Transcripts For CNN CNN Tonight 20091215 : vimarsana.com

it near your food supply. put one right inside the fridge. uh-huh. whoa! zblb. five pounds of fat in the fridge works every time. reporter: well, not every time. you ll drop 150 bucks. imagine carrying it on your belly, kid. hurts my arm. reporter: jeanne moos, cnn, new york. i m wolf blitzer in the situation room. up next, cnn tonight. tonight, a wall street smackdown. president obama tells bailed out bankers to knock it off and step up. i did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on wall street. will wall street listen? also, senate health care deal, headed for a ditch. and one man, senator joe lieberman, doing the driving. i have a real hard time supporting it. it runs the risk of adding to the national debt, of raising taxes. and tiger kicked off the team. a big money sponsor says the woods drama doesn t play with customers. they have to move on. i think this is what accenture is telling tiger as well as the marketplace. his marriage aside, can tiger save his lucrative financial relationships? announcer: this is cnn tonight live from new york. here now, john roberts. good evening. thanks for being with us tonight. president obama, playing hard ball with wall street today. the president shamed top executives from banks to start lending again. the same banks that would not be around today, if not for government bailouts. his widespread outrage that wall street is now paying out massive year-end bonuses at the same time that main street is still reeling from record-high unemployment in a stalled economy. ed henry reports now on whether president obama s tough talk will lead to action. reporter: john, the big question is whether all of this talk will lead to the bankers actually doing more lending. the president has been pressuring them throughout his first year in office, to little effect so far. the president s message to bankers was blunt. taxpayers bailed you out. so now return the favor. marijuana america s banks received extraordinary assistance from american taxpayers to rebuild their industry and now that they re back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy. after channeling populous rage in ripping into the banks on cbs s 60 minutes i did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on wall street. reporter: the president suddenly shifted his tone from combative to constructive after actually meeting with the heads of the nation s biggest banks. so i urged these institutions here today to go back and take a third and fourth look about how they are operating when it comes to small business and medium-sized business lending. reporter: yet the president has repeatedly pressed the bankers to fix their pay and lend more to consumers, dating back to their first month in office. when i saw an article today indicating that wall street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses, that is the height of irresponsibility. it is shameful. reporter: that s why white house spokesman robert gibbs faced a barrage of questions about whether the president got firm commitments this time. you re saying positive, constructive bankers came out, positive, constructive i think the meeting was positive. i think the president said the meeting was also quite frank. the president didn t hand out awards. reporter: banker, like richard davis of u.s. bank corp, emerged saying they agree with the president and all is fine. we do agree but there s also a time and a place for lending to be a risk/reward measurement, right? at the end of a recession, the qualifications of most borrowers are lower than they were at the beginning. the banks, you don t want us to make loans that are not strong and well-suited for the consumer or small business. reporter: a top white house official insisted to me the president s approach is getting some results with these bankers, pointing to the fact that citigroup will be paying out bailout funds while bank of america said in 2010 it will be lending $5 billion to small businesses upon what it s already promised. critics on the left say they heard these promises from bank before. we ll see if they actually come true. john? president obama giving low marks to the nation s bankers, but much kinder when asked about the job he s doing. the president told oprah last night that he deserves a solid b plus for his first 11 months in office and if health care passed he would bump that up to an a minus. according to a gallup tracking poll, 48% approve of what he s doing. 42% disapprove. taxpayers getting more of the bailout money back, wells fargo announcing it will repay all of the $25 million it took to stay afloat. the bank says it will use proceeds from a $10.4 billion issue of new stock. citigroup has a deal to return $20 billion of the $45 billion it borrowed. the banking giant was on the brink of failure at the height of the crisis. its rescue package was one of the biggest and the government currently owns 34% of the company. president obama, behind closed doors today, meeting with those top executives of bailed out banks, poppie, he was strident on 60 minutes . a lot of tough talk, john, but i spoke to one of the top executives of the banks, one of the few invited that had an ear to the president. he said, quote, the president did not give us the speech he gave 60 minutes. he said there was little disagreement in the room. everyone stuck to their script. this was very uneventful. that was