energy and china when he was campaigning. he promised us thousands of green jobs. he shut down drilling in the gulf more or less. he hasn't replaced them with another industry. in china he simply hasn't acted. that trade debt is choking the economy, there's not enough demand for what americans make and the economy doesn't move forward. >> he doesn't have a compliant congress at the moment, specifically parts of the house of representatives. >> that's true. the reason he doesn't is because he squandered his first year. now as a consequence, the country elected a congress that wants a change in direction. the congress for its part doesn't seem much capable of providing it. to say mr. obama is alone in not getting us out of this mess would not be fair. the republicans aren't providing a path either. >> this is a senior fellow at demos and author of "it takes a pillage, epic power, deceit and untold trillions." the americans condition to give president obama low marks, only 9% say the president's policies made the economy better while 39% feel his policies prevented things from getting worse. about the same amount, 37%, say president obama's policies actually made the economy worse. is the president at the mercy of the financial crisis or do you agree with peter some of his own policies have exacerbated this? >> i think it's a combination. peter is right, certain policies have not necessarily made things better. on the other hand it's because those policies haven't really addressed not the financial crisis, but how the banking system has been a culprit in continuing the problem that the financial crisis that began in 2008 showed, in that it is isn't helping to refinance loans, ebs tending new loans to small businesses which employ nearly 50% in this country and create 48 to 50% of small jobs. when people are upset or confused, which those numbers show, or negative, it's because that's the result of what's happening. the economy isn't getting better. better job creation isn't positive. whatever those policies are isn't helping that. also not having a policy that addresses the fact that the banks continue to deteriorate themselves and the economy and not assist in giving forward to the population either in the form of small business loans for jobs, refinancing for mortgage market when the housing market continues to tank and foreclosures continue to rise, the necessity to lend money they received in cheap subsidies from the government and continue to from the federal reserve, that's a fundamental mishandling of policy. >> let's bring in a senior writing at cnn money. the president announced his debt reduction plan to the nation. republicans slammed that plan saying we see a lot of taxes. but where are the major spending cuts? there were some $500 billion in spending cuts, but the bulk of this is paid for by taxing the rich. do they have a point? >> they do have a point but more from the fiscal hawk side than political side. senior administration officials basically said this is not a compromise proposal. this is really the direction the president would like to go. this is not about the summer's negotiation over the debt ceiling. what he did, a third of his savings comes from higher taxes, two-thirds from spending. fiscal hawks say it's not really two-thirds because one-third is from spending drawdown which was going to happen anyway. it's a big debate whether those should count as deficit reduction. he doesn't attack entitlement programs very much. social security isn't even in the plan. medicare and medicaid cuts are mostly on the administrative side which has to happen to but not as comprehensive as they were hoping for. >> was this a political positioning or positioning for the economy? i mean, that's what i'm wondering? >> right. the more i think about it, having covered it, i really think it was more of a political stance document. he's going to get a lot of support for taxing the rich more. fiscal hawks, anybody really serious about the budget says that has to happen but they say other people need to be taxed more. he's really trying to appeal to his base as much as anything else with this document. >> peter, you brought in structural deficits, structural imbalances earlier on in the program. it's something you and i talked about for years now. when you look around, do you see any of the big problems, the big imbalances that cause this whole crisis in the beginning. do you see them moving in the right direction? >> no, i don't. the trade deficit with china is getting worse. oil dependence stabilized in terms of the quantity, the prices have risen and president reducing u.s. production. on the banking side, which we heard a lot about, the big banks are monopolizing, share over 50%, they are acquiring deposits not because they want to make loans to regional customers that need them, small business, homeowners but so they can trade and do business with large corporations very often financing outsourcing. my feeling is the banking system has become dysfunctional, not in business for america, simply in business for itself. the president of the united states bears responsibility. this is happening on his watch. >> we've got 13 months until the next election. is it fair to say you've got all parties in washington working quickly to try to come up with important policies to mitigate the pain of unemployment, rising deficits and a slowing economy worldwide or have we turned completely into campaigning mode already? >> i think we've been in campaigning mode since obama came into office. it's worse because the general economy has continued to deteriorate because financial and banking infrastructure continues to suck from it and not being addressed. all the conversations happening in washington about whether it's a spending cut, social security, which is really not the problem are failing to address the fundamental problem of a banking system not just because it's consolidated deposits but it's fundamentally deteriorating our entire economy as it stands. that is not being addressed. we raised -- the treasury department issued $4 trillion worth of debt in the last two and a half years, $1.6 trillion currently sits on the federal reserve books through