Transcripts For FBC The Willis Report 20140410

Include a Victims Compensation fund the company said it will set up. With more on this alan kam, former nhtsa official and director of Highway Safety associates. Always welcome to the show. Good to have you here. Two engineers are being suspended and some outlets are naming ray dejorio, gary altman, one lead designer of the switch. The other a Cobalt Project manager. Are these guys going to becomescape quotes . Well they each have a different kind of problem. Mr. Degorgio signed off on the product change from the gm supplier of the ignition switch, which is delphi to beef up the ignition switch somewhat even though it still didnt meet gms own specifications. Years later in 2013, he was deposed under oath and in Product Liability case, melton versus gm and he said, and he testified under oath that he was unaware of any Product Design changes in the ignition switch. So senator mccaskill said at the Senate Hearing last week he is lying. That appears to be the case. Gerri changed his stories on the record it would appear. Tell me about gary altman . Gary altman was the product engineer manager on the chevy cobalt in the 20042005 time frame. It was his directive to close General Motors consideration of making any changes to the ignition switch to correct the problem. And the main reason given in the directive was cost. It was a business decision. And by the way that cost i heard figures of 57 cents or 90 cents per vehicle. That apparently was the Corporate Culture to be monitoring costs. So frankly i wonder, if mr. De giorgio was suspended for lying and if mr. Alt man was suspended for telling the truth, really putting in writing it is a cost consideration that they werent conducting a safety recall for a safety defect. Gerri alan, a lot of people are asking tonight, i asked if they would be scapegoats. The other question obviously is this going further . Will other theyre being paid while they are off and will this go higher . Wouldnt be good to hear from rick wagoner goner in. And mary bear ray said she first heard about the problem in january although been at the company for 33 years. Hard to believe that none of her predecessors didnt know about the problem. They were suspended with pay, effective paid vacation. You cant help but to wonder given a paid vacation, paid suspension as long as they dont implicate higherups . Gerri Company Bringing in nasa to figure out if the cars are safe. Is that unusual . Yes it is. When nhtsa was conducting its investigation of possible electronic problems with, concerning the toyota sudden unintended acceleration investigation nhtsa did bring in nasa to get consultation on electronic problems. Here you have a mechanical problem. It is not really an electronic problem. I wonder if it is something of a smoke screen. I cant believe General Motors doesnt know its own product and has to bring in space engineers to tell them about a mechanical problem with their own vehicle. That is pretty hard to believe. Gerri theyre takinge from logs of folks right now, i think mary barra is. I want to ask you about comments we got this week from a personal injury attorney, mr. Bob hilyard. Who talked about what should happen right now given the kind of problems that weve seen and in a case he is building in texas one of his clients they use ad single key on one of these cars that has been recalled and still had problems. Here is hilyard. Listen, gerri, there are two million vehicles right now on the roads of the United States that have this defect. And they can not yet be repaired. So regardless of how safely you drive, when you go home tonight after this show, a cobalt could lose control and hit you headon. There is nothing you can do about it. Gerri alan, he wants all the cars off the road. Do you agree with him. I agree with mr. Hilyard that the problem can occur and has occurred with motorist who is dont have extra weight on their key chain n fact one of the internal documents at General Motors that came out during the hearings indicated that mr. Altman was aware of this and thats why they started their investigation back around 2005. That the you can get this key off situation, even though there is nothing in the ignition but that individual key. It is, it is a potential time bomb that can happen at any moment when you go over a pothole or Something Like that. You can lose power in the vehicle. You can lose power steering and power brakes and of course the airbag could shut off. The car goes into the accessory position, about all that is working is the radio. Gerri wow. Alan, thanks for coming on the show tonight. The story continues and im sure you will be back with us to tell us more. Thank you so much. Thank you. Gerri from one fortune 500 to another, walmart going big on organics. Starting this month the big box retailer will sell a line of organic food at a big discount. Walmart says its organic food will sell 25 less than those sold elsewhere. We have the supermarket guru. Thanks for being on the show. You have the attention of lots and lots of folks out there. I want to ask you, why do you think walmart is doing this right now . What is the big deal . This is brewing for a bunch of reasons. Number one, organics are about the Fastest Growing product cat bother in supermarkets. Walmart, known for food, the biggest food retailer in the country, clearly doesnt attract those organic shoppers. But as were