Och unions muscling their way in. Rich edson on unions trying to block spending cuts and the fiscal cliff deal while making sure the rich pay more. Jeff flock with union back protests at Walmart Stores and diana on the dirty little secret those unions are not changing walmart workers. First to rich and some in washington, d. C. How unions trying to persuade democrats to avoid spending cuts . With a significant lobbying effort on capitol hill and a new Advertising Campaign targeted at democratic and republican lawmakers in pennsylvania, virginia and missouri. The basic message is dont touch entitlements in the fiscal cliff tops were having on capitol hill. Honesty and one of the union says elected officials from both parties need to listen to the will of the voters and focus on rebuilding the middle class and strengthening our economy by investing in jobs, not cuts. As for the effectiveness of this campaign one conservative says this type of pressure from unions is nothing new. The fact that they are publicly saying what they have been privately saying helps the American People understand where obamas in trend and comes from but nothing has changed. The issue is in the fiscal cliff discussion democrats appear willing to put entitlements and spending on the table. Republicans saying theyre willing to do tax revenue and that could be or would be the key to any agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff and get the countrys books back in order. Gerri you will be covering this for a long time. Thanks for that. This black friday walmart shoppers think protests, it is not a superstore workers on the picket line. Jeff flock joins us with more. Jeff a few of them but the majority were not walmart workers but members of other unions like the teamsters, the uaw, it was built today as a demonstration against the notion of working on thursday on thanksgiving. The day before black friday. But the protest when it came down to it wasnt so much about that. Was against walmarts practice of paying minimumwage, not giving workers enough money in their view and about work rules. That is what the actual protests came down to. It was organized by Organization Called our walmart, the shadow union for the nonunion walmart and wellorganized by united food and commercial Workers Union which is trying to organize at walmart. Take a look at what the company has to say, speaking for walmart was Vice President who said best black friday ever and our walmart organization was unable to recruit a small number of associates to participate in these madefortv events. I covered it out there today and if it was made for tv it was made particularly well. We stood out in the freezing cold and they didnt enter the store but stood outside a while. Gerri was just you working in the cold. They left a long time ago. I should join a union and get out of that. Gerri good luck with that. My next guest says unions are trying to pull all over walmart workerss eyes. The former chief economist for the u. S. Labor Department Joins me, great to see you as always. You remain an interesting point, the people who would benefit from a unionized walmart are the unions themselves. How so . The union losses because the Pension Funds are dramatically underfund. With 33,000 workers that is funded at 55 . It means they only have 55 of the assets they need for current and future retirees. Look at the Northern California joint pension, 20,000 workers funded at 65 . They only have 60 of what they need. To fix this pension problem, new workers. Theyre trying to organize walmart. They want these walmart workers to pay contributions to the pension fund and they wont be getting it out for many years that which point gerri this points out what a prize walmart is. 1. 3 million workers, and it would be, a bailout for the unions. They are not concerned about walmart workers here. It is about their own obligations. You dont think theyre telling these walmart workers if they join the union if walmart becomes unionize these workers would buy into these pensions. Theyre not telling them that all. There saying join a save you will be better off but these workers would be better off with i r as and 401 k plans and pension they will get back rather than putting money into a failed pension. None of your listeners would put money into a pension of 55 . Gerri jeff flock was on the ground looking at who was out there doing the protests and for how long. Look at the walmart protest. Across the u. S. Today, we had the impression this was going to the coast to coast and it wasnt that the end of the day. There were fewer people protesting. Most of them seemed to be union officials. This is what walmart had to say, less than 50 associates protested nationwide. Roughly the same number of associates missed their schedule shift that last year. What do you make of this . [talking over each other] what a big impact they are having, but did it turn out . People who were at walmart want these jobs, they like the jobs. They provide flexible hourr. People want parttime job because it gives more time for their families and if they didnt want these walmart jobs they would go look for work elsewhere. The percentage of americans who have union jobs is falling steadily. In january the Labor Department will announce the percentage of American Workers who belong to unions will have fallen from 12 to 11 . Percentage of privatesector workers will have reached another record low and it is because people dont want their contributions going to failed Pension Funds gerri what will look like next year . You do have this longterm trend of erosion in Union Membership especially in the private sector but we have got the Union Campaigner in chief in the white house and seems to me he is doing everything he can to encourage Union Membership. Will