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laden will necessarily help them raise funds unless it improves greatly in finance, which it may. >> so there's a couple questions here, how do they get their money and how they spend their money. the united states has spent $10.4 billion in the past ten years to fight terrorism. the estimates was it was about half a million dlrz dollars to pull off 9/11. the failed times square bombing attempt was estimated to cost as little as $5,000. we're hearing that azazi financed his attack with credit cards and a home mortgage using the u.s. banking system. it has gotten exponentially easier to pull off an attack, has it not? >> it has, and this is something they like to make great play of. if you look at the greatest things to come out of the had he pe nins la, they make this point. the christmas day detroit airliner attack may have failed, but look how little money it cost you and how little it cost us. but there are large infrastructure costs to groups like al-qaeda. the u.s. military at one point captured documents in iraq and they had a huge cost taking care of the families of their operatives. but even though it's not expensive to carry out an attack, funding the money can carry additional risk in the networks, funneling money up and down the pipe lines, and funneling these funds to people who need it. if you make it more difficult for them to access money where they need it, you can make it difficult for them to carry out an attack, even if it's a relatively inexpensive attack. >> matt, stay where you are for a moment. i want to welcome david cohen. he's the acting secretary for terrorism. he works counter-terrorism for the treasury department. matt just talked about following the money. you're looking at the guy who has to follow the money. david, tell us, where does al-qaeda get its money from? >> hi, ali. al-qaeda traditionally has received its funding from donors in the gulf. and we, over the last several years, have been dedicated to disrupting those financial networks that em nature from the gulf, going after the donors, going after the fundraisers, the facilitators, the financial institutions that may be involved in moving that money. and as a result have had pretty good success in putting a real strain on al-qaeda core's finances. >> how do they move money around? we all heard that osama bin laden had 500 euros sewn into his clothes ready to make an escape, but when they do raise money, let's say somebody in the gulf is giving them money. how does that money move around? >> well, today it is primarily moved by couriers once it is collected by the fundraiseres, the bundlers, it is then generally passed off to couriers who actually move the physical currency out of a gulf into -- whether it's pakistan or elsewhere where the extremist groups are operating. we have had, i think, quite good success over the last several years of pushing these terrorist organizations, al-qaeda in particular, out of the formal financial system and forcing them to rely on much more difficult means of couriering money around. >> there are a lot of questions, obviously, about the degree of support al-qaeda gets from pakistan. have you been able to discern any specific financial support, either from pakistani authorities or military or intelligence or from donors in pakistan? >> no, ali. it's far too early to make any kind of judgment on whether there is any sort of support that was provided, in particular for bin laden's house there in abbottabad. we are currently very much engaged with the intelligence community in going through the material that was taken from the house, using the unique expertise and capabilities of the treasure department's intelligence office to comb through that material and look for leads with respect to financing, wherever they may lead. you know, i'm hopeful that we're going to find some interesting material in there. if i were a donor or a fund raiser, facilitator, i would be quite nervous today. >> i'm assuming they don't keep lists as a way a sort of congressional campaign would, but you guys know how to dig through that stuff so hopefully you'll find stuff. christine and i were talking earlier in the week that this feels a little bit like organized crime. you are involved as well in tracking organized crime. are there similarities in how you combat, let's say, the mafia versus international terror organizations like al-qaeda? >> look, the underlying similarity is that we need to follow the money. whether it's an organized crime group or a terrorist organization, they all need money to keep the organization going, from training, recruiting, paying the operative is, buying supplies. if you can go after the money supply, you can actually waegen their ability to operate. that's the fundamental theory behind what we do in my office at treasury and what we do in the u.s. government, frankly around the world, in trying to cut off the money supply. >> david, good to have you here. thanks for telling us about this. david kohn is the acting secretary for intelligence with the department of treasury. let's bring matt levitt. you got to hear that conversation, matt. with respect to pakistan, what's your best educated guess as to the role of pakistan, whether formally or informally, on funding al-qaeda? >> i don't think pakistan had an interest in punding al-qaeda. if there was a report, and we don't know yet if there was, after a form kind that maybe they had military positions or our biggest concern is -- the government is looking into very, very carefully. the bottom line is even without financial support from the pakistani government, we're concerned that the pakistani government hasn't done everything they wanted to do. >> matt, good to talk to you. thanks very much for joining us. matt levitt is a senior representative and a financial analyst. the debt ceiling. time is running out to raise it. what could happen if we crash into the debt ceiling? 