our crew this morning is ben stein and charles payne, dagen mcdowell, rob stein as well. charles, what do you make of that? >> this is a scary element. the only element i can think worse than this, you come home and another man's shoes sunder your bed. you know what's going on. listen, $145 million -- neil: i would be ok with the plumber. it's very difficult booking that dude. >> $145 million has been paid out on $2 billion. at the end of the day, i don't know how any of these politicians can say that -- and i have heard a couple of them talk about efficiency, but you can't use the word efficiency and government run in the same sentence. they just don't go together. this is scary as all get out. neil: the president is right. the cash for clunkers was much more successful than they thought so they couldn't keep up with the demand. you can argue they should have planned for that. the problem wasn't the lack of interest. it was too much interest. >> right. that sets an example for what could happen. if we got a public option with health care, will a lot more people wind up o

also joining us, an old friend of the program, rob stein, managing director at astar asset management. welcome. medicare celebrating its 44th birthday this week with more fraud charges. is it time to fix medicare first before we embark on this new system? >> are you kidding? you have to. this is like saying we'll redo the state rooms on a cruise ship. when the motor doesn't work, there's holes all in the boat. if they can't run medicare, they can't run a national health organization either. you have $60 billion in fraud, doctors ordering tests people don't need because they're scared of being sued without some type of medical fraud reform this thing falls apart. >> the numbers are astounding. the fraud allegations run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. in terms of just medicare. >> that's true. and medicare needs to be cleaned up and fixed. but i don't think it's an and/or. i think part of the whole health care reform or national health plan will include fixing medicare. in the boat analogy, you do need to paint the whole boat at one time if you don't want to be able to put the

. >> rob stein, you are not particularly bullish either. >> no. i don't think a drop like that is going to happen. you walk down the street and get mugged and lose 50%. i don't think you are going to walk down the street the same way again. that kind of -- kind of decline is not in the cards. i actually think we are going nowhere. get used to the prices you are seeing on the screen now. i think these are going to be the levels we trade at, 5%. several months, if not the rest of the year. >> and then it comes to what's the next catalyst. i mean, one way or the other. let's start with you, dan. sudden drop. is it just -- is it because we have come too far too fast? will there be a precipitating factor? >> i think that's part of it. the -- too far, too fast part important sure. i also think that the confidence in the full face and credit of the u.s. government is really starting to wane. not only internationally but here in our country. the challenge is that when -- when treasuries are -- half of the treasuries are purchased by the fed, that's not fu