people stepping up, taking charge and creating solutions. the documentary ""black in america" 2 premiers july 22nd and 23rd only here on cnn. coming up at 4:00 p.m., despite the recession, how one car company is beating the odds. right now, grab your wallet. your money starts now. the search for a solution to turning the economy around. sit time for yet another round of stimulus? or for some new ideas? i'm ali velshi. well tom to your money. >> i'm christine romans. over 40 and out of work. we unlock the secrets to landing that elusive job in a tough job market. >> the role of facebook in this economy. >> plus, ali, my friend ali, on a motorcycle. but first we begin with a stimulus reality check. what is the government doing with your money? and is it working? just over 10% of that massive $787 billion stimulus has been distributed. >> why hasn't more of the money been spent? why are some democrats calls for yet another round of stimulus? kate bolduan joins us now with more. >> reporter: even as the obama administration touts the job's being created by recovery act spending. >> we're starting see real progress. >> reporter: unemployment has soared to 9.5% and 3.4 million jobs have been lost in the past six months. republicans say the stimulus isn't working and wednesday they pounced. >> think we need to justify how much money we're spending and where are the jobs saved and where have they been preserved? i think we've got may i approach credibility crisis here. >> the president's quoted as saying the stimulus has, quote, done its job. is that true or not true? >> we believe that the stimulus has had the impact that we had predicted. which is job creation. >> reporter: in the hot seat, the president's deputy budget director ron neighbors who said the stimulus plan is slowing the economic free fall. neighbors said 150,000 jobs have been created or saved. >> it's a work in progress. but it's steady progress. >> reporter: the government accountability office says of the $29 billion delivered to hard-hit states so far, most have gone to pay medicaid costs, balance budgets and avoid layoffs. at the same time, vermont's chief recovery officer says funds for big job-producing investments like broad band and the electric smart grid are still caught in the stimulus pipeline. >> the frustration has been that the money hasn't come out and we kept hearing later and later dates for the money coming out. >> reporter: massachusetts governor says states are ready and waiting. >> no funds? no projects. no projects, no jobs. >> reporter: also in that hearing, rob neighborhoods, the white house deputy budget director, he seemed to criticize states for making what he called unwise choices to simply use stimulus money to balance their budgets. the administration has said actual stimulus spending will peak in 2010. >> kate, it's only a fraction of that $787 billion stimulus distributed so far. why are sot democrats already calling for what would be round three? some demes are saying they want another already. >> reporter: it's difficult that we're talking round three. many people's eyes pop open saying what are you talking about just five months into this one? some democrats are saying really it's prudent to start planning now, planning ahead if this round of stimulus, this jolt doesn't help the economy recover. at the same time, christine, it's really politically risky. already republicans are jumping on that as simply, they say, an admission that the current stimulus isn't working. and economists say it could be october, november, december before we really have a clear picture of the success or failure of this current effort. but i think the big question, and i'm sure you're hearing as well, can the american public stomach'veen a conversation about round three already. >> all right. kate bolduan, thanks so much. ali and kate, it's so interesting, too. japan in the '90s, i think they had nine different stimulus plans. >> and no interest rate. same problem. >> very similar problem. a lot of challenges and a lot of very smart minds have been working on it. when president obama took office in january he led a chorus of top democrats urgently demanding the passage of that stimulus. their argument then? jobs, jobs, jobs. >> if we do not act, three to four million more could lose their jobs. >> we're not going to grow the economy. we're not going to see a lessening of those deficits if unemployment hits 10%. >> by necessity, we are moving quickly. we're not moving quickly because we're trying to jam something down people's throats. we're moving quickly because we're told that if we don't move quickly, that the economy is going to keep on getting worse. we'll have another two or three or four million jobs lost. >> today 2.3 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus passed, since the president was making this argument. is it progress or broken arguments? >> let's pose that question to democratic congressman from maryland joining us from capitol hill. representative, thank you for being with us. what is the situation? the stimulus bill was passed in large measure because it was going to create jobs, amongst other things. really, i think key to most americans was the creation of jobs. while things are a little better than they were in february, they're still pretty bad gl well, look. the recovery act has succeeded in slowing job loss. in many cases creating jobs. i know in my own district people have been put to work on transportation, on road projects that were shovel ready. i know there are a lot of people who would have been laid off, teachers especially, but for the fact this passed. the president made clear very early this was going to be a long and painful recovery, but it will be more painful and it will be longer if we had not passed this economic recovery plan. so it's beginning to kick in. but this is like trying to walk up an escalator that's going down. if you do nothing, you're going to go down a lot faster. even if you're doing things, because the economy was in free fall, an economy that the president inherited, progress is slow and you have to measure it in terms of reduced pain. it will take a while before we actually turn the corner. >> unemployment back when they were trying to sell the stimulus was 7 .2%. now it's 9.5%. listen quickly to what the vice president said about a week ago about the economy and how we misread this. >> the truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited. now, that doesn't -- i'm not laying this -- it's now our responsibility. >> so here's my question. if the white house misread the depth of