Melissa there is no difference. January 2012 employees watched 5 million youtube videos while they were working in one month. More than 30 of the headquarters bandwidth. The headquarters have 1600 fewer employees thanks to all of that. What are you thinking . I cant answer your question because im over here watching youtube videos while at work. Jcpenney has gone through restructuring, they had some difficulties thi with this coule the least of their problems but it points to a corporate culture. I was ready to come here and say this is going to ruin productivity and such, but productivity among workers went up if they watched videos of cute animals. Melissa that is all the money we have for you today, we will be back with cat videos tomorrow. Gerri hello, everyone, i am gerri willis. Tonight on the willis report. Should the government be buying their property . And Consumer Reports is here with an exclusive review. 72 is the next 30, Life Expectancy is way up, but can we afford to live this long . The willis report is on the case. Gerri all that and more coming up later in the show, but first our top story, the government big buyout. Residents at one neighborhood hit hard by super storm sandy, Staten Island getting the best of deals thanks to taxpayers. Homeowners whose homes were destroyed in sandy will get 100 of their damaged homes prestorm market value. Those in highly vulnerable flood areas will get more, 10 mark, a bonus. For those staying on Staten Island, an additional 5 . It is part of a fema program that has been around for a long time. Hazard mitigation assistance. It includes buying out homeowners. John stossel joins me now. He is the author of the book no, they cant. Welcome back to the program, great to see you. So, is it right taxpayers are footing the bill . For these bonuses, what do you think of this . I dont think it is right, but it is better than what they have done in the past which is federal Flood Insurance. They do it three more times, and that is even crazy. Gerri you describe yourself as a freeloader on this program. I discovered this myself because i built a big house and asked my father to help with the mortgage. Are you nuts, it is on the edge of an ocean. But i cant lose, there is a federal Flood Insurance, and it is true. It had a lot of sand in front of it, nothing will happen to it. Sure enough, that happened in the government, thank you, you help page repair it. It happened again and he paid to repair it again. Im ashamed i did this. Gerri here is the reality right here in new york, a federal flood National Limit 350,000 if you include structure in the property. Look at some of the values of these homes which are still on websites that premarket value, 400,000, 500,000, so these people are getting a massive bailout, more than the federal government itself with just a regular Flood Insurance policy. Does government need to get out of this business . Yes. They are getting a little more than the top, but why does government so eager to forbid or require . If people want to build on the edge of oceans, spend your own money, take your own risk. They said were losing so much money bailing these people out, disaster, we have to get them to buy insurance, there is no private market. Gerri the private market didnt want to take on the risk. Melissa it would have at the right price, but the federal government offered a great deal, cheap, we took it. Gerri i know we will get all kinds of email from people who say these people should get this money no matter what. They deserve it. But look, at the end of the day what are we financing . There are homes that have been rebuilt seven, eight times with federal dollars. They will not do it again, but federal Flood Insurance was supposed to break even. They said we wont lose any money. Billions in the hall like everything else. Gerri many have said yes, we will take it. I want to get you to a slightly different topic, you bring up the idea of fema has its problems. That is true. Number of disaster declarations, youve seen that every time theres a big storm in the country, they call up and say please, please, please bail us out. The numbers have gone through the roof. Obama 153. The folks on the left say it is climate change, things are getting worse and worse and worse. Do you believe that . No. The costs are going up because more people build on the edge of the river and ocean. But if it were climate change, how come the disaster appointments go up before an election time . If they declare disasters in snowstorms that is a way to say here is free taxpayer money. Gerri is a way of paying out, and fema still owes 18 billion from katrina. And sandy, they dont know how much they will be in debt from that. Gerri it is amazing we keep doing the same thing over and over again and it hurts more and more. A buyout stops at police and that one little area. Gerri we can be thankful for small favors even though we are footing the bill. Tell us what you have on your show this weekend. P the sequester. We take a meat cleaver to some things. Gerri the sequester is something we havent covered a ton here, but boy does it serve it. Thank you for coming on, really appreciate your time. Now we want to know what you think. Should the government he buying the homes of sandy becomes . Log onto gerriwillis. Com, we will share the results at the end of tonights show. Staten island isnt the only area where federal spending is running amok. Telling congress the fed intends to keep the easy money policy flowing until the job architects up. Warning against acrosstheboard spending cuts friday. Joining me now, chairman of the house of service