seeing more impact from the california drought, especially when it comes to organic beef, and a lot of organic produce, guess whats happening . Even the or granik shoppers are saying hey, we dont want to pay what it will cost at whole foods. This is benefiting walmart, number one, to be able to get those shoppers. Lets not forget the wild oats brand is owned by ron berkle, ukipa companies who bought fresh easy. Gerri a lot of Company Names there. Lets get back to walmart if we can. I thought it was interesting because we had skeptics in the moring meeting. Walmart customers will never buy organic food. That can never happen. Do you agree. Absolutely not. Everybody wants to buy organic. But lets not forget nutritionally there is difference between organic food an nonorganic foods. It is exactly the same from health standpoint. There are attributes when it comes to pesticides to the like but this will attract walmart shoppers and nonwalmart shoppers as well. Let me ask you this. You caught the glutenfree movement a charade basically. You dont believe organic foods are just out there to score the extra dough, do you. Oh absolutely. There is no question about that. Gerri you see no advantage to organic . It is a bad thing . You shouldnt pay up for it . From a nutritional standpoint there is no difference. It has been tested a lot. Keep in mind that what you got with organic foods is nongmo. There is lot of people who buy organic food who want to avoid gmo since there is no gmo labeling. Gerri and pesticides. No difference there is still over 100 different pesticides allowed in organic farming. It is not about all pesticide being eliminated. Gerri say our viewers disagree with you and they really want to go to these organic foods. Theyre willing to pay up for it. Here is what im wondering because walmart is saying they will bring the prices down, right . 25 below the products they already have on the shelf that are or ban i can. Could this put organic. Would this put pressure on whole food which my friend call whole paycheck and trader joes to reduce their prices . Yes. Keep in mind, whole food, their private label which is called 365 brand, that is already somewhere between 10 and 25 less than the brand names. So it is not where, walmart is saying oh well work on lower margins. It is the same lower margins you see in the private label brand that whole foods has. Gerri so youre tell me that whole foods is not more expensive than other supermarkets . The whole foods 365 brand. Their own store brand of organics, yes. Gerri but if you buy up on a some other brand name you might pay more. You will. One of the things that people really look for, and im wondering if it is worth it, phil, they look for the usda Certified Organic label. Does that make a difference . Sound like youre a total skeptic. No, im not at all. I think there is a place for organics. I would never buy an organic banana because i would buy organic raspberries because of very porous surface. U. S. Certified organic is critical especially we start to see a lot of imports from china, south america, that just says organic on it. We dont know if it is organic or not because the the usda is t certifying. That is the label you need to work for. Not just word organic but usda certified. Thanks for the information and interesting perspective thanks for coming on. Thank you, gerri. Gerri more to come this hour including now warnings for consumers on the heartbleed bug. We expose where most of your medicare dollars are really going. Which of those doctors are buddy, buddy, greasing the palms of their democratic lawmaker. Well tell you all about it. Why relocating manufacturingpany to upstate new york . I tell people its for the climate. The conditions in new york state are great for business. New york is ranked 2 in the nation for new private sector job creation. And now its even better because theyve introduced startup new york dozens of taxfree zones where businesses pay no taxes for ten years. Youll get a warm welcome in the new new york. See if your business qualifies at startupny. Com gerri new warning tonight about the heartbleed internet bug. Its a story we first told you about here last night. Now the feds are warning the nations banks to take action. Our senior washington correspondent peter barnes is here with more. Peter. Thats right, gerri, financial regulators are warning banks and Credit Unions about the heart breed bug and to fix it asap heartbleed. This is bug in part of open Source Software widely used in american companies. The federal Financial Institutions Examination Council which is a Standards Group that includes the fed, the fdic, the occ, says in a notice just put out ad 5 00 eastern that the bug could hurt Bank Encryption systems. The release says that with the bug, quote, attackers could potentially impersonate Bank Services or users, steal login credentials, access sensitive email or gain access to internal networks. The council is telling banks and Credit Unions to themselves or with their computer vendors to take proper steps to fix the bug. Gerri. Gerri peter, we asked this question last night actually. Could banks be in the crosshairs of some of these bad guys . And now youre saying regulators are warning banks. I have to ask you, what should people think about the safety of their Bank Accounts . We, obviously, if youre a Bank Customer and you see anything funny going on with your account or see some