interesting to hear. he also outlined four main points from the president. let s go through them quickly to see what we re talking about here. he said we have to increase lending to small businesses. we ve heard that time and time again. he also said i want to see the banks doing more to keep americans in their homes. i want to see more mortgage modifications and refinancing. he also said directly to them, watch your compensation packages. be sensitive to american people out there. be sensitive to what main street is thinking. finally, support my financial regulatory reform. apparently all the bankers are behind his financial regulatory reform push. when he talked about compensation, apparently there was a bit of pushback this bank executive told me, saying we have to retain our tal top talent. we ve heard that before. also, we have to be conscious that once we paid the t.a.r.p. money back, we have to think, john, they can do what they want. what power does he have? on that point, wells fargo paying back its money, bank of america, most of these institutions paid back that money. what leverage does the president really have? legally, none. according to t.a.r.p., the legislation as it was passed last year, once that money is back into the hands of the government, he doesn t have any leverage. this was a call to bankers saying we are watch iing you. i am watching you. i want to see you watch your compensation be sensitive. at the same time, you have the american bankers association coming out saying since t.a.r.p. started, the 21 banks that got the money lent $2.2 trillion. that may be a fact but small business lending has fallen looking april through september. you can t ignore what s happening to small businesses. this banking executive said let s be clear here, poppy, the amount of demand for loans coming to us has fallen. americans are deleveraging. we re hearing all of this call for loans, but they re saying fewer people are asking for those loans and you have to listen to the bankers on that front also. poppy harlow, thank you so much. you got it. abu dabi agreed to a plan for its cash strapped neighbors. high-flying real estate market has seriously soured along with the global economy, lavish over the top development projects turned the glitzy financial center into an international symbol of decadence and a popular playground for the rich and famous. dubai and abu dahbi make up major roadblock, connecticut senator joe lieberman, democrat turned independent has become a linchpin to the bill s survival. as dana bash reports, if he cannot be swayed or apieced, any health care overhaul may be dead. reporter: a political bomb, blowing up senate democrats hopes. this medicare buy in is another way to try to get to a singer payer government controlled health care system. reporter: he said he would support a gop filibuster to block health care if it allows 55 to 64-year-olds to buy into medicare. it has some of the same problems the public option had. it runs the risk of adding to the national debt. reporter: the problem is democrats had hoped expanding medicare was the key to getting liberal democrats to accept a health care bill without a public option. but they likely need lieberman s vote to pass health care. lieberman spokesperson said he made crystal clear to leaders last week he had deep concerns about the medicare buy in. leaders are fearious, they feel caught offguard by his outright opposition. i ve always thought senator lieberman was okay with medicare buy-in. reporter: one reason? in 2000, lieberman even campaigned for a medicare buy-in as al gore s running mate. in this interview three months ago, he acknowledged support for the idea as recently as 2006. proposing was they have an option to buy into medicare earlier. again, on the premise that that would be less expensive reporter: left leaning blogs are exploding with anger toward lieberman, one democratic senator told cnn this is the latest example of lieberman poking democrat in the eyes from his support for the iraq war to this speech at the republican convention. senator barack obama is a gifted and eloquent young man, who i think can do great things for our country in the years ahead. but, my friends, el quens is no substitute for a record, not in these tough times for america. reporter: now, john, this evening, there was a meeting of all senate democrats that included joe lieberman to discuss how to deal with this potential problem. all indications from sources coming out of that meeting is that it appears that senate democrats may actually drop this idea of a medicare buy-in to appeal to and, frankly, to appease joe lieberman. we re waiting to hear from harry reid, who should come to the cameras in a few minutes. that s what we re hearing from democratic sources. in that meeting it seemed to be agreed upon that they would probably move that way and accept the fact that at least in the short term, they would not get this very important issue for liberals. again, this is what we re being that s what s being indicated by sources. we ll see what harry reid has to say in a few minutes. dana bash, standing by for a potentially important development there. we ll get back to you as soon as we hear something. tough talk from president obama. will wall street step up? politics can get pretty nasty, but in italy it got downright bloody, italian president silvio berlusconi battered and sent to the hospital. one of the big sponsor sincere bailing on woods. will others follow? 