government spending. if you really do listen to everything that he does say, he s talking about where we re what we re facing in the america right now, that we re facing some really difficult, um, situations. and if we don t take corrective measures soon, that more and more people will become dependent on government, and that is not what he wants. he wants to have more economic opportunity for people, he wants to have better jobs for people. he does not want to have more people being more dependent on government. megyn: well, there are now more than 100 million americans living in households that receive government means-tested entitlements. to give you a sense of what that means, take a look at this chart. it shows just how far out of control entitlement spending has gone since the 1970s, outstripping inflation, jumping a whopping 5500%. in 1970 it was at 10 billion, in 2011, 570 billion almost. wow. joining me now, stu varney, host
$550 billion, $570 billion, and untold numbers of afghan civilian casualties. in a new book, imperial life in the emerald city we learn the president s surge was something of a war in and of itself. little america shines a scorching light on the political in-fighting that has marred u.s. progress in afghanistan to this very day. thank you very much for being with us. congratulations on this new book. i don t know how you do it. you go into the field, you find sources and one of the people you clearly spoke to was kyle westin. tell us about kyle westin because he, in your view, represents the best of the u.s. foreign service. often underreported, he was out in the field, he wasn t behind big walls in kabul, he was out in the field not only in afghanistan but before that, in iraq. two years in fallujah. that s right. a remarkable figure. really remarkable in the world of our diplomatic corps.
in these economic times to keep unneeded postal facilities up because there s not enough mail in the system to warrant them. the senate bill, however, would stop immediate closing of up to 252 mail processing centers and 337,000 post offices which was part of the post offices cost-cutting plan to save about $6.5 billion a year. before i go, in case you re wondering, the postal service is an independent agency of government, it does not receive taxpayer money for its operation. it is, however, subject to congressional control. cnbc s mandy drury, thank you very much. thank you. apple looking for another good day on the stock market after jumping 9% yesterday. the gain was the company s biggest dollar advance in its history. apple is worth a whopping $570 billion, more than biggest names in tech combined. microsoft is worth $270 billion, google $198, hp $449, del $29
greek family has to shell out $2,500 to get things that should be routine and should be done by government. there s a little stage-setter as to why greece got into trouble. how that ended up affecting the rest of the world is another story. i ve got two experts to tell us exactly what is going on. christine romans is my co-host. and richard quest on cnn international. christine, let s start with you. a massive, massive bailout announced which is bigger than t.a.r.p., bigger than the stimulus bill, because europe s economy is actually bigger than the united states. that s absolutely right. and you can think of it as basically a promise from europe that has basically an unlimited war chest to solve any of these sovereign debt crises, as they pop up. it s exactly what investors of wanted to hear. so here s how big it is. let s just take it apart. 750 billion euros. you translate that into what we re looking at here and it s about $570 billion for the euro
about greece s bailout. now this is essentially a bailout for all of europe. it reminds me about when these countries were joining together in a monetary union, sharing the same currency. they said that together they would be stronger than separate. and now that theory has been tested by greece s problems and concerns that those problems could spread to portugal, ireland, italy, spain and other countries, as well. so how much is in it? well, it s $750 billion euros. some will come from the imf. some will come from an economic stabilization fund, and the rest, more than $500 billion, $570 billion had l come from the euro s own country in the forms of guarantees, loans and guarantees, a huge package together worth almost a trillion dollars. the difference between what we saw in the united states and this, is this is a bailout plan for countries. for sovereign debt crises. not for banks. not for banks and not for companies. so the stabs here, quite a bit