before. at last slow down in that trend. private sector is carrying things here, no question. but the private sector slowing down a bit too, ali. >> christine, something that you and i study very carefully, this is a consumer-driven economy, so we study retail sales. the retail sales for the last month came out this week, and they were exceptionally strong. much stronger than economists were expecting. so why did we see losses in retail jobs? >> it's so interesting, because you saw 33,800 retail jobs lost in the month, and that was a little bit of surprise to people. the only place you saw strength in retail was home and garden centers, surprise, surprise, because of all of the great weather. so even though you've seen some strength from the consumer lately, this is something, overall, that might be a little bit of a concern. we did see some strength, quickly, i want to show you in manufacturing, ali. 37,000 jobs created in manufacturing. that's a trend we've seen kind of picking up. i don't know how much it eats into all of those jobs lost in manufacturing since the '80s, really, but that's something that bear was watching. finally, i know you love this. this is a political number in an election year, no question, right? so you look at the overall trend. the trend of job creation. here's that big jobs -- this is the financial crisis, right here. 8.8 million jobs lost from the peak of labor market to the trough. here's census, remember, stimulus. wow, we thought we were coming back, and faltered, and then this is what the -- this is the slow, steady, some would say unremarkable recovery. not as strong as a recovery as you'd like to see. and now a little bit of a faltering at the end of it. >> and at 120,000 jobs, most people say, we need closer to 300,000 jobs a month to get back to where we were before the economic crisis. so bottom line is, this is a glass a third full, would you say? >> i would say so, but i want to know why. i also want to know. look, you've got seven reports, ali, until the election. all these numbers have noise in them. sometimes they go, sometimes they go down. in fact, a few people were telling me this week, we're due for a disappointment. because jobs have been -- it has been steady. we're due for a little bit of a disappointment. i mean, you got it. i think you got that little bit of a disappointment, but we don't know what's going to happen next month. >> your job and mine is to give you the what, but your question is why. let's bring in ken rogoff, the former chief economist with the international monetary fund. ken, we've laid out the numbers, you've looked at them. why is hiring slowing down when so many other economic indicators indicate strengthening in this economy? >> ali, honestly, i think it's hard to tell from a month's number, because you're right. overall, things are not so bad. they show a modest recovery. this is really tepid. i think you have to look at the longer term here, where the arc of the economy has been pointing to moderate growth. people are getting a little hyper excited. >> right. >> 200,000, now it's going to go to 300,000, 400,000. well, you know, it's probably going to continue at this modest rate. let's hope that nothing shakes it up. >> that's a good observation that we've had from a number of people who have said, guys, this is not 6% gdp growth. this is 2%. hopefully we get to 3%. so when people say we'd like to see 300,000, 400,000, 500,000 jobs created a month, that might be creating expectations that can't be met. diane swonk is a chief economist. diane, one thing christine pointed out is that the massive public sector cuts seem to be over with. the private sector has been leading this jobs recovery. so what is it that's holding us back from, i don't know, i'm inventing a number here, 300,000 jobs added every month. what needs to happen? >> well, you know, frankly, this is ken's area of expertise. we're still in the wake of a financial crisis, and we've still got a lot of things to heal. a very uneven recovery out there. i think this month's number also is a little bit reflective. we got a little extra boost from unseasonably warm winter weather over the last several months. and there was some payback. the retailers that didn't hire this month actually already hired, because they were selling spring stuff in january and february, instead of march. so some of this is a payback to the earlier gains we saw and the earlier gains were extra hyped, because of that unseasonably warm weather. but the reality is, we still have a subpar recovery. we're talking about growing around 2% in the first quarter, a little above that during the remainder of the year. that's just not fast enough to create jobs quick enough to bring down the unemployment rate in a way that's substantiative. and it's something that ben bernanke has brought up as well, because he's now worrying about, we've got 38 months running above 8% unemployment. that ties the 1980s and the cumulative effects of that are really starting to show. >> and you're echoing ken's idea that this is not -- these numbers that we have, while we may be surprised that we've slowed down to 120,000, that may be more in keeping with the economic growth numbers that we see. stephen moore is a an editorial writer with "the wall street journa journal". steven, what's your sense of these numbers? if it wasn't an election year, if you had not heard mitt romney, he's already called this a troubling report. other republicans were quick to point out that president obama's policies are holding the