i'm mark zandi. >> tom: that's "nightly business report" for thursday, february 2. i'm tom hudson. good night, everyone, and good night to you, too, susie. >> susie: good night, tom. i'm susie gharib. good night, everyone. we hope to see all of you again tomorrow night. "nightly business report" is made possible by: captioning sponsored by wpbt captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org test test

economist mark zandi isn't focused on that $700 billion figure. he says what matters is breaking the momentum of distressed sales driving down home prices. and this settlement could help do that if it nudges the number of distressed sales in the right direction. >> once that share is moving south, house prices will stabilize and start to rise, and once hou prices start to rise, then those people who are underwater, they've got an incentive, a reason to hold on to their home. >> reporter: another big question around this settlement is who takes the financial hit when a bank cuts the principal on a mortgage. critics say it won't be the banks. >> they have a choice between modifying one of their own loans and modifying a loan that an investor owns, they're going to modify the loan that the investor owns. >> reporter: as you might imagine, the attorneys general who hammered out this deal disagree. >> there are some homeowners that can't make the full payment, but they can make a part of it. and the part that they make is more than the investor would r

mark zandy is a pretty smart guy. he has a ph.d. from the ivy league school of pennsylvania, but rush thinks he knows better. rush wantses the president to fail at all costst aaccusing them of monkeying the numbers is desperate psychotalk. >> we're so grateful for the victory here today in a trial, and we look very soon to californians being able to wed again. >> a major victory for marriage equality in california. proposition 8 has been overturned, but there's a long way to go. gay rights activist lieutenant dan choi and harris perry are here with reaction. in wisconsin more bad news for scott walker isn't stopping the governor from raising cash. >> to counter the money from washington we need help from people in the wisconsin but across the country. >> john nicholls is here to fill us in. the komen controversy just gets bigger. >> karen did not have anything to do with this decision. >> i was asked to look at options. >> teri o'neal of the national organization of women is here. >>> this is the greatest opportunity i've seen in ci

. >> zandi? come on. >> we all know each other?i thought you were austan goolsbee. when they're in a two-shot they look like the same guy. >> nobody is to your right because it's impossible. it was impossible physically. >> i'm the joke ear long with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin. becky is to my right. >> top story is the january jobs report. economists polled by dow jones say about 125,000 non-farm payrolls were likely added last month. the reuters is looking for 150,000 new jobs but both numbers are down from that big surprise we got last month, 200,000, analysts are warning that seasonal factors drove up december's data that may impact january's report as you see givepack. there were seasonal workers added before the holidays, jobs likely lost in february. we'll talk more about the jobs number with our panel of experts in a moment. first look at the futures ahead of the number and looks like people are getting a little more concerned and a little reluctant to do any big bets ahead of the number. dow futures up by 21 points.

mark zandi is always the guy we turn to on jobs day. he's the chief economist. anything here that this seemed across-the-board good. anything in here that you think is a warning sign? talk about the long-term unemployment, but take it away. what do you see? >> nothing. i mean usually you get a lot of cross currents in these jobs, something good, something bad, something for every everybody, but this was positive. they were broad-based across a lot of industries. number of hours increased. it was really excellent news. it shows that the job market is definitively gaining traction. >> you know, there was some speculation over the last couple of months that as flank i the public's perception of the public's economy improved, and we receive that in polling, yo would see that long term. some folks took themselves out of the job market. go back in and that would end up increasing the employment rate. what's going on? are people not going back to this? is this an issue where more of these folks are trying to start their own small businesses? what can't accounts for tha

if you had taken it away, mark zandi at moody's an letic says it would have been about a .7% hit to the economy. now just as the senate passed this, i was sitting down to speak with the president's economic advisor alan krueger and i spoke to him today. and we talked about this subject. got his thoughts on this tax cut and other economic issues. >> i think it provides very important insurance. so for example, last year we saw increasing gasoline prices. and the payroll tax cut helped to offset that. and it helped to continue the recovery. i think it's important that we take all the steps we can to continue the momentum that the economy has had over the past few months. >> you mentioned oil prices. let me follow up on that, because obviously there over $100 a barrel, pretty high. and last time oil prices were blamed for stopping the momentum the economy had. are we seeing this movie again? >> well, if you look back over the course of the last year, one of the headwinds that the economy faced was the increase in oil prices because of turmoil in the middle east. and price of gasoline is ve

