. >> also, my name is steve hoffman of mediation services. on the question of regulation, prior to the year 2000, virtually all of the states regulated insurance with two key factors, one is if you write insurance and take in premiums, you ha to set aside a certain percentage of the premiums you take in in reserves because theoretically and in reality, people are buying insurance to protect themselves against loss, and therefore you can't treat all opinions as 100% profits. and you had to have an insurable interest, act i can't buy fire insurance on your house or life insurance on your life because i don't have -- in the year 2000, congress, obviously urging the financial community, deregulated, they trump all those laws with a federal statute that said y can write credit default swaps which is insurance. we are going to preempt all the states from regulating it and requing reserves. and we are also going to ensure that all the states have -- in stead of if you loans and debt, if goldman sachs has the debt of some entity and they are worried

. >> my name is steve hoffman, the mediation services.n the question of regulation, prior to the year 2000, virtually all of the states regulated insurance and there were two key factors. what is, you write insurance and you take in premiums, you have to set aside a certain percentage of the premiums you take in in reserves because the radically and in reality, people are buying insurance to protect themselves against loss. therefore, you can't treat all the premiums as 100% profits. that was number one. number two, you had to have an insurable interest. i can't buy fire insurance on your house or i can't buy life insurance on your life because i don't have an insurable interest. in the year 2000, congress at the obviously urging of the financial community, the regulated. they trump all of those laws, federal statute which said in effect, you can write credit default swaps which is insurance but we are going to say it is not insurance and we are going to preempt all the states from regulating it and requiring reserves and we are going to

let's bring in stu hoffman, chief economist, pnc financial, and steve rijuto, at mizuho securities, and diana olick is with us. stu hoffman, is the recovery story now coming in faster and stronger thanl folks would have expected? >> in some cases, it is, larry. a little stronger. but it's only one month. i would read it as, you know, we -- this is a clear sign the recession is over. this t-rex of a recession we had is over. we're beginning a recovery. people can debate whether it will be a w and it will relapse next year. but for right now, the home price, the home sales, the industrial production data, the durable goods today say that july was a pretty good month for the economy, and probably august will be even better. >> i mean, steve, some people are saying 3 to 4% in the third quarter in which we find ourselves ending september 30th, and i want to ask you, steve, a., if you agree with the stronger than expected scenario÷ and b., what is your reference to the fed?÷ are they going to have to tighten sooner or raise interest rates sooner? >> basically, i don't believe in the stronger

deep with us from deep in the maine woods, steve liesman, stuart hoffman, chief economist at pnc andrg. guys, let's try and go around the horn and get everybody's opinion in on this. diane, we'll start things off with you. i know you're a little more pessimistic than the consensus. >> i am, although i think we'll recoop in august. i'm looking for a 400,000 decline in jobs. i think we're not out the woods on the jobs number but we'll be getting better in summer with the pick up in car manufacturing. this is a still a tough time. i would be delighted to be wrong this month. >> bob, what do you think? >> i'm down 275, 290, something like that. i think diane's point about picking up in august, the seasonals are tough in the auto industry and how it will effect the number but i think we all agree that it will improve in the months ahead and i'm hoping we'll see improvement. >> mark, what about your number? >> i think 300,000. i think that's a reasonable number, given ui claims and given the ism surveys. the two other key statistics are average hourly earnings. they were flat last month. t