u.s. back. make the case, as simply as possible, as to what president obama and this administration could be doing differently that would result, in your opinion, in more jobs being created? >> well, let me first start to say that obviously this is a bit of a disappointing report. you know, i debate robert reich on your channel all the time, and he's told me for years, ali, that you need 150,000 jobs a month, just to keep pace with labor force growth. so we foal short of that. and i'm very worried, by the way, i'd love the others take on this. i think the most distressing statistic we've seen on jobs over the last three or four years is the decline of the labor force participation rate. which means that people have kind of dropped out. these discouraged workers are still out there. that means that you don't get the outpit and oomph in the economy that you need. look, the unemployment rate today politically doesn't matter. when matters is what the unemployment rate is in september, october, and november so politically, you can read too much into this. if i were president obama's adviser, which i'm not, i would say maybe we should cancel the big tax increase. i think the economy's way too fragile right now to take that. i think that we should have a much more aggressive energy policy. and the one thing to think about, let me add one other policy variable. we have had this kind of crack cocaine of easy money now for three years. and it doesn't seem to be providing the real revival of the economy that most of us would expect and hope. you know, we're three years now into a recovery. if you compare this with past recoveries, it's just much lower than we should expect. we should be expecting 4% or 5% growth in this phase of a recovery. we're not getting it. >> well, i want to take that up with our other two guests. how much of this could have been worse if we didn't have that, as you call it, the crack cocaine of cheap money, where would we be, but i want to take a break before we get to that. so diane and ken, think about your answer to that. up next, two threats outside of america's borders that could threaten this fragile recovery. and believe it or not, a bipartisan effort in washington designed to help start-ups and small businesses. >> if these entrepreneurs are willing to keep giving their all, the least washington can do is to help them succeed. >> republican eric cantor was there when the president signed the bill and aol cofounder steve case was there as well. it's called the jobs act, jump start our business start-ups. he's going to talk to me. steve case is going to talk to me about what this means for innovation in america and how it actually creates jobs. that's all coming up on "your $$$$$." 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welcome back to "your $$$$$." there are external factors that could have an effect on this recovery. while the jobs picture continues to be recovering here in the united states, that is not the case in europe. take a look at the 17 countries that use the euro. unemployment in that area is at the highest level since 1999. take a look at spain, right down here. 23.6%. greece, the one that's been in the news all the time, 21% unemployment. portugal back here, 15% unemployment, and ireland is at 14.6% unemployment. now, the three largest economies in the eu are faring a little bit better. france has just 10% unemployment. britain, around 8%, and germany, only 5.7% unemployment. the treasury secretary, timothy geithner, said this week that economic fallout from the debt crisis in europe is a threat to the recovery here in the united states. but that's not the only threat. in fact, one gets the feeling that europe is starting to get its act together. oil markets are spooked by geopolitical tension in the persian gulf, as the obama administration is moving to tighten sanctions over iran and its nuclear program. now, take a look at this. this is the strait of hormuz, okay? that's iran above it. now, iran is a notable oil producer. the west is no longer buying oil from iran, but china is and india is, but this is the more important part. the strait of hormuz is an important straight through which one fifth of the world's oil passes. iran has from time to time threatened that anything goes wrong, if anyone attacks iran, if israel or the u.s. attack iran, they may close off that strait or hormuz. americans are already paying 20% more at the pump for gasoline this year. let's bring the panel back in. ken rogoff joins us again. ken, when it comes to this recovery, what is the bigger threat? is it oil prices? is it europe? is it something else? is it neither? >> i think europe is probably the more uncertain threat. i'd have thrown in china, by the way. that's the huge economy slowing down. but the big picture is that there's still a lot of debt, household debt, other debt in our economy, that's going to take a long time to come down. and there are a lot of areas where wages are still too high. steven had said the fed has been putting the economy on crack cocaine, it's too easy a monetary policy. i don't want to say that ben bernanke should be passing out candy in a schoolyard, but i actually think that a bit more inflation is what we need, that it's not been too bold, they've been too timid. >> very interesting. diane, let's talk about what people think is the big threat. a recent cnn opinion research corporation poll found that 71% of americans say rising gas prices have caused them financial hardship. now, forget a recovery. is there a tipping point for gas