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(announcer) 36-hour cialis. or cialis for daily use. ask your doctor about cialis today, so when the moment is right, you can be ready. ask your doctor about cialis today, o for objectivity. one of the basic principles of td ameritrade. it means you help investors. you don t just sell them. it means no hidden agenda. td ameritrade always has.always will. put the investor you first. that s how they work. that s how they deliver objective investing help. that s what td ameritrade stands for. what does your investment firm stand for? it s time for fresh thinking. it s time for td ameritrade. we re watching on capitol hill right now for potentially important development regarding the senate health care bill. there s senator chris dodd, talking right now. we just heard senate majority leader harry reid a couple of moments ago. no news at this point, but they re talking about what could be the future of the bill as senator joe lieberman, independent from connecticut is saying, that he will not support a bill that expands medicare so that people 55 years of age and older can buy into it. we ll keep monitoring this and flag you right away if there s any news made. so far, nothing, though. tiger woods starting to feel the financial fallout from the controversy surrounding his personal life. one major sponsor has already dropped the world s best golfer. other sponsors are assessing their relationship with woods. this all comes days after woods admitted to infidelity and announced he is taking an indefinite break from professional golf. mary snow reports on what it all means for the tiger woods brand. what are you made of? reporter: time may not be on tiger woods side when it comes to luxury watch maker tag hoyer. the company tells the associated press it s reassessing its long-term relationship with the golf great. gillette says it s reassessing its marketing. accenture dropped ads like this. go on, be a tiger. reporter: veteran michael newman had a bigger risk than some other sponsors, as woods was the center of their sales pitch. they re not household names. sometimes they can create almost overnight connectability with consumers when they choose an athlete like tiger to associate with. reporter: nike, woods bigger sponsor is different. i m tiger woods. i m tiger woods. reporter: along with its ads, nike has a golf line strongly relying on tiger woods. nike is reiterating he has the company s full support. nike golf being a $650 million portion of the nike entire company has founded itself, its whole identity surrounds tiger woods and what he does on the golf course. reporter: his absence on the golf course in the past has put a big dent in ratings, dropped nearly 50% when woods was out for six months in 2008, recuperating from knee surgery. when he returned, nike capitalized on it. hi, guys. welcome back. good to see you. you, too. reporter: returning to golf after this leap isn t as likely to be this easy. how can woods rebrand himself? we asked ann green, who does research for advertisers. for a little while, he has to go quiet and he does need to go about ensuring that he focuses on his own brand and managing his own brand in the sense of getting his personal life together and also ensuring that when he does come back to the game that he is at the top of the game. reporter: some marketers we spoke with today say this whole episode is likely making companies think twice about the risks of signing multimillion dollar endorsement deals with celebrities. john? it s just really incredible, when you think of all the money that s involved here and the tri trickle down effect that one athlete can have. one athlete on this sport and in nike s case, all of its products that are linked with golf are so dependent on him. unbelievable. mary snow, thank you so much. we ll have much more on the tiger woods brand later on in the program and tiger woods acts on golf itself. italian president berlusconi remains in the hospital. a man struck him with a metal replica of the milan cathedral, facing fraud charges and is in the middle of a messy divorce. paula newton reports even in a country known for its passionate politics, the attack came as quite a shock. reporter: watch this video as the attack comes in from the right-hand side. there it is, the italian prime minister taking a hit in the face, staggering back a bit. and then the full force of the blow recorded moments later. silvio berlusconi emerges defiant with blood dripping, broken nose, two broken teeth, visibly shaken at what was supposed to be a support of political rally. instead, he went straight to hospital, where doctors say he will remain until at least tuesday. translator: it was not easy for the prime minister. he was shocked. he was upset. no doubt, he had an interrupted sleep and it s just like he had woken up from a nightmare. he was most upset. reporter: italian police confirm 42-year-old massimo catalia has been charged with aggravated assault, and they add he has a history of psychiatric treatment. a sturdy replica of a milan cathedral that was pitched at berlu berlusconi s face, inflicting deep cuts. still, italy s interior minister says security followed all the rules before adding berlusconi has a right to get close to supporters. this is a democracy. his aides say he is shaken, wondering why anyone would hate him this much. he woke up asking for the