. >> federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said he didn't want to >> fairs have fallen to $1.. your time now is 5:48 this morning. it was pretty nice saturday and supposed. this weekend wasisis jtorore of a typical kind of pattern. 66 to the west. you see a few showers. you are see this kind of push and this el kwloe it is losing a little bit of steam. not quick as i am mess give weather bug network showing you some mild testimonies this thchl i'll show you the overall pattern. it will slowly move on out. we'll have a little lit. it will be warm and muggy. we'll put the ace laty. . friday, knocked temperatures down a the good news is less than. >> mrepty happening and plenty not happening. good on the wane these found 66 before the roadway, 95 shirg, the 6 this is in in maryland the after math of a vehicle vehicle we have a reporter on the scene of this foreclosure >> open is pennsylvania avenue the worst way, an 11-year-old texas boy ducked out of duel to take a joy ride. you cannen. the police pulled him overor running a stop sign. look lieutenant. respect, write it 1,000 tea

but ben bernanke says people are adopting good habits, like saving more. speaking at a town hall forum in kansas city, the chairman of the federal reserve says the recovery will be gradual, but economic activity will pick up this year. >>> another bigwig in finances, warren buffett. he often gets animated when we're talking about personal finances. soon he will actually be animated for a children's series on the same subject. an animated mr. buffett will play a mentor to a group of kids in a web series called "the secret millionaires club." those children are opening a business. what kind of business? a candy store. they'll learn all about finance and business, and kids who watch the web site will learn all about it, too. maybe adults could benefit as well, robin. >> sounds like a great idea. thank you. >>> if you want to win an ernest hemingway look-alike contest, honey, you need a beard, a sweater and one thing might help. >> i drink a lot, i guess. >> it wasn't the only way they were remembering the author this weekend in key west. >>> secretary of stat

does ben bernanke risk reducing the currency of the fed by being out there too much, david? >> well, there is a frequency factor which dilutdilutes, but don't believe bernanke has reached that at all. and bernanke is now the hot topic and has been. look at "the new york times" sunday, you had a debate between anna schwartz on one side and rabiny on the other over whether you should reappoint him. it's a hot topic. the point is this, the fed chairman gets out the public season. they start to learn about monetary policy. he talks about the independence of the central bank. he relates to the history in his own studies. in this case, like peter, bernanke is a professor. he's been in front of classrooms. can he handle questions. he's comfortable with it. i think he should do more of it. >> peter? >> when you talk about campaigning, one of the things bernanke is doing is he's campaigning for the independence of the fed. ron paul, i believe, has been observe ska observe skating and demagoguing the issue. they have been audited. its regulatory activities are audited in the same way

ben bernanke on a campaign explaining what his division does. he said it is too early to judge the government stimulus package star wood hotels is cutting room rates up to 50% at more than 500 rooms. an elite squad of quinny pigs the 3 movie is a mixture of live action and an patient. the ugly struj truth. kids can take finance lessons from a legend. >> and coming up, super foods that may be your secret weapons to fight the flue. >> 6:20 is your time on this monday morning. a bit of a healthcare sparking for t for the kirsti spas falls offlso >> police in new york are investigating a crash that killed eight people. a woman drove a minivan the wrong way on the parkway when she crashed into an suv and another car. several people were ejected, most of them children. the woman's doctor and >> a man is in cussed toy after shooting two deputies. they died when that man opened fire. the suspect, a 26-year-old is being held on first degree murder charges. >> north korea says it is now open to new tooks to recalifornia pensions over the north korea area.

bernanke once the central bank to remain the country's top consumer watchdog, while treasury secretary tim geithner once a new consumer protection agency. >>> coming up, the first family makes vacation plans. >> president obama unveils a plan to improve the nation's schools. about a woman is behind bars, accused of robbing banks, but she may be in more trouble, next. if we don't act, medical bills will wipe out their savings. if we don't act, she'll be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. and he won't get the chemotherapy he needs. if we don't act, health care costs will rise 70%. and he'll have to cut benefits for s employees. but we can act. the president and congress have a plan to lower your costs and stop denials for pre-existing conditions. it's time to act. >>> the police have arrested a woman suspected of robbing a bank this morning in woodbridge. they say she walked into the suntrust bank on jefferson davis highway and demanded money. she left with an undisclosed amount of cash. but police later tasered and arrested her after arresting her on i-95. she may be c

federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said in a hot seat as he took some very tough questions about financial bailout. >> there has been very little bang for the taxpayer's buck. >> the decline in housing activity appears to be moderating. >> he expresses confidence that the fed will be able to keep inflation from taking off. he told the house financial services committee that it will keep its bank lending rate towards zero f extended time. >>> republican senators on the committee plan to block today's scheduled vote and delayed to july 20. senators do not expect it will delay the confirmation. >>> we're on storm watch. not everybody is going to be seeing rain or storms. >> it is a hit or miss deal, almost like yesterday. er.re live in the winter nt we will take you back to early this morning it was not as visible early on with that heavy cloud deck that er had earlier. you can ud cing through as thoses slo 77 degre 80egn d ies falls church. look at our storms can. i you can behe tulk of energy is off the coast. although you might see a little bit of sunshine right now, clouds and showers are

