kicked off its two-day policy meeting, likely on the agenda international risk that could affect the u.s. economy. presumably including cyprus. as well as the improving u.s. job market, and strong housing sector. and as we wait for fed officials to wrap up their meeting tomorrow, it's expected they will leave interest rates unchanged. joining us to talk more about the fed, randall krosner, former fed governor and now professor of economics at the university of chicago. i've not had the benefit of being in those meetings. you have, and i'm curious to know, do you think cyprus came up? if so, how? and how would the fed governors and members of the fomc handicap its possible effects on the u.s. economy? >> it certainly would have come up, i think, if some analogies with iceland from a number of years ago. even a smaller country, only 250,000 people, not a million people, but it was something that we focused on. we worried about and tried to think of what the implications are. here it's clear the europeans have made i think a terrible mistake in making this proposal. that potentially could undermine

the u.s. stock market is the place to be. tell us why. >> well, i think as you were just talking about a second ago, the numbers in the u.s. economy continue to be better than most other places in the world. so say for a place to be, look at europe, it's more predictable. look at china. we do have a valuation level here that i think continues to be one that is actually kind of crazy to me in terms of attractiveness. it's crazy attractive. and i think that when you get great companies in the u.s. trading at 10, 12, 14 times earnings with 1, 2, 3, almost 4% yields in some cases versus what else is out there, it's not even a close call. >> i want to make a quick switch over to commodities. i know you're not a fan of gold. it closed just under $1600 an ounce. but you like other commodities. which ones and why? >> i think overall the economy is going to move up by china and the u.s. i think overall the commodities -- i don't expect the kind of run over the past decade when china was red hot, but i think i have the support level under the commodity markets. i actually would probably buy the stocks rather than commodities directly. if yo

. >> looking at the u.s. economy home builder confidence fell more than expected andor the third straight month. the national home builders said its home index fell points. builders say they are concerned about meeting increased demand for new homes because of bott bottlenecks in the system. not enough workers and building supplies. with us to talk about the outlook, brian westbury, chief economist of first trust advicers. brian, is this a case of an abundance of issue? is that what wobuilders are telling us? >> yes. after a surgery, it takes some time before everything starts to work right again. i think that's kind of what housing is going through. we have massive layouts. we literally shut down the entire industry. i mean, almost, and so, getting it started up again, i think builders are surprised by the strength of sales and wheat happening now is that there are bottlenecks appearing and there's a shortage of homes on the market. and this is creatin kind of good difficulty, if you will, for builders and for the h

second, the u.s. economy is healing economically, so we are seeing the housing market recover, the corporate recovering the household, europe has yet to find growth. and thirdly, the u.s. economy has a flexible exchange rate which allows greater flexibility. >> thank you very much, indeed, for joining us. >> thank you. >> and the leaders of cyprus aren't the only ones under pressure these days. still to come on tonight's program, francois has only been leading france for a year and his poll numbers are already iving cause for concern. >> the berlin wall has been pulled down to make way for a building project. it's a controversial move as steve evans reports. > it's one of the most visited sites in better in -- berlin. when communism collapsed, the wall served as a blank space for artists who flocked with paints and brushes. their work came to symbolize the new freedom and this became known as the east side gallery. in the early hours today, developers moved in and took out sections to get access to a site for

the u.s. financial system or the u.s. economy. on the benefits of being too an to fail, we do not have estimate. it is pretty difficult to control all the factors coming into determining the size of the subsidy. there is evidence financial markets are taking into account the possibility that large financial institutions will fail. you see financial spread in credit defaults swaps. you see discrimination among different institutions according to the bond market. there is evidence of market discrimination. that being said, i never meant to say to the senator, and i share her concern that it is a major issue, i never meant to imply the problem is solved and gone. it is not. it is still here. there is a lot of work. we are putting in the standards, the authorities from dodd-frank, we are working with international partners. i hope we will make progress because i agree with her 100% that it is a real problem that needs to be addressed, if at all possible. >> i would like to change the subject a little. your predecessor served as the fe

