result of the near collapse of the financial system and credit markets seizing up. he is taking his message to cities in illinois and iowa hardest hit by the financial crisis. live pictures now from the senate subcommittee hearing. what happens here could affect the future of the entire financial industry and that includes your bank, and your retirement savings and your 401(k) and even your mortgage. i asked the cnn money team to explain why this hearing should matter to you. >> i'm stephanie e larm in new york. you may not think goldman sachs has anything to do with you, but what happens on wall street impacts main street. so if you need proof just take a look at the housing crisis. three years ago most people had never heard of subprime mortgagees, but last year there were a record number of foreclosures affecting people with good credit, too. so we've got to learn from the past. if goldman sachs had brought down the mortgage market, we need to figure out how so we can make sure it doesn't happen again and that's why you should care. i'm christine romans on capitol hill. why does this matter to you? you'll get a look at how wall street works than you've ever seen. does wall street work to make the economy grow or help companies get bigger so they can hire people or was wall street working against main street? that's what we'll find out today. let's get to the action on capitol hill, our man in the hearing room, chief business correspondent ali velshi and doctor, to you, the same question. j does this hearing matter today? >> reporter: i don't know if you have a picture of it, tony. i'm just hearing myself so i'll take this out of my ear for a second. fabrice tourre is speaking now. what we're listening to and this is the 31-year-old executive director and vice president, he's the guy who the sec, he's the only goldman employee, by the way, that the sec has named in its charges. this hearing is different from the sec, this is senators who are trying to figure out what role the investment banking community, investment bankers as a whole had in this financial crisis. we knew there was a recession anyway. did these guys and the things that they were doing, doing more to make it worse? that's what we're listening to. let's listen in to fabrice tourre, fabulous fab, you may have heard of him. >> yes. >> permit sophisticated institutions to customize the exposure they wish to take in order to better manage the credit and market risks of their investment holdings. mr. chairman, as you know, the securities and exchange commission recently filed a civil suit alleging that i failed to disclose to investors certain material information regarding a transaction that i helped to structure named abacus o 7ac-1. i deny categorically the sec's allegations, and i will defend myself in court against this false claim. since the suit was filed, there have been many questions raised about the ac-1 transaction, and my role in it. i appreciate the opportunity to answer those questions, and i want to make a few points absolutely clear. first, the only two investors in the transaction, aca and i kbwere institutions with extensive experience in the cbo market. second, i never told ata, the portfolio selection agent that paulson and company would be an equity investor in the ac-1 transaction or would take any loan position in the deal. although i don't recall the exact words i used, i recall for aca that paulson's fund was expected to buy credit protection on some of the senior tranches on this deal. this meant that paulson was expected to take some short position in the transaction. moreover, from the early stages of the transaction in january 2007 to its completion several months later, none of the offering documents provided to aca indicated that paulson's fund would be an equity investor. if they say i was confused about paulson's role in the transaction that every opportunity to clarify the issue, representative of paulson's fund and in all of my meetings with aca regarding the transaction. i do not ever recall aca asking me or paulson representatives if paulson was an investor. they had several discussions about the transaction and at least one meeting without goldman sachs representatives present. quite frankly, i'm surprised that aca has believed that the paulson fund was an equity all along in this deal. third, the ac-1 transaction was not designed to fail. ac and ikbwere two of the most important clients in my desk. the securities transaction depend underperform the ratings class in vintage. in fact, all those securities performed poorly because the subprime mortgage market suffered a broad collapse. goldman sachs also had no economic motive to design the ac-1 transaction to fail. quite the contrary, we held long exposure in the transaction just like aca, and just like ikb. when they referenced in value, we lost money, too, including $83 million with respect to the loan position. finally, aca selected the portfolio securities referenced in the transaction and not paulson. aca had sole authority to describe what securities would be referenced in the transaction and it does not dispute that fact. neither the paulson fund or goldman sachs could have the security reference in the deal. paulson's funds made suggestions to aca as did ikband goldman sachs. they rejected most of paulson'sing ises while accepting others. so while paulson, goldman sachs, and ikball had input and had security in the transaction. when they selected the reference portfolio, that statement was absolutely correct. mr. chairman, the last week has been challenging for me and my family as i have been the taggest unfounded attacks on my character and motives. