this program is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. captioning sponsored by wpbt >> susie: good evening everyone. congressional investigators are now trying to figure out when egg producers first told government officials and consumers about a salmonella outbreak. tom, so far, over half a billion eggs have been recalled, and over a thousand americans have gotten sick. >> tom: susie, that's led food safety activists to press for tougher government regulations and raised concerns about large egg producers. but, industry groups say their health record is strong and they say bigger can mean safer. darren gersh reports. >> reporter: more and more of the nation's eggs are coming from fewer and fewer baskets. a dozen companies-- including wright county egg of iowa, the farm where the recall begin-- have more than five million chickens. and food safety advocates like patty lovera say that's part of the problem. >> we think it is time to really ask some questions about why so few players get to make all the decisions about our food supply, and so if there are just a handful of companies producing a huge share of food, and they do something wrong or they make a bad decision, that really raises the stakes for consumers. >> reporter: last month, after years of debate, the f.d.a. put in place new rules forcing farms to improve testing and handling of eggs. but, there is legislation pending in the senate that would go further. it would give the f.d.a. the power to mandate recalls. the current egg recall is voluntary. the f.d.a. would be able to schedule inspections, and it would require companies to develop safety plans for eggs and other food. f.d.a. commissioner margaret hamburg told "abc this morning" she needs the new power. >> there is an opportunity through this legislation to extend our authority, resources and other important tools, to do trace-back of product, to make sure that companies have the appropriate preventive measures in place and enable us to review records in a routine way. >> reporter: food safety advocates say that authority is critical to regulating large egg producers. but mitch head, spokesperson for the industry trade association united egg producers, argues bigger means safer when it comes to chickens. >> a larger food companies tend to be able to invest more money in quality, in sanitation, in food safety inspections. they can do all of those things that a lot of the smaller companies can't do. if anything, we think the larger-scale agricultural organizations actually do a better job at food safety. >> reporter: but big egg producers have come under attack in an antitrust suit charging they used their clout to reduce supply and drive up prices. an industry spokesman calls the charges rubbish. darren gersh, "nightly business report," washington. >> tom: there's been a big pick- up in mergers and acquisition activity in recent days. last week was the biggest week so far this year for deals, and the volume of hook-ups is running 20% ahead of last year's pace. today, the buyout activity turned aggressive, with a fight breaking out over cloud computing firm 3par. hewlett-packard topped dell's bid for 3par with a $24-per- share, all-cash offer. dell's bid is at $18 a share. but, in an s.e.c. filing earlier today, 3par recommended dell's bid to shareholders. tech analysts like tom smith think we'll see more action around 3par. >> h.p., in a sense, is the deeper pockets and a sturdier place to go with your company, but you have to look for everything else to match up too. certainly, more money per share helps. i'm not sure that we've heard the end of the bidding for 3par, the price today was already trading in the market above what h.p. had offered. >> tom: it was. 3par shares ended the day up over 44%, rising $8.05 to $26.09 a share. new all time high. we'll look at the potential bidding war's impact on h.p. and dell in tonight's "market focus." >> susie: here are the stories in tonight's n.b.r. newswheel: stocks dip despite today's m.&a. activity. the dow fell 39 points, the nasdaq lost 20 and the s&p 500 down four. trading volume was light to start the week, with 864 million shares on the n.y.s.e. and 1.7 billion on the nasdaq. a.i.g. is paying back nearly $4 billion in taxpayer aid, its biggest repayment of bailout loans so far. the money came from a sale of corporate bonds in a.i.g.'s aircraft-leasing unit. and a vocal member of the federal reserve's policy-setting committee today warned americans not to see dollar signs when they look at the u.s. housing market. kansas city fed chief thomas hoenig said he thinks it's a mistake for people to look at their home as an investment opportunity. >> susie: still ahead, buy, sell or hold? tonight's "your mind and your money" interview looks at the role our d.n.a. has in how we save and invest. >> tom: while the global economy continues to recover, it's emerging nations that are providing most of the bounce-- not the u.s., europe and japan. each night this week, we're talking about each of the bric countries: brazil, russia, india and china. tonight, brazil. after growing by more than 5% a year, the brazilian economy held up better than most last year, slipping only 0.2%. this year, it has roared back, growing 9% in the first quarter. william nobrega is founder and managing partner of