the u.s. economy is expected to have added another modest number of jobs last month, not enough to have significantly lowered the unemployment rate. >>> china added to the upside as numbers surge 20%. >>> the world's biggest economy bottomed out as the fourth quarter number comes in flat with the minus 1% estimate. >>> and passing grade, the fed says all but one of the biggest u.s. banks met capital thresholds in its latest round of stress tests. >> announcer: you're watching "worldwide exchange," bringing you business news from around the globe. >> ross and i are together sort of today. 50i78 here on set in london. ross, it looks like you're in upstate new york. >> yeah. do you like it? i think it's a little nicer than upstate new york, even on a gloomy, dreek, damp day in italy. if you're wondering where i am -- >> there is something to be said for being there on the coast of the eitalian shores, is it not? >> yes. lake como. >> tell us a little bit. there was some back and forth with nouriel, with

but so does the u.s. economy. >> bob, where does the growth come from at disney the coming three years? >> in our case it starts with creating intellectual property and experiences, and then leveraging that across multiple platforms and multiple territories. we benefit from technology making this great intellectual property available to more people more often more places. so the new platforms that we see will be mobile platforms. one example, a great opportunity for creators of intellectual property to reach people in new ways. also, we see great growth in the new franchises we have bought or we have created from pixar to marvel to "star wars." and of course outside the united states. we're seeing continued opportunity or growth in opportunity in the emerging world. >> let me wrap up on mickey, america's favorite character here. he'll be starring in a new series, a new series of short films that will begin rolling out in late june on the disney channel. >> we're announcing the creation of 19 new mickey mouse shor

the economy and creating jobs. i'll give you one. we talked a lot about travel and tourism to the united states. the more people that travel to the u.s., the better it is for the u.s. economy. so as a for instance, we talked about our visa policy. if we can do things to better facilitate people getting visas in different markets, then they will travel more. we're seeing much greater demand from markets like brazil, india, russia, china to travel to the u.s. if we make it easier for them to do that, then more people will come. so the president got behind this initiative wholeheartedly. they invested in the visa process in brazil, opening up more visa offices. more people are coming, particularly to florida, which we've seen and we benefit from but so does the u.s. economy. >> bob, where does the growth come from from disney in the coming three years. >> in our case it starts with intellectual property and experiences and leveraging that across multiple platforms in multd pell territories. we benefit from technology making this available in more places. one example, a great opportunity for the creators of intellectual property to reach

but despite the impressive run, there's an underlying tug-of-war being played out in the u.s. economy. >> we had a couple of huge risks hanging over the global economy for the last year. china had the hard landing, the euro break-up, would america fall over its fiscal cliff. none of those things happened. >> reporter: but several good things have happened including more signs today of a turnaround in the labor market. the number of people claiming initial jobless claims falling last week to a lower-than-expected 332,000. that following last friday's february employment report which showed the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since 2008. but while the outlook on jobs is improving, inflation is putting more pressure on u.s. businesses. producer prices or the cost of businesses to manufacture goods rose again in february, climbing nearly 1.7% in just the past year. pushed higher by rising gas prices. at the same time, the u.s. dollar has shown some relative strength, up 4% in just the past two months against the other major currencies. while a stronger dollar sounds great, it c

. >> but it could still spell big trouble for the u.s. economy and knock on effects for the whole world. alabama the clock is ticking. if no deal is struck, president obama will order the cuts known in washington jargon as the sequestered at the stroke of midnight. >> the case and taking to the american people and my strong hope is that we can once and for all these all this in a way that is equitable and a way that is focused on growth, in a way that provides opportunity for everybody in this country who is willing to work hard. >> but hopes are dwindling for a last-ditch compromise. republicans and democrats are still a engaged in a war of words over who is to blame. the cuts will affect 1/3 of all government programs. predictions vary on how much and how quickly they will impact everyday life. some estimates suggest 1 million jobs are threatened. the military will be hardest hit. the pentagon will be forced to cut spending by 8%. the international monetary fund is warning that the cuts could slow u.s. economies. >> everybody is wondering what

do you think that shift is beneficial to the u.s. economy? >> i don't think i know the answer to that question. certainly the financial system, i could argue in two ways, so the u.s. economy grew pretty well between 1945-1975, 1980. the financial system was much simpler and didn't have a lot of exotic rigors and so on. so that would be one way to argue maybe all this extra financial activity is not justified. on the other hand the world is a lot more concentrated, lots more international, large multinationals that are connecting resources, investors and other countries, there's a lot more demand, so i think based on that and based on the innovations and information technology in a lot of industries you would expect financial services to be somewhat bigger. so i don't really know the answer to that question. my predecessor paul volcker explained the only contribution financial industry is the automatic teller machine. i don't know the answer. a much bigger sector can be defined by the wider range of services globalized financial economic system

