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her books are selling like hot cakes. is it her free market message? what about her other messages of selfishness, greed and atheism. plus, does president open observe deserve the credit for the health care debate? we'll have the report on the massive government control on stimulus waste and how much more is to come, plus more humana control from the pazar. he talks about multi-million pay packages for top execs. more than 100 years ago, president woodrow wilson signed the bill granting the fed their help. fasten your seat belt, "the kudlow report" starts now. good evening, everyone. i'm larry kudlow. welcome back to "the kudlow report" where we believe free market capitalism is still the best path to prosperity. our lead story overlaps our message. there is a huge media buzz in resurgent books sales for if i loss fer ayn rand. perhaps it's during the intervention of the financial meltdown. but ayn has her unfettered self-interest and her rejection of faith in god. here to set the table for us on this story is cnbc's hampton pearson. thank you, hampton . >> the fictional tale talks about a corrupt government becoming too involved in the economy. they have shipped more than 300,000 copies this year, more than a 50% from a year ago. they rated this book one of the most influential books in their lives next to the bible. the if i loss fphilosopmer was . the auto takeover and health care have her on a collision course with obamanomics. >> thanks so much, hampton. here to debate the legacy of ayn rand, syndicated columnist jerry boyer. gentlemen, thank you very much. two very dear friends the day before christmas. i appreciate it. let me begin with you, don lus kin. i think you're writing a book about ayn rand. why is she so popular today, and is it truly deserved? >> ayn rand's books have been popular for decade after decade after decade. yes, there is a resurgence in sales 52 years after its publicati publication, but it regularly sells 100,000 a year as a new decade discovers rand's tales of hope, freedom and personal choice. and at a time when personal choice is rapidly being diminished, everything from government takeover of hoelt care to government takeover of banks, hermes saj is more important than ever. >> there is another side to ayn rand. i'm sgg to get to the ceos in a minute that basically support her. the other side is she did promulgate the theory of greed and unfettered self-interest. she was an atheist. she totally and utterly rejected faith in god or a spiritual program. she basically said we must all act in what way is best for us. how do you integrate that or not about what dan luskin is saying? >> i handicap that in the way she handicaps our message. the american people will not be persuaded by capitalism. the american people were persuaded by altruism. it said all men are created equal with some in alienable rights. that's a strong foundation for freedom. the rands have never really been able to make the sale because americans have the inherent sense that freedom is not a good thing. so what says the sale really is good probably hurts us more than helps us. >> you ought to go back and read smith -- >> it moves selfish businessmen and workers operating in their own self-interest to create goods that benefit everybody. >> whose hand? don, whose hand? who has an invisible hand? >> jerry -- >> adam smith believed in theoism. >> jerry, you are a religious person and you're going to try to make this case, but that isn't what adam smith said. the invisible hand he's talking about was a metaphor. it was that entrepreneurs and laborers and capitalists produced for others in society as if an invisible hand was having them do so. the invisible hand of adam smith was not god's hand. you may be a religious man, you may believe in god, but let's not distort the record. >> a prequel is a moral sentiment. >> there is a more important point we have to make here, and that is we live in a sex ful society. there are people who are jews and muslims and christians, there are atheists, and there is one thing we all agree on in america, and that's freedom. freedom means you own yourself, you own the product of your work. and that is what ayn rand met by selfishness. she did not mean greed, she did not mean theft, she did not mean stepping on someone else. >> freedom is not selfish. the soldier who dies for our country and our freedom, the soldiers who died in the american revolution, were they selfish or not? were they randian heroes or not? they gave their lives so we could be free. >> but the reason they did it is one in which they believed. if my child was threatened with a steam roller about to be run over, i would sacrifice myself to save her, but that would be my free choice. it wouldn't be barack obama or jerry boyer telling me to do it. >> i want to pose this to you, because look. insofar as brands unregulated free market capitalism, i don't know about totally unregulated, but i agree with that. i totally regard myself as a free market capitalist. i'm going to get to the ceos in a minute. with the rejection of any faith or any spiritual nature, rand is also known for greed, for self-interest to a fault. a lot of people are criticized for that. it's in her books. >> it was in her life, too. >> what about things like charity? what about things like helping others? those don't really appear in rand's books. she seems rather fa nat cal to make a point about economic freedom, a point with which