insurance company it doesn't face a run on the bank so should not be included in this designation. back to you. >>> if you've been putting off deciding to buy a home and getting a mortgage or pursuing a refinancing, this may be your last best chance. rates falling again after bernanke kept the punch bowl spiked. will it just be temporary?

i want to ask you about prudential.rudential and other life insurers come up as interest rates go up and i've liked prudential for a while, and there's also the only life insurer that challenged being systemically, and i was wondering what your thoughts are on the whole for buying it, holding it, and the risk associated with it. >> why do i not want to buy it? because my charitable trust thinks that aig, stephanie link and i go back and forth with this. we think that aig has got catalysts. it does not have catalyst, but i wouldn't sell it if i owned it. live by the sword, die by the sword and then live by the sword again. i'm talking about china and europe, and we're getting help from our pals overseas. can you believe it? they've been such negatives. they're now positives. it couldn't have come at a better time. mad money will be right back. >> coming up, the right medicine? the cancer-fighting biotech firm seattle genetics is tearing up the market, surging over 90% this year. can this pipeline of therapies keep the be

. >> additional corporate funding for "washington week" is prudential. additional funding is provided thehe an unburg foundation, corporation for public broadcasting and by pbs stations to from viewers like you. thank you.

. >> additional corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by prudential. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. washington was split in two this week with one eye on the unfolding drama on capitol hill over the republican effort to derail the health care law and the other on the united nations where there was tangible movement on iran and syria. we start on the hill where the senate voted today to turn aside a republican effort to strip funding from the health care law from the budget. the vote divided republicans through the bill back to the fractious house, setting the stage for more fights to come. in the house does not agree with the senate approach, will the government be forced to shut down when the fiscal year ends monday at midnight? ted cruz, who tried to derail it by talking for 21 hours says the senate is not listening to the american people

for porate funding "washington week" is provided by -- prudential. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.  >>> a kqed television production. ♪ >>> like sort of old fisherman's wharf. it reminds me of old san francisco. >> the calories, the cholesterol. >> it's like an adventure. >> oatmeal with a touch of wet dog. >> i did. inhaled it. >>

contributions to your pbs stations from viewers like you -- additional corp funding is provided by prudential and bit annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to bb -- pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington. moder rator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. it was a good week to in the news business. we like to question. not so good to be a diplomat or a warrior. they like getting to answers. when it comes to the still-bubbling crisis in syria, those were in short supply. secretary of state john kerry managed to bookend the week with statements than seemed entirely opposite. >> is there anything at this point that his government could do or offer that would stop an attack? >> sure. he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week, turn it over. all of it. and without delay. and allow a full and total accounting for that. but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done, obviously. >> this is not a game. and i said that to my friend sergei when we talked about

we used to go through a prudential process through the wasc. and they can be tough and they force you to do a lot of soul searching. but at the end of the day in the 25 years that i've taught in the district, a wasc experience is a healthy one that leads to a growing and better institution. what we have here is a commission that is answerable to no one, that has put an institution that provides the basic education opportunity to tens of thousands of our students at risk. and the city family, the political leaders, cannot allow that to happen. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >>> hi, my name is wallace basteen, i'm retired, i'm a lifelong learner. and i've been challenging my mind, enriching my soul, experiencing the joy of learning. the core of this wonderful institution is [speaker not understood] the professors. i have never met such a dedicated giving collection of of subserved individuals in my entire life. and i want to thank ccsf for allowing me to do that and i want to thank you for fighting for them. >> thank you. (applause) >> thank

he calls it a prudential move. he says he wants to make sure that the economy is picking up steam. he wants to ensure that things don't go in the opposite direction. now, the -- that's, if you like, from our point of view. from homeowners' point of view, mortgage rates will come back down slightly, long-term interest rates will come off the boil, they'll simmer nicely on the back burner but they won't be heated up again. marks will rally. this is just a little bit of a hiccup after yesterday's strong rally. look at europe. europe was up very strongly over the course of the session reflecting because they were closed when bernanke spoke. now europe is bubbling up. but, but, there's no question the fed has done damage within the industry if you like, to its credibility on transparency. you cannot lead people up the garden path and slam the door in the face when they get to the front door. and that's what they did yesterday. now that might not mean anything today. but i promise you, when they do start to tighten, the markets will turn around and say, why should we believe you? >> yeah