federal reserve chairman ben bernanke testified on capitol hill today. while spending has stabilized, we are not out of the woods yet. >>> plans are district funding for a new f-22 jet. a 58-40 vote, he got his way. dollars will be removed from the defense bill for smaller jets. some lawmakers are concerned about losing jobs of the program ends. >>> a senator returned to work today. the 90-year-old democrat was in the hospital for an infection. today, he showed up in a real chair to cast his vote in favor of production of the fighter jets. >>> republicans are getting behind sonia sotomayor's confirmation, but some republicans are delaying today's judiciary committee vote. the committee will now vote on ly 28. patrick leahy predicts that she will be confirmed before the supreme court's first meeting on september 9. >>> students are quarantined in china with fear of the swine flu. >> i'm really scared. i think it will te pretty good care of us. they say they have been treated really well. they have a tv. >> one of those students had a fever and was hospita

in the middle box, ever public appearance by ben bernanke. he spoke out at a town hall meeting in missouri, so what exactly is he doing with this public campaign? in the bottom box, a virginia man has been sentenced to life in prison for joining al qaeda and plotting to assassinate george bush. he was arrested in 2005 but an appeals court said that the case over concern thatç the sentence was too lenient. and congressional leaders trying to make up -- progress before the recess. democratic lawmakers say they need republican votes to put the health care reform through. gop members do not see what the russian is. among them is this and gentlegentelmanç senator jim d. thank you for being with us today. you have this group of six in the finance committee who are trying to hammer out a deal. can you update us on any progress? >> what i am most encouraged about is the american people seem to be saying they want health reform but not a government takeover. if we can agree on that issue, we can arrive at a resolution quickly. so far we do not see

federal reserve chair ben bernanke says he has h. to hold his nose over the bailouts for big financial companies but that it had to be done. bernanke held a town hall meeting in kansas city to defend the fed's effort to help save the economy. bernanke said it made him angry that the government had to save companies that gambled with money with other people's money. but he said not acting would have been worse. he told the audience he refuses to be chair of the fed during the second great depression. bernanke also admitted the fed acted too late in addressing the subprime loans and the housing crisis. greenspan never did that. gretchen: all right. hold a town meeting you mean? brian: yes. gretchen: pakistan joining the search for american soldier gone missing in afghanistan. u.s. officials say the country is sharing intelligence information to help find private bowe bergdahl. the terrorists released video of him but fox is only showing the still pictures. pakistan's cooperation is the best it has been in years. ♪ life can be so swee

. >> but in september of 2008, you and hank paulson and ben bernanke basically told the world that the big problem here is toxic assets on the balance sheets of banks. >> well, i was actually not secretary of treasury. >> you were the president of the new york fed. >> i was not the architect of that program. >> my question is, do you agree that if toxic assets were the problem, we haven't bought one toxic asset yet. in other words, the t.a.r.p. program has not yet bought any toxic assets. why? >> banks have been able to raise capital with greater ease than i think anybody reasonably expected. many banks are selling a bunch of bad assets and shrinking their balance sheets where they don't want to make a core business. but what it will do is help get those markets going again, because things in some ways have been better than people expected. you may see less use, less demand for those facilities than many people thought. but let's go back to the fall. what congress authorized back in the fall was absolutely essential. there is no doubt it helped avert a catastrophic loss in our financia

. >>> federal reserve chairman ben bernanke returns to the hot seat std before comments before congress tuesday getting lukewarm reception on wall stre street. we're joined by louisa bojesen from the london headquarters of cnbc. good morning, louisa. >> hi, christina. let's not forget a lot of what he said had been published in a wall street article before. maybe that's also part of the reason the markets didn't react more. he reiterated his outlook for the u.s. economy. it's improvinmproving, he said. most market participants focused on earnings, though. fall a little bit of late buying. dow closing just shy of 1%. nasdaq up for 10 straight days in a row. longest streak in 12 years. stocks to watch today include morgan stanley, qualcomm, ebay. apple's quarterly profits had better than expected earnings. they sold 7 times as many iphones as they did a year ago. 13% rise in laptop unit sales, a 10% drop in desktop sales. caterpillar, 66% fall in second quarter profits. they're still cautioning on demand, though, for the near feature. starbucks profits much better than expected as they be

got ben bernanke on the hill for a couple of days with testimony. there are a lot of people would think the federal reserve has too much power. what can we expect from his testimony. >> that will be a big part of what the congressmen and women talk about. is it too much that we're giving the fed and will we be able it pull back the reins if you will and monetary policy moving forward will be the other thing. how will that impact the economy? what have they opportunity so far? has it worked or not worked? what are they going to do to avow inflation. that is the dark cloud on the horizon that we see. >> the stock of the day is barnes & noble. i like the fact that it is the stock of the day but i don't like the reason why. i'm one of the people would likes to open up a book. >> you are a fan of the bookstore if you will. that is what barnes & noble is. bks is the ticker symbol. they announced they will offer downloadable titles on a variety of things like blackberries, p kiro 7's and macs. they wilgl t into the kindle business and they will go after am

