dollars put the economy back on track. helped by the government's stimulus, auto sales grew to 18 million units a year. china is now the world's biggest auto market. the government's 12th five-year plan sets a goal of raising annual output of automobiles to 25 million units within five years. spending on infrastructure like highways and railroads revitalized not only coastal cities, but inland provinces, spurring growth across the country. china is now leading the global economic recovery. once called the factory of the world, china has emerged as a market of the world. earlier this month, the asian development bank raised its estimate for china's economic growth this year from 9.6 to 10.1%. china's surplus and foreign reserves of $2 trillion are prompting ever louder calls for beijing to let the yuan appreciate more. its rapid growth is causing problems at home and abroad. rising consumer and property prices, income disparity and rising greenhouse gas emissions. economic success it seems comes at a price. as the economy gr

we talked about substance and impact on the economy. to talk about the politics of tax cuts this week and the president's difficulties with his liberal base. savannah guthrie, something extraordinary on friday. president clinton comes to meet with president obama. they meet privately, presumably to get some advice. and then a funny thing happens on the way to the exit. that is, they find their way into the briefing room. watching this scene unfold was great washington theater. here was a portion of it. >> i'm going to let him speak very briefly and then i actually have to go over and do some -- just one more christmas party. he may decide he wants to take some questions, but i want to make sure that you guys heard from him directly. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. president. first of all, i feel awkward being here. and now you're going to leave me all by myself. >> here is what i'll say. i've been keeping the first lady waiting for about half an hour. so, i'm going to take off. >> i don't want to make her mad. pl

it is not just a matter of growing the economy. we have to make certain we are moving forward with the kind of jobs that can sustain a family and help them to grow the important part of the community. my fear is we seem to be falling behind. our workers are more productive. their wages do not reflect it. we need to have fair compensation, living wage, good benefits, a decent treatment of workers, and we can do that and still be competitive on a global basis. tavis: senator dick durbin, always foru as sharing your insights. another view about the future of the democratic party with former senator gary hart. stay with us. tavis: gary hart is a former u.s. senator from colorado, a democratic presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988. he is a professor at the university of colorado and an author of "the thunder and the sunshine." he joins us tonight from denver. senator, good to have you back on the program, sir. >> it is a pleasure, mr. smiley. tavis: let me start with the question of the democrats and how or if in fact they can get thei

one, it stimulates the economy. number two, middle-class incomes have declined over the last decade. first decade under the bush tax cuts, middle-class incomes declined. first decade since world war ii. under the clinton rates, middle-class incomes increased rather significantly. and, second, we would say this. but at the same time -- and this is the conundrum we have economically here -- we have a large deficit. and the question is, how do you reduce the deficit? again, i think both of us agree we should reduce the deficit. it seems to me that about the best way to reduce the deficit is not to give $300 billion of tax breaks to the 315,000 americans whose income is over a million dollars. by the way, i would remind my colleague, there are 160 million people. my colleague from alaska has reminded me. 160 million people file tax returns. only 315,000 -- by quick math, that's about .03% -- have an income over a million dollars. but over the last decade under the bush tax cuts, those people have garnered all the increa

even though today, the economy is much better diversified. we should expect to improve stability if the fed has no effect. the fed has had a naturally stable economy to deal with. in the economy has been less stable. fine-tuning has turned out to be destabilizing in practice. we can try measuring stability in another way. if you read the old recessions' using the old statistics as christina reported in 1999, the average length of recession is one month longer in the pre- world war one area. if we at the recent recession, the case for the fed's failure becomes even stronger. let me say that the bailout during the recent crisis did not save the economy. they sharply increase its bad incentives for financial markets going forward. i am not saying that we should go back to the system we have before the fed. it was far from a free financial markets. various regulations weakened the banks in that. setting the stage for the three panics i mentioned. congress concluded that the system was broken and a serious change was needed to improve it. instead o

the fed had naturally more stable economy to deal with the matter is watch, the economy has been less stable because they have tried to do too much with monetary policy. fine-tuning has turned out to be destabilizing in practice. we can try measuring stability by looking at the frequency and length of recessions. if you look at the old free sessions using the new statistics as christina romer reported in 1999, the average length of recessions is one month longer in the post-world war two era than before that. she said that in 1999. with we had in the recent recession, the case for the fed's failure becomes even stronger. as an aside, let me say that the feds bail out during the recent crisis did not save the economy. they have sharply increased the bad incentives for reckless bank and financial market behavior going forward. i am not saying we should go back to the execs system we had before the fed. that system was far from the best available. various regulations weekend of the banks in that time, setting the stage for those three panics i mentioned. after the panic of 1907, congress