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before the sub committee to answer these false charges. i wish to repeat i did not mislead aca and i kb. >> well, we want to hear the questions and mr. tourre, we'd love to hear your answers. let's bring in our chief business correspondent ali velshi. ali. >> yeah? >> what we were listening to there is fabrice tourre defending himself and goldman against sec charges? did i hear that correctly? >> there's not a general disagreement in most of the facts. the issue is this, how much did goldman allow this hedge fund investor, john paulson to influence the selection of this particular portfolio that he's talking about and how much of that information was passed on to the people who made that investment? how much disclosure was there, basically? i mean, look, this comes down to every business deal you ever do. off the top of my head you think about buying a used car. if you know something about it you don't disclose it, so basically the allegation here is that fabrice tourre, structured a product that was sold to people that he thought it was something and he might have known something more about it and he was saying that is incorrect and basically the position he's taking is that you all meaning politicians and regulars you know enough about this stuff and we're all sophisticated and the buyers were sophisticated and we all knew what was going on. a touch deeper here is that this paulson group and goldman sachs work together to develop this portfolio this they had the suggestion is that they had a strong indication would fail and that they bet that it would fail even as the portfolio was being sold to investors as something they could make money on. >> right. which from the paulson hedge fund group was doing something wrong. i can bet that the mets are going to lose x number of games. that's fine. the issue is if you're selling the other side of that bet, you might bet that the mets are going to win all of these games, but what if i know something about the mets that you don't know or what if you're selling something to you and you don't know that i actively am working against that. that's where the gray area comes in and that's what they're making the argument about. as for the larger argument they think most of our viewers are interested in, is this moral? is this ethical? they're not touching that right now. they're just talking about the strict legality of what they did and whether or not they broke any laws. >> good stuff. thank you. we want to hear from you on this financial reform issue. what are your questions? what are your concerns. if you would send them to me at cnn.com/tony or post them at cnn.com/ireport. we will try to address them right here over the next couple of hours and throughout the day, really, in the cnn "newsroom." watching today's hearings on the financial meltdown, most of us face a steep learning curve when it comes to understanding investme investments. i know i do. we'll meet school kids who are getting an early start on their financial education and rob marciano. where is he? tracking a storm that is brewing out west. we'll check in with rob in a couple of minutes. you're in the cnn "newsroom." we are keeping an eye on capitol hill where senators are questioning wall street executives about events leading up to the mortgage meltdown. right now, though, we're going to take a look at some younger investors. cnn's christine romans reports that students at an inner city chicago school are learning about money by investing it. >> reporter: meet america's future investment bankers and accountants. >> you have to look out for the dividend. >> i like checking the dow. >> my favorite stock would have to be apple. >> at ariel academy, students learn how to make money. >> the financial ratio, it helps the business, like -- >> save money. >> i think everybody should at least save half of their money. >> reporter: and invest money. real money. thanks to the school's unique saving and investment curriculum. >> the incoming first grade class gets a $20,000 endowment. when they get to fifth grade, students will start to choose stocks that they think we should be buying and we will buy them. >> $67.58 and the dividend is 14 cents per share. >> when students graduate from eighth grade, the $20,000 goes back to the incoming first grade. any profit above that amount gets split. half goes to improving the school or to charity. the other half gets divided among the kid. >> you're not going to invest in that at all? >> some years like 2009, there's no profit and the kids learn that investing is no slam dunk, but that doesn't deter kids like ariel graduates ariel and myles gauge. >> i'm able to take everything that i learned at ariel to the next level. >> mario and myles weren't the only ones getting education. >> i was looking at the materials that they were bringing home and it was foreign to me and they broke it it down like children do and i started getting excited about that and then the knowledge and i'm, like, wow! you know what? this is fun. >> fun and finance don't often appear in the same sentence, but that's not true at ariel. from age-appropriate learning to an inspiration allen viernment and the ultimate reward, attending mcdonald's annual shareholder meeting. making this all possible is john rogers, chairman and founder of ariel investments after which the school is named. ariel, along with marter in nevin investments put up the $20,000 for each grade. in 1991 ariel started working with this public school on the south side of chicago because it was one of the most underserved in the city. 98% of the student body is african-american, 78% are considered low income. nowadays, test scores are on the rise. outperforming the district and the state average with the help of teachers like connie moran. >> good morning. take that off. >> named teacher of the year by the national foundation for teaching entrepreneurship in 2007. >> ever since i listened to miss moran in class, i heard her say invest in your money, invest in your money, invest in your money and now i'm going listen to her. >> reporter: christine roman, cnn. >> i love it! as we keep an ear on the hearings, we're also tuned in to what you're saying especially josh levs. we're following your responses and your questions. what doesn't make sense and what do you really want to know. there's josh, if you would, keep those messages coming on our page and we'll share with them later this hour. josh is back in a minute and there are the sites. send in your comments right now. josh is back in a couple of minutes. you're in the cnn "newsroom." hi, we're the campbells. here's what we can do with 4g from sprint. using the overdrive 4g mobile hotspot, jimmy's playing some video game online, jenny's video-chatting with a friend, and i'm downloading a huge presentation. and while that's happening, we'll enjoy some family time. [ computer beeps ] that was good. what can you do with 4g? [ male announcer ] experience 4g from sprint. it's more than a wireless network. deaf, hard-of-hearing and people with speech disabilities, it's a wireless revolution. access www.sprintrelay.com. live pictures on capitol hill. there's the committee chair, carl levin. executives from wall street's -- really, the most profitable firm on wall street, we're talking about goldman sachs, defending the company's actions during the housing meltdown and facing some tough questions. we will, of course, keep an eye on the hearing throughout the day for you. what exactly could we hear