papers and saw these gruesome pictures and headlines, italians wondering if this was a simple security breach. translator: he has so many gorillas around him, it s strange this man could succeed at hurting him. reporter: it s comments like these that are worrying the italian government. on a humane level, i feel badly about this, she says. but speaking politically, he deserves what he got. that attitude went viral on facebook and other websites before the italian government said it would try to shut down that commentary, saying it incited violence. italian politics are notoriously fractured, berlusconi taking this one on the chin from the left, the same political side his aides say can be blamed for inciting this shocking attack of a 73-year-old man. paula newton, cnn, london. a quick update, that press conference with senate majority leader harry reid and otheros on the health care bill. no news was made there. they re still going to wait for the congressional budget office to come up with spending, at least a cost estimate on the bill before they say anything else. again, senator joe lieberman s threat hanging out there, that he will not support the bill if it includes that provision to expand medicare. much more debate on health care reform bill coming up. coming up on this program, the recession and the reality. is the end of our economic misery in sight? one southern community struggling with thousands of job losses. is tiger a man without a professional future? he says he s working on his marriage. his sponsors are jumping ship. and he s out of the game. at least for now. wells fargo has been putting our clients first. according to a leading independent research firm, in 2009, clients rated wells fargo advisors the #1 u.s. investment firm for doing what s best for them. with advisors nearby and nationwide, we re with you when you need advice and planning expertise to meet today s challenges. wells fargo advisors. together we ll go far. together we ll go far. grill: holy moly!!! what just hap.whoa! grill: i mean.wow! hey! that looks great. grill: and there s no need to discuss it further. in fact, you can buff most of that out. just give it a once-over with a wet paper towel.hee, hee grill: ok, good talking to you. anncr: accidents are bad. anncr: but geico s good. ding! with 24-hour claims service. strong words from president obama, calling wall street bankers fat cats. according to one inside source, he was far less strident in his language today, basically telling the banker, we bailed you out. now it s time for you to give back. will they? joining us now, former chairman, adviser to carlisle group and goldman sachs. good to have you here. the president was urging banks to increase lending, support new regulations for the banking industry. is he likely are they likely to listen to him? i think that s what presidents have to do. he has to call for the bankers to do more lending and act like good citizens. i don t think it will persuade them very much. the real game is being played in the congress where regulatory reform is coming out of the house finance committee and then soon to go to the senate banking committee. i think the president, motivated by huge public anger at the banking industry, had to say on 60 minutes and today in the white house, bankers, get with the program. will they get with the program? probably not as a result of that. but there will be a lot of pressure on them. what s the relationship between president obama and the bankers? as you said, he called them fat cats on 60 minutes last night, probably the language was much different. at least one be inside source says it was, during the meeting today. do they think highly of him? are they inclined to listen to what he has to say, based on the relationship? the industry respects the power of the presidency. do they fear him? do they think that he s going to take away their benefits, whatever they may be? they re looking at the congress. they re looking to see what chris dodd and barney frank do. they understand the game. they know that the president will wile away at them publicly. they know that larry somers and tim geithner will criticize them publicly, but that s probably as far as it will go. at least one bank s ceo seemed to be saying the right things today, richard davis, the ceo of bank copper came out after the meeting outside of the west wing and spoke with report reporters. let s listen to what he said. we re under the microscope to show every step that we take to do a better job of listening to customers, paying attention to their needs and being more available than we have been in the past. the productive conversation allowed us to align our thinking and be more in line with each other as we talk to the american public about being party to this recovery. we haven t done a very good job of saying that. he went on to say that his company is willing to reexamine every loan declined. does he really get it? i think they get it. you know better than anybody, this is standard white house fare. bring the executives in, troupe them out in front of the cameras and say what went on inside the white house. now it s business back to usual. i don t think we ll see a massive sea change. this was a polite, public relati relations meeting. the bankers understood what was being said. i think they ll try to help. they said the right things. it fed to the populist fura that s going on in the country. now back to business. earlier