thanks to ben bernanke and the work he's done at the federal reserve. i say we take calls. let's go to greg in maryland. greg. >> caller: hey, jim. i want to give you a great, big, fat, chesapeake bay, maryland, blue crab, ba-ba-ba-boo-yah! >> i'm going to give you a brutal shores chesapeake bay boo-yah! and you have to tell me what beer that was. >> that was a national bohemian. >> natty bow. >> i got one for you. what beer tastes like coming home? >> tastes like coming home? >> that was pittsburgh's iron city beer. the only reason we're covering the beer situation is because the white house is steeped in beer today. now we go beyond that and stop doing politics and deal with stocks. >> caller: i'm a home brewer and a home gameer, but i got time fr a real quick success story, jim. my wife and i started home brewing about a year ago, and the past couple months, everything started going down and everything, and we lost a little bit of dough there. but after reading your book, "real money" -- >> out on paper back! >> caller: -- it turned us around, and we were able to come ba

dick bove, what about the role of ben bernanke in all of this? we could potential have a change of who is running the fed at the beginning of the year, and you think that could be disruptive? >> i think it could be disastrous. he's shown himself as a dynamic leader, willing to make hard decisions, flexible in reacting to events that have occurred. in terms of that minutes that just came out, if you look at the balance sheet over the last couple weeks, the fed is already moving in that direction. it's shrinking its balance sheet, and increasing treasuries, so i think this guy, you know is really atuned to the market. by that, enmy the overall economy, and he's operating in the exactly the right fashion in those markets. >> your view would be if he ways possibly replaced by larry summers, that would be the worst? >> it's not that summers is a political appointee, it's that he's bringing a program with h him, a program which the administration has brought to congress, which is to regulate all aspects of the financial industry, so any person who woul

what will ben bernanke say? "the kudlow report", next. when a major hospital wanted to add on to their benefits package at no direct cost to the company, their very first word was... aflac! aflac! find out more at aflacforbusiness.com >>> tonight on "the kudlow report," stocks roar on positive leading indicators the recession is ending, but what kind of recovery is on the way? it could be better than we think. >>> and did you know that 81% of earnings reports are beating street estimates by roughly 15%? and why is president obama still bashing wall street? why does he continuously wage war on investors? take a listen to this. >> you had a wall street that took excessive risks, acted irresponsibly, and almost dragged the entire economy into a depression. >> all right. i don't know why you have to hear more of that. but here's another market-mover. what will fed head ben bernanke say tomorrow on capitol hill? what's the state of the mortgage market and consumer credit? we have an exclusive interview with the founder and ceo of lendingtree.c

ben bernanke is delivering the second of his semi annual reports before congress. he told lawmakers the fed willing -- would be able to real in the stimulus and clear up -- . [ indiscernible ] and that the emergency programs are helping. >> extreme risks of last fall eased somewhat and investors are returning to private credit markets. reflecting this greater receptivity, corporate bond issuance has been strong. many markets are functioning more normally with increased liquidity and lower spreads. equity prices issued a low point in march and have recovered to roughly their levels to the end of last year and banks have raised significant amounts of new capitol. many of these improvements and financial conditions can be traced in part to policy actions taken by the federal reserve. >> he said he did warn the recovery would be sluggish and that the unemployment rate would be remaining high until 2012. >>> the humid back at it today and the calouds as well. so, if you need a number, head out this afternoon. tucker barnes has more this morning. >> reporter: not a bad i

meanwhile, fed chair ben bernanke is admitting he had a tough time swallowing last year's financial basis. he said he had to hold his nose while pushing through the rescues. the global recession will be at the top of the agenda when u.s. and chinese officials sit down today. officials are expected to stress that china cannot rely on american consumers to pull the global economy out of recession. the cost of self-serve regular gasoline down 7 cents a gallon the past two weeks, according to a recent survey. the national average stands at $2.49 a gallon, a dollar and a half cheaper than this time last year. >>> europe avenues low-cost airline scored itself a major coup. irish airline ryanair had a 550% rise in profits thanks to a large reduction in fuel costs. they are calling the result, a robust performance in a deep recession. many of our competitors were reporting increased losses. and finally a british reporter apologizing to jean elizabeth. it comes after the queen demanded to know why nobody had anticipated the credit crunch. the queen asks, you better have answers. >>> going too fast