so even if the u.s. economy is a little soft and, let's be blunt, this has been a mediocre recovery, this is not by any stretch of the imagination a robust economic recovery, but corporations are very lean and getting profits and revenues from around the world so there is a little bit of a disconnect because the global nature of business today. >> ifill: domestically, is keeping unemployment rates relatively high, or at least not low, is that helping the corporate bottom line? >> there's certainly been lots and lots of layoffs in the middle of the crisis. they cut with an ax not a scalpel, but the flip side of that is that the productivity gains and the deployment of technology has allowed companies to do more with less of a head count so that efficiency factor is definitely an element and labor costs are much lower than they used to be. >> ifill: matt phillips and barry ritholtz, everyone was saying that the sequester debate that happened in washington was about cutting with an ax, not a scalpel. so if the sequ

the basic ideas around the world of the world is much better off when the u.s. economy is approaching full employment and is achieving price stability. and these policies are geared with that objective in mind. and i think to the extent that both the u.s. financial markets generate wealth in the u.s. that that likely is spilling over to the rest of the world and be constructive and supportive. and i think that's a very important part of the way the fed frames their asset purchase and quantitative easing programs. >> nathan, what is the chance that fedex is sooner than people think? >> i think wa we're seeing in the u.s. economy is pretty encouraging. and there is now a reasonable chance in the second half of the year that the fed might taper its purchases. which would mean instead of buying at $85 billion a month, maybe they buy at $50 billion a month. and to the extent that the economy is continuing to recover over the next year, i think there's a reasonable chance that during the first half of 2014, the fed might phase out its quantitative easing entirely. >> all righ

we'll look at what sequester means for the u.s. economy, jobs and the markets and how long it may last. >> tom: one bright spot for the economy: auto sales. february was another strong month of sales. >> susie: that and more tonight on "n.b.r." >> tom: before midnight tonight, the sequester takes effect. those automatic spending cuts will trigger federal government furloughs, cuts in government contracts and cut backs in federal services. congressional leaders met with the president this morning to talk about the situation, but no one expected a break through and no one was disappointed. our washington bureau chief darren gersh tonight on what happened and what comes next. >> reporter: by now, you know how this story goes. after the last-minute meeting at the white house, the speaker emerges grim-faced. >> the discussion about revenue in my view is over. it's about taking on the spending problem in washington. >> reporter: cut to the white house briefing room. the president says he's been reasonable. some tax cuts, some spending cuts and s

the second largest economy in the world. it collapsed. and then in the 1990s the u.s. nomy boomed. >> first we had a very severe recession in the early '90s. >> it wasn't very severe but we had a recession. we boomed in the 1990s. we already had our recession. swrap has been down for 20 years. if that's all we get i'll take it. the bottom line is what's driving -- >> the point i want to make is -- steve cortez no red herrings. look it's about american business my friend. that's the key point. government doesn't create jobs, businesses creates jobs. government crates the environment. you know i'm a supply sider. these ceos are all talking about this stuff. they got cash flow. good balance sheets. they are making pretty good money. they are worried about the rest of the world but they are not petrified of the rest of the world. again i'm asking you what your missing? are you ready to reconsider? >> no i'm not now and another reason is bond traders don't believe. i believe on the whole bond traders are smarter and more correct than stock traders. just today the u.s. govern

again living the good life in fact bonuses for wall street executives are up eight percent as the u.s. economy struggles r.t.l. looks inside the profits of the big banks and wall street coming up. and they are one of the largest banks in the u.s. but did bank of america hire security firms to monitor hackers an activist group associated with anonymous says they did will dive into the story in a few minutes. it's thursday february twenty eighth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching. live again today with significant new details in the case of bradley manning the young man accused of the biggest breach of classified documents in u.s. history pleaded guilty to ten of the twenty two charges against him he pleaded not guilty to aiding the enemy and that is the most serious charge against him today the alleged whistleblower spoke on the stand and read aloud a thirty five page statement where he defended his actions he said in his testimony today quote i believe the public release of these cables would not damage the u.s. however i did agree that the cables might be embarr

new york stock exchange climbed to a historic high this week showing signs of a recovery of the u.s. economypolicymakers and market players are also seeing encouraging data on the labor front. officials from u.s. labor department say the unemployment rate for february fell to 7.7% from 7.9% in the previous month. it's the lowest rate in four years. the rate has stayed below 8% for six straight months. u.s. employers added 236,000 jobs in the nonfarm sector. analysts expected 160,000 jobs. employment encreased in professional and business services and in construction and the health care industry. >>> we're back in 30 minutes with more of the latest. i'm gene otani in tokyo. for all of us here at nhk world, thanks very much for joining us. have a great day wherever you are.