and that's tonight's "market focus." >> tom: the u.s. economy has been growing for more than a year, even though new jobs remain scarce. instead, many companies have been finding ways to do more with less. tonight's "word on the street"-- "uncovered." bryan ashenberg is the portfolio manager of breakout stocks at thestreet.com. he joins us from the nasdaq. >> tom: brian, welcome to "nightly business report." nice to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> tom: you've been looking to uncover companies that may be poised to pop if the economy can pick up steam from here. we're going to talk about three of them, but before we do that, what separates this trio from the rest of the market? >> playing a stock for a cyclical recovery have be profit table. successful businesses can emerge from these periods more successful because they're coming out lean and mean. >> tom: we'll begin with b.e.a. aerospace. a supplier to the airline manufacturing industry, b.e.a.v. close to a two-year high. >> we're seeing an increase in air travel. more people are flyin

the global economy. because as you know, so many countries are dependent on the united states consumers, and will get into it very quickly competitive currency devaluation. we fool ourselves if we think we get china to depreciate its currency. but even more to the point, all that as i suggested a moment ago requires american settle for lower standard of living because everything they summon from abroad would cost more. and it is unrealistic short-term strategy in any event. >> perhaps in the short term that the orthodox, long-term is the solution. >> but why is that important? because long-term is the only solution. most economists and the policymakers in washington refused to look at the distribution of income. when i say to you that we have now, in fact when we last looked in 2007, 23.5% of total national income going to the top 1% in the united states. compare that to the late '70s. we had at that time 9% of total national income going to the top 1%. the last time in this country where we had anything

immigrants are a net contributor to the economy. is easy to be distracted by the fiscal analysis which is about tax revenues and expenditures. entire categories of people at a certain phase in their life and a certain period in their economy are net users of tax resources. as it happens since we're running a big federal deficit right now, we're all net users of resources. if you add us you will up together, we're not producing enough revenue to cover the expenses of the government. people that are older, children, those are categories of people who are net drains on the economy. that's a fiscal analysis, not an economic analysis. so point number one for your friends who are not persuaded that immigration is a good thing, get them off the fiscal analysis and ask them to focus on the economic analysis. that's a bigger picture analysis. yes, a child of 7 costs money because they attend school and no, they don't work. the last time i checked, that was a good thing. later when they go on to do wonderful and innovative things, whether it'

but then what is the economy? you see, the median wage and i keep going back to this because i think if you define an economy from the ground up, as what do most people experience in terms of their wages in their benefit, median wages and benefits through the 19 -- late 40s, 50s, 60s and early 70s kept going up at a very remarkable pace. and then what happened in the late 70s, particularly after an 1880, stagnation. >> a lot of people felt at the end of the 70s but they were experiencing was not very pleasant and they voted for reagan on the basis of that. and you're suggesting that somehow the system was subverted because of inflation caused by oil. if that mobley simplistic? perhaps a bit salient of culture economics. >> is that not overly simplistic, if that not a trick question you just asked? and income you look at the data. i think the economy from the standpoint of the average working krishan was actually functioning very well, except for the late 70s inflation brought on by oil oil crisis. after we saw afte

i think the economy is already growing faster right now. e are going to revise up last quarter's g.d.p., gross domestic product to about 3% growth. that's the long run average. that's what the united states has grown for the last 100 years on average. this quarter, the fourth quarter, we think we're going to grow 4.5% to 5%, and next year, we think we're going to grow 4%. and, by the way, all of this is happening, this faster growth, even though the fed did not start its quantitative easing until december. so it has nothing to do with this quantitative easing. >> susie: all right. we just have a little bit of time left. let me check on a couple of things. is that growth fast enough that people who don't have jobs will be able to get them? >> sure. not everybody all at once. it takes a long time for the unemployment rate to come back down. but we've created jobs for 11 months in a row. not quite enough to bring the unemployment rate down, but people are finding jobs. it is good news. it's not great news, but it's good news. >> susie: we're he

louis talks about what to expect from the economy. also, the republican agenda and the a coming 112th congress. later, on q&a, john burns, foreign correspondent and london bureau chief for "the w york times." >> joining us for "newsmakers" is james bullard. we have a lot to talk about. i will let scott taken from here with the third question. >> the labor report showed a huge blow to job growth. the unemployment rate increased to 9.8%. does that change your perception of the recovery in this country? >> it was a weaker dollar to report that we would have liked. it is just one number. it is disappointing. hopefully, we will get better jobs numbers going forward. i will say that i think the jobs report was out of context from some of the other numbers we have seen on the economy, which seemed to indicate a little bit more strength. particularly, the holiday season is shaping up to be reasonably good. we will just have to see. it is a disappointing jobs report. >> last month, the federal reserve announced a program to try to boost growth