whether it's the economic policy basis for doing the extension which, whether it is mark zandy, the economist who worked with senator mccain during his presidential campaign who said each dollar for workers have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, that dollar would generate $1.55 of new economic activity or whether it is the study by the labor department which found that federal emergency unemployment insurance benefits boosted employment by up to 750,000 jobs which seems contradictory, but it is true. if you put money in the hands of those in a tough time, they will buy the right stuff. if you have to grow more crops or build more appliances because people are still able to purchase some of the things they need. so, i don't believe that at this stage, this conference has an issue with trying to extend the benefits. once again, on what basis we do it. some have talked about the need to improve the program. i think every one of us is ready to improve the program. just as we found with the financial crisis we were confronting in 2008, we are not sent here, the 20 of us, to try to mak

zandi at the great moody's was at 4%, and it came in at 1.7. so i give you credit for being that more accurate than some of the other experts. i would just say that all of us need to de that the challenges we face with regard to debt and the unsustainable fiscal course we're on is that debt creates risk throughout the system and puts us in a more dangerous area if some unexpected shock occurs. would you agree with that? >> yes, absolutely, senator. >> things that you can't predict. >> yes. >> you just can't predict them. but periodically, history shows do happen. >> yes. and that's one of the costs of higher debt that we highlighted in our issue brief, as you know, on the risk of a fiscal crisis. >> so i think we need to get that margin down. a larger margin between what the maximum debt this nation can possibly carry and get it well below that so we're in a position to avoid shock. the -- you know, you can't borrow your way out of debt. we're living beyond our means. bill gross at the pimco was quoted recently that we're at a 5 to 15-year peri

norquist pledge to not raise taxes on anybody or saying no absolutely not chief economist at moody's mark zandi said quote not extending these programs will deliver a significant blow to the still tentative economy so when it comes either helping the when it comes to helping the economy one hundred sixty million americans or protecting millionaires and billionaires from a tiny tax increase why are the republicans choosing the millionaires and billionaires in this in this issue well i think the fact that this tax cut you know went down to two percent in december of two thousand and ten and we saw no no market improvement in the economy whatsoever we did you will see one no improvement on the balance of consecutive job growth in the private sector is improvement i'm just a little bit maybe didn't keep up with the with new entrants into that well what i mean a lot of one million while we see meanwhile we see a declining labor force people leaving the job market because they're so discouraged by the weak economy so it is not. by any means been the real the real question that we have to ask ourselve

mark zandy chief economist at moody's economic advisor to the 2008 mccain campaign called the januarys report unambiguosly good. he has a ph.d, rush limbaugh is arrogant enough to think he knows better. rush wants the president to fail at all costs and accusing the obama administration of monkeying the numbers is desperate "psycho talk." >>> so greatful for the victory in a trial and we look forward to californias being able to wed again. >> a major victory for marriage equality in california. proposition 8 overturned. lieutenant dan choi and melissa harris-perry are here with reaction. >>> in wisconsin, more bad news for scott walker. isn't stopping the governor from raising cash. >> to counter that big money from washington we'll need help from people not only here in wisconsin but across the country. >> john nickels is here to fill us in. >>> the komen controversy gets bigger. >> karen did not have anything to do with this decision. >> i was asked to look at options. >> terry o'neill of the national organization of women is here. >>> this is the greatest opportunity i've seen in ci

burgess not just a half an hour ago on msnbc mark zandi, mr. mccains, one of his main advisers said that the business community is definitely starting to engage, and again, he simply looked at this report it was unambiguously positive. mr. sanchez? >> weight. will the gentleman youth? >> go ahead. i which is going to make a point that mark zandi with 3 million jobs off in the first year in estimations and has been consistently off. mr. burgess because i would just point out the presence own jobs and economic council has besieged the president to remove some of these revelations and allow things, the air pollution law was something they distinctly referenced in their reports have become before this committee. >> thank you. the fact is we're going in the right direction. you think this was some doomsday report. the fact is that we are going in the right direction. thank god. >> will yield? >> very briefly. [inaudible] >> remember that when president obama took office, this country was losing 700,000 jobs a month. the first four months before pres

bottom line is, according to folks like mark zandi, it's a step in the right direction. it does something. when president obama speaks, you will probably also hear him talk about what he announced during his state of the union address, namely he put forth a proposal to help homeowners refinance their mortgages. homeowners under water. he's going to call congress to act on that. again, he's going to say, i can only do so much without the help of congress. that's a familiar refrain we heard in recent weeks and months from this white house. the president going to outline how this is going to help homeowners. i heard you talk about it. $5 billion will go to state and federal government, $17 billion will go to helping homeowners themselves. then you'll have about $1 billion that will go to the fha. it is changing the optics, you're right. >> obama has been selling a populist message the last few months. this seems to be right in his wheel house, fighter for the middle class. the right has been if not preoccupied, wrapping its arms around social issues in the last couple of we