the banks from treasury to banks to fed doing absolutely nothing productive. think how many jobs we could create with $1.6 trillion. we are debating a $400 billion stimulus. we're just focusing on a minor part of the problem and ignoring the bigger problem. >> you know, jeanne, here is the issue, if we are in campaigning mode and you have this important, delicate operation that needs to be -- needs to, you know, needs to happen, which is you need to have long-term deficit reduction and short-term you have to show the world you're serious about deficit reduction but not so quickly and indiscriminately it's going to hurt your economy that's going to take nuance and finesse and i don't see a lot of finesse in washington at the moment. >> there's none whatsoever. yes, people who, again, are very serious about the budget say we do have to go on two tracks at once. republicans aren't having it. they don't want any sort of stimulus really. they think cutting the deficit will be stimulus enough that alone will help job creation. a lot of economists don't agree with that position. president obama for his part, he's proposed a jobs plan that isn't really going to garner bipartisan support. he gets credit for proposing a plan but a plan he knew walking out of the gate wouldn't get everybody on board. >> stay where you are. treating the crisis as an emergency, one president says it's long overdue. that's next on "your money." bm [ junior ] i played professional basketball for 12 years. today i own 165 wendy's restaurants. and i get my financing from ge capital. but i also get stuff that goes way beyond banking. we not only lend people money, we help them save it. 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(announcer) everything you need to stay balanced on long trips. residence inn. now that president obama has announced his plan for deficit reduction all eyes are pinned on the super committee. their plans are due in november. will the super committee succeed where so many others have failed? >> they are asked to do so much in a short time. they have to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion, a lot of pressure on them to so-called go big, cut 3 or $4 trillion. asked to form a tax code, create jobs, show the world that the congress can function. they have to write this in legislation. it's not the same as plain english. they've got a real load on their backs. >> until thanksgiving to do that. >> until november 23rd. i don't think they will accomplish all of that. they might accomplish a small piece. >> a lot of work done before then, simpson bowls commission. lots of other deficit reduction. it's not as if there are new ideas. which ideas have been hashed out and rejected and figuring out what we have to do. >> to get to that agreement you have to get both sides together. even just on tax reform they are under competing directives. president obama says i want it to raise revenue more than the current system. speaker boehner says no, i don't want it to raise more. they have to keep in the leader leadership and the folks in congress because congress has to vote this through. >> a poll shows 65% of americans want president obama and congress to pay more attention to creating jobs rather than reducing the deficit. peter, americans sending a very clear message to washington here. is now the right time for the super committee on deficit reduction. i guess we don't have a choice, right? >> we don't have a choice. there are bond rating agencies that evaluate the united states as they do greece. we're talking about deficit reductions that are going to happen in the out years. what we need to do to create jobs now doesn't need government spending or to reduce the deficit. if we jump-start oil and gas in the united states that gives us the very same kinds of jobs we would get from infrastructure spending. spending on construction workers, concrete, steel and the like. with some folks like princeton and some of the republican candidates have suggested, doing something about the trade deficit with china, that would create private investment in the united states, wouldn't create spending. >> charles evans made it clear in a speech he thinks the federal reserve should be reacting to unemployment. evans said, imagine that inflation was running at 5% against our inflation objective of 2%. is there a doubt that any central banker worth their salt would be reacting strongly to fight this high inflation rate. no, there isn't any doubt. they would be acting as if their hair was on fire. we should be similarly energized about improving conditions in the labor market. when it comes to job creation, should the fed do more? should there be an employment target the fed is trying to meet? >> there should be. the fed has abjectly ignored unemployment except to discuss it as part of the reason the economy isn't doing well, which is a circular set of logic. really, the fact the fed has supported banks and banks have not helped to lend that to small or medium businesses is one of the reasons we're not creating as many jobs. whether that be in small energy, middle energy, technology companies or other types of companies or infrastructure and construction, all of that has to do with money that can partially come from the government, for the government component of the infrastructure and those jobs but from the fed in terms of creating a situation where banks are tied to on lend what they have received. they are getting money at 0%. they are not lending it out. you have this choke hold on any business that wants to grow because it doesn't know how to fund itself. therefore it cuts job. we don't have new jobs created to make up for the fact that 14 million are unemployed and 17 million additional people are underemployed. there are no jobs to get. i think it has to be a combination. the fed can control what banks have been doing with the money they have very, very easily been receiving. >> everyone is sitting on their money. peter i'm in no position to defend banks. they are sitting on an awful lot of money that could be lent. companies are sitting on money they could be using to grow and they aren't. aren't they looking around at the rest of the world, slowing