the president called them irresponsible, again urged banks to rein in the compensation. you ll get stock, it s base d o performance, but hundreds of other people who work in that company who will get bonuses, average across the company, $700,000, some of those in the multiple millions of dollars and most of these banks have paid back t.a.r.p. money. does the president have any leverage overo them at all? i think the president does. i think ken fineburg has done a very good job of jaw boning. they are thinking very carefully about what to do. goldman sachs paid out stock that doesn t vest for some years. that s as good as it can get. that diminishes the amount of only for their top executives. plenty of other people in the lower tier will get millions of dollars in bonuses. that has yet to be determined, in terms of how that will be paid. i would guess their pay, their compensation will be in a different form than it has been in the past. i think the jaw boning of the president and the administrat n administration, you cannot legislate compensation. that s impossible. puttin done the very best they could have. we ll see what happens. argument erlevitt, good to talk with you tonight. good to be with you. thanks for coming in. appreciate it. is the recession finally over? if you re out of work, the likely answer is no. conflicting responses coming out of the white house are not all that reassuring. one adviser insists the recession is history. another aide says that s just not the case. it will take time. a year ago, the question was, would we have a depression? today, everyone agrees that the recession is over and the questions are around how fast we ll recover. in your mind, this recession is not over? of course not. so, who s right? with the economy on the rocks, people are still struggling in small towns all across the country. ali velshi has taken the cnn express across the country to see how people are coping. tonight in south carolina, ali, what are you hearing from people there? reporter: well, certainly on that discussion about whether or not we re still in a recession, john, it seems kind of academic on the ground. i m hearing from small business people who are talking about access to credit and loans. i m hearing about taxes. there s a lot of discussion about the effect of health care on small businesses. we re hearing from people who are having difficulty with mortgages, a discussion you were just having. of course, the number one issue of all, john, you know what it is. it s jobs. so, i m not really hearing a lot of people saying that they re spending a lot of time discussing whether or not the recession is on or not. but one of the things that s different today than a year ago, heading into the holiday season last year, is that there isn t the same sense of panic. there s a sense that people are saying, i don t really know that the administration is going to help get us out of this thing and i don t really know that i should trust wall street to do so. i m going to start trusting my own instincts and dealing with things that i can control. last night i was in ashboro, north carolina, where i met a woman who worked for the north carolina zoo for over 25 years. she lost her job and she decided she s going back to school to retrain as a teacher. she is now middle aged and training as a teacher. listen to our discussion. how do you like being a student at this point in your life? you know what? i love it. my classmates are so good. most of them are quite a bit younger than i am, but i m learning new things and i learned how much life experience you do accrue over a lifetime. i don t think any of us ever stop enjoying learning new things and my professors have been terrific. so, i have really had a ball. my husband will tell you i do one night of school, eight nights of homework, but i m having a good time. one night of school, eight nights of homework, i don t think i ever had a ratio like that, john. just one of the types of ideas that i m hearing from people how they re coping about the end of this recession and how they ll make 2010 hopefully better than 2009, john. it s good to see people being proactive. you re so smart, ali, you don t need to do homework. reporter: oh, only hope that were true, john. ali velshi tonight. thanks. tiger loses a stripe, a multimillion dollar endorsement deal now gone, a victim of scandal. could others be far behind? companies continue to suffer and shed jobs. one sector not hurting from the lack of growth in this economy, the government. even after waiting a month for my appointment, and spending two hours in the chair. there s nothing like feeling the open air freedom of my jeep wrangler. to make vanity. fly right out the window. i live. i ride. i am. jeep. okay, now here s our holiday gift list. aww, not the mall. well, i ll do the shopping. if you do the shipping. shipping s a hassle. i ll go to the mall. hey. hi. you know, holiday shipping s easy with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. yea, i know. oh, you re good. good luck! priority mail flat rate shipping starts at $4.95 only from the postal service. a simpler way to ship. medicare. it doesn t cover everything. tiger woods has already lost one major sponsor, and that could be just the beginning. but it s not just woods who loses endorsements because of his sex scandal. the pga tour, in its entirety, could also suffer. that was the subject of a saturday night live skit this