the problem or how far it would go, because the white house was saying 8% would be the peak in unemployment if the stimulus was passed, does that mean that the stimulus wasn't the right package in the first place and does that mean there needs to be another one? >> i think the stimulus was the right package. i think it is beginning to kick in. the fact of the matter is, in the third quarter, the next quarter, you're going to see more of those stimulus funds entering themy. this was a package that was designed to put more funds into the economy over a two-year period. the initial tax cuts went up very quickly. but the transportation monies and the other monies are beginning to kick in now. so you're not going to see a dramatic reversal. i mean, the president was very clear about that. but i do believe that it's pretty clear that things would be worse and -- >> representative, let me ask you this. there have been some criticisms that the states have used the money to plug some very immediate holes that they had that addressed some short-term matters, but are not really stimulative in the long term. in other words, there were budget gaps. the states have used that money. that's not going to actually create jobs or long-term work. what do you think about that? >> as you know, the states have to balance their budget. if they didn't use some of the money to balance the budget they have to make cuts elsewhere. laying off teachers, safety people. at the end of the day, if they don't use those funds to balance the budget, it means more cuts and it means more layoffs. and of course that continues the vicious cycle downwards. it means the teacher doesn't have the funds to go to the local store and buy goods and that. so the fact that there are fewer layoffs in states is a good thing. if we hadn't passed this bill and states hadn't been able to use some of that money for their budgets, vuld a continuing rapid decline. we know that even with this money states like california and other states are having a tough time. imagine how much tougher time they would be having if we didn't pass this. >> we know of one school district that kept 2,000 teachers on staff who would have been fired without this money. thank you for joining us. thanks for your time, sir. we were talking to representative van holland about unemployment. the unemployment rate now stands at 9.5% as christine said. would we be in worse shape, would that unemployment rate be higher if the stimulus bill had not passed? republican paul ryan of wisconsin is the ranking member of the house budget committee. he joins us now. he did not support the stimulus bill. he does not support it now. congressman, give us your views. >> first of all the claim was the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%. it's now 9.5%. we've already lost 2 million jobs since the stimulus passed. more to the point, the stimulus is going to cost $1.1 trillion in borrowing. that's pushing interest rates up. that is hurting people who are trying to buy homes, who are trying to avoid foreclosure, who are trying to invest. so when we see the stimulus which is spent very slowly, the kind of spending in this stimulus, most of it dubt occur till after 2011. it's not working. we should do something better. only 3% of the stimulus package actually goes to encouraging businesses to keep or create jobs. the rest is rebates and spending. most of the spending is slow, wasteful and ineffective. >> you fundamentally just believe we shouldn't be borr borrowing money we don't have -- paul krugman who won a nobel prize for economics, he's a "new york times" economist, i want to read to you something he just said about how some of these issues are playing out politically. the bad employment report for june made it clear the stimulus was, indeed, too small. so he is saying it's not necessarily -- you would like to have seen even a bigger stimulus? >> i've heard his argument. i just don't agree with it. more borrowing. we're already borrowing 50% of the federal government's budget this year alone. all this borrowing is going to push up interest rates. it's going to give us an inflation problem. and we believe that the stimulus, and we proposed an alternative, ought to go to businesses small and large to encourage them to keep people working, to encourage businesses to invest and expand and hire more people. more spending through washington, look, if more spending from washington was the answer to our economy, we wouldn't have a problem in our economy because we're spending more than we ever have in the history of this country. >> let's talk about that, representative. you're talking about more money to businesses. ultimately businesses don't invest if consumers aren't going to buy. what specifically are you saying we should do? what kind of incentives do you provide for businesses and who pays for that? >> what we say is we should give a business ability to write off 100% of their investments. if they hire people, buy more machinery to put people to work, they can write that off immediately. we also tax our companies, incorporations of the second highest ranking industrialized world. what happens is when you tax your employers a lot more than your competitors are taxing theirs, we lose jobs overseas. we've got to be more competit e competitive. so those are the things we're saying we ought to do. also we think we ought to help people make the money back in their savings portfolio that they lost. that's why we think we ought to have a -- of capital gains tax for at least two years. not a huge revenue raiser for the government but a huge -- let's help the economy get back into investing. let's encourage investors to take risks. help people make back the money they've lost so much from. >> meanwhile, many democrats are pitching patience. they're saying 10% of the money's out. let's give it time. we have to leave it there, congressman paul ryan. a shocking forecast for the housing market. what's in store for the value of your biggest asset, your home? will it be worth more or less in two years? plus, over 40 and out of work. how to take steps to land the next job. we can build a smarter planet. smarter towns. smarter cities. smarter government. smarter retail. smarter shipping. smarter airports. smarter food supplies. smarter grocery stores. trains... cars... smarter streets. smarter classrooms. we need smarter people. really smart. smarter hospitals. smarter energy grid. connect them altogether... and what do you got? happier people. that's what i'm working on. that's what i'm working on. i'm an ibmer. i'm an ibmer. i'm an