i generally agree, but seems to rule out -- for example, let me raise an example. george guilder's book "wealth and poverty" talk about entrepreneurs who take huge risks -- >> gift gifrs. >> that's right, as an act of giving to the rest of society. i want to slaughter george guilder for thinking we want to add to that. my senator, john mackey, i haven't talked to john about this, but he makes some quotations. he makes it clear while he agrees with rand's free market stuff, he does not believe some of the things. he separates himself, jerry, from ayn rand. that's what i'm asking you. did she miss the boat on this? >> yeah, she missed the boat terribly. and i think her atheism, her traumatic reaction to the russian revolution, she took the atheism from the american revolution, but she rejected the socialism that goes along with the atheism. historical historically, tlt no case for this. adams made it, they made it based on their faith in god. >> jerry, this is ridiculous. i am an atheist. am i unworthy of freedom? am i unworthy of capitalism? >> don, you are unworthy of the silly argument you just made. i did not say -- >> answer my question. if you're not going to make beliefs in the christian god, the criterion for freedom, then anyone who doesn't share that belief with jerry boyer must be unworthy of freedom. >> if i were allowed to make one statement tonight, that would be great. >> go on. >> this is not historically disputable. i read jefferson, i read madison, i read these guys constantly. they based the case on theism. i'm doing what adams did, what washington did. >> i'm an athie sirks t. am i immoral? >> you're not even answering the questions you're badgering with me. >> go ahead. please answer, jerry. >> you have a right to free by the new administration and the congress. you do have these various ceos, for example, alan greenspan. greenspan was actually a part of ayn rand's collective. if you go back and read the books, you'll see his picture in there. he's the guy dressed in a black tie and black suit and looks like an undertaker. but he's in all those pictures. i might add my friend arty anderson. hugh hefner of the playboy empire, supreme court justice clarence thomas, which surprises me. thomas is a very religious man, but he still is a big follower of her. mark huban of the dallas mavericks. i mentioned john mackey who does not agree that selfishness is a virtue. and john allison, who was the former ceo of the bb and t bank down south. he is a very strong devotee of ayn rand. i want to go to jerry boyer with this. greenspan kind of somewhat rekantd in front of congress. you do have an impressive list. undoubtedly there are many others. is it the free market res sames the john gold's message against the world that she writes about in her books, and do these guys separate out the more unspiritual objectives that you find interesting? >> no, but sometimes when these people get in the seat of power, they choose the philosophy of selfishne selfishness. greenspan did not govern as a free market guy, he governed in a way that was in his interest. the bb and t guy, yeah, but he'll take the money. when you conflict with a free market economy, you'll choose selfishness any time. >> if i may get a word in edgewise with the free representative on the show with me, i happened to spend all day last tuesday with john allen for my book about why he took t.a.r.p. money, his whole history with ayn rand, which goes back decades, and let me tell you, he took t.a.r.p. money and he works in a very highly regulated business, and he was told to take t.a.r.p. money. they said if he didn't take t.a.r.p. money, they would change the rules on his -- >> he could have waited for thatly. >> give me a break. he's the ceo of a public company. the largest bank of the united states. jerry, just get a life. that's ridiculous. it was a pragmatic, sensible thing for the sake of his shareholders and his constituents. >> you're both great men and you're both great friends of mine. stay on message here. i just want to get a quick hit on alan greenspan. and this is really one of the most famous, if not her most fame use. tm -- unregulated free market capitalism. have randians lost greenspan? >> greenspan is a very interesting case. i suppose you could say that if you were a really deep ayn rand fanat fanatic, like if you wanted to go to ayn rand conventions, then you would probably say ayn rand defeated the republicans years ago. i wrote thousands and thousands and thousands of books that are crammed with thousands of ideas. have th all those head quartered in north carolina, they're not enthused about the atheist. >> can one agree to like the free market capitalist and at the same time put aside her atheism? i don't see how you run a country, i don't see how you run a society, i don't see how you run your life, and i draw on my own life, without some spiritual, i am moral and religious rules of the road. that's what god teaches us and say that's what thelping others is so important, and mariette. but we need a bigger dose of that right now in american history, and i'm going to give you the last word on that. >> i'm temptd to give you two last words, merry christmas. let me speak a little built clear. >> the wonderful thing about god who made us still believe some measure of truth. so i'll also say the soviet union was not brought down by the atheists. it was brought down by someone who is willing to lead the strug gelg in 1976 maybe someday, it will a archeological