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you were asked. 60% of you said no, don't raise it. just 37% favor raising the debt ceiling. i doubt he was polled, but treasury secretary tim geithner would be one of those in favor of raising it. he says it would be a catastrophe if we don't do it. in fact, 58% of you say that not raising the debt ceiling would result in major problems at the very least, if not a full-blown crisis. this is math i do not understand. because it was the same people who were polled. so 60% of you say don't raise the ceiling, 58% of you say, if you don't raise the ceiling, things are going to be really bad. jean, we electricity our politicians and let them know quite clearly that we don't want the debt ceiling raised because it will cause major problems. has this debt ceiling debate become entirely irrational? >> it sort of started off that way, in fact, because we're using the debt ceiling for the wrong reason. susan in the government accountability office said it's a power tool. it's doing the opposite of what it was meant to do. they're saying, don't raise it, we want to cut spending, we want to control the debt. >> it's a little like having an argument that you have in the house is, we've raised up a little bit of our credit card debt and you just say, i'm not paying the bill. >> you're going to prioritize your mortgage payments and not pay anything else. people say we can pay the interest and we'll be fine. we have revenue to pay the interest, but we're not going to have enough revenue to come in and pay a lot of our non-discretionary spending. >> mark is a friend of our show. mark, are there those who say raising the debt ceiling is not a policy tool but what do you say? >> let me say this. i understand the policy issues, and certainly we've made the decision to spend. but this has now gotten to a point where we see a congress which is incapable of making rati rational decisions around our debt. it must be a policy issue this time. frankly, the notion of credit card debt, we will not default as a nation. we can pay our foreign creditors and domestic creditors -- >> i hear what you're saying, i hear what you're saying, but the fact is, when you raise the debt ceiling, someone won't get paid. that speaks to the whole faith and credit of the u u.s. government, the thing that's been at the heart of the united states for decades. >> it's called a layoff. corporations do this all the time. when their revenue goes down, they restructure their organizations and they restructure operations. it has never lost a program, it has never down sized a program. it's, in a sense, a problem. the debt ceiling lus not be raised. at one point, look, we have spent nearly $6 trillion in terms of tarp, the stimulus in the last six months of qe-2. >> most of that doesn't come out of the debt but the federal reserve. will is a cnn contributor. will, you're a conservative, and you feel minus the tea party, democrats and republicans could have hammered out a deal for the debt ceiling? >> you're telling me the tea party disrupted $13 trillion in debt? i don't think the debt ceiling is the proper thing to hold in stants. if you come out with serious spending cuts, then maybe it's worth it. and that's not worth real spending cutting efforts. >> it's not going to happen not necessarily because people don't want it to happen, it's not going to happen because we don't have the time between now and august 2nd to get all of that done. basically what americans are looking at to fundamentally overhauling how we run this country, our discretionary spending. it's not going to happen overnight. >> you're absolutely right, there's not time, but it's not just time that there's a problem. there's been no willingness from either party to make. here's the problem with that thought process. there was only three opportunities. in the current political -- >> the last budget? >> let me say this. the reason there were less opportunities, though, is democrats are cutting to look for deficits. you have to force them into it, and this one -- >> we need it a place where we have to have it, and that's the 2012 budget. >> i would be very supportive of a debt ceiling increase if i saw mature congressional delegates talking about the real problem here, unsustainable deficits. we are not going to be able to continue to fund what is going on in washington today, and regrettably, people in this country have to recognize if we don't restructure, it will be restructured for us. s&p had a rating -- >> the outlook or a