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 picki
challenges and opportunities and why you need to know about india. how important india is to your economic future. christine. thanks, ali. health care reform is president obama s signature achievement. at the heart of the president s health care reform law is the individual mandate. the requirement that most americans either purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. individual mandate designed to lower costs spreading them over a pool of individuals. after the supreme court arguments this week, it s pretty clear the individual mandate is in jeopardy. that could mean an end to the entire health care reform law. candy crowley, the supreme court is expected to announce its decision in the summer. if it s overturned is it a fatal blow to his legacy or rally cry to the democrats he can ride out until november. i think depends which party spins it best. those are the two scenarios. listen, in the short run this is a blow to the signature issue of his first term.
inside the cnn grill at south by southwest. the grill opens officially today this morning. one thing i noticed on the menu which includes all kinds of things, there are no prices. that s because we got usually that means i cannot afford to eat here. but that is what s happened here is we have taken over a restaurantnd put the cnn grill and invited people here as we celebrate south by southwest which is a big music and film festival. douglas brinkley, we ve known each other now through a lot of presidential races. a long time. no, i don t tell anybody how long we ve known each other. also, got alex axis, he s a co. founder of read it. joining us. we had him on a couple of weeks ago when we launched this show. ali velshi of course is our chief business correspondent. and we ve got some of the dishes this morning. i m going to go with the mac and cheese. gain five pounds when you watch this show. parse that one out. yeah. i can t keep working on that. let s get right t
and residents across the midwest are returning to communities devastated by wednesday tornadoes and powerful storms. there s still severe weather warnings in effect for tennessee and mississippi and another storm front is coming. springtime can be very violent out there in the plains. well, we re minutes away from the opening bell. time for the market rundown. becky quick is here. becky, weekly jobs claims. what did we get? we got a pretty decent number. a surprisingly strong number. economists had been expecting 351, that s what it came in at. and i guess the surprise here is that number continues to confound people like ben bernanke who say that the jobs picture has been much better than the fed had been anticipating. this morning, looks like the futures are opening up. looks like we re up about 40 points on the dow. the numbers that came in, very positive from wall street s perspective. you continue to see some improvement coming into the jobless picture. not only are the jobles
the president on that. as the jobs picture starts to improve. romney will have to pivot to something that the president can take a blame for. we are seeing that already. we have a bit of sounds from gingrich attacking the president and the president offering his rebuttal to the gas prices question. if we have it. president of the united states explaining first of all, that there s no single silver bullet. now that is just wrong. defeating obama is a single thing that would change it. just just by defeating him that s a great line. the thing i love about the entire segment, we have been talking while romney is talking and there s not been a word from romney heard and we get sound and we get it from gingrich. we can hear a bit of romney starting his remarks. we were waiting for him to start speaking, mr. heilman, let s listen to a bit of the address.