prices? and we've seen this in the past. is it $4.50 a gallon? is it $5 a gallon, where americans really cut back on spending and send the economy reeling, because they're spending more money on gas, money that they would have otherwise been spending at restaurants or making purchases. >> well, actually, i think that gets into the issues that we talked about earlier, the unseasonably warm winter weather. we had extremely low natural gas prices and low heating bills as prices at the pump went up, which was completely deferent than 2008. and that allowed americans to keep spending, and filling their tanks. what i worry about going forward is the crimp that higher prices at the pump could play as we have to turn on our air-conditioners, which are much more expensive through electricity and pay for that at the same time we're paying for higher gas prices. so there's a lot of moving parts. and i do underscore as well, ken has talked about the fed maybe not doing enough, and that is something the national association for business economics survey is in complete approval with what the fed has done in setting expectations on the fed funds rate as well, on the majority of us surveyed, which is almost 300 economists, actually said, we approve and think that the fed is doing the right things, because committing to reflating an economy like this is exactly what ken wrote the book on, is what you need to do at this stage of the game. >> so stephen moore, you got your answer. our two economists think that those interest rates should remain low for a while. put that aside for a second, though. if the recovery is fragile, i think we all agree on that, there was some sense that it was moving on its own, but some things can set it back, who's got a leg up here? conservatives have spent the better part of the last few years saying that president obama couldn't get jobs going in america. and generally speaking, he's had jobs going in america. we've had a bit of a setback this month. what do conservatives do? which party has a leg up? >> this is not a hard election to predict in my opinion. when people go into the voting booth, they're going to ask themselves one question, can we afford four more years of these policies? if they feel like jobs are coming back, barack obama will be re-elected. if they have a real sense of unease and a continued sense of panic about their own finances and about gas prices and about jobs, then i think mitt romney will win. but, look, i just have to say that, let's say that the economy weakens and i think it's going to -- i think this is just a blip. i think we're going to see some better jobs numbers in the months to come. but if the economy doesn't get better, you have to ask yourself the question, ali, what do we do next? what's plan "b." we've had record amounts of keynesian debt. we're borrowing $1 trillion a year. we have record low interest rates, and all this money being deluged into the economy by the fed. and it's almost like the keynesians are out of ammunition. and, look, i respect ken rogoff, i think he's one of great economists in the country. but ken, the problem is, if we have what you call more inflation, you're going to see the gas price go to $5 or $6 a gallon. you'll see the gold price go $2,000. i don't see how that's going to really help this economy improve. it sounds to me more like what happened in the 1970s. >> let's let ken get a word in there. ken, what do you think of that? >> well, certainly, it's true that it would affect oil prices, but as i said, housing prices in many parts of the country are too high pinpoint takes a long time for the price to ground down. inflation's another way to inflate its value. same thing with wages in many parts of the economy. they're still too high. that's why there's unemployment. and there's a lot of debt. so, yeah, it's not a perfect instrument, but this is a once-in-75-years problem. i don't really see another way out except for grinding it really slowly, you could take some edge off of it with inflation. diane, stephen, thanks for joining us. ken, stick around. that's because a former top economic to president bush is quoting you, ken rogoff, in his "wall street journal" op-ed this weekend, stating that we're in the worst economic recovery of all time. plus, if the can kennedys equaled camelot, why is mitt romney's wealth a top target in this election? 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before the break, i asked economist ken rogoff to stick around, because he was mentioned in a "wall street journal" op-ed this week that makes that claim. it was written by ed lazear, he's the storm economic adviser to president george w. bush. now, christine romans rejoins us as well. she had the chance to talk to ed lazear this week. christine? >> ali, we hear time and time again from the obama administration and other economists that it's this administration that stopped the economy from going into a depression. but lazear argues it's president obama's policies, some of them that are making this in his words, the worst recovery in history. >> this hardly kept us from the great depression. what it did was at best, it softened the blow. but the big problem, at least to my mind, is what we've done by engaging in those policies has created a situation where we have very serious long-term debt issues right now, and to my mind, those are the most important impediments to economic growth as we look to the future. >> all right. let's ask ken rogoff. is this the worst recovery ever, ken? >> well, it's a matter of semantics, but