they are about insuring corporate profit taking without regulatory interference. as we talked about last night it is not about free markets, it is about socialism for the rich and capitalism, a very merciless savage capitalism for the poor. all of these think tanks are stocked with scientists. some of them are veterans of the tobacco era. you remember in 1998 when the seven ceos of seven tobacco companies came before congress and swore under oath that they did not believe that tobacco had any health impacts and that it was not addictive. and that is when the tobacco industry killing one out of every four of its customers,
the dow and s&p 500 both opening at record highs. zain asher is tracking it for us. good morning, zain. really strong day for stocks. s&p 500 has risen 79% of the time. if we continue on this pace we are on track for the 50th record close so far this year. what you have right now is a situation whereby you have the perfect ingredients for a real sustained rally. all the uncertainty regarding the fed and that s out of the way. budget negotiations in the rear view. gdp coming in at 4.1%. earlier this week, we did get a reading on consumer sentiment, crucial this time of year. we ve had the best readings since july. the better people feel about the economy, the more likely they are to go out and spend. that s a crucial part of gdp. you would expect to see some degree of profit taking, especially after five or six
i have never been want to update this school bus crash we mentioned on the news deck. this is on the philly end of jersey 40 miles south of philadelphia. we have confirmed now there were no children on the bus. the one thing we re waiting to fine out is the condition of the drive. we have not been able to get that from the authorities. we ll have updates. i want to show you what happened on wall street today. the dow has taken another turn for the worse. it s still above 15 but we last 100 points. they have explanations for this. analysts have said people have done some profit taking and
but also, they want to see consistency. you know, it s fine if you have one or two months of 200,000 job gains but you want to see consistency. i think the main focus for everyone downstairs was the unemployment rate. that coming as low as 7%, the fed has said they want to see it at 6.5%. it s going to be interesting to see whether the rally continues or whether we will start to see profit taking in the next couple weeks. zain asher, thank you so much. while jobs are coming back, they re not necessarily the high paying ones. almost one million of the jobs created this year are in sectors such as retail, hospitality, temp work. so the big question, is our economy on its way back or are we creating a new reality of low wages for more and more americans. i want to bring in jim tankersley, economic policy correspondent for the the washington post. if people don t recognize you, the last time you were here, you did not have this beard that your child has suggested you get. it was
quickly. now it s a classic pause for breath. don t be surprised if you see some money coming off the table, a bit of the can old profit taking. this is what we would expect to see at the moment. let s not forget, when president obama took office, richard, what the dow jones was right around 7,000. you think about that now. 16,000. it s amazing the way the dow jones, the markets have moved over these past few years. there s no question. i think the issue is whether the wealth has been equally divided. and, of course, the critics would say it s gone to the top few percentage points and the bottom in equality and the range of inequality in the united states has widened. that really is the fundamental economic equity argument in the u.s. at the moment. but you can t deny that a lot of people who have 401(k)s, they ve made money investing on the dow jones, the s&p, the wall street markets over these past few years. people have made money.