. >> additional corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by prudential. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. washington was split in two this week with one eye on the unfolding drama on capitol hill over the republican effort to derail the health care law and the other on the united nations where there was tangible movement on iran and syria. we start on the hill where the senate voted today to turn aside a republican effort to strip funding from the health care law from the budget. the vote divided republicans through the bill back to the fractious house, setting the stage for more fights to come. in the house does not agree with the senate approach, will the government be forced to shut down when the fiscal year ends monday at midnight? ted cruz, who tried to derail it by talking for 21 hours says the senate is not listening to the american people

at that point originalism from an intellectual point of view and from a prudential point of view has lost most of what was the track if about it from the beginning. it still is important in the public discourse -- most people think that taking into account what the constitution meant when it was adopted is important and every judge thinks it's important but it's not the only thing. >> host: moving onto business cases the conventional wisdom is that the roberts court has been pro-business. what is your take on that? >> guest: i think the bottom line to use a business term in the roberts court is a pro-business court. when you look in more detail it becomes more complicated. so i mentioned earlier that the court is now doing a lot of patents and copyright cases. those tend to be business against business cases and however they come out in some sense either it will be the small -- the small company making the patent or the big company making the patented goods available to the general public. but it's hard to fit that into well these are pro-business decisions by the court because they

big insurers like prudential and them get killed? one of the best performers for the year.crushed. wait a second, though. travelers catches an upgrade and flies up a dollar. what do we do. bierks sell, buy, sell. at moments like these, listen up. i've been there. moments like these, it's helpful to remind people you want to buy companies that aren't impacted by this vortex at all, companies like the big industrial companies, the enterprises the fed doesn't control with its tapering or lack thereof. you want to buy stocks of united technologies and 33-m. you want to buy stocks like boeing and honeywell. only buy the fed-related stocks if you're certain they're going to blow away the numbers here. and now because, no, the market will not look through this bad set of erinings. it will sell off bad disappointors. you know why? because it always does. in the end a lot of people reverse field, a lot of people make mistakes and lots of people have no idea what they're doing because they haven't been around long enough. relax. take a breath. recognize that if you knew a company was

look, you used to be prudential elliman, right? you watched the ups and downs. >> yeah.ncial crisis as well. have you ever seen this before? >> no, this is very different. anyone would tell you we're in uncharted waters but this happens in manhattan. you have your dips. when you get these runs, they're long, they're aggressive and we have seen this before. we've seen this play out. we're in the middle of it right now and it faces nating to watch. liz: well the average home sales price, okay, everybody ready for this, here, $1.4 million. >> yeah. liz: is about 1149 per square foot. >> right. liz: where else comes close to that in america? >> you can't look at america. you have to look at sister global comparisons, london, tokyo, hong kong. there is no comparison in the united states. liz: not at all? not broad beach, malibu. >> you like to think, little bit, california girl. liz: i'm thinking about it. so does it continue and does it spread to any other parts of the country? >> i think it definitely continues. there is no evidence this is slowing down at all. in fact if a

jeff bach is a realtor with prudential. he leads the city block team in philadelphia.couple numbers on the philadelphia markets, market stats for single-family homes, year-to-date price, fairly moderate $179 moye, median sale, $135,000. there have been 7600 sales, 20% higher than a year ago. the inventory, a little tighter, down 20% year over year. our first listing, it is a condo, 4300 spruce street, listing, $359,000. the taxes, a modest 584s it for the year. two bedrooms, two bath and $1,000 square feet. tell us about it. >> yeah, tyler, thank you. 4300 spruce, unit number c405 is right off the university of pennsylvania campus. and it's really, really popular both for a young professional who's just starting out as well as parents of penn graduate students who will often buy in cash for their kids who are going to vet school, dental school, et cetera. >> very nice. >> it's a really, really great -- >> obviously, just redone there. there's an awful lot of nice touches that i can see at 4300 spruce. let's move on just a few blocks down. 4212 spruce street. it sold fo

lincoln financial prudential. and people don't want the insurers. they were based on higher rates, but it look like we're not going to get higher rate. travelers runs a very good book of business. their business is good. people buy that stock, not betting on what the fed is going to do, but who runs the company. the individual companies that are doing well are going higher. a lot of other companies are going higher. >> are you overworried? are we coming off this really deep bottom back in 2009? and so we're going to get these natural sort of statistics about "x" and "y" over "z" and whatever it might be? >> yeah, absolutely, i do think you're probably overworried. a lot of the rhetoric i've been hearing in the press today, it sounds like the market's down a couple percent. guys, we have a reset going on here in this rate environment that the fed has set. and i think the one group that's losing a tremendous amount of momentum and it's impressive the market's holding up as well as they are, the financials. regional banks off almost 4% since the announ