kind of weird email or something check with your bank. Make sure it is legitimate problem or legitimate request. Be vigilant. Gerri our expert said now is not the time to change the password. If you do have a problem the bad guys can see a change. This that is little advice for people out there. Thanks for the breaking news. Thank you, gerri. Gerri the white house we told you last night listing medicares top paid doctors. Turns out some of those superhigh billing physicians have been generously donating to the democratic party. Here is more is aei senior fellow and senior Political Columnist for the Washington Examiner tim carney. How close are these guys to congress and what is going on . Well if youve been following the news, particularly if youre following political corruption news you already know the name of the biggest medicare recipient as far as doctors go, solomon melgen who got caught up with corruption scandals related to democratic senator from new jersey, robert menendez. He is eye in florida and got in trouble for overbilling medicare and in fact had to pay back millions of dollars. Still after money paid back he is number one recipient of medicare money and given over 700,000, i think over a million, i will have to doublecheck numbers to democratic politicians and super pacs. This guy is going ahead and bankrolling democrats, possibly fleecing medicare, and then pocketing millions of taxpayer dime. Gerri the reports i have read, is that a lot of that money you described, 700,000, going to super pac that donated to senator menendez, who spoke to the feds on his behalf about this money. On his behalf. Gerri big investigation. Yeah. Gerri what about, there is the private jet story. Menendez borrowed his private jet, this doctors private jet. Yeah. Gerri these problems go back to 2007. How is it possible that all of this time later, seven years later were still talking about this issue . And yet, menendez did intervene on behalf of melgen in the medicare overbilling thing. I dont think he got his way. That led to him having to pay the money. But, so, what this highlights for me is how government getting involved in something, in this case medicare, ends up creating this breeding ground for corruption. So even if you think medicares a great idea and it is run perfectly you have to acknowledge this is a clear downside of it. That these doctors, see that political connection can help them get more taxpayer money. Which also, sort of makes capitalism into kind of the liberal stereotype of capitalism, oh, these guys are getting rich without even necessarily providing people what they need. If you fleece medicare, if you bill medicare a lot, you can get get money knowing how to deal with the bureaucracy without necessarily selling something that people want or need. Gerri there is another doc a cardiologist. Contributed to the president s campaign. The beat goes on. The other problem, tim, i think everybody complains about quality of data. This is the first time we had true details of medicare payments out. Not been public in the past. What does that tell you about how this whole bureaucracy works . We dont know where our tax dollars go. Gerri right. That is the bottom alignment the fact that we got this only because of a wall street journal lawsuit. Medicare has not wanted to release this under obama, under bush, going back. They have not wanted to release this. It is amazing that if you try to say, wait a second, tell me who is receiving federal payments . Gerri who is getting my money. You cant come close to getting that data. Gerri where does the taxpayer money go . They wont tell us. And they dont know. That is the thing. This was a case where they had some data they were keeping secret and went to average agency. Go to hhs which says they oversee this stuff, where are the Research Dollars for medical research, they really cant tell you that. Not that theyre trying to hide it. The information is not kept in coherent way. They dont even know it. If it was a company the accountants would all be fired. Gerri that is correct. Tim, thanks for coming on. Glad youre back on the show. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Gerri still to come. We have more, our nations electric grid, is enough being done that is to keep it safe . Smart watch, take a looking touted as the next big thing. Do you want one of these things . Would you pay 200 bucks for one . Are they worth it . Well answer that question. dad well, weve been thinking about it and were just not sure. agent i understand. dad weve never sold a house before. agent ill walk you guys through every step. dad so if we sell, do you think we can swing it . agent i have the numbers right here and based on the comps that ive found, the timing is perfect. Theres a lot of buyers for a house like yours. dad thats good to know. mom im so excited. When folks in the lower 48 think athey think salmon and energy. A, but the energy bp produces up here creates Something Else as well jobs all over america. Thousands of people here in alaska are working to safely produce more energy. But thats just the start. To produce more from existing wells, we need advanced technology. That means hitech jobs in california and colorado. The oil moves through one of the Worlds Largest pipelines. Maintaining it means manufacturing jobs in the midwest. Then we transport it with 4 stateoftheart, doublehull tankers. Some of the safest, most