. >> mark zandi, chief economist for moody's analytics. >>> a blunt warning from iran against the unitedstates. listen to iran's leader response to news that israel may be preparing to strike iran's nuclear program. >> this is how they make their threats against us. >> translator: well, this kind of threat is detrimental to the u.s. the war itself will be ten times as detrimental to the u.s. >> for more context let's bring in cnn pentagon correspondent chris lawrence. hi, chris. so how serious does the u.s. take this threat of an attack to be? >> reporter: very serious, jessica. i mean, the director of national intelligence has said iran is much more willing to sponsor attacks right here on american soil. former defense secretary bob gates told cnn iran will retaliate, not just against israel but across the entire region. so what's that mean? a defense official i spoke with said, iran has been improving its options just for this moment so it could raid oil tankers, mine shipping lanes, use its influence to destabilize iraq, and even attack american embassies and soft targets all over the

as marked sandy said just this morning, this report was unambiguously positive -- as mark zandy said just this morning. but we must continue to invest in education infrastructure and our workers. we must also take on the housing crisis. without a smart, sensible path forward in housing, we simply cannot sustain this economic recovery. today's unemployment report shows job gains. the economy added private-sector jobs for the 23rd straight month. during january, the economy gained 257,000 private-sector jobs. due to the loss of government jobs overall, the economy added 243,000 jobs during the month. the manufacturing sector, which added 237 jobs -- 237,000 jobs in 2011 gained in january, and that is always good news. in addition, the professional and business services sector added jobs and has not lost jobs since march 2010. employment in state and local governments was basically unchanged in january. in 2011, state and local governments shed 235,000 jobs and continued face budget challenges that present a head wind for the economy. the overall unemployment rate was 8.3%. the lowest s

as the gentleman knows mark zandi just a few days ago said that failure to extend the payroll tax andld deliver a significant blow to our fragile economic recovery. and could cost our economy 500,000 jobs and raise the unemployment rate by the at least .3 points and lower economic growth by .7 points. i'm pleased to hear what the majority leader has said but of course we still have some concern. representative paul broun, one of your members from georgia, i quote him, said this payroll tax holiday is just a gimmick to try to get obama re-elected. this, he said, is bad policy. representative chaffetz from utah, one of your colleagues, said, tax holidays are just bad policy. a year is pretty short. the chairman of your campaign committee, pete sessions, said, quoted in the "l.a. times," representative pete sessions of texas, who heads the house republican campaign committee, called obama's plan, that is the extension of the payroll tax, a horrible idea. he said g.o.p. candidates would have no difficulty explaining to voters why they want to let the tax break expire. and then of course t

mark zandi, a republican economyings, worked for john mccain, said if we don't extend the payroll tax cut, it may cost as much as 500,000 jobs in this country. so it is a little bit puzzling to me, and i think to the american people who are observing this, that rather than bringing that bill to the floor or rather than bringing bills to the floor that will help enact the president's jobs program, or any kind of bill that will help put people back to work, we are dealing with this, which my friend on the other side of the aisle, said is a small thing, small idea. i think we can do better. i think the american people are expecting us to do much better. we should be having a debate on our manufacturing agenda. we need to -- we need to get a tax structure in a place that encourages manufacturing in this country. we should be eliminating tax incentives and loopholes that encourage financial speculation rather than investment and outsourcing and offshoring production, and add tax incentives for companies that produce domestically. that's the kind of bill we should have on the floor now. a r

zandy has been bipartisan.e fiscal and monetary policies that not only averted a great depression but are resulting now in the beginnings of a recovery. when we divide these into two componen components, we estimate the latter was substantially more powerful than the former. this assessment of how we did better says that monetary policy were even more important than the stimulus although they thought the stimulus was important. this effort to denigrate the role you can play in that seems to be greatly mistaken. i've handed out a copy to the press. look at page 17 of your report. there is a chart on the bottom, net change in private payroll employment, 2005 to 2012. what it shows is -- it measures monthly job loss. the lowest point, the worst monthly job loss comes in early 2009, in other words, just after the change in administrations. and you then beginning in -- this looks like february or march of 2009, you get one of the steepest rises i've ever seen. you get a very substantial -- an almost vertical increas