i think ben bernanke h h b bee doing a a good job uer difficult circumstances. warren summemersanan that bb and d llll push him out of that c chair. w wili put money o on this? atat's not what i w wl putt it. either selling a a rger, l lanng onon the ududn,utut he's upped thee learning curve,e, way upd the leaeaining curve. >>>> iililplay a p pival role on one hand, warrenn summers, ybe if he dsn't back summers, maybe he gets more power? i'm thekuku of thee g garn party. i inink t tssis thehe w wst fed chairmanan i think the series of l loa to airg are the silele worst thin the united s stas s vernment ev d did to i its citizens.s. thee f fed exploited a crisis fr the sole pururpo of building out fedgogorning insnsurcece backed monopoly. itit w d diberate act. >>ou want his head. jack wantstsisis head. wel l ve more on tt maybe. up next, wee get to t the man i the ddle of t tsese issues, represenentitive henry waxman. john haoooos ourwashington cocorrpopoent and scored an exclusive with mm up ne. later, anotherr bc reportt exclusiveithewew bankrkrup baseball p p

and in his twice yearly testimony to congress this week - federal reserve chairman ben bernanke says he's also keeping a close watch on commercial real estate... since it faces the same foreclosure risk as the residental mortgage market. a stalemate at some point something will tip the scale.. and see lot more transaction activity another big concern out there.. is whether owners of large properties will be able to refinance when their loans come due - a wave of refis in commercial real estate will take place starting this year... and lasting into 2012. and some experts say as long as property owners continue to make their interest payments... banks are not likely to pull the plug very quickly... the brokers are saying if building owner is servicing debt.. making payments.. they will keep pushing out the terms.. banks don't want to take property back.. but if buildings can't service debt.. it's a different process while the commercial real estate sector is imploding at a very slow pace... it could still have a huge immediate impact on hundreds of regional banks... that hold a lot of

. >> paul: last night fedel reserve chrman ben bernanke went where no fed chiehas gone before. stight to the people. it came in a towhall meeting in kansas city hosted byhe pbs program "the newour with jim lehr". beanke took questions on everytng from the fed's handng of the financial crisis to exactlyhat his agency does. ansome of the questions were blunt. a small busiss owner asked why the fed rescued bibanks while shorchanging small companies? bernke responded saying he too was disgusted by theailouts. >> let me just ehasize that nothg made me more frustrated, more angry, than havg to intervene, parcularly in a couple of cases where king wild bets forced theseompanies close toankruptcy. the's nothing that made me angrier than having too that. why d we do it? because if that company ha collapsed in the middle of crisis it could ve brought everytng down. >> paul:ou can see more of bernanke's comments on the newshourn pbs tonight, tomorrowight, and wednesday night. also, thfed is taking a closer look at how the financiacrisis is affecti americans. it's doing a new surveof consu

timothy geithner and ben bernanke are now in a power struggle over who should be the country's top consumer watchdog. >> our proposal is designed to preserve the opportunities for innovation. many of the practices of consumer lending gave innovation a bad name. what they claim was that innovation was often just predation. >> bernanke once responsibilities tuesday with the central bank, while timothy geithner wants to create a new consumer protection agency. the dow jones is giving back some of its gains and is down 27 points, but still holding above 9000 right now. the nasdaq is currently down 19 points. >>> a new program -- county employees have until september 18 to apply for a reduced interest rate to buy their first home within the county. so far, about 10 people have closed on homes. there are currently about 2500 vacant homes in prince william county. >>> we turn to the weather now on this friday. you can tell the humidity is hanging around and so are the storm clouds, so what are our chances for heavy rain? another cloud night like last night? >> we could have a couple storms. -- ano

in theast month, fed chairman ben bernanke andank of america o ken lewis also faced tough quesoning from this committee. but as dana ba reports lawmakerare still looking for answers. >> reporter: formetreasury secretary henry pason may be out ofhe office, but he's still der the gun. lawmakers ammed the treasury's handling of thbank of america deal-- saying pauln bullied executives into completing t purchase of merrl lynch. but paulson ve little ground as he defended the pressurhe put on bank of ameca c.e.o. ken lewis. >> i was attemptinto send a very strong message ken lewis terms of how strongly the f antreasury viewed this matter. >> reporter: ty viewed it strongly becse they worried a ncelled deal would throw the markets to turmoil. significant losses amerrill lynch were giving lewis send thoughts but ulson says pulling out would have been a bad call. >> it wod have shown a lack of judgemen and i think it would have reallundermined the viability b. of a. and merrill lynch and the financl system. >> reporter: last moh, fed chairman benernanke told the committee the government d nothing

it's not as much as i spent a uple of y ago lling ben bernanke to do wit thefed. they know nothing! which we first laughed at and then scoffed at and t finally adted. it could, if washington gets i act tother, be the key to saving your retiremt. enough schtick, this is a serious idea. the prlem ist thescams. it's the reason why the people are attract tohe scams in the first plac there'no sa, decent yiding investments right now for retirement. normly, in a retirent account ere's room forsome cds. those areertificates of deposit for t demo that's too old for ipods but too you for vinyl. now is that te are incrediblyt low, and nody wants to accept that meager return in exchange for safety. especily not after presumably losing smuch monin the oc market. pusimply right now, eight-tracks are better investments than cds. at t se time, the idea that you have to be fly invested in stocks all the time, a notion ma i railed ainst on this show d my website, has been totally discredited. so what do we need? a safer way to earn a decent return our tax deferred retirement account. your 4(k), your

