research associate at the massachusetts institute of technology and another member of our crosstalk team yellen the hunger all right gentleman crossed cross talk rules are not in effect for the first time. this program has a lot of debate on it and for the last program of the year i'd like to have a nice friendly chat with members panelist have been on this program before so with that in mind i'd like to go to you jim jim you've been on a couple of programs about north korea nonproliferation iran so i'm going to ask a very broad question about two thousand and how did the american empire do is it losing ground can it continue to manage for all its the world's problems i know a lot of americans hate the term empire but most of the world think thinks of it as an empire go ahead. of course of course they do well i think this was the year where america looked a lot inwardly because we had mid-term elections congressional elections that were a major political defeat for president obama and i think that's probably the big domestic political event this year look at across the globe certainly north kor

likewise, vice chair yellen said, i really compliment the staff on bringing together a lot of analysisa consumer oriented knowledge in terms of how they will understand differences in these provisions, and legal knowledge. it's a new set of responsibilities for us. in part, because of that, we should be particularly keen to listen to comments and hear people's perspectives. finally, the other principle is that it's not our job to substitute our judgment for the judgment of congress. congress has given us some clarity on rules and we should try to adhere as best we can to it. with that, i support the proposal. i would be particularly interested in comments on whether there's a viable, more pro competitive alternative to setting prices. consistent again with the legislation. an understanding the impact of the post rule on the broad -- impact of the proposed rule on the broad set of choices. >> i support the proposal and would like to add my compliments to staff. i think you've done an excellent job of identifying issues and posing the questions so we will get some very robust comments. t

yellen, good to see you. >> hi, brooke, good to see you aga again. out against two major measures in the u.s. senate, one is the s.t.a.r.t. treaty, that's that nuclear anti-proliferation treaty that president obama is trying to get done. newt asking 1.2 million members to oppose that and also asking them to block -- support republicans in blocking the appropriations bill bring up for a vote which funds the government to stay open, fascinating, of course, new england says in the criticism it threatens a shut down of the government if we don't accept this omnibus bill with all of its pork barrel spending. what is so ironic about that when new england was speaker, he may have been involved in shutting down the government himself. yes he was. no one knows the dangers of that better than new england. turning to the 2012 race, sarah palin has a little bit of news in a "wall street journal"/nbc news poll, she has her work cut out for her if she plans to run for president. the latest poll shows in a matchup between sarah palin and president obama, the presid

jessica yellen is standing by. [ male announcer ] open up a cadillac during our season's best sales eventreceive the gift of asphalt. experience the cadillac of crossovers, the striking srx. it's the one gift you can open up all year long. see your cadillac dealer for this attractive offer. backed by the peace of mind that only comes from cadillac premium care maintenance. the season's best sales event. from cadillac. whoa! that achy cold needs alka-seltzer plus! it rushes multiple cold fighters, plus a powerful pain reliever, wherever you need it! [ both ] ♪ oh what a relief it is! >>> all eyes on the white house this hour. let me show you a live picture of the white house there in case you haven't heard. your taxes will not, i repeat, will not be going up on the first of the year because president obama is about to sign that bill that we've been talking about for week and weeks that extends those bush tax cuts into the year 2012. we'll be bringing you this signing live as soon as we see the president pull out that pen and that bill. we've been talking about this for quite some time. we'