past weekend with tim finchman, the commissioner of the pga tour. i think the pga tour will be just fine without tiger woods. and you know what? the sponsors? well, they are excited, too. and the pga tour, no tiger, no problem. so, what does this all mean for the tiger woods brand and professional golf? associated editor of forbes magazine, and 15 minutes pr. tag heuer, one of the big sponsors of tiger woods, the watch company says it will spend the next few weeks reassessing its relationship with tiger, gillette limiting its role. it happened with accenture. do you expect there to be more? i think you could see more companies walk away from tiger woods. i think he will hold on to nike, electronic arts. they both built big businesses around tiger woods and are looking long term at being partners with him for another 10, 20 years. other companies, it wouldn t surprise me if they started walking away. howard, when accenture pulled out, the quote was the company has determined he is no longer the right representative for their advertising. of all the words you never thought you would hear about tiger woods. you know, the only person who hates all this controversy more than tiger woods are the sponsors. corporate america has had enough controversy. i can tell you, having represented a lot of blue chip companies, they hate it. and they want to get out of there as quickly as they can, john. and this is just them saying, you know what? there s a lot of other people with a lot less hassle who can represent our brand. we ll turn to them now. at this point, we do not know how long he will be out of golf, howard. we don t know what, quote, indefinite means. what s your sense of this from a pr perspective? will he be able to come back? well, first of all, look at what he has done to date, almost all of his decisions have been bad from a pr perspective, from the duplicitoo usness from the beginning to the way everything has been handled very badly. that being said, we re a very forgiving country. if he apologizes, if we buy it, if we believe he s sincere and if he plays golf well, most importantly, we will allow him to come back. that s the kind of people we are, which is a good thing. there it is at a personal level. cu kurt, from a broader perspective, tiger s time-out, what kind of effect will it have on the pga? ratings were down as much as 50% when he was out for his knee surgery. exactly. if he misses two, three tournaments it s a blip on the screen. if he s out for a full year, it s a big year, 12 title sponsorship deals are up. those are $8, $10 million deals to sponsor a tournament. they re trying to renew those deals. financial companies are out. car companies are out. they re not spending money right now. they need a healthy tiger woods to boost ratings. ratings as much as double when tiger woods is in contention. there s a trickle down effect not just for the pga but all the players in the pga. kyra phillips was talking with amy alcott earlier today. here is what she said about the affect that tyinger woods has had on some of his colleagues. many of the top golfers will tell you, he has, you know, padded their pocketbooks in a big way because he s been the guy who s really changed the face of golf. so, howard, tiger woods stands to lose potentially tens of millions of dollars because of this. what about the other golfers? cumulatively, what could the dollar effect be on all these other players? certainly there could be a big loss. for the top golfers there s an opportunity that they haven t had in the last decade since tiger s or slightly less since tiger has been around that maybe somebody will do something shocking and hire somebody other than tiger woods as a spokesperson. hopefully, they re looking at the glass half full right now, talking to companies and saying, tiger woods is not the only player in this game. and look at me. look at my family. and look at my clean record. and maybe you should consider me. so, hopefully, they re looking for other opportunities. certainly it s going to hurt the game overall. maybe individually, there can be some winners. kurt, we played that bit from saturday night live at beginning of this. they went on to talk about exactly what howard was talking about. hey, we ve got plenty of other stars, david ogilvy, all these other people, great athletes but none of them have the cache of tiger woods. a much like michael jordan on top in the nba, that boost ratings. they re paying almost $300 million for golf this year. if they don t have tiger woods playing, ratings are going to be down. advertisers aren t going to be paying up for golf events. it s a very important year for the pga. it s hurting right now. lpga will have 24 events next year. they had 34 last year. pga doesn t want to see that happen. as howard was saying, america is a very forgiving society. everybody loves a comeback story, particularly in golf. john daly had five of them. can tiger woods come back? absolutely. golf is a very attractive demographic, wealthy demographic that spends a lot of money on cars, on watches, on golf equipment. tiger will be toxic for 2010, most likely 2011, but he could have a 20-year career ahead of him. so, a comeback story would be bigger potentially than even this. finish us off with a quick thought, how are. if you were advising tiger woods, what would you tell him to do right now? ignore the sponsors and the pr implications. take care of your family. take care of your