the great depression was worse. i mean, it's really hard to compare. i mean, sure, there are a few good years in the early '30s, but we got to 20% unemployment first. it was bad, but here we got to 10. it was really staggering, and it didn't come back, it wasn't really until world war ii that things really started to improve. and this is the word recovery since world war ii. it is typical of a deep financial crisis, but the great depression, that was another animal. >> you point out that the recovery from financial crises are slower from other kinds of crises. and you were quoted this week by both timothy geithner and ed lazear, who worked for bush. your research is what all sides of the economic schoolings of thought use to the talk about this recovery, ken. >> well, i think we -- my work with carmen reinhart, we certainly show that recoveries are very slow after a financial crisis. i think where policies really matter is affecting the ark of the economy in the longer run. how are we competing with china? where are the jobs going to run? kids born today will have a 25% or something chance to lin to be 100 years old. can we keep our retirement age at where it is today? we don't seem to be able to do anything about it. the state pension plans where they say they need to get an 8% rate of return every year just to break even, infrastructure, et cetera, there are a lot of problems that need to be worked. >> and christine, you talked to ed about what some of the solutions were. >> and how do we know which solutions are right. ed lazear was an economic adviser for george w. bush. i asked him specifically about whether he, when working in the house, during a time of excessive home building, whether they didn't see it coming? >> the time would have been as early as the late '90s and going into the early 2000st when we might have thought about that. but, you know, hindsight's 20/20 and i think people at the time were thinking that this was actually a good thing for the economy. in retrospect, it probably wasn't a good thing for the economy. >> i think that's why so many people, when they hear economists, present company secluded, talking about how we fix our problems, i remember hearing greenspan greenspan and hank paulson and the treasury secretary all saying, subprime isn't going to hurt the economy. people are a little nervous about how far we've come and how we're supposed to fix it. >> which brings us back to an earlier segment, where you and diane swonk suggested that this area of cheap money right now, stimulating the economy, is necessary and he's warning that this is going to be the worst thing ever. how do you deed with these things without the benefit of hindsight? >> listen, it's very hard. the fact of the matter is, this kind of situation we're in the moment, where interest rates are near zero, the policy interest rates. we almost never see that. there was japan. it's one example. and we have on our blackboards, we have theoretical models of what the federal reserve should do, but we don't know. a lot depends on expectations, how people are going to think about the future. adjustment processes, the likes of which we've never seen. we don't know. but, nevertheless, my instinct is i would rather err on the side of ending up with a little too much inflation than having this thing drag on another day. >> ken, good to talk to you, as always. thanks very much. ken rogoff is a professor of economics at harvard university. a former chief economist at the imf, and my good friend, christine romans, host of "your bottom line," which you can watch on saturday mornings. what one word do you think best describes mitt romney? a thousand people were asked that question and their answer might surprise you, that's next on "your $$$$$." ♪ ♪ ♪ wow... ♪ [ female announcer ] sometimes, all you need is the smooth, creamy taste of werther's original caramel to remind you that you're someone very special. ♪ werther's original caramels. ♪ [ male announcer ] no one just hands you the title, most advanced technology in its class. it needs to be earned. earned with smartbeam head lamps. earned with vented temperature control seats. earned with an 8.4-inch touch screen. and if you're driving one, you know what it means to earn something. ♪ [ male announcer ] get it now at red lobster's lobsterfest. 12 tempting choices like lobster lover's dream or maine lobster and shrimp. but only for a short time. now at red lobster. i'm laura mclennan and i sea food differently. i'm laura mclennan interviewer: you were there the day the priceline negotiator went down in that fiery bus crash. sister kathleen: we lost a beautiful man that day but we gained the knowledge that priceline has thousands and thousands of hotels on sale everyday so i can choose the perfect one for me without bidding. ooh, my. this one has an infinity pool. i love those. they just...and then drop off... ...kind of like the negotiator. narrator: save right now on thousands and thousands of hotels during the spring sale at priceline. ♪ home was an airport lounge and an ipad ♪ ♪ made sure his credit score did not go bad ♪ ♪ with a free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ app that he had ♪ downloaded it in the himalayas ♪ ♪ while meditating like a true playa ♪ ♪ now when he's surfing down in chile'a ♪ ♪ he can see when his score is in danger ♪ ♪ if you're a mobile type on the go ♪ ♪ i suggest you take a tip from my bro ♪ ♪ and download the app that lets you know ♪ ♪ at free-credit-score-dot-com now let's go. ♪ vo: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com™. mitt romney sure is rich, but he's not the first wealthy presidential candidate. don't tell that to his opponents who have reveled in holding it against him. even his fellow republicans, as you know, have aimed to tie romney to his riches in the minds of voters. is it working? take a look at this recent pew/"washington post" poll. after a survey that asked what one word describes mitt romney, more people described him as rich than mormon on the right side. that's far more than anything else. mark preston is cnn's political director. mark, why and how did romney's wealth, which has been no secret for years, become such a negative for him on this campaign? >> well, for two reasons. as you said, one, his rivals for the republican presidential nomination have made a big deal about it. and especially when we look at some of the primaries that have played out over the past couple of months. mitt romney does very well with voters who are making over $200,000. rick santorum, ali, does very well with voters who are making under $100,000. so the big argument that rick santorum has been trying to make over the past few months is that he is better equipped to defeat president obama in november. but in addition to that, mitt romney has put some self-inflicted wounds upon himself. a couple of things he said on the campaign trail, such as his wife owns two cadillacs. well, ali, i don't own a cadillac. i'm sure most americans don't own a cadillac. he also talked about how he wasn't concerned about the poor. now, he wasn't saying anything terribly bad about the poor, but he was trying to convey across during an interview that basically there were controls in place to take care of the poor. but yet mitt romney is stumbling over his own words. and you know what, ali, he also has offshore bank accounts. and for most americans, what does that say? it means you're hiding your money. >> very interesting, mark. let's discuss this a little bit more. let's take a look back, john f. kennedy, rich, considered american royalty. men and women had their hair cut to look like jfk and his wife jackie o. when he was elected, unemployment rate was 5.5%, gdp was 2.5%. george h.w. bush also wealthy, and a popular nominee. in his election year, unemployment, same as under kennedy, 5.5%. gdp, much stronger. 4.1%. compare that with this election. unemployment right now, 8.2%. gdp, if we're lucky, 3%. what is it? is it the high unemployment rate the reason voters seem willing to overlook the sizable bank accounts of kennedy and george h.w. bush because seem to be hung up on mitt romney's money? it's a good question for will cain and ben barber. gentleman, good to see you. let's start with you, will. using occupy wall street lingo, mitt romney represents the 1% in the minds of the 99%. in fact, his wealth would put him in the top 1% of the top 1%. he would be among the richest in america. >> right. why is it okay to burn the wealthy at the stake? unless you can convince me that his wealth had been cheated, lied, stolen in some way, that's how it was accumulated, i don't understand why wealth is a negative. >> it's an interesting question. because there are some people who feel that he's made his money, somebody said it this morning, by, you know, running a company that took apart other companies and divided them up. again, this is one of those things that we have traditionally thought of as okay in american society, but somehow it's being held against -- you know what that is, ali? that is that concept of the 1% is completely made up of financial wizards, that we don't like finance, when in fact, the 1%, only 14% of that is in finance. the rest is doctors and lawyers and business executives. and we don't understand finance. we think that's sorcery. that's magic money. how did they get that? >> well, ben, you say that mitt romney puts the wrong face on wealth. political campaigns are all about perception. romney has certainly had trouble with moments, mark preston talked about some. listen to this one. >> i like being able to fire people that provide services to me. corporations are people, my friend! we can raise taxes on -- of cour they ar everyt cporations earn ultimately goes to people. i'm in this race because i care about americans. i'm not concerned about the very poor. we have a safety net there. >> rick, i'll tell you what. 10,000 bucks? $10,000 bet? i should also tell my story. i'm also unemployed. >> ann drives a couple of cadillacs, actually. >> ben, these are moments that romney's opponents have seized on. why is romney's money such a target? >> i think the issue is not money per se, but that he has allowed money to define him. we've had a lot of rich people in this country. people don't resent money. oprah has a ton of money, nobody -- derek jeter has a ton of money. kennedy had a ton of money. roosevelt, in much worse times than you were talking about earlier, you know, had an awful lot of money. we have not allowed either class or money to define people. that's a good thing. most of the rich call themselves middle class and most of the poor call themselves middle class. we define ourselves by our aspirations, what we want to be, and everybody wants to be middle class. i don't think that's the issue. but in a very peculiar way, he's lost any other signifier of his identity but money. and he seems constantly to bring us back to it. cars -- i mean, if i want to talk to americans about cars, that's great. but he says, we shouldn't have bailed out detroit. he talks about cars, he puts a dog