i talked to warren buffett and he said the government deserves a high rate for its efforts to prevent the collapse of the financial system. i hope my colleagues will remember that. my question is on something i have been very critical of the fed in the past. that is consumer protection. the fed dropped the ball on consumer protection issues. i support the creation of a strong independent consumer protection agency. every day we find a new way. banks are in trouble. many of their profits are being squeezed. their reaction is to raise these fees. there has been a new report that has come out on atm fees. according to that report, the average fee rose 12.6% in 2009. that is a heck of a lot. plus, he not only will the bank owns the church -- -- bank owns the charge. over 7% of banks charge customers this feat. together with massive increases in credit card interest rates and these overdraft fees, consumers are bearing a burden disproportionately in maintaining the health of banks balance sheets. i believe the fed should conduct a thorough review of these fees to ensure consumers are prote

in warren buffett's opposition to the repeal of the estate tax, he said the repeal of the estate tax would be akin to choosing the 20 2020 olympic teams by picking the eldest sons of the gold medal winners of the 2000 olympics, because, quote, without the estate tax you in effect would have an aristocracy of the wealthy, which means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on her red it rather -- heredity rather than merit. america is and should be a mare tock cracy. estate tax help prevent a permanent aristocracy of the wealthy from arising in this country. some opponents of the estate tax claim that it forces families to hand over half of their wealth to the government. but the facts simply don't support this claim. the truth is that few estates pay any estate tax whatsoever and those that do pay less than 20% of the value of their estate. we also know that the claims of pam pant liquidation of farms is untrue. the american farm bureau federation acknowledged through "the new york times" that it couldn't find a single example of a farm to substaniate t

warren buffett warned that derivatives re weapons of financial mass dtruction.here re warnings from within the feral reserve board about the dangerthat were emerging in the mortge market and the subprime sector. there were warnings. i think -- it is t job of the federal serve to be on top of financl danger, to be skeptical abt speculative activityn the system, to both warn and to t. and it's chacteristic in advance of crisis that that is very diffilt to do, but it is their responsibility, and whe i agree with alice tt action a very, very large scale was warranted and carried out,n the wake of the cris i also think it's a mistakeo personalize this too muc ben bernanke plad a useful role, but so did t congress in extendg insurance on bank deposits. soid the president, in putting the exchange stabilition fund to work behind the commercial-paperarket. in many ways, this was aeam effort, and itould not be right to do what "timemagazine did today and sentially attribute it to the extraordinary pors of a single invidual. >> lehrer: alice rivlin also just said that he w

think above google, microsoft, warren buffett. these are all long-term players. there are people that have great wealth themselves in short-term game but they have not created great wealth for others. they are all people, even when i was on the board of walmart or the organization you love to hate but they have come a long way and employ 2 million people, 2 million jobs. they can pay people more and all that they are creating jobs and providing good reasonable prices to people. >> let me pushback if it is okay little bit. on the walmart thing, you were not saying they are bad but let me use it as an opportunity to amplify that. nobody said walmart had to be the judge. is a stepping job-- steppingstone jabr cooligize me crazy when somebody looks at is the-instead of a positive. because you are not happy, what i've found is if i don't feel good about me i'm not going to feel good about you and if i don't respect me i'm not going to respect you but the problem is not what we are doing. the solution the problem typically is staring us in the mirror. to it viewpoints

you know, the warren buffetts of our society are rare. they're few. the kind of consistent value investors who say i don't understand this so i'm not buying it. i mean, what's much more dominant is, you know, chuck prince the former ceo of citibank who famously said, well, when the music stops, i'm paraphrasing now -- he said something like when the music stops it's going to be ugly. there's going to be a reckoning but when the music is still playing you got to get up and dance because the citibank shareholder is going to have a hard time, you know, accepting that you're leaving money on the table that's there for the taking. while, you know, this momentum investing thanks to easy money and believing in these fantasy is going. people made a lot of money in the tech bubble buying stuff they didn't understand but didn't pencil up and went up. >> but there are some people and i'm specifically thinking about, for example, college endowments where there is a security, a safety aspect involved. in fact, there are a few college endowments that did much bette

, did i ever think i'd have a conversation with warren buffett, but there was i was in omaha at this steakhouse, and he is a d.c. public school graduate. and he said to me, you know, michelle, it is very easy to fix the problems in public education in america today. and i said, wonderful. please, tell me how to do it so i can run back to d.c. and start to implement that. and he said, all you have to do is make private schools illegal and assign every child to a public school by random lottery. so think about that for a minute. if we did that in d.c. which would mean that every ambassador's child, every ceo's child, every congressman's child and the president's children would all get assigned to a random dcps school by a lot lottery which would mean that a huge percentage would be going across the river to anacostia every day, you would never see a faster movement of resources from one side of the city to another as you would in that circumstance. and i guarantee you that very, very quickly we would have a system of excellent schools. so in my mind it's not a matter of is it possible