we have higher membership rates next year . He is doing everything he can but union bosses be paving the way they are with hostess where 18,000 workers are going they dont want cakes and breads carried on the same truck and dont want drivers to be unloading the cakes and the bread. These union jobs are disappearing. Work government workers have a choice to belong to the union or not, their Union Membership has fallen dramatically in wisconsin, state and local government. Gerri what is the impact of the host the story . To me it seems a black eye for all kinds of unions, a variety of flavors and unions, the bakers union, they were the only group who could come to agreement with hostess and at the end of the day the company went out of business because of that. Going out of business and if you look at the Auto Companies that need bailout, the union once, chrysler and gm, it wasnt the ones in the south that were nonunion so the problem is unionmaking and union bosses are making these noncompetitive and it is hurting the workers they purport to represent. Gerri have a great weekend. Thank you. Still ahead of fiscal cliff mess just got messier. How president obama responded to John Boehners latest comments and Holiday Season rushes on. Would you spend your money . Wheres the best place to invest it . Buying Retail Stocks for losers next. [ engine revs ] [ male announcer ] the mercedesbenz winter event is back, no matter which list youre on. [ santa ] ho, ho, ho, ho [ male announcer ] lease a 2013 ml350 for 599 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Gerri it was black friday madness all across the country. This was macys at midnight in new york city. Other stores open really liked was r us and best buy, great deals like lc tvs which were 50 of. Overall sales on black friday are expected to be 4 to 11. 5 billion. Midnight Opening Hours are one way Traditional Stores are doing everything they can to compete with online retailers which were open all the time. Regular source said black friday, have their cybermonday, the monday after thanksgiving. It was a record breaker with half of shopping done that day on work computers. Fedex said it would ship a Record Number of packages this year. How do you make money from this craziness . Retailer stocks in the s p 500 are up 25 , outperforming the overall index. Break and mortar versus q or online retailers which is the best choice . Gary is the president of capital management. I cant say your last name today. There we go. Let me show viewers a full screen here, Retail Stocks, on line versus brick and mortar and the on line do much better. You have an insight into this chart. What is it . Amazon is a huge part of that chart and amazon does zillions of sales. Amazon mist and stocks Still Holding up because they think big earnings will come in the future but for me when all is said and done i like the brick and mortar. We have so many big winners throughout the year right there and i dont think theres enough meat on the bone as far as dealing with on line and all brick and mortar have online already. Gerri you dont think amazon is a real play . That company is unbelievable. In sales growth is a humongous and i have made money in stock but in the last four quarters 90 , they lost money. That stock will be in trouble but the market is betting though once the bill out is over it will come to the bottom line and the stock will be okay. Time will tell but i am looking for category killers throughout the years. You had the coaches that have done well. Recently a new one came in the last year, michael corps has 100 earnings growth, 50 revenue growth. Gerri talk about a category killer, it is covered at every price point from low end to high end. In terms of retail, isnt online reverses brick and mortar really a distinction without a difference . All of these have an Online Presence and you cant be a retailer these days without being on line. You are 100 right. Every retailer is online now so their business online, i can tell you talk about cybermonday for me is cybermonth. All of us are being inundated with emails from all these companies, great deals, and monday will be another big day. People like buying on that date for whatever reason. It really isnt a difference in a large point in time. They will be j. C. Penney and kmart not managed well. And costco, being managed well, they will pay up for those thoughts and for the j. C. Penneys and they cant get it right with the new ceo. Gerri anybody you see emerging out of this Holiday Season that will be applelike . Possibly. I walk two weeks ago i walked in the mall at 2 00, and 300 people in there. They will have another good one but as far as whos sticking out, cant tell yet. Gerri we will check back in with you to find out what you hear. Your nose is to the grindstone and years to the ground. Happy holidays. Gerri we want to know what you think. What are you finding a better deal . Log onto gerri willis. Com. I will share the results tonights show. John boehner says obamacare needs to be part of the fiscal cliff talks. Democrats say no way. Where does that leave the discussion and it could be the next big threat to the Financial System. We will talk about it coming. Twins. I didnt see them coming. I ve obligations. Cute obligations, but obligatio. I need to rethink the core of my portfolio. What i really need is sleep. Introding the ishares core, Building Blocks for the heart of your portfolio. Find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. Ishares by blackrock. Call 1800ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Read and consider it carefully before investing. So, which supeast 4g lte service would yochoose, based on this chart . Dont rush into itim not looking for the fastest answer. Obviously verizon. Okay, i have a different