rating? >> the outlook. they based it on fannie mae and freddie mac and a certain number. as a mature individual, i want people to actually understand, we can't spend this money. the truth of the matter is the tax system is broken, it is completely untenable. part of this is restructuring the way we raise funds to pay for our government. i will tell you, the president's own debt commission had a lot more ideas than we're floating around right now. >> we'll leave it there. we'll discuss this more. mark, thanks for joining us. mark is a founder and chairman of the memphis tool designer. we ponder, we cringe, sometimes we cheer. what does it tell us about the true state of being employed in america? i'll tell you on the other side. ] you've reached the age where you don't back down from a challenge. this is the age of knowing how to make things happen. so, why would you let something like erectile dysfunction get in your way? isn't it time you talked to ? 20 million men already have. with every age comes respons. ask your doctor if your heart. do not take viagra if you tak, as it may cause an unsafe dro. side effects may include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. this is the age of tak. viagra. talk to . see if america's most prescribed ed treatment is right for you. you think i have allergies? 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[ male announcer ] get zyrtec®'s proven allergy relief and love the air®. unlike fish oil, megared softgels are small and easy to swallow with no fishy smell or aftertaste. try megared today. we just got the jobs report for april. the unemployment rate is up to 9% from 8.8%, but i want you to forget that and i'm going to tell you why in just a moment. this is what i want you to look at, the number of jobs added. we've got all the way back to may of 2010, a year ago. take a look at that. we had a nice pop back in may but look what happened. that was after stimulus money ran out, that was after the census workers stopped working. we had a rough summer last year and then we started to see things happening. in february of this year, we started to get into those numbers that start to matter. and now in april, we had 244,000 net jobs created. that, by the way, was 268,000 in the private sector minus 24,000 government jobs lost. i never like it when jobs are lost, but i do like it when the growth in our jobs are coming from the private sector. that's where it's supposed to come from. i want you to worry about that number with me, the growth in jobs. we are within striking distance of the number of jobs this economy needs to be creating on a monthly basis to actually get our unemployment number, our rate, back down to where we were before the recession. let me bring in my colleague, christine romans, to give you some analysis on these numbers. again, this is a much more hopeful set of numbers. certainly not in a great place yet but moving in the right direction. >> now for three months you're seeing the momentum at least hold, and the key is to see these jobs hold and more. we looked at some jobs gains retail. business in professional services, manufacturing jobs were created, you saw mining jobs created, leisure and hospitality. health care. manufacturing even 29,000 jobs gross. so what the economists were saying, ali, to close out the week was this was a jbroad-base job creation, moving in the right direction. long-term unemployment went down a little bit. a number of discouraged workers went down a little bit. we still have a lot of problem spots but that's the momentum we're watching right now. >> people coming into the country, it becomes more effective for us to be exporting things. hold on a second, christine, because you and i get a lot of flak about this discussion. we are pleased about the way this trend is going, but a lot of americans say this seems very out of touch with my reality. columnist bob herbert is an author and a journalist. he joins me now. he knows this stuff inside and out. bob, people are right to get a little frustrated with the media about this. >> when people see gas prices on television television, it correlates one on one with what's going on at the pump. job correlation, not so much. you can have a good jobs number one month, and if people are out of work for six months or more, what's the -- >> we want you to stay because we're not disconnecting from you. we think it's important to let you know where the trends are going and where the jobs are going. the cnn research corporation poll, eight out of ten americans now think the economy is in poor shape. only 18% think it's good. the number one has been unemployment for a very long time. it's been years going on where unemployment is the number one concern. the number two concern is debt and deficit. the number three concern is gas prices and that's relatively new because of this run-up in gas prices. we've had a recovery. we've been in recovery technically for two years now. >> uh-huh. >> what's wrong with this picture? >> what's wrong with this picture is that we tend not to focus enough on the media and the politicians on employment, which is the most critical factor. that's why most people think the economy is not doing well, because so many people are still unemployed. 