$10 billion over five years and that basically was to see people who have higher incomes, the warren buffett of the world ought to pay more for their prescription drug benefits under medicare than those in lower income categories and people went nuts on the other side they went nuts about that. and here we are talking about cutting 465 billion over a ten year period, 1 trillion of for ten years when it is fully implemented and it seems to me, mr. president, and i would say to my colleagues the oversight is going to have a lot of explaining to do to the american people about why $10 million in reductions plus in morrill, cool and disaster of monumental proportions but cutting half a trillion dollars out of home health care and nursing homes and hospitals and everything else somehow to pay for it is entirely new entitlement program, $2.5 trillion expansion somehow makes sense. >> i appreciate the comments from my colleagues and i think we are hearing all around the country we do need a kind of health care reform. we need to get costs under control. we need to have a patient centered reform, no

but you have to realize that warren buffett came on here a month ago and said that this economic crisisis the equivalent of pearl harbor. so they ask, what of the solutions? one of the main ones was the senate, the congressman, need to get together and not be butting heads. and i think the young people today need to recognize that republicans in particular do not want -- not only not see democrats succeed but they don't 1 bluecollar workers because they tend to be democrat and it is almost to the point of being traitors to me if they are just saying no to everything to force creation of new jobs in america. host: about 20 more minutes of your comments, unemployment, how it impacts college grads. a story on the death of paul samuelson, and i teach economics professor, no ball -- nobel winning theorist. the type of economics, the headlines in this morning's "wall street journal." paul st. alisyn, whose analytical work laid the foundation for a modern economics, died yesterday after a brief host: paul samuelson dead at the age of 94. pamela on the republican line. caller: i am a registered

i personally think warren buffett and people like jeffrey xdimmelt are the evilest peoplen the world.ng all these companies. they are the ones keeping money from the shareholders. the shareholders are trying to keep their heads above water and these people go in and buy a company and shoes -- sell it in a hurry and the average ordinary joe loses. the system is rigged. we of the state pension investment board, totally corrupt all over the country. they brought us everything from the junk bond kings to the savings and loan crisisw3 to the collapse of the so-called technology boom. these people are absolute fees. it is interesting they are all graduates of harvard. it is interesting. and immelt, as far as i'm concerned, g.e. capital is one of the biggest sum -- subprime lenders i would not buy general electric products if i had to. host: more from "the wall street journal" story on ken feinberg's plan to put a $500,000 salary cap on companies that accepted government funds. host: jodi in baltimore, democrats line. -- joe. caller: it is a disgrace how these executives get all this money a

warren buffett has appropriately dubbed the market of derivatives as financial weapons of mass destructionir roles necessary to close regulatory gap and to protect the american public. the commodity futures trading commission and the securities and exchange commission should be granted primary regulatory responsibilities for derivatives trading, both on and off exchange. all standardized and advisable derivative contracts should be traded on regulated exchanges and cleared for regulated clearing houses. these requirements would allow effective regulatory oversight and enforcement efforts. that would insure price discovery, open this, and transparency, reduce leverage and speculation, and limit counterparty risk. if any trading in the over-the- counter derivatives is permitted to continue, such trading should be limited to truly customized contracts between highly sophisticated parties, at least one of which requires such a customized contract in order to hedge its actual business risk. furthermore, if any continuing over-the-counter derivatives market should be subject to a robust regulato

we have warren buffett saying that he is offended that tax rates are so low. you have the hedge fund billionaire idling in his private learjet getting ready to shut off to his caribbean vacation. it is preposterous. to me, it is almost beyond logic. yet, we are faced with that position. the final feign is that i think that health care is different than everything else -- finally, i think that health care is different than everything else. the person that has the hammer seized the solution to require and mail. if you get fiscal people in that do not understand the extreme this function of our health-care system -- a dysfunction of our health-care system and do not have the knowledge, then you will end up bringing an ax to a patient that may only need an antibiotic. whether you believe the president's advisers say there is so much excess cost in our health-care system or the new england health care system says it is a hundred $50 billion annually, or someone else says it is over one trillion dollars annually, to just treat that as a fiscal problem deludes -- avo

had financial collapse and you did act quickly and i think you know, that, well, i talked to warren buffett. he said the government deserves a high grade for its efforts to prevent the collapse of the financial system and rescue the economy from imminent freefall and you played a major role there. i hope my colleagues will remember that. my question is on -- my first question is on something that i've been very critical of the fed in the past and that is consumer protection. as you know, i think the fed dropped the ball on consumer protection issues. i support the creation, senator dodd has proposed of a strong, independent consumer financial protection agency. now we're finding every day, we find a new way, banks are in trouble, we know that. many of them, their profits are being squeezed here and there and their reaction is to raise all kinds of fees and recoup on the backs of consumers. there has been a new report that's come out on atm fees released by bank rate.com. and according to that report, the average atm fee rose 12.6% in 2009 to $2.22. that's a heck of a lot. plus not only will

had financial collapse and you did act quickly and i think you know, that, well, i talked to warren buffetthe said the government deserves a high grade for its efforts to prevent the collapse of the financial system and rescue the economy from imminent freefall and you played a major role there. i hope my colleagues will remember that. my question is on -- my first question is on something that i've been very critical of the fed in the past and that is consumer protection. as you know, i think the fed dropped the ball on consumer protection issues. i support the creation, senator dodd has proposed of a strong, independent consumer financial protection agency. now we're finding every day, we find a new way, banks are in trouble, we know that. many of them, their profits are being squeezed here and there and their reaction is to raise all kinds of fees and recoup on the backs of consumers. there has been a new report that's come out on atm fees released by bank rate.com. and according to that report, the average atm fee rose 12.6% in 2009 to $2.22. that's a heck of a lot. plus not only will t

but you have to realize that warren buffett came on here a month ago and said that this economic crisise have is the equivalent of pearl harbor. so they ask, what of the solutions? one of the main ones was the senate, the congressman, need to get together and not be butting heads. and i think the young people today need to recognize that republicans in particular do not want -- not only not see democrats succeed but they don't 1 bluecollar workers because they tend to be democrat and it is almost to the point of being traitors to me if they are just saying no to everything to force creation of new jobs in america. host: about 20 more minutes of your comments, unemployment, how it impacts college grads. a story on the death of paul samuelson, and i teach economics professor, no ball -- nobel winning theorist. the type of economics, the headlines in this morning's "wall street journal." paul st. alisyn, whose analytical work laid the foundation for a modern economics, died yesterday after a brief caller: i am air registered republican, voted republican all my life. this year i voted for m