federal reserve chairman ben bernanke cautiously optimistive about the economy. today strategy. hampton pearson has been following the chairman's testimony. >> hi, maria. in his midyear report to congress, ben bernanke says the economy is slowly on the mend but unemployment remains a trouble spot. >> more recently, the pace of decline appears to have slowed significantly and find demand and production have shown tentative signs of stabilization. the labor market, however, has kimed do weaken. >> lawmakers the central bank will keep the rate at a record low level for an extended period of time and he and his fellow policymakers do have an exit strategy for unwinding the fed stimulus. >> the fomc has been devoting considerable attention to issues relating to its exit strategy and we are confident that we have the necessary tools to implement that strategy when appropriate. >> the fed chairman says the central bank is prepared to take on the job of systemic risk regulators as part of reform but bernanke and lawmakers clashed over the role of bailing out aig and its opposition to la

ben bernanke said he had to quote, hold his nose, while he send out the money for bailouts. he said the ask had to be taken to avoid a complete financial meltdown. >>> can the bulls continue to keep the bears at bay? could citigroup be headed toward a show downwith the government's new pay czar. chris cotter joins us from new york. >> last week -- it will be a very similar week this week except we'll get more economic data than we got last week on top of the earnings. this week, we'll get some economic data on housing. today, new home sales, home prices tomorrow and later on in the week, some durable goods reports and the gdp report later on in the week that will help things out. we'll start the week mostly with earnings. verizon is today. some other big names like amgen. that will drive the market for the most part. >> we talked about citigroup. we mentioned a big show downpossibly in the work. what is the deal there? >> here is the situation with citigroup. they have a trader on heir energy desk would claims that citigroup is contractually obligated to owe him about $100 m

. >> used to make huge news when ben bernanke would address congress. he is going to do that tomorrow. >> that is what people will be listening to in terms of the economy this week, steve, because we don't have a whole lot of reports. that is probably the biggest thing, ben bernanke's report on the state of the economy. and health care still on the top of everybody's mind including those on wall street. >> we'll leave it there. we'll have more details coming up. >>> all up next, a u.s. soldier captured. a lea that the government says is propaganda. >>> we mark the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. these wax figures of buzz aldrin and neil armstrong are from madam tussaud's decked out in authentic gear and hanging out in our studio. >>> how much fuel did the apollo 11 crew have left when they landed? was it an hour's worth of fuel, was it 10 minutes worth of fuel or was it 0 seconds worth of fuel? thel nsen ar wh we come back.   s are -- or was it 20 connect ondz worth fuel? we'll have the answer when we come back --

federal reserve chairman ben bernanke begins two days of updating congress on the fed's view of the economy. the fed has been very cautious in its descriptions, saying only that the decline seems to be lessening. or falling at a slower pace. some in congress have been asking tougher questions about the fed's strategy, and ability to pull back the monetary stimulus such as very low interest rates and allowing banks to use questionable loans as collateral. and at the same time, criticism continues for the fed's effort to help banks not necessarily filtering down to consumers. one more item cops in suburban philadelhia busted up a ring of illicit retailing. turns out the kids weren't breaking the law by selling lemonade door to door. the local ordinance that bans sales without a permit doesn't apply to kids under 16. crest whitestrips has created a strip so revolutionary... you can use it while you do just about anything. it molds better... it grips better... and seals better. you can even drink water with it on. introducing new crest whitestrips advanced seal. it's an all-new technology... th

ben bernanke was speaking. a response to what he had to say was what? >> he was at the house yesterday. he will be at the senate again today pretty much giving the same semiannual speech he always gives on the state of the economy. a little bit more rhetoric this time around about the potential for the fed to be more heavily involved in regulation. he said he cannot want that. that was not his intention certainly. also talked about inflation to a berate -- also talked about inflation a great deal. the goal of the fed is to give a slow rate of inflation and he says that probably won't happen for two years now. >> let's get on with the stock of the day which has a bigger impact dealing with the defense contractor and military operations when it comes to aircraft. >> lockheed martin it is, lmt. it was down 8.5% yesterday. there were two reasons yesterday. they announced a quarter that was down 17% from a profit standpoint but all the senate voted to cut funding for the f- 22s in the budge the. it killed the f-22 in terms of a military aircraft. we are talk

none recalling than ben bernanke, the chairman of the federal reserve. that's right. as everyone blames bernanke for today's midday reversal. >> they know nothing! >> let's take a moment to remember that bern anke set one who gave us this rally. bernanke created the credit that we needed in order to stabilize the economy. to give us some kindling that could lead to a bonfire of earnings. >> house of pleasure. >> he gave our companies a chance to lay off their employees which while truly tragic from an individual perspective, has been fabulous from the perspective of an invest investor. >> has it let our businesses become lean and mean,

