well. americans have a ton of stock in their 401(k)s and their i.r.a. s and their regular accounts. you can t have it both bayways. if blame the rich people for the dow you have to blame the rich people for 6,000 on the dow in 2009 to where it is now. if you want to blame anybody, blame ben bernanke for policy. they need to back away if anybody need to. he was the head of the fed and there s been many year where is the fed has eventually been printing money. that s what you ve been talking about, gary b., right? exactly. look, the fed has become more and more involved and more and more political and it s made these market gyrations bigger and bigger. you re starting to see the volatility really affect the average american. but, you know, on the flip side, i want to get back to this point
the congress can t find some common ground? absolutely. if we have a second recession, in the as sense of a deal on the fiscal cliff, we ll certainly give us a recession. we re not likely to rebound again. the definition of a depression is when you have a downturn and you can t get back up. it doesn t have any capacity to regenerate the economy. jon: well, this is the greatest nation in the world. why wouldn t we have the ability to pull out of another recession? well, this last recession was very deep and severe. and a lot of folks still haven t recovered. they run down the ira s, keough s and savings. they used to use that money to buy cars which got the economy going. this next time around they won t have savings. there are a lot of families with one earner and used to be two and earning a lot less wages. if we go down again, to 12 to 13% unemployment there won t be any rye serve capacity. jon: what about stimulus? the president would say
subprime mortgages, subprime means these are the mortgages that are most likely not be able to pay them back. mortgages like geselle s were rated aaa, supersafe. it s kind of an oxymoron, a aaa subprime, i mean subprime means it s not a quality mortgage to begin with. so this in a way really never should have happened. but everybody, virtually everybody on wall street was in on it and the rating agencies allowed it to happen. they re making news this week because they re rating the sovereign debt of countries and it s very, very important what they say, yet they really fell down on the job during the bubble. allan chernoff, thank you very much. we re talking about ir.a. s, it might not sound exciting, but there are some exciting new rules out there, and we re going to help you make a big difference in the amount of money you re going to need to retire. her. this. lives. how ?
elect mitch mcconnell, majority leader in the senate and elect john boehner speaker of the house. that s a realistic possibility that could happen. i want to ask you about something. there was a business week report says the treasury and labor department asking for public comment on a scheme it sounds like to convert 401k s and i.r.a. s, it sounds like into some sort of retirement thing where you give the money to you give the money to the government. all the money you ve saved your whole life and then they will dole it out over a period of time. what s up with that? you know, peter ferarro and i wrote an article about this because the house democrats held hearings on this idea last year. and i think it s a very dangerous idea. this is really a secular socialist machine that wants to take over your life. they want to take it over in health. they want to take it over in student loans. they want to take it over in virtually every aspect of our
the ice. it is a 16-year tradition. all the bears are being donated to different nonprofits throughout california, just in time for the holidays. let s get down to business with cnbc landon downey. good morning to you. good morning to you. futures are slightly lower. stocks rallied on tuesday with the dow closing at a record high on the back of strong november auto sales, and better than expected numbers on construction spending. look for data today on private sector jobs, productivity, and the services sector. the house has a hearing on the takata airbag crisis. executives from the japanese company and several automakers will testify. they say they will leave it up to emakers whether to expabd a recall nationwide. how prepared are you for your future? 80% of older americans fail the basics when it comes to financial literacy. they were asked about social security, ira s, and how bonds work. only one in four have written a financial plan, and many others have never even tried to calc