advanced ships in the world built in san diego with a 1 billion investment. Across the United States, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. And no Energy Company invests more in the u. S. Than bp. When we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. Thats not a coincidence. Its one more part of our commitment to america. You really love, what would you do . [ woman ] id be a writer. [ man ] id be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] id be an architect. What if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you . When you think about it, isnt that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love . Gerri smart fit. Look at this. It wont come on. New wearable gear that combines regular phone with functions forfeitness tracker. Gerri smart watches you heard all about them. Ive got one on right here. Take a look. See this . This is samsungs gear fit. You can see all kind of cool things doing this. Were about to describe it to tell you what it can do for you. Here so explain the wall street journals personal technology columnist, joanna stern. Joanna, welcome. Okay, im kind of transfixed by this now that you bought it on set. Yeah. Gerri i was skeptical before. You can play this thing. Tell me who it is for and what it allows you to do . Weve seen new generation of smart watches. Im wearing some stuff on my wrist but some of thighs things they bring notifications, notifications of text calls and other things puts it on your wrist of the other big category is fitness bands. This is the jawbone up. Gerri thats what i have. This tracks your steps. I think this is big future, that is what the samsung has done with the gear fit, put both those together in one. That tracks your steps. There is workout activity tracking. It puts your smartphone notifications on your wrist. Gerri how much does this thing cost . That costs 200, 199. The rest of these cost about 150. Not too bad. Gerri prices are going up, joanna. They should be coming down. Theyre in the middle. That is 150 too. When you think about youre getting tracking plus a smartphone notification, kind of coming in a range where youre getting more for your money. The problem with this one, what i said in my review, one of the things you mentioned talking, a little bit of design. The design is cool and little bit chunky. It places tick. It places tick f youre a girl you may not like that. The other thing it is not great at doing everything well. It is niece these things are coming together. That i can see my Text Messages out on a run. That is a little bit distracting but also not doing a great job tracking your fitness activity. Gerri notifications. Media controller setup. It will check your heartbeat if you want. That functionality doesnt work that well either. It is a lot of promise. There are a lot of good features here. They just dont all work that well. I said this is a good step in the right direction for samsung. It can not actually track steps that well but a step in the right direction for the smart watches because i dont want Something Like this. Gerri clunky. This has a camera. Do i need a camera on my wrist . We have enough cameras as is. I think Something Like that, a little bit more of a sleek design that has that functionality is what we want to put on your wrist. Gerri this cast a curved face which theyre making a really big deal. It has a nice screen. It has gotten so many compliments on the screen. When i take the thing to the gym, Single Ladies this is thing you want to wear at gym, gives boys a lot of attention. Gerri i have to ask you, maybe this is one of those Technology Products you wait until the next generation to see what is coming out . It definitely is, it definitely is. Some people are making a big deal out of smart watches. I say these are stupid watches in my column. This is another thing that Companies Sell us after the smartphone hit as plateau. Think think is functionality. We have to wait for the next generation product. A lot of companies entering the space. Apple rumored for iwatch. Motorola with one later this summer. A lot on horizon. Dont jump in just yet. Gerri you know what i like about you . You tell us when to buy and not to buy. I tell it how it. Gerri thank you for coming on. We appreciate your time. We want to know how you think. Are smart watch as dumb product like joanna just said . Log on to gerriwillis. Com. Vote on the righthand side of the screen. It is cool though. Im transfixed. Later in the show. Beef prices, you know steak is expensive. Well grill for answers. Want to get more money for college. Well show you how to appeal, how to appeal the Financial Aid package your child is getting to get you more money. Stay with us. So i can reach ally bank 24 7, but there are no branches . 24 7. Im sorry, im just really reluctant to try new things. Really . Whats wrong with trying new things . Look mommys new vacuum cat screech you feel that in your muscles . I do. Drink water. Its a long story. Well, not having branches lets us give you great rates and service. Id like that. A new way to bank. A better way to save. Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. Why relocating manufacturingpany to upstate new york . I tell people its for the climate. The conditions in new york state are great for business. New york is ranked 2 in the nation for new private sector job creation. And now its even better because theyve introduced startup new york dozens of taxfree zones where businesses pay no taxes for ten years. Youll get a warm welcome in the new new york. See if your business qualifies at startupny. Com. Gerri our users guide to Financing College edition is heating up on the willis report. And all week long, weve been hearing from the experts how to cut costs and qualify for aid thats hard to get. If you missed any of it, check out my website, gerriwillis. Com. What if youre not happy with what you get . Were helping you appeal that offer. Author of the book paying for College Without going broke. Cal, welcome back to the show. How many people get more money who appeal. There arent stats on that. A number of schools over 50 of the people are successful with their appeal. Gerri 50 . Half the key is you dont have much to lose. Theyre not going to retract the offer of remission. Gerri so why not . Unless its frivolous and you got a great package, you should do that if the package is sufficient for you to get the child through school. Gerri starting with contacting the college. Why do i have to contact them before i appeal . You want to contact the school to find out how you appeal. Some schools have the specific form you need to example of the other schools will simply say to send a letter, and then before you initiate that letter or appeal, you want to review and see did you fill out the forms correctly. Gerri is the information right . Is the information correct. Do you include assets you need to list. You need do that. You want to realize the schools are under time pressure. Be brief, straight to the point. You dont want to give them war and peace. Dont waste time telling them how important understanding your child is. They know where you pit in the pecking order. Gerri ed kinds of things that get you more money. I take around the world vacation with my husband and we cant afford the dough with the child. Thats not going to cut it. There are situations where you are likely to get extra money. A onetime, nonrecurring income item, in 2013. Maybe you took money out of a retirement account. Maybe you had a capital gain from a sale of property. Maybe you had large amount of Interest Income because you cashed in savings bonds. Gerri somebody lost a job in the family . Right. If you have a change in circumstances, document, document, document, thats key. You need to prove that these things happened. If you lost your job, you want to show them you are on unemployment. If you had a reduction in bonus, get a letter from employer. If you have special circumstances. One special circumstance. Ive read that even for example if your family has to take on an elderly relative and pay for them to be in your household, maybe that would qualify. Or even if they are not in the household and you provide support to them, you should mention that to the school. Thats not a question on the standardized 8 form that the school is going to know about. The key is knowing how people think across the desk and knowing how to demonstrate why the special situation makes it harder for you to pay for college. Gerri one factor i want to point out. If you think you are not eligible for aid. The average amount of money for firsttime borrower, 100,000 in income. Think about that. I have heard funny excuses people have given for not being able to afford college. Like my cat had brain cancer and had to pay for the surgery. Do you hear weird stories like that . Gardener in the house. Basic monthly expenses, but look at what real necessities are. If you live in a high cost living area, like new york, like l. A. , boston. To point that out. How much, why it costs . The formulas dont take into account regional differences in the cost of living. Gerri great point. If you lose the appeal, you can try again . Of course, you can try again, but you want to win the first time, if you can, but can you go back. Some schools now with loss of income will say well hold this and we want to see your 2014 taxes and early 15 and well give you the money retroactively if indeed income went down. Be prepared for a delay with that. Gerri great to have you here. Good stuff. Congress has launched an investigation into how easy it is for terrorists to knock out the nations electric grid. We talked about it on the show. And the wall street journal reporting last month that a secret government document said attack on nine of the countries, 55,000 electric substations could black out entire country. We have the details from washington. Rich . Reporter good evening, gerri, what regulators and Power Companies are doing to avoid the scenario in that report . Theyre asking how such a sensitive report ended up in the wall street journal last month . The federal Energy Regulatory Commission Says officials are working with Agency Inspector general to ensure reports like that are labeled secret and stay out of public view. After a gunman assaulted a key substation metcalf in Northern California in the type of attack that could bring down the grid. They are upgrading defenses with that attack in mind. Were doing enough, and doing the right things on a prioritized basis and making progress and continuously improving. The metcalf incident was serious, but its also a good example of the resiliency of the grid. No customer outages occurred during that incident. But also metcalf is an important turning point. Its a signal about looking at physical security from a different