. >>> ben bernanke admits to being less than thrilled about last year's bailouts but argues there was no other option. the markets at this hour, asia up overnight. green and red arrows in european trade. u.s. equity trades are mixed. "squawk box" begins right now. >>> good monday morning. welcome to "squawk box." i'm carl quintanilla. becky is back today. she should be back later in the week. we're joined by our managing director at newberger. how you been? >> good. >> other than a blackout, the kilimanjaro training came in handy this morning. >> look over to see becky. man, what happened? where's becky? you're sitting in her chair. raise your chair a little bit. i like the -- show everybody your peace sign cuff links. that's not a commentary. they're just cool, right? >> they just look cool. >> there you go. >> we need more of that. >> we do. you know what? give peace a chance. >> okay. >> can we. >> let's give earnings a chance. how about that? >> i don't think we have any choice. is this the last week? >> last big one. retailers will come later on. >> friday. friday is a little lam

he isn't antiregulation like some folks with that label woul assume that he is a fan of ben bernanke and malkoff allen greenspan saw you was hoping he could explain what he doesn't like that greenspan and what he does like about bernanke. >> what i like about bernanke is he has been very courageous. he has been doing things that would have been unimaginable a few years ago but given the fact his main focus was the great depression, i knew he couldn't wait too long to some pretty drastic things given what we saw happening in financial and the banking sector. he stated very carefully what happened in the 1930's and basically you can say that the great depression it became the great depression because the monetary authorities first of all the federal reserve didn't do anything or at least certainly not enough to stop the banking crisis from degenerating the first thing he probably did worldwide realized he had to step in and do whatever was necessary to stop this banking crisis. and first of all, he was the interest rate policy to do this and second he didn't hesitate to use the balance

what did ben bernanke say today about executive compensation? >> it's interesting. and i think the fed has essentially been forced in to this conversation, this dialogue, this debate by saying that pay-for-performance and risk management should be the centerpiece of how bankers are compensated as opposed to taking rather unwieldy risks, which they did during this recent credit crisis. so he, unlike some of his predecessors, i think, is a little bit more actively engaged in the debate about compensation, and may be a little less free market oriented. now, we can debate the merits of that for time in memorial, i think, but it does seem that at one juncture throughout the process, the pay got a little bit skewed to those who took the most risk as opposed to the most balanced risk. >> and when meredith vieira asked the president about the pay and the perks and whether the banks have forgotten or ignored the lessons of the past, the president certainly agreed with her. i mean, the white house wants to see a much tougher line toward the banks, towards compensation, and ce

. >> federal resve chairman ben bernanke was on catol hill earliethis week, mainly to discuss the econy, but also to stop a misguided legistive proposal from xas representative ronaul to audit the central bank. here's the thi, the fed isn't some secreti, nefarious orgazation. it's already audit. its balae sheet is published every week. and maet watchers pore over the minutes of every fed meeting. so what bernanke rigly opposes is congrsional medaling in monetary policy. is critical for the fed to maintaints independence, far away fropoliticians. >> in order to understand wh the federal reserve so oppod to transparency, you have to go back and coider what gives t fed its power in the first place. if someo offers to give you a weird piece of paper forour watch, y'd probably laugh. but if hundrs of millions people are sehow convinced to cept that weird paper, well, then it's game on. the auority of the federal resee basically exists because exists, and any threat to i undermes the weird circular logic eping the confidence game afloat. would be like that time whe you were kid and you first

. >>> federal reserve chairman, ben bernanke, is back on capitol hill today. this time, in front of a senate panel. on tuesday, bernanke told a house committee that the central bank sees signs of an economic recovery. although it's predicting the job market will be slow to follow. >> i want to be clear that we have a very long haul here because even though as the economy begins to turn up, in terms of production, unemployment is going to stay high for quite a while. so, it's not going to feel like a really strong economy. >> the fed expects unemployment to peak at 10% later this year. >>> some of the top fashion magazines are getting skinnier. advertising pages in magazines like "vogue," and "glamer," are down as much as 50% for their september issues. the magazines are hopeful the declines are due to the recession and not a permanent shift. >>> a bargain basement price was not enough to attract a buyer for the famed watergate hotel in washington, d.c. bidding started at $25 million. but there were no takers. the property now goes back to the bank but holds th