fee. todd luftkin, oeld friend. thanks for joining me. her books is all a desire to return to a more free market. . sdplz and more, season's greetings, the whole anyone yards. thank you for precipitating tonight. coming up on "the kudlow report," i'm still in the tax pair dollars and more of a friend rpgs friend rpgs spend. we have an undade report that your probably won't. we'll get back to your business worldwide. ♪ to pursue the life you want, you need a financial advocate who knows where you want to go. a merrill lynch financial advisor, now with access to the resources of bank of america, can help you diversify, rebalance, imagine, and believe. as we start to look ahead to 2010, what more can we expect from the $787 billion federal recovery act? do we really need another package to so-called salvage the job situation in this country? well, cnbc's brian shackman joins us with some much needed clarity. >> let's look at what's ahead in terms of spending the recovery act. it's going to double in 2010. here are some things happening right away. 8 billion for high speed rail. that should be announced next month. same thing with a billion for what they're calling tiger grant grants, money for high-end transportation projects. $4.35 billion for "race to the top." then there's simply spending what's already been allocated begging the question, as larry put it so well, why such a clam or for another package? call it stimulus, call it whatever you want, when so much is left to be spent. >> we certainly don't need another large broad-based recovery act kind of package with so many different components. but a target set of employment or job-based programs of the type the president recently announced, i think, make a lot of sense. >> i went to a meeting with burns and gibbs last week, and their point was there was a $2 trillion hole in the economy. it wasn't meant to fill the whole thing, so something else would help. they absolutely railed -- there were reporters in there saying, why couldn't you call it a second stimulus package, and they wouldn't even touch that word. this is about politics more than the economy. >> absolutely. i couldn't agree more. they're dealing with this front page news on the jobless problem. ironically, it may be that by the time such a package would pass, it will take several months to get this, we're going to see improving jobs numbers where they really increase in the first quarter and probably continue to decline in the unemployment rate. that's the irony, we don't need this money. they ought to have a little patience. >> critics are saying they plan to have all the spending done in 2010 so they can turn around and have trouble. their polk has hit maybe 20,000. >> the one who pays for this package and the other one is the taxpayer, and that's the one i'm trying to represent every now and then. brian shackman thanks so much for your reporting. what has president obama really accomplished? he says the financial rescue package is his most important thing of the first year. but is it really his employment. please keep it here at "the kudlow report". more command and control out of washington, d.c. our ken fineberg spoke to cnbc a while ago. we have brian with some of the details. good evening, brian. >> good evening, larry. this year started out with controversy over executive extravagance, so why not end that way, too? feinberg has approved multi-million-dollar packages for executive ceos, and he asked to exclusively set the record straight and explained this is all acceptable under the government's new rules. >> you're trying to tie individual compensation to the overall fortunes of the company as reflected in the value of that stock. >> and speaking of stock, the president is taking stock of his own first year in office. he says he did a pretty decent job. tomorrow he's expecting to get a big step closer to getting that health care bill that he says he's about 95% happy with. >> we've got the strongest health insurance reforms that we've ever seen in this bill. that whole argument about patients' bill of rights back in the 1990s, this is patient bill of rights on steroids. >> so what did the president get here? he said he got legislation on equal pay, on hate crimes. let's see, credit cards, children's health insurance, sonia socie sonia sotomayor, he's taking credit for basically salvaging the economy and says he ought to get a little credit for it. >> brian, let me just ask you, is anyone on this ken feinberg, i know this story broke later in the day, i believe it came out on the "fast money" show. it seemed very arbitrary to me. the thing i didn't like about it, you can have a couple million, you can have a couple million, you can't have a couple million, you have to give up this. this just runs against my blood of corporate responsibility, shareholders. this really is a big government command control decision. are there any complaints? have you gotten any wind of this since this announcement? >> of course. everybody's eyebrows and hackles are going up simultaneously, but feinberg smanexplained, hey, ths all under the rules. >> he sets the rules. one guy sets the rules. he is a czar. he really is a czar. >> in the finest sense of the word, of course. >> in the worst sense of the word, brian moore. thank you very much. i just don't want czars to run the economy. >> not if you're a ceo. >> huh? >> not if you're a ceo. >> well, gee when i seiz, not i have shareholders to report to. the senate health care bill about to be