Mandates for expensive green energy production. With more on this, jails sweeney, senior fellow at hoover institution. Welcome to the show. Good to have you here . What is going on here . What do you think is driving electricity Prices Higher . The, combination of several things. But the Biggest Issue is, that the distribution infrastructure. The transmission, transformers and the wires and all of this distribution infrastructure that was built 40 or 50 years ago, fully deappreciated. Were not paying for it and it will have to be replaced. Most of the estimates of large increases of electricity prices we expect will be mostly driven by the need for new infrastructure. The second thing driving it, less important, is the, the move towards better cooling of electric generating plants. We now have a cooling system that water goes through and you kill a lost fish and a closed system. A closed system is more expensive but it has less damage to the fish stocks. And thats a second, more important gerri got to worry about the minnows. And. And the third is the renewables. But the biggest thing, but the biggest thing is the need for the new infrastructure for the generating gerri james, i will let you get your mic fixed here. I will let you get your mic fixed here, right there in the studio. It is fixed now. Gerri while youre doing that im going to talk about this perfect storm of things that are going on that are shooting some of these Prices Higher. We have government regulations on emission, right . Even new coalfired plants cant even get it together to make these standards. There is more expensive green energy. That is the alternative. And it is being used more and more often. State mandates for renewable power. They have to mix in california more and more renewable power. Reductions in Nuclear Power. Believe it or not were making less Nuclear Power in this country. Finally natural gas pipeline constraints out there. Sort of a perfect storm out there if you will. And i think, whats interesting about this is there are lots of risks of this, even as were using more electricity all the time. It looks like we could have future price spikes. Weve had some recently with the polar vortex that came through. Everybody is short on energy. Seeps like that could happen more often. What do you say, james . I think well continue to have price spikes. Remember in the whole western United States . The year 2000, people had what we called the california electricity crisis. It was a shortage of hydro because of less, less rainfall. Were going to keep having those unless we want to invest in a large amount of facilities. But that is costly to have too much capital equipment. So were going to expect to see that there will be price spikes in electricity in the future. Gerri amen to that. Youre right about gerri go right ahead. Youre right about those other factors. In those states like california where we have a severe renewable portfolio standard, those are pushing up the cost of electricity for everybody but california is not like the rest of the nation. Most of the nation is not being as aggressive as california is. Gerri well, it is only a matter of time. James, thanks for coming on the show tonight. We really appreciate your time. Thank you. Take care. Gerri you as well. From energy to your smartphone, theyre kind of connected, right . Using your smartphone to pay for items at the store is supposed to be next big thing. Remember mobile payments . But my next guest says consumer ares are not biting. Neil weinberg, american editor editor in chief of gang. Gerri, we have something smarter than smartphones, credit cards. They probably still work and we have cash. Gerri there is money. There is cash money, that our viewers really love. You know you take it out of your wallet. It works. A boring concept to a lot of people out there. You just dole out the benjamins. The cash money, dead president the work. Problem is that the smartphones dont really give you everything you dont already have. If you dont give people new value, why bother with complexities of apps and sim cards and horrible stuff you have to deal with to get it to work. Gerri i would expect this to be really popular with younger people. Is it going over better for younger aged people . It is, but not going over well anywhere. Part of the problem unlike a visa card or mastercard, it is not accepted many places. Problem you get this, such as Google Wallet, not something you can use everywhere. People say why bother. Gerri why bother. One of the anists, forster analysts said it is not evolution but revolution. Could be a long time coming. In my mind youre worried about safety with the credit card. You worry somebody will steel your number, pin number, bank account for goodness sakes. Seems to me mobile payments there even more problems or potential problems. Thats a very good point. A survey last year found5 of the consumers are fearful of security problems. Issues like the target Security Breach will make that prominent in peoples minds. They dont trust it and thats a problem. Gerri peertopeer, that is problem. What do you like about that. Peertopeer, if we split the bill i can send you half the money like that. That does, creates a value. Something we cant do now. We cant do that electronically. If i dont have cash i cant send it to you. It doesnt cost anything. A lot of big banks are offering it. A lost mobile banking things such as take a picture of your check and deposit, that is something people can understand. I can send my kid money at college. They get it right away so they dont get thrown out of the dorm. Gerri that is big value. If we go out to dinner, i think you should pay the full freight. Im just saying. Here are surprising numbers. 