looking at 2012, if it works as advertised and gets the economy growing faster, getting the unemploymentad of staying stable or going up, that sets up an economy for 2012. it's good for obama's re-elections chances. the bottom line is heç got the republicans to go along with this by giving him what they wanted. tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. this puts off the ugly a rit tick of doing something about the deficit, which is going to involve taking stuff away instead of handing it out. and i don't think there's evidence that he can convince the republicans to accept tieer taxes as almost everybody thinks are going to be part of the solution here. when are we going to see the numbers start to drop and does this serve as a second stimulus. now the interesting thing is that before the tax deal was signed we had seen the early evidence that the economy was picking up steam. we did have a disappointment on the jobs last month as you say. but retail sales in november turned out strong. so people are already more optimistic about next year. the stimulus package, and that is what it is. it raises th

so how is the economy looking to you, how is it going? >> certainly we had a good start to the peak season. the retailers seem to be doing better than they expected one or two months ago, so it's going in the right direction. for us the season is compressed now, the last seven or eight days so much of the business is done. part of that is the detailing and more people buying on the internet. they wait until later. so we won't know the total outcome until after christmas, next week and a half is very important for us. but a good start. >> reporter: mr. davis davis of u. p. s., thank you for your time. >> appreciate it. >> tom: here are the stories in tonight's n.b.r. newswheel: european debt worries had u.s. stocks under pressure today. we'll have more on europe in a few moments. meanwhile, the dow fell 19 points, the nasdaq lost 10 and the s&p 500 was off six points. trading volume rising to over a billion shares on the big board and nearly 1.9 billion on the nasdaq. no inflation in sight. that's the upshot of the latest consumer price ind

the economy is becoming the obama open -- the obama economy. strengthens the democratic position that you should extend unemployment benefits. it strengthens the republican position that you cannot raise taxes when everything is so weak. host: employers added only 39,000 jobs last month, a sharp decline from the number of jobs created last month. -- created in october. private companies, the backbone of the economy, created 50,000 jobs. guest: let me put this into a little bit of a context. there has been lagging optimism. people have been feeling like maybe the worst is over and maybe we will add jobs. they have -- there have been indications that people are doing more shopping at the stores and online. there has been a little bit up irrational optimism. the october numbers were not great, but not so bad. it look like there was momentum for hiring. this report comes out and it was so bad that you almost question as to whether there was a misreading. the numbers are what they are. usually, the labor department does a good job of capturing what

not for the economy. did president reagan to any altering of course or was he pretty much set on course? guest: you have a somewhat similar story. ronald reagan did suffer a setback in 1982, the democrats gained seats. they had already held the house of representatives and lost the senate in 1980. the democrats were strengthened. the key reagan budget bill had already passed, the institutionalized structure for taxes. reagan was forced to back off on a number of items. like a lot of republicans, going back to the 1930's, they had wanted to reform or privatize or duel with social security. he was forced to back off of that effort. instead ronald reagan moved to eventually do in the social security commission that came up with much more modest reforms that kept the basic system intact. so ronald reagan did a lot of compromising and is remembered to these days as a true blue republican conservatives. but he did his share of negotiating. got a lotn o'neal of negotiating done. guest: portland, maine. you are my

players walk this spring and what a strike could mean for the n.f.l. economy. >> susie: a major crackdown on financial fraud: the justice department arrested hundreds of people for ponzi schemes and other investment scams. over 500 people face criminal or civil charges as part of the 3.5-month investigation dubbed "operation broken trust." there are an estimated 120,000 victims, with $10.4 billion in losses. now "broken trust" is the first national probe of investment frauds targeting the public. u.s. attorney general eric holder says today's crackdown should be a warning to scammers. >> to anyone attempting to or operating an investment scam, we will use every too at out disposal to find you, to stop you, and to bring you to justice. cheating investors out of their earnings and savings is no longer a safe business plan. >> susie: holder will continue to fight financial fraud. he plans to do that by helping boost financial literacy and by putting more fraud agents on the beat. >> tom: the real estate slump has by-passed one corner of the country-- the corn bel