. >> it is because of ben bernanke that says it has nothing to do the stimulus or tarp. brenda: toby, you get the last word here. >> well, i love mike because he's my favorite liberal. we ask a question and about the third time he tells us something we're talking about j.p. morgan. thank you for being so clear. brenda: we do love you, mike. so much so we will bring you back. 15 minutes from now guess what we have? a new car czar around guess who is all over it. cavuto and his gang. why somebody says the new boss could give unions more power. with one green push did wal-mart just tell washington to butt out and spare you a big tax hike? [ birds chirping ] [ crunch! ] [ gasps ] [ stork ] [ laughs ] sorry, miss. [ crunch ] the girl can't help it. it's a vlasic. [ crunch ] vlasic. that's the tastiest crunch i've ever heard. brenda: who needs uncle sam we you have wal-mart planning to put green labels annual products to tell people how good or bad the stuff is for the environment. paper towels, flat screen tv's. toby, you say wal-mart saved us from a big tax hike? >> heavens

ben bernanke out earlier today. we go to cnbc's mary thompson with the latest on what's going on in the markets. >> reporter: there are four reasons why we have a mixed market right now. we did have a stronger market earlier in the morning and the s&p and nasdaq pulled back. the dow positive now. the bernanke comments were cautious, weren't euphoric so that caused the market to pull back. he expects unemployment to remain at elevated levels through 2011, something that will affect consumer spending. second of all, weakness in the financials, some of the regional banks reporting results and they continue to be hampered by bad loans through the residential or commercial side. add to that cat pillar which reported stronger than expected results, came out and said the third quarter will be very, very tough and going to have rolling shutdowns of some of the factories so when he came out and said that, we saw a dip in the market, it's recovered since then and keep in mind we've had a strong run on wall street, the dow has

you know, as ben bernanke and others across the spectrum have indicated, we were in a position where we have gone into a great depression. i think those fears have abated. >> the president caution tess gdp numbers will show the recession has not ended.d. in fact, it's going to be our fourth down quarter. the huge problem, he says, remains to unemployment. disney's third quarter profits fell 26% but squeaked past estimates. however, revenues beat forecasts. ceo bob igar says the theme parks have clearly been impacted by the weak economy, although attendance rose 3%. the company says tv and ad sales are still soft. cost cutting could not keep las vegas sands out of the red in the second quarter. the casino giant reported a sharply higher loss. in frankfurt at this hour, disney and sands are both trading tractionally to the downside there, sands actually getting hard, down about 9%. >>> well, the government's new cash for clunkers program, that's where they're paying for old cars, it's hit a major road block. it has run out of cash. for the past month, automakers have been offering a re

no big testimony from ben bernanke. it could be a quiet day when it comes to treasuries here in the u.s. we've got the ten-year yield back up as people yesterday moved towards riskier assets much more heavily into equities, back up to 3770%. >> taking a look at gold, despite the weakness in the dollar this morning, trading a bit to the downside. it has come off the lows of the session. joining us now for market strategy is richard cunningham. he joined us at the top of the hour and also joining us, our juno mahendran, hsbc private banking, who is celebrating a birthday. happy birthday to you. let's start off talking about this move that we have seen in the markets. and stock traders and analysts. they are saying when you get such a strong july, it often precedents a strong sell-off in the fall. let's start off with you, mr. mahendran. do you think that's the case here? we are getting our gains early here and setting ourselves up for disappointment come august and september? >> yes. i mean, i would agree with that. i thi

aaron, it is going to be a tough day for chairman of the federal reserve ben bernanke. >> absolutely. the big boss of the fed, he is going to report the u.s. economy state, and he is expected to be somewhat guardedly optimistic. he will say that there are signs that the economy to pause in pending turnaround, but that said, he is expected to hit a bit of a grilling from lawmakers on capitol hill. they will grill him over how did he even missed seeing this economic crisis approaching, the rather slow mess that the government is trying to help homeowners stave off foreclosure. and what the true cost of this unprecedented action taken by the government in trying to stimulate the economy. some are saying that the cost could be 24 trillion dollars. >> almost unimaginable. >> it is unimaginable. an intriguing story. we have two senior managers fired from deutsche bank. it is all about deutsche bank management. allegedly putting spying actions to its supervisory board to some of its board members, action that hiring prostitutes are spies gathering information, putting listening devices into

. >> paul: last night deral reservchairman ben bernanke went where no fed ief has gone before. straight to the people. it came in aown hall meeting in kansas city hosteby the pbs program "theewshour with jim hrer". bernanke took questions on evything from the fed's ndling of the financial cris to exaly what his agency does. and some of the questions we blunt. a small siness owner asked why the fed rescuebig banks while ort-changing small companies rnanke responded saying he t was disgusted byhe bailouts. >> let me ju emphasize that thing made me more frustrate more angry, thanaving to intervene,articularly in a couple of cases whe taking wild bets forced tse companies closto bankruptcy. there's nothing that made me angrier than havinto do that. y did we do it? because if that companhad collapsed in the middlof a crisis it cod have brought evything down. >> pl: you can see more of bernanke's comments on t newsur on pbs tonight, tomoow night, and wednesday night. alsothe fed is taking a closer look at how the finaial crisis is affting americans. it's doing a new svey of consumer

federal reserve chairman, ben bernanke defended the billions of dollars in bailouts last night at a town hall meeting in kansas city where he answered angry questions from the public. he said he had to, quote, hold my nose over last year's bailout of big financial companies but argued the action had to be taken to avoid a second great depression. bernanke's comments will air on pbs this week. >>> and the hard rock hotel is expanding in sin city. a new 490-room tower opens in las vegas this week even as hotels are struggling to fill existing rooms in the recession. the average room rate in las vegas for the first five months of 2009 was $97.23, already 27% below the same period last year. that's according to the las vegas convention and visitors authority. and 10,000 new rooms are coming to vegas this year. a big gamble that analysts say will be hard for the properties to win. michelle? >> that's an interesting business decision. claire, thanks. >>> and just ahead on "the morning news" a deadly wrong-way crash in new york. >>> and a scary spinout. a hydroplane loses control during a race.