25 of large retailers, 5 of small retailers are using mobile Payment Systems were talking about. That is lower than i would have anticipated. Adoption rate from the other side, forecompetent about consumers is pretty low forget about. Companies like verizon, at t and google and tmobile want to push this. Merchants have to pay for equipment in the stores. Unless they get a sense they will get new business from it. No thanks, we have card swipe readers in the stores. Theyre doing us fine. Gerri do you think five years from now people will talk about mobile payments like they talked about google glass . I think gerri forget that. It has to catch on because people find value there. Right now there isnt a lot. The other problem with your credit card you may get rewards. We did, research, found with Google Wallet you dont always get rewards. So there is negative incentive there. Until the backers of these mobile wallet start to create value and say, hey, there is additional reason to use this, people arent going to bother with it. Gerri i need free stuff, neil that gets me in the marketplace. Free stuff works for me. Gerri thanks for coming on. Maybe well go to dinner sometime. Maybe, maybe not. To be decided. Thanks for coming on. Now we want to know what you think. How do you pay for things . Cash, credit, debit, mobile . Log on to gerriwillis. Com. Vote on the righthand side of the screen. I will show the results at end of tonights show. We have more coming this hour, including how do you do that . Well show you how to get the most comfortable airline seat on your next flight. It is tricky. New scrutiny of Online Brokers like etrade, what are they doing with your money . Stay with us. Gerri stocks of big online brokerages, etrade, ameritrade, make you do business with them, got hammered amid increased scrutiny with regulators. Are they getting kickbacks at your expense . Wall streets own regulator finra is looking into it. The sec is under more pressure for these companies to be more open how they do business. For more on this, trial attorney, david stone who fought some of these kind of cases this story, i think it drove these stocks lower, but the fact is New York Post did not break any new ground, revealed nothing new but you can see how interested the stock market is in this because they did bid down these stocks . Yes. Actually i think in august this investigation began, but, High Frequency trading is under intense scrutiny right now. The attorney general of the state has made several proclamations. He is against it. Recently he made Thomson Reuters stop releasing information to High Frequency trade years that was your case. That was my case. Gerri lets back up a little bit to tell folks what were talking about with etrade and ameritrade here. Sure. Gerri the idea is that, you describe it. You will do a better job than i will because you represented these cases. Sure. There is a concept called front running. And front running is a process where certain trades are made before other trades. That drives up the price of the stock. Then the person who is the frontrunner gets the stock at a cheaper price. Then they sell it at a higher price. The people who are not part of the front running get taken advantage of because they pay a higher price when they execute the trade or thought they were executing trade at the same time. Gerri for the case of etrade, for example, they own their own brokerdealer, that their trades would flow through. If you wanted to buy shares of apple today, and doing it with etrade it would go to this brokerdealer. The brokerdealer might not charge the lowest price ever. That is the problem in a nutshell. We talked a lot about High Frequency trading. These are folks, that essentially raise prices for everybody, small guys, big guys, you name it. Big question whether that is legal. A lot of people think that is fine and dandy. I think if youre individual investor you need best probable price, im not willing to give up half a penny, a dime on my trade. I dont know about you. A lot of people feel High Frequency trading should be illegal. Maybe it is illegal. The sec has been looking at this very carefully. You know the rules of the sec were not constructed to deal with high speed, High Frequency trading. So theyre looking to see where they have to change the rules or whether the current rules would even cover it. There is no question that if theres information being given out in advance of information to the public, that is Insider Trading. The problem is, it is like Insider Trading on steroids because you have these High Frequency traders can affect hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars in the market. Gerri part of the problem you have multiple exchanges now and some are dark pools. Your trade could ultimately go anywhere. But you have to hear about this new poll. And this is a poll of industry inciders. Are u. S. Equity markets fair for all participants . Market insiders are asked this. This what they say, yes, only 18 . No, 70 . 70 if you talk to people who are expert in this industry, people who work in it every single day they say it is not fair and not fair for me. It is not fair for you and certainly not fair for you. Why cant we get any traction on this. Why does nobody care . I think the problem is that throughout the last couple of decades there has always been something going on, with enron, we cant trust the balance sheets, right . In 2008, we cant these complex instruments. Now weve got these High Frequency traders. The people on wall street are always looking for that edge. Theyre always looking to be on the edge of the envelope of legality to make money. And regulators are trying to catch up with them. Gerri i got to tell you, david. They would not say that were not looking to be on edge of legality. Were trying to do business. Were trying to make as much money as we can. Were Public Companies and thats what our hock tolders want to see us do. I think thats true. I said on edge of legality, many people they are legal what theyre doing. Like when you have a tax lawyer and you want to avoid as much tax. That is not illegal. If theyre smart and find a way for you to avoid tax. But evading tax gerri