finances ready, which we will hear testimony from bernanke tomorrow. Welcome back to the show, great to see you again. The Federal Reserve has a Balance Sheet of 3 trillion, is that a good idea . No. If it ever was a good idea, it is not a good idea now. We have reached the limits of what Monetary Policy can do and all this extra money they are trying to throw into the system creates an incredible inflationary risk. There is very little benefit because all this money standing up as excess reserves, but at one point we hope the economy will take off and if ben bernanke cant be Harry Houdini and get us out of this, we will have an inflation that will make us look the soldiers we upon the carter era. There is almost no benefit, we have reached the outer limits of what Monetary Policy can do. Gerri congressman, every Federal Reserve in every country all of the world is doing the same thing. Mimicking ben bernanke. It doesnt mean it is a good idea. I have a nineyearold son and soontobe 11yearold daughter always telling me everybody else is doing it. Just because everybody else is doing it doesnt mean it is a good idea. We are drowning in debt, doesnt mean it is a good idea. The challenges our economy faces today are fiscal in nature. Making sure we raise taxes are not endorse and job creators. We have had a 53 increase in the regulatory burden. Gerri that is absolutely true. In the senate hawkins testimony today, they asked an interesting question, and it was about the implied backing for large banks in this country. Some 83 trillion, 83 trillion. It is implied too big to fail cushion from the federal government which basically says we will be behind you, the banks pay less money in Interest Rates, and now when you do the math the big banks would not even be doing money it wasnt for the backing of the federal government. Would you be asking the chairman about this tomorrow . We have a limited amount of time to ask a lot of questions. The bottom line is doddfrank did and too big to fail, institutionalized too big to fail. Number one, now hav i now have e federal government giving the ability to designate firms as too big to fail, and doddfrank sets up the orderly liquidation that essentially allows the fdic to take taxpayer funds up to 90 of the Balance Sheet of the too big to fail firms and use that to resolve the firms. As chairman of the Financial Services committee, were going to deal with too big to fail, and we will introduce legislation to terminate the designation, Financial Institutions and tw there is something wrong in america were some institutions are too big to fail and others are too small to matter. Gerri a lot of frustrations about sequestration and not just in washington, all the country voters are so tired about hearing about the fact congress and the president cant get together and make progress on the very important issues. John boehner today, speaker of the house, addressing his frustrations with what is going on. Here is the speaker. We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate Begins to do something. Gerri and that was to the point. I think it shocked a lot of people. What do you say about that . I couldnt agree with the speaker more. I hope my mother isnt watching so will not repeat the language, but we have United States senate hasnt even bothered to pass a budget in four years, the president has still submitted his budget, legally he was supposed to submit it. The house has passed twice a bill to ensure that we keep with the deficitreduction levels but we dont do this crazy acrosstheboard cuts that doesnt prioritize, the president doesnt have a plan, the senate hasnt passed a plan. By the way, the president talks about a balanced approach, guess what, in early january he got 660 billion of new tax revenue before the election it was all 3 1. Gerri a long way to go. Where is our 1. 51. 8 in budget savings . It is a shell game. They wanted to make it an enforcement mechanism. He is trying to get more tax increases before he is even paid for the old ones that he got. And so this clearly rests on the president s desk. Gerri we will be watching it tomorrow with the testimony from the fed chief and see what questions you actually do ask. Thank you for coming on, appreciate your time, thank you. Thank you, gerri. Gerri new figures on the cost of obamacare. The report says the president S Health Care program will add 6. 2 trillion longterm deficits. That wasnt supposed to happen. The first attempt to examine the cost of obamacare over a longterm period. This time 75 years. They said it would cost 2 trillion over 10 years. When president obama was selling his plan, he said it wouldnt add a single dime to the deficit. Remember that . It wasnt true. He said he can keep your doctor, your plan wont change, none of thats turned out to be true. They say the goal of the obamacare was to pass a bill, this is how the country goes broke. Coming up, wipe big banks can keep making one big subsidies to keep rolling in, and another subsidy could be sold to china. Next, a senator trying to put a stop to all of that. [ male announcer ] ive seen incredib things. Otherworldly things. But there are some things ive never seen before. This ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. Which is good for business. Becau planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. Suddenly, faraway places dont seem so. Far away. Gerri is taxpayer money about to be driven to china . It may happen if embattled electric car maker is sold to a Chinese Company making the second taxpayer backed Green Energy Company sold to china in recent months. With more on this, republican