passed probably tomorrow morning has roughly $2.5 trillion of new taxes and $2.5 trillion of new spending. there are roughly 20 new taxes, by the way, in that bill, though we don't know the real bill because it ain't been published yet. let me ask you this. how can the senate vote on this massive legislation without a clear economic growth and jobs impact statement from the cbo, the congressional budget office, and other experts? where are the senate hearings on the economic impact of the health bill? where are the experts to tell us the huge tax bites in the next couple years are actually going to promote growth and jobs? this whole story is an outrage. whatever you think about the health care merits or demerits, i'm not talking about all that. i'm just trying to draw attention to the economic merits of this bill, which trouble me enormously. i want to hear from experts on it all over the country. democrats, republicans and whatnot, but the senate is going to vote it through, probably tomorrow morning or whatever, without the proper analysis or hearing or a scorecard. this is a perfectly terrible way to make economic policy whether it's called health care or not. you know what, this health care bill is about three times or more the size of the stimulus package, and we haven't even had a debate on the economic impact. it blows me away, so color me annoyed. now, let's talk about president obama listing financial reform as his most important first year accomplishment. this from an interview in this morning's washington post. there's no question we've had tremendous comeback in the stock market and financial system, no question. but should president obama take credit for it? let's talk with economist bob shrum. to both of you, happy holidays. it's been a while. >> you too, larry. >> before we get to this financial story, i just want to ask for your comment. i am outraged they have not done an economic impact statement of health care. i'm not talking about the budget deficit, and i'm not talking about the winners and losers in the bill, but we've got this massive unprecedented thing four or five times the stimulus package, and they're not even giving you a hearing of experts on the economic impact. i appeal to your non-partisan, rationale an lit i cans during the holiday season. >> first of all, the cbo has done an impact statement that it actually reduces the federal budget. >> the economy is what i'm getting at. >> we need national health reform no matter what an impact study shows. what's happening now is every republican, every conservative is trying to come up with as much noise as possible to keep this from moving forward. it will move forward tomorrow morning, it's going to get compromised in january, it's going to pass, and it's going to be, as robert doulg said in the paper this morning, the greatest social achievement. >> i like robert dowlick very much, but i'm not asking that question. steve, how can you do this without a clear impact -- look, the obama administration is shifting gears. they're pivoting to jobs now, and they may have one of these big stimulus bills, steve. but what about this massive stimulus bill? >> i like the way you frame this. when you think about it, the health care bill is an anti-stimulus bill, right? basically, this raises taxes starting in 2010. by the way, the benefits of the bill don't kick in until about 2013 or 14, so you're going to have this enormous kind of negative stimulus on the economy during a time when the president says we need to stimulate the economy. i'm ant a canesian. >> there is nothing wrong with this canesian bill. it reduces the deficit probably at a time when we ought to be reducing the deficit. you guys sat here a year ago and said, obama is going to fail. look at the stock market. it's going down. stock market is the right metric. you know what, the market is going up. and jobs are going to go up, and unemployment is going to go down and it's going to change the political landscape of 2010. >> let me just amend what you said. two things have gone up a lot under president obama in his first year. one is the national debt and the other is the unemployment rate. those are the two big problems. >> steve, i have enough respect for your financial integrity to think that you understand that the rise in unemployment that he inherited in january and that kept going was a legacy from george bush. it takes a while to turn that around. it is turning around, and when it does turn around, we're going to pay a very heavy price. >> this is a very important point. it's not me, it was the president and his economic team that said we want to have an unemployment rate of less than 8% if we pass. that's a big problem. >> and the unemployment rate is going to come down, it's going to come down to about 7%, i think, and we're going to see a mid-term election very different than what people are talking about right now. >> i agree with bob strum on that point. i do believe the economy is improving. i don't think they need a second jobs bill for that. i think the unemployment rate is going to go down. we have a tremendous financial comeback, i agree with you. steve, let me go to you. why should obama take credit when the heavy lifting, whether it was the t.a.r.p. bill, the federal reserve stimulus of last fall ruffoughly a year ago or a little more, the fdic guarantees interbank lending and money market loans. in fairness, george w. bush and paulson, along with ben bernanke, does all the heavy lifti