also in this environment the u.s. economy is growing more like 2% and a lot less like 4 in that environment pricing is going to be challenged and the top line sales is not going to be universal for all firms. it will be balance sheet by balance sheet and case by case. security collection becomes far more important. >> i was going to say as you point out the profit growth picture has been pretty good but we are getting at the mature point in that cycle and the forecast is about 1% or 2% overall growth. there are always ways to make more money than the index tracking would lead you to believe. where do you think the pockets of possible better than average profits would be? >> so we do like equities. when you compare that to fixed income certainly in government space so we like equities and we like global equities. it will have to be a multi asset strategy which is kind of all of the above. looking at commodities and debt and equities and looking in companies in europe. there are good companies with strong balance sheets in euro

. >> reporter: a solid jobs report renewing hopes that the u.s. economy could be chugging along just fast enough to put americans back to work. economists are encouraged by this report but they're concerned that the strength may not last. that's why goldman sachs economist says the federal reserve is unlikely to change its easing monetary policy from this report alone. >> the question i think is more how many times months do you have to see to be convinced that is the underlying trend of job growth. if you have a long period at this kind of pace of course they would make some changes but really how sustainable is it and how are we going to be looking at this three or six months down the road. >> reporter: there were gains in construction and moving jobs, the service sector with retail education and health care leading the way added 179,000 jobs, but government employment dropped by 10,000, that could be a sign of things to come as the sequester spending cuts hit. overall, it's the third month in a row that job gains were above 200,000, but it brought back

a special in focus report on what's working in the u.s. economy, what's not, and why. >> good evening and welcome to our public television viewers. >> good evening, everyone. stocks reversed course and the dow is closing in on a new milestone. this comes on the first business day of the sequester, the start of billions in automatic federal spending cuts. investors bought up stocks, though, with the dow posting its second highest close ever, up 38 points to 14,127. it's just 37 points from its record high. the nasdaq added 12 and the s&p added 7 points. bob pisani has more on what helped drive today's action. >> reporter: the dow rallied nearly 100 points midday off its lows on not much news but it wasn't enough to hit historic highs which fell about 37 points short. we were led by financials. now we'll find out which ones pass key stress tests later in the week. oil and energy stocks also bounced off of their lows today but it wasn't really enough to overcome the growth scare around china. chinese authorities put the brakes on the secondary proper

a tremendous incentive to do what to commit more fraud to break the laws so who is managing the u.s. economy the government or the banks you know look at it as a fair question a lot of the management of the government of the government in the economy is sort of outsourced in a way towards the banks you know that's how tarp was originally run it was it wasn't that ok here we are u.s. government we have this these hundreds of billions of dollars we're going to save these banks we're going to save these banks for the purpose of we want the banks to put this money back into the economy to increase lending to businesses homeowners to get the economy rolling again but when they did it they didn't do it the way that you would think that you would if that was your goal would say ok banks j.p. morgan chase you know here's your twenty five billion dollars but when you use this you know you're going to agree that you're going to use it to increase lending and we're going to measure that or we're going to incentivize that or at least require it if not incentivize it and keep track of it like that's how

he's going to contributing not just to home depot but the u.s. economy. >> he's out there buying and spending? >> i say go and get a hose and he comes back with $500 of stuff. >> i've got to meet him because i do the same thing. i'm really looking forward this weekend to planting some grass seed. >> isn't it kind of early? >> it's okay, it will come up. so i look forward to spending some time at home depot. >>> nine days in a row of gains for the dow and a new pope in rome. whether you're catholic or not, it is an electrifying moment to see all of those people gathered there in vatican square rejoicing over a new leader. >> it was pouring rain. everybody was waiting to find out who this was going to be. i think from what mary was telling us, he sounds like he's at a crucial point for the vatican and it will be very interesting to watch what he does. >> the pope was announced about 2:00 p.m. eastern time and i bet they all went out and had a very nice dinner for us. >> that's it for us, "nightly business report" and we want to remind you this is the time