senator Chuck Grassley of iowa. What gives here . Why are we allowing this to happen . Gerri, very good question. And i think it all goes back to the extent of wood shop. The department of energy is not accountable for what it does and it is not holding where it dishes out taxpayer money accountable. For instance, in the 81 to three corporation, 127 million. In the case of fisker, 200 million. Gerri lets drill down those numbers a little bit. Receiving 250 million in u. S. Taxpayer money, who is accountable for this . This is my taxpayer dollars going to china. It seems crazy to me. Yes. We appropriate money, you are expected to be spent according to law. And if there is Anything Congress can do about it, it is kind of like locking the barn door after the horse is dolan. To our oversight, with the case of fisker going back to june trying to get information from the department of energy on this whole issue. We dont really get answers, to tell you the truth, and hav we e a constitutional responsibility to dig in and it seems to me the department of energy has constitutional responsibility to answer our questions but they dont do it. Gerri that has been an ongoing problem, i think. Is there any other risk or danger of a company like fisker or a123 being sold to the chinese . At least in the case of a123 it was a possibility. And maybe it has been taken care of, but the possibility there was National Security issues involved. We are told that is taking care of by that part of the company not being sold to china. But you get back to this business of the chinese plying us for suckers in the sense they are not only able to take advantage of the taxpayer dollars that are out there, but the research and development that goes on. We are kind of providing the intellectual basis for them to become more competitive. Gerri it is astonishing to me. The real issue here, maybe it is not being sold to the chinese, but the real issue is why is the government involved in this program in the first place. Why is the government picking winners and losers. Why is the government deciding what technology is the right one to invest in. I am not the perfect one to ask that, because i sponsored some tax credit bills for other things like wind energy or biofuel, but if you get right down to it, those are tax incentives that you have to have the private sector put up money to take advantage of it. As opposed to these are grants going out the door of the department of treasury, or in this case energy, dishing them out like shoveling money out of an airplane. Gerri that is never good. Jack lew, you have opposed his nomination as treasury secretary. We said how he doesnt have a lot of backing from wall street executives. Why are you so opposed . For the reason you gave number one, that is the most important one. One less a reasoned, and i will get to a more important one, kind of the hypocrisy of this administration complaining about romney having money invested offshore, legal as it is, and appointing an appointment like jack lew who has money invested in the same thing. Gerri that shocks me to my core. Senator grassley, thank you for coming on, we appreciate your time. Thanks for illuminating us in particular about green energy. An absolute pleasure having you here. Thank you very much. Gerri a fox business alert for you now. The Housing Market is getting stronger, and today we have more evidence of that. The Real Estate Market really picked up steam in the final three months of last year. Prices shot up 6. 8 in the last quarter according to s p caseshiller. Today one of the economists Robert Shiller who put together the new report says the Housing Market has more momentum now, but as usual the permit there had some words of caution. Housing hasnt shown in most of the history of housing in the United States hasnt shown a tendency to be going up and up. It was just a bubble in the early two thousands. That was really unusual, lets not go back and think it is going to happen all over again. If it does, it will be a surprise. Gerri he is never upbeat. The Commerce Department and new home sales surged to the highest level in four and hal and a hal, record low borrowing costs, a 30year mortgage for 3. 5 . One of the main reasons for the continued strength in the market. I will not throw water on the recovery, i want to celebrate it. Later in the show, is 72 the new 30 . In a report on how long we are living and like 2008 all over again with the countrys biggest banks getting billions of your taxpayer dollars. How too big to fail is alive and well taking money out of your pocket next. She knows you like no one else. And you wouldnt have it any other way. But your erectile dysfunction you know, that could be a question of blood flow. Cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be Ready Anytime the moments right. You can be more confident in your ability to be ready. And the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. 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I dont think im a lost cause. Im just a kid. Youth villages believes that no child is a lost cause. Not a single one. Because a stable loving family can help any child succeed. And we have an 80 success rate that proves it. If you agree, find out how you can help. At youth villages. Org gerri every once in awhile you have the sale of its soldiers so. This is one of those days. As we have been saying and the show for some time, the doddfrank law which we wrote the regulatory rulebook for banks did nothing to get rid of too big to fail. That is the implied promise that big banks would get bailed out of the get into trouble, th