the conrad group, which advises private equity and hedge funds on emerging markets. welcome. >> pleasure. >> what's been fueling this huge rebound we are seeing in brazil. >> brazil is a perfect storm. we've got a growing middle class. it's growing to 90 million people last ten years from 60 million. incredible exports fueled by china's growth. and growing domestic consumption from this middle class. so everything is in place for rapid gdp growth for brazil. >> is enough in place for this kind of speed of the growth to continue on to the 2011 and beyond? >> we're predicting that around 7 to 8% gdp growth going forward, two reasons for that. new administration and that new administration next year will definitely push through tax reform and pension reform which will also drive down interest rates which will fuel even more growth. >> yeah. >> it's one of the areas where interest rates have been higher in this world compared to in the developed country. >> extremely high, actually which is really frustrated a lot of the domestic growth. people simply can't afford to grow their businesses because that is so expensive. >> let's look at areas where you are seeing specific growth in brazilian stocks that are traded in new york. one is net-- this is a pay television an internet broadband provider. what makes you like this one. >> we love media and entertainment. you have a growing middle class. brazil yaps have very similar consumption habits as americans. they love tv. they love, you know, soap operas and everything else. >> and they're willing to pay a pretty penny for it. >> they're willing to pay. that customer base is growing and it is perfectly placed to handle that. >> you also like coast unlimited. it trades in the u.s. and czz, sugar, ethanol, alternative fuels, brazilian and alternative fuels with sugar ethanol go together. >> that's right. it has been a leader in renewable energy for years. of course brazil was doing renewable 20 years ago. most of their vehicles are running on ethanol mix. closer to 50% as opposed to our 10%. growth there is going to come from brazil and internationally. >> i was going ask you about it, is there demand for sugar ethanol fuels. >> japan is one of the top buyers of that, china will you see buying it. but just the brazilian market itself will hold up demand. >> any discussion of brazilian stocks for american investors wouldn't be complete without petro brazil. why go deep water considering all the concerns about deep water exploration. >> brazil actually has a very good track record with deep water exploration. and of course they've just discovered the largest deep water field i think in history. the amount of oil there is just, you know, beyond comprehension. so it's something that you can't ignore. of course we believe that we're ultimately moving towards a renewable energy future but for the next ten or 20 years oil's unfortunately better or worse will be in the picture. >> sounds like you are hedging with petro bra. any disclosures. >> no, we hold no positions in either of them. >> we appreciate the analysis and insight. william nobrega, founder and >> tom: tomorrow, we continue our look at the bric economies with a look at russia. >> susie: many investors are already calling their brokers, hoping to get in on what will no doubt be the year's biggest i.p.o.-- general motors' return but with the economy stalling and the future of auto sales up in the air, some are wondering if those calls will turn in to actual investments. diane eastabrook reports. >> reporter: from 1916 until its bankruptcy last year, general motors was one of the most widely held u.s. stocks. analysts think the initial public offering for the new g.m. could raise somewhere between $14 and $25 billion. that is, if investors want to buy its stock. veteran chicago investment advisor william hummer thinks they will. >> i think there will be some investors who will want to reallocate their assets and allow for the return of automobile stocks in the portfolios, which will allow for some rebuilding of g.m.'s position. >> reporter: hummer's client, john summerfield, was a longtime owner of the old g.m. stock-- at one point holding more than 5,000 shares. >> i made a lot of money with general motors stock. a lot of money. >> reporter: analysts say attracting retail investors like summerfield, and larger ones like pension funds are key to the success of the auto company's i.p.o. >> but, it faces some potential pot holes. auto sales and the overall economy remain weak. morningstar auto analyst david whiston admits this isn't the best time for any company to be doing an i.p.o. still, he thinks g.m. could be successful. >> in the long run for g.m., you're looking at a very healthy balance sheet-- it's dramatically reduced its break- even now to 10.5 to 11 million vehicles a year. we're going to be selling way more vehicles than that in the coming years, so i think g.m. will be printing money. >> reporter: while that sounds good to summerfield, he still isn't sure he'll become a g.m. investor right away. >> i would consider it a year, maybe 18 months down the road. after we see what they do with some of their product problems. >> reporter: analysts think g.m. will be hitting the road in a few weeks to pitch itself to large institutional investors. the reception it