ibmer. let's build... let's build... let's build a smarter planet. mr. evans? this is janice from onstar. i have received an automatic signal you've been in a front-end crash. do you need help? yeah. i'll contact emergency services and stay with you. you okay? yeah. onstar. standard for one year on 14 chevy models. the housing market is going to get worse before it gets better. that's the news from mortgage insurer, pmi group. pmi reports more than half of the nation east largest cities are likely to see home prices drop in the next two years. many are in hard-hit states, california and florida. pmi points to unemployment and rising foreclosure. i will say they do say that 98% of the homes -- home areas now are higher in affordability and so that's good if you're looking at low interest rates and you've managed to save up money for a down payment. there is some chance of getting that first-time home now for the first time in a long time. >> you know, we use california often as the example of that where back at the height, you know, a house was maybe $600,000, now it's under $200,000. >> that's right. >> which means you can get into it for a lower down payment and montdly payments are a lot low ler without having to take a risky mortgage. but it depends you getting the mortgage. it's an interesting time, a glass half full or half empty depending on where you stand in the housing market. t. boone pickens is shelving his plans to build the largest wind farm ever. it was going to be in pampa, texas. it would use thousands of turbines to generate electricity. put he said transmission problems, meaning getting the electricity to where it needs to go and trouble getting capital have made the project unfeasible for now. pickens talked up the pickens plan, you might remember, with television commercials like these and lobbying efforts. his goal was to wean the u.s. off of foreign oil. move us over to wind and natural gas a little bit more so we use less oil for transportation. i spoke with t. boone pickens about his scaled-back plan for some of the turbines that are already ordered. >> we'll be right on schedule. we may not build the wind farm in pampa, texas, you may find it in wisconsin or nebraska or someplace else, but we'll be actively building a wind farm someplace with the turbines. my garage is not big enough to take all those turbines. >> i bet he's got a big garage. i really do, but i don't think it's big enough for all those. >> yeah, this is a big bet that he made. he had a lot of money to make a bet and he made a big bet on wind. there were a lot of moving parts to this. it needed private investment and municipalities and states to participate in building the transmission lines and he said that wasn't happening fast enough in texas. but he stuck with orders for a lot of these things. he's going to have to find some way out of it. and it's probably good news for those people depending on greater use of wind or solar or natural gas in this country, that they've got to find some place to put these things. there are a lot of people looking for wind fares. >> we were bullish on oil when it was 140 bucks a barrel. >> he said oil's going back up to the $140s in the next few years, but i guess it's in his interests at this point for oil to go higher to push his plan. when oil is lower, he's not worried about it. >> he told us he was long natural gas. bailed-out insurer aig is asking the government pay czar to review $235 million in bonuses that it owes employees of its fays now now financial products division. kenneth fineburg is reviewing $2.4 million in scheduled payments to 43 top executives. the bonuses are part of pay packages that were already contracted in 2008. that means aig is not required to receive approval before making the payments. a source close to the matter said aig wants to make sure the government is completely comfortable with the company's compensation plan. and ali -- >> which they can't possibly be. >> no one is comfortable with that. >> no one is. >> the people getting the bonuses -- >> it's the world's worst compensation plan. no question about that. however, we've already -- we've already had our chance to be outraged about this. this is the same one we were outraged about. it's another installment of the same outrageous compensation plan that we talked about a few months ago. >> it's the same money we were all angry about before. >> yeah. >> taxpayer money has to pay the bonuses, but now it looks like the government and aig are together trying to figure out what's the most appropriate way to do it or not do that. that's not the end of the story. >> i tell you how you do it. it's like this. you hold your nose as you pretend you don't have to do it. because it's terrible. >> all right, we'll leave it there. we'll give the technical advice. we'll draw it up and send to feinberg at treasury. facebook, promoting yourself or your business right online could mean lots of money in the future. welcome home, man. social networking sites are not just places to chat with your friends anymore. whether you're airing your grievances over your shrinking 401(k) or you're networking to find a new job, the way you use the sites has changed with the economy. randi zuckerberg is the marketing director at facebook. she joins me now from palo alto, california, via skype. good to see you again. thank you for being with us. >> great. thank you so much for having me. >> randi, i know that you really do follow the trends of what's been going on on facebook. i know that within the last few weeks because of michael jackson and because of iran, there's been really an increase in not only usage, but in the way people use facebook. but, with respect to the economy, what sort of trends have you seen in terms of people struggling through the economy? how are they best using facebook to make things better for themselves? >> that's a great question. and because facebook is really a representation of what people are talking about offline in their daily lives, people have really been turning to facebook in a huge way to discuss the economy, ever since last year we have been tracking how people have been discussing terms like money, the economy, being laid off on facebook. and we've seen a tremendous increase in these terms being discussed with people and their friends. >> all right. so, the first thing that we typically, in business news, discuss when we think about social media and social networking with respect to you is jobs. networking, because you may know someone, there may be somebody in your group of friends who works at a company that -- that