so there is an indispensable minimum if not more on a prudential basis involvement of united states government initially by congress having the power, the sole power to define the gold weight of the dollar were the gold standard to be reestablished. that is where the initiative, i believe, will come from, and it is certainly not without recognition many washington that there is a move -- in washington that there is a move for a monetary commission not unlike that which was established after the banking panic of 1907 to create a commission at the very highest level among those senior officials of the government and private citizens to examine just as the aldridge-vreland commission did in 1-9d1908-1912. the causes of the panics and failed enterprises of the federal reserve system since the inauguration of the federal reserve act. so the -- and this was churchill said about britain, the situation is hopeless but not serious. [laughter] >> next question over here. >> thank you. warren coates. mr. lehrman, you have done an excellent job, as have many others, of arguing that the if by yacht currenc

it's a prudential calculation. >> couple things. one, we do talk about in the book, i don't know how much of a model it is for how many people, but peter teel, he recruits top high school students in the country just like harvard does, and he pays them to come work with him and the other students, what 100 now? >> 100. >> they get paid to go. they make a deal where teel gets a percentage of what they make, it's investing in human capital, and it's an interesting idea. one anecdote that david wants me to tell quickly. after graduate school, simultaneously i went to harvard law school. i was a proctor. i became known as the stay in college proctor. when people were gettingty affected and wanting to leave college, i was the one that told them they were probably better off to stay. when one of my freshmen became a proctor, john asked me to talk to this young man, gates, bill gates. and i talked to him and talked to him, and he just kept saying i have this thing i want to do, and finally in frustration i told my friend let the dope go, y

. >> still relatively cheap, and i got off the phone with a real estate friend from prudential who remindslt to get a mortgage right now, so when you want to talk about how the government messed something else up, it's the government restrictions right now that made things very difficult. he points out that as of january 1st of this coming year, you have to prove your income in a different way. while the mortgages are cheap, they are still very difficult to get. he also reminds me, a story i'm sure you corveeded, is the fact the jumbo mortgages for pricier homes are less expensive than the conforming mortgages. this is a huge story. he reminds me the territory was themed for. >> what happens with the demand for housing down, loans hard to come by, ease up on restrictions and standards for lending? >> well, we know the answer is probably not, but, also, remember that demand possibly came down because the fact prices have started to come up. >> not at all surprised to see lending standards, borrowing standards reduced. >> that would be a great thing. >> you think? >> wonderful. >> getting us

look for rison is doing now is de- risking and it has sold off its pensions to another company, prudential in this case, to avoid paying the premiums to the pbgc. so now it is not guaranteed to the rest of the employees. i got out and i took the money and left. >> so people after you are in even worse situations? >> those collecting annuities now are not collecting it from the other mother company, they are collecting it from prudential. which does not guarantee it and is not covered by the pbgc. it is called "derisking." >> you were nine months shy of retirement. what would that have given you? >> more dollars for my medical benefits. >> wouldn't have increased the size of your pension? >> yes. >> doctor mitchell, you made an incredibly important point about the potential benefits for some people of delayed claiming benefits under social security. and obviously we see a significant number of seniors collecting social security at age 62 and sometimes for excellent reasons. some of them may be working and physically very demanding jobs. some may need that income. but we know that doctor joh

he is speaking in washington around 9:30 on macro prudential policy, which is a fancy name for other kinds of tools to try and work on the economy. it will be interesting to see if he makes any comments given the spotlight that has suddenly shifted on him. >> greg epp wrote, it is amazing people can form such firm views about summers with relatively little information about what he really would have done as fed chairman. >> do you think we knew him or not? >> hardly? >> i think that he is associated with glausster. i don't know if you have seen the blooper reels of the guy. he speaks his mind. that's the last thing you want out of a fed chairman. it is great as an eternal adviser. first, it was completely inept. didn't expect that from the president. then, elizabeth warren is on that committee. who did summers most anger? women at harvard. who is represented in the senate? a woman who taught at harvard. she wasn't even -- she hadn't even talked about it yet. can you imagine those hearings? >> there are some people that are saying, if it was important to the president or important to

upgrades from barclays on a couple big names, metlife and prudential.long run. once again, the dow is up 84 points. >> thank you very much for that. in less than 30 minutes the house foreign affairs committee will hold a hearing on the obama administration's response to syria. we have two congressmen joining us who have different opinions. brad sherman who supports military action and republican congressman scott dejar lay. congressman sherman, you are going to be in this hearing in a few moments. it sounds like you support some action, but it's going to come down to the wording of these resolutions, isn't it? >> absolutely. the resolution the president sent us on the 31st of august was dead when read. the president is talking about a limited action for a limited purpose and the text his lawyer sent over would have authorized troops on the ground for years if the president had chosen at some future time to do that. what we've got to authorize, if anything at all, is something that's limited and does not involve boots on the ground. >> congressman deshar