14 million unemployed. a number of people working part-time because they can't find full-time jobs, and a lot of the jobs that have been created in the so-called recovery have not been great jobs. they're service sector jobs, low paying, without much in the way of benefits. and one quick point on the latest job numbers, 244,000 is obviously an encouraging number over what we've seen. we need more, but it's an improvement. if i recall, 50 or 60,000 of those jobs were mcdonald's jobs. these are jobs that average $8 an hour, sometimes less, and some of those jobs are actually part-time jobs. >> right. >> you can't get too giddy about this stuff. >> you have worked with this and you think there is a sluolution. we're all ears. >> we're moving in what i think is the wrong direction, because i think the obsession with the deficit in the short term is not a good thing to be doing. we need to be investing in job creation because we need to create much more jobs, even more jobs than the latest numbers per month, if we're going to make a dent in those 13.5 million or so people who are out of work. you're never really going to make a real dent in the deficits if you don't get a lot of people in the middle class working and paying taxes. that's how in the long term you begin to take care of some of these things. >> one thing we're all concerned about is team unemployment. we look at minority team unemployment and it's going up and up and up. ben bernanke recently says people who have been out of work for six months or longer, they're at risk for atrophying their skills, lose thiing their contacts. yet does it feel like that, especially as we gear up for another election season. >> particularly the long term unemployment, i talked to so many people across the country who are in their mid-50s or so who have been out of work for six, eight months to a year, and they're absolutely worried they'll never work again -- >> that's a lot different than being 24. >> exactly. and they have reason to work. to your question about unemployment,unemployment, and now people coming out of college are having a tough time. the research has shown over the years that if you get a slow start in the employment market that slows you down, those earnings are affected for the rest of your life. you hear folks when they talk about the deficit saying, we need to watch out for our film and our grandchildren. if you don't have the kind of employment where they can raise families, when is. >> well, we are all exactly on the same page with this. the ability for jobs. a lot of things have be muddled lately with a lot of political talk. christine, stick with me. we're going to get specific on where the jobs are next, on "your money." ajigs and whatchamacallits are constantly gathering intelligence on the best deals for you. with name your own price, they're yours for up to 60% off. but we're always looking to improve. for instance, what does this have to do with finding hotel deals? we're not sure. yet. we share. shop from anywhere. and are always connected. we live in a social world. isn't it time we had a social currency to match? membership rewards points from american express. use them to get the things you love from amazon.com, ticketmaster.com, and more unexpected places. they're a social currency with endless possibilities. just got more powerful. introducing precise pain relieving heat patch. it blocks pain signals for deep relief precisely where you need it most. precise. only from the makers of tylenol. as i promised, we're going to give you some sectors that are hiring and tell you where those jobs are. take gilliam. you've seen him on the show, he's with one of the largest employers in the country, so he knows where they're hiring. last time you pointed out that temporary jobs serve as a leading indicator for permanent job growth. in other words, they come first and then jobs come later. this recession, this recovery, has been unusual in that we've seen these temporary jobs continue to grow for much longer. >> yeah. i mean, look, the temporary jobs have definitely showed the recovery, they've led the way. we've seen the wave through the industrial category of jobs in office and clerical, now we're seeing strong strength in the professional skills and those are translating into permanent jobs. they've translated at the fastest pace through conversion of temporary workers. clients have seen their demands solidify and they've said, hey, come join me on a temporary basis and then they've reached out for more. >> you think you may not want temporary work but you've seen temporary work leading to full-time work. >> the best way to see full-time work is to get a temporary opportunity and see yourself through to the company. >> they're concerned about the economy. are they not doing it because we've got a trend toward temporary work, because it costs the company less in terms of benefits? >> it's not a benefit statement most of the time. when they have demand, they have to fulfill the demand in the capacity they need. they do that first on a flexible basis they're looking for the skill sets they need on hand, and they can do that best with temporary workers. then when they've got the confidence that their business prospects are good, the