and the economy created just 39,000 jobs, well below analysts' expectations. the unemployment rate rose to 9.8%, up 0.2%, the highest number since april. the market started december with a bang on wednesday. the bulls firmly in control with a 250-point surge on the dow after a slow start to the week. the dow continued higher on thursday for the best two-day surge since july. the markets climbed again on friday. a successful start to the holiday shopping season. sales on cyber monday surpassed $1 billion, the heaviest online shopping day in history, an increase of 16% year-over-year. it follows a strong black friday, the kickoff to the shopping season. >>> another encouraging sign for the economy, auto sales starting to speed up. gm and ford up more than 20% in november, compared to a year earlier. toyota and chrysler was up as well. google is close to acquiring groupon for $6 million. groupon sends its members daily discounts for more than 200 goods and service. >>> the job numbers perhaps the most closely watched piece of data these days. joining me now is gle

the huge difference between that is the economy was growing was doing well. ll clinton had made bad management decisions in the two years he had run up, a series of things travelgate, don't ask, don't tell, a bunch of things he could then adjust and make different decisions. barack obama is in an economy that's only worsened since he's been president of the united states. he can only solve his problem managementwise if the economy improves. if the economy doesn't improve, he can have a thousand meetings with the republicans -- >> in an attempt to make the economy improve on its own. >> it's a very modest attempt and again the timing thing -- you have to think that the timing thing is critical. something that makes the economy improve for awhile and gives up the gains which is kind of what's in there. >> the last act, you know -- keep acting throughout -- >> borrow again -- >> you heard what david axelrod said, that, no, this is temporary. it's not going to be permanent. do you believe that? >> no, i mean it's -- >> do you believe it? >> really? >> what they di

the question, what's the economy? you see the median wage -- and i keep going back to this because i think if you define an economy from the ground up, as what do most people experience in terms of their wages and their benefits, median wages and benefits, late 40s, '50s, early '60s kept going up as a very remarkable pace and then happened in the late '70s particularly after 1980, stagnation this was not -- >> but a lot of people felt at the end of the '70s what they were experiencing was not very pleasant and they voted for reagan on the basis of that. and you're suggesting here that somehow a system was subverted because of inflation caused by oil. it seems -- is that not an overly simplistic explanation of carter economics. >> is that overly not simplistic? is that just a rhetorical question. >> i'm sorry. >> i don't think it's overly simplistic. you look at the data i think the economy from the standpoint of the average working person was functioning very well except for by the late '70s double-digit inflation brou

probably the most important economic effect of local hire on our economy is the spending effect. san francisco residents employed here will spend more of their wages and salary here compared to commuters from bay area communities, whose paychecks leave with them when they go back to their own communities. the greater level of spending will multiply through our economy after hand a greater impact on total spending. it is the worker who goes home and goes to third street are the fill more, buys groceries and shoes and clothes for the family, and that means the money will stay here in the community, be recycled back and have multiple sources of benefit for people in our communities. also, for example, the red level spending will multiply throughout the economy and have a greater impact on total spending and employment. according to dr. -- the professor of economics at san diego state and the team that completed the labor market analysis for the city, it is around 1.51. at the metropolitan level, it is around 1.73. the difference between the two multipliers can be interpreted as the

but also for the global economy because it's a big part of the global economy to boost growth and findy way to avoid possibility of a so-called double difficult is the main priority. but you're right. in the median and long term notice the idea. >> charlie: do you think we're past the idea of slipping into a double recession. >> well, we don't believe that we do double dips. i won't say the double dip is impossible. they have the question of what i just mentioned, the emerging countries. you have the global advances we just mentioned too. if all these problems at the same time began to explode, then the double dip. >> charlie: is the biggest risk there being able to contain issues of sovereign debt? for example, meaning sure that no contagion that spain had than either ireland or greece, correct. >> yes. >> charlie: therefore if you can't contain pressure on spain and deal with their own debt issues, then -- >> true. on the other hand you have other resources to deal with. the question is really an institutional question for them to be able to deal with the difficulties appearing in on

officially the economy has been recovering since june of 2009. we're past the -- we're a year and a half into this recovery according to experts. businesses are doing better. the fact that so many people simply won't have enough money to retire, is that a sign the recovery is failing to reach individuals or is this just the way we've been behaving for years? >> it's the way we've been behaving for years. unfortunately it's only getting worse. and i view how prepared people are for retirement as the ultimate yardstick of where we are. and you can talk about record profits for companies and you can talk about stabilization of financial markets but if the kind of numbers we're talking about that people will retire on is very troubling. >> did we wake up after this financial crisis? are people going to realize they have to save and can't just have a house that goes up in value? >> i said this before. one of the values that i believe, no matter how painful it is, out of this financial condition we're in right now, it forced americans to go back to old