lifting. >> i don't agree with any of this stuff. i do think we need a stimulus. i also think that the bowels needed some support, but i followed george bush, and paul sent for this -- which they have spent, larry, on completely crazy things that have nothing to do with the financial markets. like baling out b and e, the huge increase in deficits. i think we're going to pay suck staeshl a financial process. >> if mr. obama is going to take credit for the financial rebound, i am saying that the seeds were planted under bush and paulsen and bernanke when tim geithner ran the new york fed. mr. geithner has n-- obama has - those programs were in place when he was elected on november 20. >> i'm going to be a little more non-partisan than you think. i think bernanke did a tremendous job. he should have been confirmed for a second term. secondly, i think it was critical to save the banks. i think bush was pretty much a bystander in that. i think if we hadn't ignored the fact that the president then passed the big gegs stimulus package in any country in the world. and as sure as i am sitting here, he is going to harvest the political credit for the recovery that's coming. sdplz how in the world has that been a success? >> the ceo says gdp -- steve, you asked me a question. steve, you asked me a question. cbo said the economy was growing 3% faster than it otherwise would have without the stimulus. obama is going to get credit nor this, and you know what encourages me? that instead of predicting failure which is what will a lot of you have been doing. it's not going to wash. >> i just want to clear the record, robert strum. all year long i have gsd, the stock market is recovering and the economy, bob strum. >> at the beginning of the year, on an in raug ration year, you said to me, oh -- is mostly free market capitalism. i'm out of money. merry christmas, happy holidays, season's greetings. 96 years to the day, woodrow wilson signed the federal reserve act. so since its inception, has the fed harmed or helped or economy. you're watching "the kudlow report." ♪ ♪ (announcer) some people just know how to build things well. give you and your loved ones an expertly engineered mercedes benz at the winter event going on now. but hurry - the offer ends january 4th. throughout our lives, we encounter new opportunities. at the hartford, we help you pursue them with confidence. by preparing you for tomorrow. while protecting what you have today. you've counted on us for 200 years. let's embrace tomorrow. and with the hartford behind you, achieve what's ahead of you. well, today is the fed's birthday. happy birthday. they signed the legislation to the day in 1913. since the fed was founded back in 1913, we've had three truly major crisis. first the great depression of the 1930s. second, the great inflation of the 1970s. third, the financial panic meltdown of 2008. these are monetary crises in large measure, so i ask you, if the fed is so important and useful to the health of the american economy, where were they during these crises or may they, in fact, have caused them in the first place? so let's talk about the fed's birthday? do we need the feds? joining us now, we have vince reinhardt, former director of the fed's affairs. we also have the chief economist for the federal trade commission and the capital market director. those were the three great crises, the depression, inflation and the meltdown of 2008 spilling into 2009. did the fed cure them or did the fed cause them, peter? >> well, the fed sure made the great depression han in the sense it pulled back on the monetary strength at the time the economy was contracting. it failed in that crisis. with regard to the great inflation, it had a lot to do with creating that inflation and then paul vocer, fed chairman, resolved it. this last time around, it certainly contributed mightily to this crisis by letting the subprime excesses. the fdic quickly picked up that a lot of these subprime mortgages were failing, she let her people know, and they made the people at goldman sachs mildly wealthy and ben didn't get much back. >> what about this? you've got the three major crises, but you listen to peter ma reese maresi, and i think there's a lot there. did the feds make things worse? have they stabilized or destabilized? >> here's a much easier statistic. you said the fed 1913 cpa standard. it stands at 263 today. the feds wasn't the protector of price stability. on that level, was it a success? no. but the alternative would have been political control of monetary policy, and that would have been a much worse outcome. so the fed was better than the plausible alternative. could we have done better? could we write something down that would work better? yes. would it actually be put in place? no. so it's the fed or the congress. i pick the fed. >> the fed could have linked to gold for all those years. that would have been an ayn rand theory. >> i'm glad vince is on the show because he saw a lot of things happen in 2007/2008 when i was at the fed writing those statements. i would say this, one thing we've learned, when the fed gets closely tied to the political situation, bad things happen. that's really what happened in the 1970s, actually, the latter half of the 60s where the fed was pumping the economy to agree with the policies that were coming out of washington, d.c. now we have the opposite case. now we have washington saying, look, something bad happened over the last two years, and we don't like the way that the fed was almost laissez haf faire in their regulatory authority, so in the last few days they're coming to the conclusion that the fed needs to focus on monetary policy. >> but that was their focus during the great depression and that was their focus during the great inflation. look, we're going to take a break, and you all will come back. when we come back, i want to ask our distinguished panelist, is milt on friedman right, or was the late milton friedman right? should we replace the fed with a computer? would that be better for american performance? you're watching "the kudlow report." we'll be right back. 