thankful for the return of the american consumer, strong christmas shopping rush boosted overall great holiday season for stores but you does it signal a comeback of the u.s. economy as well. michael seymour, joining us from philly this morning. good to see you as always. the best holiday shopping season ever. i thought we were in the middle of a recession. well, what you have here is a tale of two cities. people who have jobs that are secure they ll keep their jobs, i think they have shown fiscal responsibility as well as getting out there and shopping. and as you said, it s not hard to you view the biggest shopping season ever as a positive. but i think these people that could afford to shop have shown encouraging signs of using cash, debit cards and much let debt to fund the purchases. rick: that is my next question. i don t want to be a grinch but some of the spending is
surprise no one who has grown up in any kind of a family. the only time you don t have a disagreement, and i find very frankly i have disagreements with myself a lot of times, on the one hand but on the other hand and i try to figure it out. th-that s what we re doing and we ll continue to do it. i think we ll have a vote on the senate bill. megyn: republicans say changes to the bill could mean the death of it. that could mean big tack hikes for everyone. the democrats in the house continue to say we want to change it, we want to change it, we want to change it and you have the white house and really more the gop saying no, no changes. we ll see how this plays out. more on the expected vote just ahead. meantime extreme weather is causing big headaches for shipping companies this week. whether you hit the malls to get your christmas shopping down or your computer the shopping rush is officially underway and so is the effort to get those packages to those destinations by
eric: gunfire erupting in a mall at the height of the shopping rush this weekend, it happened at eastland mall, outside detroit yesterday. police say two rival groups of men got into a heated argument, two of the guys pulled out guns and started shooting and as shoppers ran for cover and an 18-year-old was shot in the chest and a store employee was caught in the crossfire, shot in the leg. both are expected to survive. police still searching for those gunmen. jamie: dr. rosenfeld is still in the house, always makes the sunday house call and gets lots of e-mails from you, too, and loves them, here s one of your questions, this week, a familiar topic, and an important one, our viewer asks what they re real dangers of second-hand smoke? we worry about this, doctor. we always talk do yabout the dangers of smoking, smoking