on it. he has an elevator that brings one up to his home. with him, cars -- it's weird! you know, nascar, he says, i know the owners. he doesn't know the drivers, the fans, he knows the owners of nascar. >> he's modest. >> but that kind of modest -- >> look, he's certainly been defined by his wealth, but i don't know what you mean, has allowed himself to be defined by his wealth. this is a very principled human being that gives away 10% of his money, rain or shine, every year, he tithes 10%. he gave away two years of his life to a mission for his church, that has nothing to do with accumulating money. i don't know what it has to do with allowing people to define you by your wealth. >> because politics is about perception. and here the perception which he has encouraged is that he talks about his money. he can say, every american family loves cars. our family likes cars too, detroit is great. instead he says, my wife has a couple of caddies. >> so does trump. >> trump doesn't talk about it, he talks about himself. donald trump is a celebration of donald trump. it's funny, who would have thought that romney would wish for the days when he was defined as a mormon instead of a rich man. but in fact, the mormon is a better division. >> so will, do you concede that romney can do something to translate this into, wow, with i am successful and hence should run your company as opposed to -- i mean, these are gaffes. >> they're gaffes because he's trying to deny it, ali. i think that's the exact point. i disagree with ben. i think that's fine to be defined by your wealth. let it. put it out forward. do it as trump does it. because you know what, romney is a success story. he earned his wealth. unless someone can show me where he lied, cheated, or stole, he's a success story and we should celebrate success stories. put it out front. >> that's not what we celebrate in america. we celebrate what you make your money for and how you make your money. oprah's made a heck of a lot of money, but she's done it on the way to becoming a celebrity, a special adviser to women in america, an emblem of what an african-american can do. that's -- >> what's romney done? he earned his money, right? >> but how, and for what? and to what purpose? he's got the money, but what for? >> but it's mostly been republicans who have drawn this line, who have said, what did rick perry called them, vulture capitalists. you know, it's -- this is mostly an internal republican fight. democrats have a sense of -- >> they just haven't had their chance yet. watch in a couple months. it's a fundamental lack of understanding in the role of finance and economies. it's a fundamental understanding of apportioning capital into the most efficient mystics. if you don't think that's a value to society, you've got economics 101 to learn. >> but i think right here will drives a wedge into the republican party. because what rick santorum does is say, to be a republican is about values. how you live, how you relate to ordinary americans. and to say it's about making money, it's about being rich, it's even about solving problems the technocratly doesn't speak to americans. >> it may be fair, but it's not. >> we're not talking about fair, we're talking about what works in politics and perceptions. if i had to choose a republican, god forbid, i'd sure take romney before i took santorum. and for some of the reasons you're talking about. >> but don't we all agree that people don't understand finance, they don't understand wall street, and they think it's magic or stealing? >> but that's finance's own problem. you know, its own pr problem. i mean, we know the banking system is essential and necessary. but find me ten americans, nine out of ten american who is will tell you that. they do not like them. >> it's a simple problem, but it may be the problem, the reason why romney won't be the next president of the united states. >> we shall see, ben, on that. >> great discussion, as always, with the two of you. thanks so much. ben barber is an distinguished senior fellow at demos and will cain is a cnn contributor. well, stocks are up 70% since president obama took office. why is wall street calling for a change this november? stocks have been on a tear this first three months of this year, making it the best first quarter for the s&p 500 in 14 years. a lot of your mutual funds in your 401(k), your i.r.a. will look like the s&p 500. it generated a 12% return. that's where the market's been so far, but big question, where's it going? right now you and a lot of other folks are wondering if it's time to get back into the market, if it's time to start selling some stuff before you dig up the password to your e-trade account or whatever it is you use, you may want to listen to this discussion. jim awad is a managing director at zephyr management, an old friend of our show. election harris, a managing editor at cnn money. kim harris, portfolio analyst at ft. pitt capital. welcome to all of you. jim, you say that easy money is gone. >> well, after the last six months, the big gains, ma mathematical mathematically, it's going to be really tough to replicate that. but that doesn't mean that we're going to go down a lot. you could have any sort of a correction after a 30% gain. so don't come in now expecting another 30% over the next six months. >> these gains don't come without some risk. all the data points to the kind of volatility we saw last year. i like to remind our viewers while everybody thinks they want gains, what most people sleep better with is slower, steadier