as the gentleman knows mark zandi just a few days ago said that failure to extend the payroll tax and the unemployment insurance benefits would deliver a significant blow to our fragile economic recovery. and could cost our economy 500,000 jobs and raise the unemployment rate by the at least .3 points and lower economic growth by .7 points. i'm pleased to hear what the majority leader has said but of course we still have some concern. representative paul broun, one of your members from georgia, i quote him, said this payroll tax holiday is just a gimmick to try to get obama re-elected. this, he said, is bad policy. representative chaffetz from utah, one of your colleagues, said, tax holidays are just bad policy. a year is pretty short. the chairman of your campaign committee, pete sessions, said, quoted in the "l.a. times," representative pete sessions of texas, who heads the house republican campaign committee, called obama's plan, that is the extension of the payroll tax, a horrible idea. he said g.o.p. candidates would have no difficulty explaining to voters why they want to let th

zandi, great moodies, was at 4% and it came in at 1.7. i give you credit for being more accurate than some of the other experts. i wouldous say that all of us need to understand that the challenges we face with regard to debt and the unsustainable fiscal course we are on is that debt creates risk throughout the system and puts us in a more dangerous area if some unexpected shock occurs. would you agree with that? >> yes. absolutely senator. >> things you can't predict, just can't predict them, but periodically hayestry shows -- history shows do happen. >> that's one of the costs of higher debt that we highlighted in our issue sheet as you know. >> i think we need to get that margin down. a larger margin between what the maximum debt this nation can possibly carry and get well below that so we are in a position to avoid shock. you can't borrow your way out of debt. we are living beyond our means. bill gross, was quoted recently that we are at a five to 15-year period of below normal growth. because of deleveraging. he projected, i sold mor

economist mark zandi who was advising senator mccain real g.d.p. is $200 billion and fewer jobs under the ryan approach than is under the case of the president's. that is one honest economist's estimate. and again, h.r. 1 would cut a couple hundred thousand jobs. the american people need to know what kind of jobs program the republicans are talking. they aren't talking about adding jobs but cutting them and h.r. 7 is the kind of damage these republican majority members would do to the american economy. and with that, i'm going to yield time back. thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 5 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 30 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you mr. speaker. interesting days in which we live. there's supposed to be an old chinese cuffers that says may you live in interesting times and as if that curse has been placed on us. we certainly live in interesting times. on 9/11 2001, this country suffered

. >> i was going to say that mark zandi was 3 million jobs off. >> they have besieged the president tolations. that was something they distinctly referenced in report before this committee. it is time for the administration to get out of the way. >> we're going in the right direction. you would think this was a doomsday reports. we are going in the right direction, thank god. >> when president obama took office, this country was losing 700,000 jobs a month. the first four months before president obama took office, this country lost 4 million jobs. the president put in a recovery package that is moving us in the right direction. can we at least agree is good news that for five months the unemployment has fallen and that for 23 months, we have been gaining jobs in this country? we should be pleased with this news. >> we do think these numbers are encouraging. our concern is the seventh when -- unemployment the rate is going down because people are giving up because they are not getting jobs. we think that is the wrong reason. >> the unemployment rate is 8.3%. last month it was 8.5%. ms.

alan blinder or mark zandi that at a time when an economy is weak that we have to first invest here int people to work and have a long-term plan to deal with the debt and the deficit. we have to put people to work here in the -- not here. i'm sure we want to put people to work here as well. but i think it's essential to put people to work. now, one of the challenges is and in talking to my chinese friends, they will admit that we have the creativity we produce americans with extraordinary creativity. we can look at apple, google, et cetera, and they're extremely good at taking that creativity and do a super job of manufacturing and taking the business from us. the president addressed some of these issues in his state of the union and i know it's going to be a continuing debate. but i'm very proud of our creativity among our students and our workers and the question is, how do you create the jobs at home? so i would agree with our colleagues that the debt and the deficit are serious issues and we have to plan to do it with the seriousness of purpose. but right now i am very concerned ab