economic impact is strong, then they're willing to bring them on full-time. >> health care added 37,000 jobs in april. health care has been a big gainer throughout the recession, before the recession, since the recession. this year alone, 295,000 healt care jobs added in this country. >> this is due to the aging population and it's also a question of how much will be driven by the health care reform that's coming. the one area that historically has been weak lately has been the nursing segment and now the nursing segment has picked up. we're seeing even on the temporary nursing assignments, more of an impact on that as well. >> inventories mp just in time and companies would get something when they needed it so they wouldn't have warehouses full of stuff. now there's a feeling that warehouses are just in time stuff. they were more nimble. they could be more nimble on both sides of economic growth. do you think that trend stays? >> absolutely. look at the recession. companies had to cut so deeply into the work force that they were very committed to. they don't want to go through that again. in addition to having flexibility, though, a temporary contract worker allows a company to really narrow in on the skills and capabilities they need that month, that quarter, that year, and make a commitment. engage that person and then allow for investment a year later. >> let me just put up in that. there was a gain of half a million jobs created. what is this? >> this is finance and engineering. high pay, too. we see a large trend for this type of job in the u.s. that's obvious. but this is also the area where as the jobs recovery strengthens, this is where you see the growth. the hottest job right now appears to be engineering. we're at 2.5% unemployment. now these people are able to negotiate for better pay. this is the first place we're seeing pay raises. >> that's why this debt is good debt. >> good to see you as always, thanks so much. christine, good to see you and we'll be seeing you every day as we always do. the way the federal reserve operates is about as cold as stone as he gets. they want to restructure the fed and you'll hear directly from him, next. (announcer) everything you need to stay balanced on long trips. residence inn. representative barney frank took on wall street last year with a major reform bill. his next target is the federal reserve. congressman frank joins us from durham, north carolina. stand by, franklin. let's break down your bill. the federal committee that votes on interest rates and monetary policy is made up of 12 members. seven are chosen by elected officials, five are appointed by business leaders. congressman frank ames to eliminate the ones that are will not selected by elected officials. it has the ability to set short term rates which has a huge impact on short term rates. the fed does more to get us out of this economic recession than anybody. >> i have been a supporter of federal reserve, and in a bill last year, there were some that wanted to dismantle it. in fact, i agree with you that it has worked well to get us out of this recession. we've got very good jobs numbers today. the people who i don't think should be voting on the open marketing committee, many of them have been critical of the fed. so, in fact, a couple of these regional bank presidents have been the ones who led the resistance to precisely those actions by the federal reserve that you correctly credit. >> do we, in doing what you are saying, limit voices and perspectives that are, as much as it's hard to swallow, remarkably important in the fed's decision-making process? >> no, it's not hard to swallow. i would say two things. first of all, we're not limiting their voices. there are like 12 regional presidents, some that vote, some don't. i think their voices should be heard. they ought to be able to go to the meetings and speak. the question is, do you give people elected votes that are selected by people who predominantly represent financial institutions, and that's why they tend to favor that part of the fed's mandate that says fight inflation and underplay the unemployment part. i think you need to do both. >> they did do that in that first and legendary press conference that ben bernanke held. there was definitely that sense that if you're my viewer and you think, as the majority of americans do, or the highest number of people polled think unemployment is the number one issue in this country, second is debt and deficit and gas prices, to hear the feds say that inflation is their number one concern ahead of unemployment does sound a little puzzling to the average person. >> that's right, and i think that's probably because mr. bernanke gets pressure from the people who shouldn't be voting. if you look at the fed known as quantitative reading -- >> that's when they throw the fed money. >> there's been a couple of people from the regional banks that have been critical of that. they represent financial interests. their interest is more in fighting inflation. these are people who do better when interest rates are high. they're in the business of lending money. and yes, i think there was a rhetorical retreat, almost, between mr. ben bernanke, so when you say why take on the feds, no, i'm trying to