life. take care of your marriage and get a very thick skin, john. all right. sounds like that s probably what he s in the process of doing. howard bragman, kurt bradenhausen, thank you. not all fat cats feed on wall street. welcome to easy street in washington, federal workers ma rocketed during the recession. powered by the wind on the plains. there s a hospital where technology has a healing touch. there s a factory giving old industries new life. and there s a train that got a whole city moving again. somewhere in america, the toughest questions are answered every day. because somewhere in america, 69,000 people spend every day answering them. siemens. answers. how can you get your retirement plans back on track? consider oppenheimerfunds, whether the markets are up or down, we follow a consistent investment approach. ask your advisor about oppenheimerfunds. and see how our numbers can help you reach your destination. call your advisor for a prospectus with complete fund information. read it carefully and carefully consider fund investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses before investing. mutual funds are subject to market risk and volatility. shares may lose or gain value. oppenheimerfunds. the right way to invest. you can build walls that separate people from people, but it is impossible to build a wall that separates a man from his freedom. because freedom always finds a path. to build peace. this film is dedicated to aung san suu kyi, still prisoner in burma. unemployment is at 10% in this country with more than 15 million americans out of work, most of them in the private sector. while the jobs in private industry are scarce, one sector keeps on hiring, the federal government. as lisa sylvester tells us now, government workers salaries are sky rocketing. reporter: sammy t s restaurant is one of the few places in town that is hiring. the first day or the second day, all day long there s applicant after applicant coming in. reporter: fredericksburg is seeing its highest unemployment rate since 1992. while jobs are scarce and p paychecks shrinking across the country, the federal government doesn t seem to be. boosting the budget by 12% and according to data from the federal officeo of personal management, the number of federal workers now earning six-figure salaries went up as the economy went down. in 2009, nearly 20% of the federal workforce earned $100,000 or more. that s up from 14% in 2007. congressman jason cha fchlt vitz is not that doesn t count medical insurance, those types of things. there s no way to justify it to the american people. they re struggling yet the federal government is adding 10,000 new jobs new jobs every month. it s just absolutely out of control. reporter: the federal manager s association represents government executives and supervisors. the group declined an interview with cnn but a spokesperson said those $100,000 plus salaries are actually on the low end. that in the private sector the same workers, who include lawyers, doctors and phd holders, could make 26% more. but other figures indicate the private sector just isn t what it used to be. today s average salary in america is just about $40,000. while the average federal worker is making more than $70,000. and congress just approved a 2% raise for all federal employees. that is, however, the smallest pay raise they ve received since 1976ment john? still all in all, not bad for government work. lisa sylvester, thanks. two members of the house financial services committee tell us what they think about president obama s behind-closed-door meeting with top bankers. stay with us. [ male announcer ] for over 150 years, wells fargo has been putting our clients first. according to a leading independent research firm, in 2009, clients rated wells fargo advisors the #1 u.s. investment firm for doing what s best for them. with advisors nearby and nationwide, we re with you when you need advice and planning expertise to meet today s challenges. wells fargo advisors. together we ll go far. as we reported earlier, the president was talking tough, in public at least, about fat cat bankers, urging banks to start lending again to small businesses and support financial reform legislation. will the banks listen? joined by two members of the house financial serves committee, thaddeus cobb and democrat of florida. let s start off, the president saying to the bankers, we bailed you out. now it s time to give you back. any faith that the banks will be good corporate citizens here? first the president should stop calling them fat cats. people like cats. i don t know that you want to put that on the bankers. the second part of it is that the president voted for the t.a.r.p., underlying premise is that it would free up money for main street, keep people working. people like brad and myself voted against it, knowing it wouldn t work. now the moral suasion can onlio be helpful. t.a.r.p. is recapitalizing these financial institutions and knowing that when financial institutions recapitalize, they re not going to be putting out money and incurring more liabilities. that has to change. congressman sherman, do you agree that the t.a.r.p. hasn t worked? plenty of people associated with the program say it has work. i voted against it twice. at the same time i think it had some benefits it was sold to us as the purchase of toxic assets that s where the t comes from. yet, unfortunately, secretary paulson was lying to us