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Far. as a candidate he expressed solidarity with them, but when it came down to the fight over collective bargaining, the president in the end backed away from the issue because it's very divisive and controversial. so if this keeps happening, the president may find himself forced to choose between standing with hiss folks or alienating swing folks. harris: and what should focuses pay attention to as unions come into the picture? let's get a flavor, a little bit from a quote from from one of the -- well, union president mary k. henry talking to "politico" about the 2012 strategy. look at this....

Commodities like wheat and cotton and copper, and that has, in be theory, pushed the prices of the commodities and things we buy ever higher. rick: you know, i remember doing interviews with smart people like you a couple of years ago, and people were talking about inflation. they were talking about how some of the policies that the president was putting in place, that this was the road we were headed down, and so the warning signs were there even before, you know, we got to this point. >> right. rick: inflation, can inflation ever be a good thing? >> well, keep if mind these are not the polic...

Made is, yes, there is some inflation, but the risk of not doing anything is greater than the risk of putting more money into the economy. and that's where we are today. rick: so interest rates, i mean, this is what the fed does in order to try to influence and manipulate the markets a little bit. what are we looking at, i mean, down the road as far as interest rates and how they could come into play to try to get inflation under control? >> right. well, here's some important things for your viewers. interest rates right now are very low in the united states which is sending the dollar lower t...

Can be complex, but right now i'd say the economy is not in a terrible position. it could go either way. rick: and so for folks who are sick of paying what we're paying at the pump, sick of what we're paying for milk and coffee, we just have to ride this thing out? >> i think we're going to have to ride it out. if interest rates rise, we might see some of the commodity pressure come off here, but i think the main thing that the economy really need to get going right now is more employment. there was some positive news from wall street with corporate earnings, that's a good thing. but until we ...

Economist to know that high prices are the result of the law of supply and demand. what exactly is driving these high prices? what are we hearing? >> reporter: when it comes to supply and demand the pricing of oil is a really complex thing. supply and demand is absolutely key to it. included in that is speculation about the future price of oil and how the potential for disrupgs in the supply chain affect that. >> we said for most of 2011 that the price of oil has been driven by factors other than the traditional supply and demand fundamentals, you're talking about gasoline demand down about 2%...