gets could determine the popularity and the price of the stock. diane eastabrook, "nightly business report," chicago. >> tom, things look good for the markets at the opening bell. i thought it was going to end up as an up day but the downward trend continued right to the close. >> yeah, it didn't take too long for the market to continue to focus on those economic worries, even without any new economic data at least not today. but plenty to chew on in tonight's market focus. >> tom: monday merger news helped lift stocks early, but that optimism gave way with the indices closing at the lows of the day. the s&p 500 reflects the early impact of the buyout activity. all disappeared before lunchtime, and the markets continued to drop into the closing bell. the focus of much of the talk was the fight between hewlett- packard and dell over computer storage firm 3par. h.p. dropped 2% on its higher offer. volume was heavier than usual, and the selling takes h.p. to a new 52-week low. dell dropped on the buyout competition, slipping 1% to within just 20 cents of a 52- week low. similar to last week's pop, other computer storage firms saw buyers again. commvault systems saw volume triple on a 14% rally. isilon systems hit a another new high tonight, and compellet jumped more than 11% on more than four times average volume. updating a separate buyout battle-- fertiziler maker potash says other companies are interested in making a play for it. potash already has rejected a $130-per-share price from b.h.p. billiton. the stock keeps climbing, with investors thinking a better bid will be coming. the "wall street journal" reports a chinese group is considering an offer. potash says a number of parties may be interested in a deal. shares up fractionally again. the leading dow component, wal- mart, also was the talk of some possible merger activity. reuters reports wal-mart is talking with a russian retailer about a possible buyout. wal-mart isn't commenting. shares was up almost 2% in the weak market today. while wal-mart is the world's biggest retailer with more than 4,100 stores, it does not have any outlets in russia. speaking of russia, sanderson farms is back sending chickens there. while earnings fell in the latest quarter, the mississippi- based company says demand from russia for u.s. chicken has been spectacular. russia banned u.s. poultry in january over how u.s. processors sanitized their chickens. that ban was lifted last week, and russia is okaying u.s. plants to resume sending chicken there. one of sanderson's plants has been o.k.'d. sanderson stock was up 6% on heavy volume. this is a two-week high. the firm also says it has a good appetite for stock buybacks. that may have helped today's performance as well. back to school season is in full swing, but that may not fully explain the buying interest lately in the washington post company. in addition to its namesake newspaper, the company also owns education services firm kaplan. shares continued recovering today from a sell-off earlier this month. today they were up 6%. kaplan is responsible for 60% of the company's revenue. earlier this month, a government report said schools owned by kaplan may have falsified student federal financial aid applications. a couple of decisions by the food and drug administration weighed on two smaller drug- makers. both jazz pharmaceuticals and cumberland pharmaceuticals saw double-digit stock drops. jazz lost more than a fifth of its market value, plummeting 22%. a f.d.a. panel rejected a proposed fibromyalgia treatment over worries about abuse. cumberland lost 10% as the f.d.a. wants more time to consider a drug to prevent liver failure. and that's tonight's "market focus." >> susie: is our saving and investing behavior learned or inherited? researchers have been delving into that question and have made some surprising findings by looking at the behavior of twins. that's tonight's "your mind and that's tonight's "your mind and money" interview with professor stephan spiegel of the university of washington. i talked with him earlier today, and ben by asking what determines whether a person is a spender or a saver. >> well, about 30% of that question is determined by the genes that somebody is born with. and most of the rest is determined by individual experiences that somebody makes as he or she goes through their life. very little is determined by the influence that the parents have on someone. >> so you're saying that 30% of someone's tendency to save or to spend is determined by genes. so what is the other 70% coming from. >> the other 70% comes from mainly individual experiences that we can't really specify. we can just say that these are experiences that are not a function of the genes. and most surprisingly they are not a function of something that people were taught by their parents or by the environment that they grew up in. so it can be anything from their professional career choices, educational choices, and other chance events that they have throughout their life that ultimately affects their savings behavior. >> professor spiegel, a lot of parents will be surprised by that because they like to think they are teaching their children about how to save and how to spend. you're saying that that is not the case. >> that doesn't seem to be the case. in our data we don't find