gains without the kind of volatility we go through in a year like last year. the tell me your thoughts. >> well, there's a couple of factors that really haven't been solved between this year and last year. first and foremost is europe. europe is still not solved. they keep kicking the can down the road. greece is taken care of, but guess what. spain and italy still are out there with very large debts and a very unsteady banking system that the eu has to step up and fix. and we don't believe that the actions that they've taken lately have really, you know, nailed what's fundamentally wrong over there. so that is going to eventually blow up and make investors nervous. and then there's the big misunderstanding about what's happening in china. it's very difficult to get good data out of china and we're all depending on china having a soft landing. i don't know that we can count on that, but we're always looking over to china to see what they're doing, and that affects this global stock market of ours. >> in fact, earlier in the show, i was talking to ken rogoff when i asked him whether europe or iran and oil may be the bigger threat to the economy, he said china may be the biggest threat right now. lex, cnn money just did a survey asking investment strategists the single biggest threat to the market, what did you find? >> all of those things were addressed. and jim and i were talking too. you could go on and on with how many risks there are to the market. the number one was what washington, d.c. is going to do. there's going to be so much uncertainty. wall street, of course, hates uncertainty, and you're talking about tax increases, spending cuts. no one knows how it's all going to play out. i would point to two other things. we had, you know, if you think about the two things that drove the market so far, we had profit growth and easy money from the fed, and both of those things were a big question market right now. >> jim, the fact is right now that our viewers should do in a smaller way what you do for a living. you don't cid ssit around and h you make money because the market's on a tear or sit around and hope you don't lose all your money. >> you're in a low return environment over the next several years. i would say the best way to accumulate capital over a multi-year period is to own shares in companies that have growing earnings, dividends, and growing dividends. and soild buy world class companies, some in america, some in asia, some in latin america that are able to show reasonable growth in a slow-growth, low-return environment. i think that's the best risk-adjusted way to make money. >> kim, the stock market might be up about 70% since president obama took office, but another "cnn money" survey showed that the vast majority of investment strategists and money managers actually want a change in the white house come november. take a look at this. stocks are up, again, 70% under president obama and wall street wants a republican president. are you surprised by that, kim? >> i am, kind of, because, well, first of all, i don't know that the actual president has a whole lot to do with the economy at large. we like to have him as our masthead on the front of the ship, pulling us forward, the figurehead on the front of our big ship that's the economy. but i don't know that they have all that much influence. but that being said, if you look at the donations so far from wall street, it's pretty even. and i think that wall street, who gave us hedging, hedges their bets in the long run, and will donate equally to both. so we'll see what happens by the time november hits. >> yeah, that's an astute way to look at it. as much as people say what they want, the big donors tend to hedge their bets unless they have some ideological dog in the fight. you guys were on top of this survey, lex. what's your take on it? >> you know what it is, wall streeters always say they want republicans, right? it sounds good. we want low taxes, we want row low regulation, but then what are the things that make the market go higher? it's easy money from the fed, which good conservatives are supposed to not like, and even the stimulus spending that was actually goosing corporate profits along the way. you definitely see this kind of funny disconnect there. >> you're right. that's a strange look at it. but either way, don't expect the rally to continue. do what jim says, take a look at your investments and rebalance them as necessary. thanks to all of you. kim, good to see you. jim awad is zephyr management, and lex harris, the managing editor of "cnn money." a new law makes it easier for you to invest in the next big thing. i'll tell you how, coming up, on "your money." [ male announcer ] if you believe the mayan calendar, on december 21st polar shifts will reverse the earth's gravitational pull and hurtle us all into space. which would render retirement planning unnecessary. but say the sun rises on december 22nd, and you still need to retire. td ameritrade's investment consultants can help you build a plan that fits your life. we'll even throw in up to $600 when you open a new account or roll over an old 401(k). so who's in control now, mayans? two of the most important are energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands. this resource has the ability to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. at our kearl project in canada, we'll be able to produce these oil sands with the same emissions as many other oils and that's a huge breakthrough. that's good for our country's energy security and