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(tucci) this holiday get a touchscreen samsung solstice free after mail-in-rebate. today is the federal's reserve's bir day. woodrow wilson signed the bill 100 years ago. get off their fine tuning, they may have helped or created or made worse the great crises of the century. number one, the depression, number two, the great inflation of the 1970s, and number three, the s and l financial panic of 2008 and 2009. we're back with our panel. you know milton has always said that, get rid of the fed, replace it with a computer. and you also know, vince, that a lot of people today argue that the fed should merely get brent woods back some way or another and link the dollar to a basket of commodities, including gold. that would take the fed out of politics, it would take them out of fine tuning. would that take them out of creating these crises, vince? >> remember when friedman said that, the computer he had in mind had less circuits than your cell phone. he was talking about really simple rules. and on average, would a simple rule have done better? no doubt. the answer is yes. we would have, on avrerage, don better. were there certain circumstances in which a little discretion would have helped? that answer is also yes. but what we have to ask is would the congress be satisfied about monetary policy on autopilot or would they tinker? here's the question you really have to ask yourself. that computer, would you really want it programmed by barney frank? >> i'm not going to impute barney frank who does, by the way, understand the economy price rule. but that single job at the monetary advisor's spot in the fed really outlines the strict fed policy. maybe vince has got some sense here. he's leaning toward norm friedman's idea. maybe not replace him with a computer but kind of downsize the fed's authority, peter. what do you think of that? >> when he was writing, not only were the computers smaller and simpler, but so was the economy sector. we need a fed that not only regulates liquidity but also regulates the kind of loans being made and the kind of derivatives being written. if the federal reserve is not involved in those things, i just don't have confidence that a bank regulator or the securities and exchange commission, commodities insurance commission, is not going to do it effectively. >> i don't know about all this regulation. i want to just end on this. unregulated treasury market rates, andy bush, the two-year note which is kind of a proxy for the fed, the 10-year and the 30-year is all rising as the year comes to an end. you know that better than i do. andy bush, are we going to be surprised in 2010 when, in the first half of the year, treasury market rates go up significantly more than almost anyone thinks possible? your quick answer. >> i would say we're on the path right now, and it really, a very steep yield curve we have right now per swads good growth and strong growth in the first half of next year. that's the potential, that we could see the 5.5% tenure that's been talked about. >> i think so. i think all those unregulated rates are going up. i agree with you, the economy is going to be much stronger. we'll see how the stock market reacts, and i think the fed is going to follow the rates up, vince reinhardt. that's what they're going to be forced to do. >> that's what the fed always does. >> all right, gentlemen, i got to get out. merry christmas, happy new year, happy holidays. coming up, my last thought. please stay with us. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 the etfs that you can trade online tdd# 1-800-345-2550 through your schwab account - for free! tdd# 1-800-345-2550 yup, schwab clients can trade any of these tdd# 1-800-345-2550 new exchange-traded funds, online... commission-free! tdd# 1-800-345-2550 trade large-cap... for free. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 trade small-cap... for free. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 trade international... for free. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 trade one, trade a few... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 ...for free! tdd# 1-800-345-2550 only schwab clients. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 only online at schwab. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 tdd#1-800-345-2550 my last thought is simple. merry christmas, everybody, happy new year. this is a season of stability, and a season of friendship. on ayn rand and her revival, i would just say this. i am so totally in favor of free market capitalism. ms. rand only got it partly right. i believe in faith, i believe in spiritual faith, i believe in god, too. i think you have to put the two together and then you've got a seriously great package: optimism, faith, charity, giving and helping each other. ♪ to pursue the life you want, you need a financial advocate