a big impact that parents have on the financial behavior of their children, that is correct. >> all right, now there is an ongoing debate about what determines most a person's behavior. now when it comes to investing, on nature versus nurture, which is the most important when it comes to investing? >> out of the two it seems the nature component is much more important than the nurture component. nurture doesn't hardly show up in our data with respect to saving and investment decisions. >> so when someone says that i am a born gamblers, i can't help myself, that i'm taking all these big risks, could there be some truth to that? >> it could be, why we don't look at gambling behavior, what we find for savings and investment choices, there is a strong genetic component and that could also be there in gambling. >> if we accept the point that your investing behavior is determined by genetics and if you have some bad tendencies when it comes to investing, is there any point to try to control this behavior or try to reform yourself? >> oh, sure there is, right. we don't say that or we don't find that all of the behavior is genetically determined. it is about 30% that is gennettly determined and 70% are a reflection of people's individual experiences and therefore also, of course, choices that people make. so the more than half of the behavior is determined by things that are not controlled by someone's genes. >> so are you saying there is some hope then that you can reform your investment behavior; is that correct? >> that is certainly correct. >> all right, we'll leave it there. thank you so much for coming on the program. fascinating information on your research. >> thank you soph much for having me. >> hear's what we're watching for tomorrow, existing home sales for the month of july along with quarterly results >> tom: here's what we're watching for tomorrow: existing home sales for july, along with quarterly results from barnes & noble, big lots, burger king and medtronic. also tomorrow, the "word on the street" is "security"-- as in computer security. james rogers from thestreet.com joins us for three under-the- radar stocks that have attracted investor attention since intel's buyout of mcafee. >> susie: a guilty plea today from a man accused of scheming to sell secrets about disney's finances. yonni sebbag pleaded guilty to several counts of fraud. his girlfriend used to work for disney's head of communications. both were arrested in may, charged with selling early access to disney's earnings report. sebbag faces up almost three years in prison. criminal charges are still pending against his girlfriend, who is free on bail. in t.v. ads, she's known as "the tax lady." but california's attorney general says roni deutch is a fraud. today, jerry brown sued her law firm for $34 million, claiming she cheated thousands of clients. in commercials airing nationwide, the tax lady promises to help people in trouble with the internal revenue service. but brown says only one in ten of deutch's clients get their debt problems solved. no comment from deutch. euqutuuuu >> susie: what price happiness? while it looks like more people are equating money with happiness, tonight's commentator thinks cash is fleeting. shda eissa, associate professor of public policy and economics at georgetown university. >> the recent recession has many of us reconsidering the old adage that money doesn't buy happiness. let's examine some recent data to see if this age-old advice still holds up. over the last five years, the gallup corporation has surveyed thousands of people in 155 countries, asking them about different measures of happiness, and the findings are compelling. people within and across countries all say money matters. richer people are happier than poorer people. and, overall, richer countries are happier than poorer countries. only four of 54 african countries were in the top half of countries whose citizens say they're thriving. and no country from western europe was in the bottom half of the list. this isn't surprising, because richer countries can devote more resources to health, education and other public goods that improve quality of life. but, this is where things start to get murky, because there's contradictory evidence that's hard to ignore. while the data show happiness increases with economic growth, americans don't report themselves any happier today than 40 years ago, even as our average real incomes have doubled, we've become better educated and healthier. and economists still don't have a strong story to explain this finding. surveys also show money doesn't always make individuals happy. lottery winners are much happier right after they win, but the satisfaction gradually evaporates over time. more than money, people value having control over their lives, being productive and pursuing hobbies and passions. so, where does all of this leave us? money advances societies but, on an individual level, it often provides only a fleeting benefit to our psyches. i'm nada eissa. >> tom: that's "nightly business report" for monday, august 23. i'm tom hudson. good night everyone, and goodnight to you too, susie. >> susie: good night tom. i'm susie gharib. good night everyone. we hope to see all of you again tomorrow night. 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