ben bernanke going to unheard of lengths to reach out to you. it's so big he is not even in the cube. by joining us for memory walk. [ man ] you invite three people. [ woman ] and they'll invite three people. and before you know it, you have a team. more than 5 million americans... may not be able to stop the progression of alzheimer's. but we can. step up. move a nation to end alzheimer's. start a team today. go to alz.org. when morning comes in the middle of the night... rooster crow. ...it affects your entire day. to get a good night's sleep, try 2-layer ambien cr. the first layer dissolves quickly to help you fall asleep. and unlike other sleep aids, a second dissolves slowly to help you stay asleep. when taking ambien cr, don't drive or operate machinery. sleepwalking, and eating or driving while not fully awake with memory loss for the event as well as abnormal behaviors such as being more outgoing or aggressive than normal, confusion, agitation and halluciations may occur. don't take it with alcohol as it may increase these behaviors. all

federal reserve chairman ben bernanke, begins two days of congressional testimony on the state of the economy. bernanke will likely be grilled about the stimulus plan, the bank bailout and the foreclosure crisis. wall street will be listening for clues that the fed is ready to dial back some of its extraordinary measures to keep inflation in check. >>> kra c appears to have solved its budget crisis. but now has another major problem on its hands. its public employees pension fund, the largest in the nation. the retirement system lost nearly $57 billion in its last fiscal year. that's nearly one-quarter of its value. >>> "the boston globe" has won concessions from its largest union. they have approved $10 million in pay and ben get cuts. the union rejected a similar offer last month. the newspaper is projected to lose $80 million this year. >>> gas prices dropped another 7 cents in the last week to an average of $2.46 a gallon. that's almost 40% lower than this time last year. >>> a hotel that will forever be linked to president richard nixon could find a new owner today. washington's

and the nasdaq added 6 points. >>> ben bernanke testifying on capitol hill today said the economy is improving but offered a word of caution. the federal reserve chair said interest rates will probably stay at around zero for a while and unemployment will likely remain high through 2011. >>> oil prices meantime ended higher today gaining 74 cents to settle just below $65 a barrel. >>> and best buy is taking a new approach to finding just the right candidate for a new media marketing position. it posted the job on twitter, and best buy says the perfect applicant needs to be proficient with twitter and have 250-plus followers. that's it from cnbc, we're first in business worldwide. now back to msnbc. >>> welcome back, everyone. i'm tamron hall. >> i'm david shuster. we'll have more on that sarah palin news in a few minutes but in the big picture at this hour, the right to carry a concealed weapon. senator john thune, senator of south dakota, is proposing an amendment that would allow people to carry concealed weapons across state lines including those mentally ill and criminal. chuck s

testifying later, federal reserve chairman ben bernanke, f.d.i.c. chief sheila bair and others were all asked whether they would take back some of the powers the administration wants to take from them and give to the new agency. as frank predicted, they all agreed. >> yes. >> reporter: that united opposition is one reason treasury secretary geithner wants to move by the end of the year on regulatory reform. bankers, brokers and even regulators all have reasons to resist change. the administration fears reform will only get harder if it slips into next year. darren gersh, "nightly business report," washington, d.c. >> suzanne: stronger than expected corporate earnings have helped underpin stocks this week and push the dow over 9,000. while some economists believe a stabilized profit picture suggests the recession is coming to an end, others are not yet convinced. in fact, there is growing concern about a double-dip recession, also known as "w- shaped" recovery. as we continue our "reviving the economy" coverage, scott gurvey takes a look at how some

fed chairman ben bernanke told a senate panel that he opposes part of the plan that would create a consumer protection agency. >>> general motors says it is seeing signs the ailing auto industry is beginning to recover. gm's second-quarter sales fell 15% below a year ago. but were up 20% from the first three months of this year. the automaker says government stimulus plans around the world are expected to generate millions in sales. >>> well, chrysler is hoping to get some extra mileage out of the government's cash for clunkers program. the automaker will match the $4,500 incentive for trading in old cars. and customers won't even have to trade in an old car or qualify for the federal deal to be eligible. that means customers who take advantage of the chrysler offer, along with the government's, can save up to $9,000 on a new vehicle. >>> remember, you can get the latest business news anytime on our website. the address is abcnews.com. >>> and coming up this morning, a new look at last week's light rail crash in san francisco. human error is now the focus. >>> and trials for a swine flu vac