there is gray area. There is certain point where you walk across the line. Before you go i want to read this Charles Schwab comment. He has been outspoken. High frequency traders are gauge system and reaping billions in the process and undermining Investor Confidence in the markets. High frequency trading cancer is deep and has become systemic and institutionalized. Schwab is taking a lot of heat for these comments. People say he is talking his book. What do you say . To some extent he is talking his book. Gerri his book is my book. But the point is, that is joe america. Joe america wants to be able to invest in the stock market and know they have the same rights and theyre being treated fairly as people on wall street. Gerri right. That is the way it should work. But regulators are, have to step in and make it work that way they have to make it with the short sellers, High Frequency traders can affect the company. They can drive a companys stock down. They can drive a companys stock up, because he have the ability to trade so quickly. This is another issue. Gerri we could go on and on. It has been a pleasure having you here. Youve been right in the middle of this controversy. We appreciate you coming on tonight and talking to us about this very important topic. Thank you. Gerri thank you so much. Later in the show well explain why tying the knot is tying wedding gifts into financial bind. How much do you spend on weddings . Are you tired of having no leg room while flying or do you hate having aisle seat . Coming up next, we ask you, how do you do that, getting the most comfortable seat on your next flight. Well tell you how to do it. Weekdays are for rising to the challenge. Theyre the days to take care of business. When possibilities become reality. With centurylink as your trusted partner, our visionary Cloud Infrastructure and Global Broadband network free you to focus on what matters. With Custom Communications solutions and responsive, dedicated support, we constantly evolve to meet your needs. Every day of the week. Centurylink® your link to whats next. Gerri going on vacation the last thing you want is to have a cramped seat on flight. Tips how to get the extra leg room for little or nothing gerri imagine wifi at 35,000 feet. Thats what at t is promising. It said today it is planning to launch high speed inflight Wireless Service on both commercial and business planes. Now the new service is expected to be available as soon as next year, late 2015. At t says it is also planning to improve communications for pilots as well. That would be good. Well, you spend a lot on your vacation, right . You dont want to have it ruined by a lousy flight. According to new data, customer dissatisfaction with airlines is skyhigh and a big contributor to that sentiment, uncomfortable seating. Here with how you can score extra leg room without hurting your wallet, air fare watchdog founder. George, great to see you. Hi, gerri. Gerri listen, i cant tell, if i get a seat on one airline and get the same class seat on another airline, theyre completely different, the amount of leg room is the not same. It is confusing for me. Tell me about that. Well, force, gerri, a jet for example, gerri, jetblue, they have 33 or 34inches between seat rose. Spirit airlines you get 2inches. That is big difference. What they are doing is squeezing seats closer together in the very back of the plane. Now they have added something called, economy comfort, for example, on delta. So, that name is very interesting. It is economy comfort, what does that imply about the other seats . Thats a terrible name. Gerri you mean the small seats are economy comfort, is that what youre saying . Well, no. Actually the gerri bigger seats. Bigger seats are economy comfort. The back of the plane right, economy uncomfortable i guess or less comfort. Thats funny. It is funny it. Is funny. To your point, compete with right now ranges from 17 to 18 inches, 17. 2 inches to 18. 2 inches. I feel like i am squeezed, i really am. See dissatisfaction of customers, puts airlines with cable tv providers, social networking sites. We dont like those folks, because we dont feel like theyre giving what we want. What are you saying, george. I think airlines are making it so uncomfortable in very back of the plane with regular economy seats, people are upgrading for fees of say 99 on transcontinental jfk los angeles flight one way. You do get free drinks on some of these planes and priority boarding but making it sound comfortable in the back. People are upgrading. Air fare watchdog did a poll a few weeks ago, how many people paid to upgrade their seats last year. A full third of people have paid to go into economy comfort seats or Business Class or first class because theyre so uncomfortable in the very back of the plane. Gerri i feel like im peaking up all the time. George, payoff, what do i do . What is secret getting a comfortable seat without breaking my wallet open . Well i would fly on jetblue. I fly on jetblue whenever i can. Theyre expanding too slowly for my space my taste. Im a loyal American Airlines flyer. I get automatic upgrades to more comfortable seats. Become loyal to one airline. Fly them all the time and airline will treat you better. George, you fly more than i do. You fly more than i do. You probably have more frequent flyer miles than i do. What else can i do . Well you can use the miles to upgrade to Business Class. I do that, 15,000 miles on some airlines will upgrade from 189 one weigh fare to 2500 Business Class fare. That is great way to spend your mice. You can get those miles by getting a credit card of the those how i do it. Of the get a credit card. 40,000 bonus miles. I keep the credit card for a year. Then i get rid of it. It doesnt really affect that my credit score badly when i get rid of it. Gerri i would not go that far. Im not a fan of loading up on credit cards. Too easy to forget about them. Too easy to use them when you dont want to. Yep. Gerri