chart. Going that way, does that make a difference . Look at verizon. Its so much more than the other ones. So what if we st changed the format altogether . Isnt that the exact same thing . Its pretty clear. Still sticking with verizon. Verizon. More 4g lte coverage gerri shadow banking. What the worlds top 20 economy is our concern about another Global Financial crisis next. Gerri the shadow banking system, money market funds, any lender technically not obeying cant blame by many for the Global Financial crisis, they are bigger than ever at 60 trillion in terms of assets according to a new report from the Financial Stability board. I asked the editor in chief of american banker about the risks shadow banking poses to the total Financial System. As we saw during the financial crisis they did pose a big risk to the system because these are people in the business of lending money, investing but not regulated like a lot of banks so nobody knows what they are doing and another gerri blocks [talking over each other] gerri no idea what is going on with these companies or if they are maintaining any standards like we would expect out of banks. Banks are highly regulated entities. They can get in trouble as well but they do have regulators watching them closely and a lot of shadow banks dont. If you are a hedge fund your life be regulated, same with private equity and things like was a real problem for small investors because one of them, primary reserve fund went under and created a panic. Gerri one of the big concerns out there, 67 trillion globally and the u. S. Leads the way. How big is that, how big a problem could it be . When you think there lightly regulated and in the united states, the shadow banks have assets of half as much as the banks. They dont live in a world that is separate from banks and other pieces of the economy so if they get into trouble you have counterparty risk. If i owe you money and get in trouble it is your problem as well. It is closely intertwined. We saw this in 1998 with longterm capital management. No one had ever heard of it and this hedge fund got into trouble and it was deemed by wall street and the Federal Reserve to pose a Systemic Risk to the whole Financial System so we never heard of it but had to bail out. Gerri do we need more regulation . That is the first in a lot of people would say . First thing regulators want to do is regulate and they want a lot of complicated regulation. I dont think that is the answer but bringing this stuff out into the sunlight making these shadow banks show what sort of risks are opposed to the system would be a really good start so at least we have a sense of what is going on. Gerri for the regular american out there theres a whole world that is completely closed to them, has nothing to do with them but at the end of the day could make big trouble for regular investors. Give us an example of how this could unwind. As we saw with moneymarket funds which was for momandpop investors but what you had was something people thought was safe and stable and as it turned out when one of these funds started to get into trouble there was a risk that the whole industry, 2. 5 trillion industry could suddenly have a huge run on its money, there would be a lot of other Financial Institutions in trouble so it could have three knockoff affects. It could have a systemic effect, it could mean your government has to bail amount which year taxpayer money and one of your investments is in trouble. Gerri i hate to get when a taxpayer money. Thanks for coming in. Appreciate your time. You did a great job. Thank you. Coming up a look at the hottest toys for kids this Holiday Season. We will tell you where to find the best deals and the best apps to download before you leave the house and some bigname retailers speaking out about the fiscal clef. Will our do Nothing Congress listen up . I always wait until the last minute. Can i still ship a gift in time r christmas . Yeah, sure you can. Great. Wheres your gift . Uh. Whew. [ male announcer ] eak from the holiday stress. Ship Fedex Express by december 22nd for christmas delivery. Man we are rolling. Mamas gonna bring it home. Oh, no man oh, mom aah announcer challenge your kids to be active and eat healthy. All right, lets see what you can do. Lets go. Announcersearch we can for ideas on how to get healthy together. Gerri you heard us talk about this lot, weighing in on the fiscal cliff. Until now we hadnt heard much from one large group, in a rare move walmart and walgreens letting loose on what they think of washington and the fiscal cliff. Liz macdonald, what are they saying . Liz walmart is saying their customers dont want to see tax increases. And now cbs, it is unusual for walgreen to wade into this public fight over the fiscal cliff, they have not spoken out before and they are saying essentially our customers are hardworking American Families and they do their own budgets. Where were you, washington d. C. Doing your own budgeting, their confidence has been tested time and again, persistent high unemployment and fragile Economic Growth and customers want to know d. C. Is working on their behalf and walgreen stepping out saying customers need clarity. Gerri every company out there, if there saying anything at all they are saying do something. It breaks down after that. Some say i want to make more taxes and do not raise taxes. [talking over each other] walgreens is saying we want to make investments to create jobs. What you guys in washington d. C. Are going to do, what is coming down the road from you and we had this debate about john boehner basically saying we got to put obamacare [talking over each other] liz putting obamacare into the fiscal cliff negotiations so for two large drugstore chains to say you got to get going. Gerri interesting to see