when he told us what he was doing with the money. he ended up buying preferred stock rather than toxic assets. i think it s ultimately because paulson was lying to us and ended up doing something smarter than what he told us he was going to do that the total cost of the program is going to be less than we originally expected. i think it s been of some benefit. what we have to do now is take some action so we have small business lending. one key element there is to let credit unions make small business loans. i think that could provide over 100,000 jobs and we wouldn t even have to have a meeting at the white house. when it comes to banks, congressman mccotter, is there anything congress can do to force banks to lend? should congress even be involved? brad pointed out ways credit unions can help us with this. they ve been very smart citizens throughout. community banks are under enormous pressure from federal regulatories, which did not cause the problem in terms of these regulatory agencies coming in, demanding they sell many assets, mark them down, sell them at firesale prices and recapitalize. in michigan that s very difficult for them to step up to the plate. the larger banks, the government should be heading in a direction of realizing we cannot have a highly centralized, highly bureaucraticized banking system in the united states. what that will do is starve the capital for innovative ideas and entrepreneurial based economy. one of the solutions that i think would be most helpful is cap their outstanding liability lev levels they can have to 2% of gdp, simon johnson, who used to work for the imf, that would diminish the chance for too big to fail, if not entirely eliminate the risk of the taxpayers for those institutions doing what they did last fall. what about the broader topic, congressman sherman of regulatory financial reform? it will be taken up next year, identifying firms that are too big to fail, subject them to new oversight measures. will this fix all the problems? hardly. the key thing is that investors should give money to banks only if they have good balance sheets and prudent policies. they shouldn t rely on the federal government to either somehow rescue them if they make a bad decision or prevent them from making a bad institution. you heard from thad that we should break up institutions too big to fail. this bill we passed chiefly with democratic votes gives regulators the right to do it. 2%, saying you shouldn t owe americans more than 2% of what this whole country produces in a single year would be a good absolute limit on the size of these banking institutions. congressman mccotter, the banking industry is lobbying heavily against new regulation. wall street doesn t seem to learn lessons or ignores lessons it should learn, there s a sense. paul kruegman said, quote, it s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it. i think that would tie in with your last story about the raises for government workers at the very time that people on main street in the private sector are losing their jobs. what you have to remember, john, is with this situation, government has helped to contribute to this problem. with the bill before us, i believe it creates a system where you have a permanent bailout in place with a couple of individuals with the ability to make a dissectionry determination as to whether something is too big to fail or whether it s not and how to deal with it. i would like to see the cap on the 2% of liabilities, a mandatory breaking up of institutions that are too big to fail to go past that, that would diminish them messing around, but also provide certainty that no one could put the taxpayers in this situation again. brad mccotter and brad sherman, thank you for coming in. two sources tell cnn that senate democrats are headed toward dropping the compromise idea to allow 55 to 64-year-olds to buy into medicare because of opposition from independent senator joe lieberman. senate democrats had an emergency meeting to discuss the issue, which threatens to derail the health care reform plan. although a final decision was not made at that meeting a second democratic source says it is likely a final decision could be made at a meeting on tuesday with the president at the white house. dropping that provision of people 55 to 64 years old to buy into an expanded medicare program. campbell brown joins us now. we re going to begin our special series called band of sisters. it s the stories of women who risk it all for their country. we re going to talk about why women warriors are facing a new battle after returning home from war and why it s so hard for them to get the help they need. plus, is this the end of privacy? facebook is under fire for its new policy. and the supreme court is deciding who gets to read your text messages. is there any part of your life that you can keep a secret? we ll get into that as well. john? looking forward to all of that, campbell. we ll see you in a few minutes. coming up next, a christmas gift for hundreds of our troops. ?nt s stands for straightforward. as in up-front, honest. total transparency. straightforward is the way td ameritrade does business. simple, fair pricing. no hidden account fees. no shenanigans. just gptd value. real help. smart people who are easy to work with. that s what td ameritrade stands for. what does your investment firm stand for? it s time for fresh thinking. it s time for td ameritrade. as more troops hou