our economy. a new law makes it easier for you to get in on the next big thing. the jobs act allows regular investors like you and me to become stakeholders in companies that haven't gone public yet. the bill passed congress with bipartisan approval and president obama signed it into law on thursday. now, this law targets companies with gross revenue of less than $1 billion, and it relaxes s.e.c. regulations for companies looking to go public, to ipo. it allows companies to advertise themselves to investors using the internet. startups can raise up to $1 million from investors over a 12-month period. the chairman of the start up america partnership and chairman and ceo of revolution steve case joins me now. he's also a member of president obama's jobs council. good to see you again. >> good to see you. >> this bill, it's trying to be a pro-business bill. i'm a little surprised at the amount of opposition out there to it. tell me what this bill is supposed to achieve. >> it's really part of a recommendation that the jobs council made to president obama in october. a whole series of things, how to jump-start our community, really a source of all of net job creation over the last three decades. 4,000 jobs were created by young entrepreneurial companies. if you want to get the economy moving and employment moving, it relies on the startups. it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the house and senate and signed by the president. it does a number of things, allowing crowd fund iing for yog companies that access capital. lots of people making small investments. another is an on-ramp for initial public offering. so later stage companies can access the public markets. right now because of the costs and complexity of some of the regulations, to the young emerging growth companies, that's changed. they have a five-year on ramp. there are a number of important changes. they're all about making sure entrepreneurs have access to the capital to start or expand their companies. >> once this gets going, tell me the difference in some of these startups, the way they would get funding now versus how it would work under the new bill. >> if you look at high growth companies, only about 15% actually get venture capital. 85% are funded in other kinds of ways, from friends and family, or get a loan from a bank. crowd funding provides a whole new opportunity for these companies. people focus in silicon valley and companies like facebook are hot, but that's really the exception to the rule. if you look all around the country, not just technology but services and manufacturing, most entrepreneurs are desperately in need of capital to get started. so these new tools such as crowd funding enable them to gain aggregate from other companies. it has existed for a while, but up until now you can only use it to fund a project like a documentary, motto invest in a company, but sort of perversely, you could use a site like ebay to sell 100% of your company. you just couldn't sell 1%. it allows you to sell small interests in your company to lots of people to get the capital you need to get started. >> where's the criticism coming from? as you said, it's bipartisan. we know that there's excitement in the startup sector, as there has been for some time. why so much pushback on this? >> i think there's a lot of support. certainly there are some critics. i think the concerns are legitimate. they want to make sure as the new tools are put in place, that give entrepreneurs access to the capital, give small investors the ability to invest in his young companies, which most people do agree is a good thing, that investor protections are put in place, so we don't get ripped off. obviously that's important. the final law that got passed had amendments, particularly around crowd funding that forced those to go through intermediaries, they have to register with the s.e.c. i think that's important. the industry there, they're joining together to put self-regulatory practices in place. and the s.e.c. itself over the coming months will kind of put the rules of the road in place. crowd funding won't, even though it was signed by the president this week, won't go into effect until probably next year. i'm confident at the end of the day the rules will be right so investors are protected, entrepreneurs do have access to capital to start and grow their companies and individual investors who up until now have been kind of locked out of investing in these young companies will have that pad as well. >> steve, good to talk to you as always. >> thank you. an industry everyone loves to hate, but bob schiller, a pretty smart guy, says finance can actually save society as will king was saying earlier. we'll give you a sneak peek at how next. i love that my daughter's part fish. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. are you still sleeping? 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[music] transitions® lenses automatically filter just the right amount of light. so you see everything the way it's meant to be seen. experience life well lit, ask for transitions adaptive lenses. thanks for joining the conversation this week on "your money." next week the image problem, investing, mortgages, insurance, all things that should better life, not complicate it, where did we go so wrong? yale economist robert schiller will be here next week to tell us how finance can help the greater good once again. you won't want to miss that. we're here every saturday 1:00 p.m. eastern and sunday at 3:00 p.m. check out my book with christine