with lew about his role at treasury, the budget negotiations in washington and the challenges the u.s. economy still faces. >> reporter: treasury secretary jack lew in some of his comments in the new position, talking about the value of the dollar, the budget deficit and the economy. i began my interview with him by asking whether or not equities which have seen new highs are in what he would consider to be a bubble. >> the analysis i've seen doesn't give me reason to be worried right now. i think one of the lessons we learned from 2008/2009 is that even when things are not a problem, we always have to ask those questions. we need to make sure that we have the transparency to see what's going on. in firms and markets. we need to have the regulatory tools to deal with problems as they develop. that doesn't mean we should jump in when we don't see a problem. >> every treasury secretary serves at the pleasure of the president. you have no way of knowing how long you'll be in the office or how much time you'll have to do it. at the end of your tenure in the secretary's position, what is the shape

it is real, and that's been a great boost for the u.s. economy, and then this new shale oil such as what's happening in the state of north dakota which now produces more oil than ecuador which is an opec nation and the renaissance of what's happening in northeast ohio, for example, and in texas, so oil and gas from new sources definitely happening, as well as the deep waters of the gulf of mexico. >> i think a lot of people might be concerned that the unlocking of those assets in natural gas and oil shale will pose very serious environmental threats. what do you have to say about that? >> well, i think it has to be done this year talking about hydraulic fracturing, nickname of fracing, but it's a technique that actually has been around and used since the 1940s so it's not something new. it's just how it's being used today, and i think, you know, something unknown that's happening way under the ground, so it's easy to paint sort of a sensational picture about it, but it's an unbelievable tool for moving rocks slightly apart andutting sand in betwe

president obama in his weekly address discuss the u.s. economy. we will take a look at that now. we got february job numbers. 236,000 jobs added. the president is followed by senator sessions. >> hi, everyone. my top priority as president is making sure we do everything we can to reignite the engine of america's economic growth. yesterday we received some welcome news on that front. we learned that businesses added nearly 236,000 jobs last month. the unemployment rate fell to 7.7%. still too hi, but lower than when i took office. -- too high, but lower than when i took office. our manufacturers are bringing jobs back to america. our stock market has rebounded. numeral's are being built and sold at a faster pace. -- new homes are being built and sold at a faster pace. we need to keep that going. how do we make america a magnet for new jobs? how do we equip more people with the skills. to choir? how do we make sure -- with the skills that jobs require? that needs to be our north star. when big businesses are gaining more track, the last thing we should do is allow washington politic

after that, a discussion about the impact of automatic spending cuts on the u.s. economy. oregon senator ron wyden, the new chairman of the senate energy committee, will discuss energy issues facing the u.s., his agenda for the committee, and the president stresses for leading the epa and the interior department. sunday at 10:00 and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> at one point, steinbeck had to write a small paragraph that said basically, people are asking what happened with c harley. when he says week, it is feeling and john. -- elaine and john. somebody must've said, where is charley? he wrote, people have asked what happened to him, and when my lady joined me in seattle, he took this third position. he signed it. obviously, that never. in the book -- came up in the book. editors went in and expunged elaine from the west coast, almost 30 days of -- of her presence with john on the west coast. there were not and cannot. they were not studying america. there were on a vacation. >> build -- bill steigerwald argues that john steinbeck to summoning liberties that the novel can

i could say, well, the u.s. economy grew pretty well between 1945 and 1975, 1980, and the financial system was much simpler and didn't have a lot of exotic derivatives and so on. so that would be one way to argue that maybe all this extra financial activity is not justified. on the other hand, the world's a lot more complicated. the world's a lot more international. you have large, multi-national firms that are connecting resources, savers and investors in different countries. there's a lot more demand for risk sharing, for liquidity services, and so on. so i think based on that and based on the innovations that information technology has created in lots of industries, you would expect financial services to be somewhat bigger. so i don't really know the answer to that question. i think that my predecessor, paul volcker's claim, that the only contribution to the financial industry is the automatic teller machine, might be a little exaggerated. i know that some people have that view. but, again, i don't know the answer. i