growth, the rest of the world, they're concerned about, a china slowing down, potentially european financial crisis and they are saying we've got to do now what we should have done before, which is make sure we have more money on hand. >> certainly a lot of companies are shoring up their cash. some of the biggest companies have lots of cash on hand. they have been investing. they are investing in china because they see business conditions there and business conditions more friendly growing very rapidly. in order to get american businesses to invest fundamentally there has to be more demand. general electric is not going to invest in a light bulb factory unless people buy more bulbs. unless we do something about energy, china, dysfunctional in the banks they're not going to invest. >> long-term solutions that take reform, collaboration in washington. >> i don't think so. i think i could free up oil and gas development in 90 days in the united states. you just need a secretary department of education that believes in fossil fuels. >> department of education? i think you mean department of energy. that would be interesting if the department of education was putting out drilling permits. maybe that would stream things along. >> let's not use up the time. if they took a position and wanted to free up development that could be done. with regard to china we could put on the tax romney suggested tomorrow morning at 9:00 and get results out of china in two weeks. >> we have to leave it there. have a great weekend, everybody. it's everything a hot novel should have, controversy, betrayal, infighting. we're not talking about a novel, we're talking about the hot new book on the obama white house. the author with the juicy details and response to the criticism of the white house of his book next on "your money." even though i'm a great driver, and he's... not so much. well, for a driver like you, i would recommend our new snapshot discount. this little baby keeps track of your great driving habits, so you can save money. 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[ cackling ] he's my ride home. how much can the snapshot discount save you? call or click today. i tell you what i can spend. i do my best to make it work. i'm back on the road safely. and i saved you money on brakes. that's personal pricing. a new book claims that president obama's economic team suffered through infighting struggling to get a grasp on the 2008 financial crisis. ron sus kind -- suskind, the pulitzer prize and author of "the confidence men, wall street and education of a president." welcome to the program. secretary geithner disputes your version of reality. let's hissin' to what he said about your book. >> again, i lived the original. the reality i lived, we all lived together bears no relation to the sad little stories i heard reported from the book. >> pretty concerted effort by current and former officials to discredit the reporting of the book, a book that you say pulls the curtain back on a young presidency making mistakes at a historic time. >> it was a difficult time. the president was largely a victim of circumstances. as i point out in the book, part of his appeal he was not a washington guy. someone with something of a clean slate. here at a time of crisis, largely exacerbated, maybe even caused by the washington new york axis that the book examines with such care. obama arrives, though, has to both own washington, tame new york, save the economy. he has around him a variety of senior advisers, all of whom i would say had a hand in some of the mistakes that were made that caused the disaster that the president now faces. >> mistakes like what? deregulation of the banking system, you mean like sort of an open arms, full throated endorsement of gloenlization, not realizing you're going to have millions of americans out of work eventually. >> precisely. other officials going through their nomination process, don't do policy and don't admit mistakes. don't admit we made any mistakes from the days of yore. frankly some of them said yes to that, some doesn't. gary gensler is an example of someone much more candid to say look, we did make mistakes. you know, the key is to admit that so we can go forward. >> in the book you relay a conversation in which larry summers is alleged to have said to piece orszag, another member of the economic team, we're really home alone. there's no adult in charge. clinton would have never made mistakes. here what is summers had to say to "the washington post." you spoke to so many people from the obama administration past and present for this book. are you surprised by their reaction? >> not really. i'm surprised by some of the personal qualities of it. what i did in this book was really try to go back to everybody, prior to publication and say here is what's going to go next to your name, give me your response. larry summers does give a full paragraph response to the home alone quote in the book. i think that's the real response, that's one he's sober, he talks about we were overwhelmed, had five times as many problems and not five times as many people. essentially we're a victim of circumstances. who knows what any president could have done. i think that's the appropriate and accurate response. as well, i think importantly is that time geithner responds in almost two pages of quotes, all from a transcript of a final interview i did prior to publication with the treasury secretary. people can judge for themselves. whether he slow walked the president or not from that. >> it comes at a tender moment for this president and that's probably part of the sensitivity on the part of the white house and people loyal to him in this book essentially would walk over hot coals for this man. people are loyal to him. journalists are loyal to him. journalists that want access going forward. we're in a difficult period. this is a hard book in a way to report. i was identified by the bush administration as a lifelong democrat. i am a lifelong democrat. to report some of these things, to get these disclosures, to sit down with person after person and hear what they have to say, go over the tapes, i'm like, wow, this is unsettling some of it, hard to h