defend mr. bernanke to continue doing what he's doing against the people who disagree with him. i don't want to see the feds get out of the fight prematurely. >> good to talk to you, barney. thanks for being on the show. >> thank you. gold, silver, oil all had a rough week. what's good for your portfolio and is it time to buy? up next. [ woman ] welcome back, jogging stroller. you've been stuck in the garage, while my sneezing and my itchy eyes took refuge from the dust in here and the pollen outside. but with 24-hour zyrtec®, i get prescription strength relief from my worst allergy symptoms. it's the brand allergists recommend most. ♪ lily and i are back on the road again. where we belong. with zyrtec®, i can love the air®. give me 90 sebddle, i'll give you some of the biggest headlines of the week. general motors joined chrysler and ford in posting a profit. it's the first time in seven years that detroit's big three have been in the black at the same time. gm is getting aggressive, investing $131 million to build the next corvette. the last time the corvette was revised was in 2005. no official i am ajmages reveal, but the new version is expected to be out in a couple years. for the first time in ten years, walmart rules the for tune 500. they rule out exxonmobil in the biggest in the country. fears of rising gas prices could slow consumer spending. walmart has been relying on gains in global profits. mortgage rates have been low. they're getting lower, dropping below 5% again for a 30-year fixed mortgage. continuing at this economic recovery is fragile. it's not going to last. if you can afford to buy a home and are in the market, focus on locking in the lowest mortgage rate you will get in your lifetime instead of trying to time the bottom of the housing price decline. now to a meltdown in commodity prices this week. silver was the first to crack, at one time below 20% for a high since friday. that forced them to raise cash. oil and gold well off the highs, investors trying to make sense of whether to buy on the dip or pull out entirely. steven leave is president of leave capital management. steven lieberman, president of lieberman capital. steven lieb, is it the commodity bubble bursting? we're looking at silver, gold taking a little bit of a drop. what is it? >> i think it's speculators getting a littles b bit ahead o themselves and the c and e raising margins. if you double margins, you're going to have basically people who were in there for the wrong reason getting out. i don't think it signifies anything, ali, about the long term. i wish i was wrong. as far as gold, the drop was really insignificant. it was only 4 or 5% from its high on a closing basis. ditto for oil, maybe 10%. these are the kinds of drops you see all the time in commodities. silver was a one off event in my opinion, and i think the uptake in silver is very much intact. >> charles, the last time we were together, you, steven and me talking about precious metals. you got some people saying you didn't go far back enough to give a good comparison. so take us back starting with gold. >> we saw a huge run-up in gold, obviously, more than 20 years ago. it followed a period in which gold prices really hadn't done very much for quite a while, and then all of a sudden they really popped and then came down pretty sharply. again, we had a very long period in which gold prices sharply. again, we had a large period in which gold prices really didn't do much. these are speculative bubbles. once they develop momentum of their own they keep ongoing until they run out of buyers, usually a raise in margin requirements has an impact, steven is right in that regard. in the case of silver, the original run up was driven by the hunt brothers. once margin requirements were increased, prices pretty much crashed and stayed down for a long time. >> margin requirements mean that investors -- in this case in silver, which was up for a big run, people had to put more money up to invest it. that obviously pushes people away. steven, another area of your specialty is oil. you've written a great deal about energy. you've been our go-to guy on it. oil dipping below $100 a barrel this week, posting a biggest one day drop in more than two years. long term, you and i are on exactly the same side of this argument. we think prices are going to remain high. if you're an investor, if you're watching this, you've got a 401(k) or i.r.a., what do you make of this? >> i think it's part of the normal course that commodities take. we've seen this before. i want to come back if i could. i think oil is definitely going higher providing the developing world stays intact. i think you can divide -- picking up on chuck's point, which i think is a good one, i think a lot of investors buy into it. basically what we have here is a little history lesson. between 1960 and the end of the '90s the u.s. basically controlled its fate. every time commodity pricings went up we were able to raise interest rates, get them back down and the economy sailed off. we got a little bit off track in the '70s. we didn't raise rates fast enough. commodity prices got way ahead of themselves and we suffered a pretty severe recession. what happened after the '90s, the developing world got very, very