i think the economy is starting to move ahead. the consumer spending -- we're getting some boost in jobs. consumer confidence is up. i look for growth to continue to build through next year. >> susie: you were telling me if the trade numbers keep up, it could boost your forecast for economic growth. tell us a little bit about what you're looking for in terms of growth numbers. >> i'm looking for 3.5% in the fourth quarter. it could move up to as high as 4% if the trade numbers stay in this area. and i think we could do 4% growth next year. which is a high-side number for what people are predicting. >> susie: yeah, because most of the economists are talking about under 3%. let's say you're right and we do get those kind of numbers, what does that mean for the job market? will we see more companies hiring? >> we will see more hiring. i think that's an important thing. and i think the productivity numbers aren't going to be quite as good as people think. so we could see a surprise what job growth is able to do and knock the unemployme

s stuart hoffman says the u.s. economy should be stronger. >> if anything i call it a half- speed economic recovery in the sense that the gains, not only this year, but probably again next year, aren't the typical rip-roaring recovery that you would expect after such a deep recession, as has been more typical of the what the u.s. economy over the last 40 years. >> reporter: now, for the bad news. if you guessed it will be the sorry state of the labor market, you're correct. most economists agree the unemployment rate in 2011 will remain above 9%. drew matus of u.b.s. says what many americans don't realize is that we can have an expanding economy and a lousy job picture. >> the labor market's going to be one of those stories that's a little on the weaker side. it's not to say we won't adding jobs, but rather the unemployment rate is going to stay high. and, i think that's something we're just going to have to learn to live with, particularly if they continue to extend unemployment benefits. that will keep the unemployment r

, not just the u.s. economy. >> pelley: but it's also true that the fed was the regulatory watchdog of the largest banks when crazy lending led the world to crisis. is there anything that you wish you'd done differently over these last two and a half years or so? >> bernanke: well, i wish i'd been omniscient and seen the crisis coming, the way you asked me about. i didn't. but it was a very, very difficult situation, and the federal reserve responded very aggressively, very proactively. >> pelley: how did the fed miss the looming financial crisis? >> bernanke: there were large portions of the financial system that were not adequately covered by the regulatory oversight. so, for example, a.i.g. was not overseen by the fed. >> pelley: the insurance company. >> bernanke: the insurance company that required the bailout was not overseen by the fed. it didn't really have any real oversight at that time. neither did lehman brothers, the company that failed. now, i'm not saying the fed should not have seen some of these

and at the time when the economy is just about to recover. now keep in mind, i've gone through two years, chuck, where the wrap on me was i was too stubborn and wasn't willing to budge on a whole bunch of issues. including, by the way, health care where everybody here was writing about how despite public opinion and despite this and despite that, somehow the guy is going to bulldoze his way through. that's my point. my point is i don't make judgments based on what the conventional wisdom is at any given time. i make any judgments based on what i think is right for the country and for the american people right now. and, you know, i will be happy to see the republicans test whether or not i'm itching for a fight on a whole range of issues. i suspect they will find i am. and i think the american people will be on my side on a whole bunch of these fights. right now i want to make sure the american people aren't hurt because we're having a political fight. and i think that this agreement accomplishes that and as i said, there are a whole bunch of t

i thank the gentleman for yielding, i thank him for his leadership on fairness, for growing the economy, reding the deficit and creating jobs. that's some of what is done in this bill. i think i want to use my time to make some distinctions here. president obama and the democrats have supported initiatives to protect the middle class. we are fighting for the middle class, we are wanting to grow the economy, and to create jobs and reduce the deficit. so we must subject whatever legislation that comes before us as to how it meets those tests. th legislation on the democratic side of the ledger does create jobs. and the demand helps redeucethe deficit. for example, unemployment insurance provisions in the legislation, economists across the board tell us, return more money to the economy than almost any initiative you can name. people spend that money quickly, these are people who are looking for work, who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, their unemployment insurance is spent immediately injecting demand into the economy, creating jobs. low income tax credit, refundable. child

but what is the cost to the economy? the cost to the economy is $150 billion. $150 billion. that will have to be borrowed, probably from china, to finance a tax cut so that very, very wealthy in america can go out and buy two mercedes-benz in the next two years, maybe they want a new villa in the south of france. is this going to stimulate our economy? we think not. we think this proposal is a bad deal for america. now let me just show you one other piece of this, that is that this tax cut also will cause america to go further in debt. the deficit is a very serious problem. but this tax cut has already been pro-- the proposal has been proved to not work. and the proof is in the decade 2001 to 2010. during the clinton period work taxes higher, these cuts were not in effect, 22.7 million jobs were created. the proposal to give to the wealthy $150 billion additional tax relief generated one million jobs in the decade 2000 to 2010. so right there, this historic proof that these tax cuts don't necessarily create economic growth and the only economist that will say they do are the