from goldman sachs today? cnnmoney.com has answers and for that we turn to our josh levs. good to see you. what questions some these executives be facing today? that's one of the big questions being tackled. there's so much going on alongside this hearing if you're watching it. by the way, it continues to be live right here on cnnmoney.com. we encourage you to check it out because we want you to see every little bit of it, but stay with us as well. we'll bring you the most important parts here. here's what i have. one of the big stories on cnnmoney.com today is the top four questions are that people should be asking, that lawmakers should try to tackle today? the first one here, is this the work of a single employee? as we know there is one employee whose name has been coming up, and the 31-year-old tourre. is this a case where it can say, it's one person that they can distance themselves from. and what kind of oversight they have within the company and how much is really being done to watch what the employees are doing to protect everyone affected by their decisions? the second question -- we skipped ahead here. why spend so much money on lobbying this year? you and i were looking at this today. >> yeah. >> goldman sachs, making millions and millions of dollars in contributions is one of the big places that makes contributions to lawmakers and you know, our folks at cnn money, a great story from this writer, david ellis, who says they should have to stop and say exactly what they're looking for. it's a big chunk of cash. what exactly do you want by spending this money? the fourth one, how does a company that generates so much money from trading help the economy grow in the slogan that they use is that they do help the economy grow, but what the story points out and i learned a bit from this, they're making a lot of money. they're making billions of dollars and what they're doing is not the small businesses and individual consumers. if the decisions that we make are good for the economy, they should have to break that down today and that is what the folks at cnnmoney.com ask. >> i love, love, love that. >> i'm hoping that enough lawmakers read that list before the hearing started today or are checking it on their blackberries if they get them in there. >> back in the day, that's why we gave our money to these investment houses so that they would find the innovation, the innovative company that would spur on the next big growth cycle. >> yeah. >> and hiring, right? and employment and everybody would -- all right. >> banks used to pay you for holding on to your money. >> how about that? >> everything has changed in the world. >> josh, we're also hearing from our viewers as well, correct? >> we'll be bringing you answers next hour. we'll be sharing some of your words next hour, but what we're seeing in a lot of cases is a lot of people very angry. the anger doesn't just go out to goldman sachs or toward these companies. we're seeing a lot of people question why should we trust the sec or congress to do anything that's going to mark a lasting change? a lot of people saying that doesn't make sense, that the sec missed it this time, what's to say they're not going to miss it next time. cnn.com/josh or cnn.com/tony. let's get you caught up on top stories. president obama takes his push for financial reform to main street today. he will stop first in iowa, one of the states hardest hit by the economy. and he will meet with farmers. the president began the day by announcing a new commission on fiscal responsibility. >> i want this commission to be free to do its work. in theory, there are few issues on which there is more big risk, bipartisan agreement than fiscal responsibility, but in practice, this responsibility for the future is often overwhelmed by the politics of the moment. a record drug bust in hong kong. police acting on a missing person tip stormed a home in a small village. no missing person there, but they did find this huge stash of cocaine. estimated street value more than $43 million. eight people arrested. a parliamentary vote in ukraine became a free for all. take a look at this after opposition members began hurling eggs at the speaker, but as you can see here in a second. that's the egg-throwing part. there's the umbrella. break early. the meeting divulged from here to open first a cuffs. to extend russia's naval presence in the ukraine for another 25 years. did we ever see the fist a cuffs? not sure we did. still to come in the "newsroom," one simple task and things began falling into place for a school in haiti. how a game of dominos is helping rebuild the battered country. dominos falling in texas and the efforts helping to rebuild haiti. each domino is worth a dollar at the st. george, pis copal school, so far $27,000. that's a nice round number. that's real money that will help rebuild a school in haiti. >> for every dollar that we raise we put a domino in the floor of our gym and so by having all of the dominos lined up people can see how little efforts and little bits of money can add up to make a big difference. >> and it does. it really does. there's the man, rob marciano. feels good, huh? >> it does. fun illustrative ways to raise money for a good cause. >> think beyond yourself, right? >> you know, those are perfectly spaced dominos. we should watch it for a second. that's a work of art right there and -- oh, just -- i cursed it. that was the kiss of death, wasn't it? >> yeah. raising the flag of haiti. awesome stuff. definitely some snow across parts of the northeast. can you believe that? and the end of april and we're talking about snow. we've had reports of a couple of inches in upstate new york, if your mind has switched gears to reach the summer time. it has 6 to 12 inches of snow in the forecast. they're posted for the adronned axe of upstate new york and the green and white mountains of new hampshire and vermont and maybe getting into maine before this thing is all said and done. it is the same system that brought the severe weather across the plains and the deep south. we really want to kiss it bye-bye. by tomorrow it should be gone. this system headed across the tennessee and ohio valleys, want terribly strong and just a cool pocket of air and that may trigger a couple of showers and thunderstorms and for now, just east of knoxville into eastern kentucky, light to moderate rain with embedded thunderstorms as well. out west, this is a pretty potent storm for this time of year and it had wind damage for western oregon and it will be traversing the colorado rockies over the next day and a half and thursday an