strong. now when we see oil prices go way up, it's not because of us. we're not paying over $4 at the tank right now with 9% unemployment. and that's why gold is rising. it's reflecting new realities. if you take a dollar and go to buy t-bills, you know what your interest is this morning? one penny per $100. gold has been an 11-year up trend not because of some speculative mania but because the u.s. and other western economies have lost control of their fate. until we develop alternative energies, coming back to oil again, until we figure out a way of controlling this gold will be the currency of choice. currency is the keyword. >> chuck, separate when we talk about commodities, that part of commodities that are being driven up by real demand in the developing world, in india and china, and that part which is speculation. i'm not judging speculation. i'm just saying what part of it is speculation and what part of it's demand? >> virtually all of it in the gold market and the silver market is speculation. i'm not sure there's anything to the view that gold is a currency. it was once used as a currency but it's been many decades since that's been the case. i see gold as absolutely nothing but a pure speculation. there's a bit of speculation in the energy market. certainly in the oil market. there's no shortage of oil. but because of developments in the middle east, specifically in libya, some disruption in other parts of the middle east, there's a little bit of concern on the part of consumers and users, so there's a bit of speculative demand in oil. it's driven up the price. but the inventories are plentful. there's no shortage of supply. if the saudis really were honest and lived up to their public statements saying that oil prices above $100 a barrel is too high and that it ought to come down, all they have to do is increase production. if they drill more oil or open the spigots a bit more and sell more oil, they'll drive the price down pretty quickly. >> all right. >> they're in a quandary. they love having the higher price. they love to generate the revenue. >> i got to stop you guys there. i know this conversation is going to go on further. we will make this the place for you to have it. you two guys have a will the of great opinions on this, stephen leeb and chuck lieberman. we're going to talk more about oil, gold, commodities and speculation in the weeks to come. there are reasons for you to feel good about your financial future. i'm going to tell you why in my x, y, z next. luck? i don't trade on luck. i trade on fundamentals. analysis. information. i trade on tradearchitect. this is web-based trading, re-visualized. streaming, real-time quotes. earnings analysis. probability analysis. that's what opportunity looks like. it's all visual. intuitive. and its available free, wherever the web is. this is how trade strategies are built. tradearchitect. only from td ameritrade. welcome to better. try new tradearchitect and trade commission free for 60 days. time now for the "x, y, z" of it. maybe one reason people were dancing in the streets after osama bin laden's death is we haven't had much reason to celebrate lately. the growth of employment in april shows some real promise. nearly two years after the recession ended 14 million people remain jobless. many without real prospects for getting a job soon. wages for most americans have stagnated for the last 20 years. americans are making more money, but the bulk of that income growth has largely gone to the highest tier of income earners. since the end of the recession, prices for many of our basics -- food, energy, clothing -- have been increasing. it is a bifurcated economy. some parts are working. some parts really aren't. how do we move some of those people who aren't participating in the recovery into the other column? first, by investing. stocks have doubled in the last two years. global companies are prospering. the fastest growing parts of the world are consuming more. i know some of you will e-mail me or tweet or post on my facebook page that real or average americans don't have money to invest. that's false. about 54% of working americans have an i.r.a. or 401(k) or are somehow invested in the stock market and that is a multi-year low. in fact, most working americans are investors. they just may not be active investors. that can change. on this show every single week, i'll give you insight into investing from the best minds out there. secondly, there are jobs out there. not enough for everyone. but there are a few million unfulfilled positions in this country. they may not be in your backyard. they may not even be in your area of specialty. but they may be your best bet. so you may have to relocate or retrain. go back to school. that's not easy. but for millions it may be the only solution. that's easy for me to say because i have a job. i don't face this dilemma. for those of you who don't have a job it may be better to take the leap now than to wait around for the next few years hoping the job you used to have will come back. that's "your money" for today. stay connected 24/7 on facebook and on twitter. my handle is @alivelshi. i read every one of your tweets. have a great weekend.

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