perspective. The fbi says it is following leads and searching for suspects. The Energy Company pg e is offering 250,000 for information on whoever may have shot up that substation, gerri . Gerri terrorists are an issue, obviously, there are other risks to the grid as well . Theres cybersecurity concerns, republicans say theyre concerned about new Greenhouse Gas regulations, phasing out older cole plants and moving away from coal too quickly can bring overreliance and put the grid at risk during extreme hot or cold. However environmentalists and green executives say new sources of energy with the grid should be just fine. Back to you. Rich, thanks for that. And stick around, coming up its day one of the masters. How exciting. Whos topping the leader board . And beef prices are skyrocketing. Not going down any time soon. A cattle rancher explains whats going on . [ laughter ] smoke . Nah, im good. [ male announcer ] celebrate every win with nicoderm cq, the unique patch with time release Smartcontrol Technology that helps prevent the urge to smoke all day long. Help prevent your cravings with nicoderm cq. That helps prevent the urge to smoke all day long. My dad has aor afib. Brillation, he has the most common kind. Its not causedy a heart valve problem. Dad, it says your afib puts you at 5 times greater risk of a stroke. Thats why i take my warfarin every day. But it looks like maybe we should ask your doctor about pradaxa. In a clinical trial, pradaxa® Dabigatran Etexilate mesylate . Was proven superior to warfarin at reducing the risk of stroke. And unlike warfarin, with no regular blood tests or dietary restrictions. Hey thanks for calling my doctor. Sure. Pradaxa is not for people with artificial heart valves. Dont stop taking pradaxa without talking to your doctor. Stopping increases your risk stroke. Ask your doctor if you need to stop pradaxa before surgery or a medical or dental procedure. Pradaxa can cause serious, sometimes fatal, bleeding. Dont take pradaxa if you have abnormal bleeding or have had a heart valve replaced. Seek immediate medical care for unexpected signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Pradaxa may increase your bleeding risk if youre 75 or older, have a bleeding condition or stomach ulcer, take aspirin, nsaids, or blood thinners. Or if you have kidney problems, especially if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctors about all medicines you take. Pradaxa side effects include indigestion, stomach pain, upset, or burning. If you or someone you love has afib not caused by a heart valv. Ask your doctor about reducing the risk of stroke with pradaxa. [ male announcer ] this m has an Accomplished Research and Analytical Group at his disposal. But even more pressive is how he puts it to work for his clients. Morning. Morning. Thanks for meeting so early. Oh, its not a big deal at all. Come on in. [ male announcer ] its how edward jones makes sense of investing. Gerri the next time you take a big bite into a juicy hamburger, it may bite you back beef prices are soaring to alltime high and experts predict prices will go nowhere but up. So whats going on in our nations ranches . Lets ask california rancher kevin keister, vice chairman for the National Cattlemans Beef Association and hes wearing a hat. I love that. Great to have you here. I just bought a steak last night and it cost me ten bucks. I was shocked. I cant give up my steak. Whats going on here . Were at an alltime low since the 1950s of u. S. Cow herd. Its a simple economic supply and demand factor. Demand is high for steaks and beef products throughout world and we have very few cows in the United States right now. Gerri why is that . Most of it is due to drought. Over the past few years, weve had a huge reduction in beef cow herd and its affecting the number of animals being able to produce steaks and hamburgers, consequently theres less supply and demand. Prices go up. Gerri were seeing pictures of you on your ranch, which is pretty cool. Tell us about it, how big is it . How long has it been in the family. You are fifth generation, and how is the trend that you are describing, how is it impacting you personally . Im a fifth generation rancher on the Central Coast to california, and our ranch in operation is a little over 20,000 acres, and the drought is having a devastating impact on not only our family ranch but my friends and neighbors and ranchers across california and other places in the u. S. , so when Drought Conditions hit, we have no grass grown for our cows to eat, and its unsustainable to feed hay for an extended period of time, so many of us are forced to liquidate some or even some cases all of our cow herds, and as we speak, some of my neighbors may not be in the cow business again. Gerri were going to lose ranchers because of the devastation, which apparently this drought is many, many years, the worst event seen in that area. Tell us a little bit about, okay, so when i go to the grocery store, how is that impacting my prices . Is all meat impacted the same way or no . Beef prices are going up. Inflation is pretty close to all being the same. So in the future, we need Mother Nature to cooperate and supply some rain and we can expand our cow herd again and soften the prices again for consumers. Gerri now i understand beef prices hitting alltime high at 5. 29 a pound. The prices up across the board. We were talking a little bit about how this affects other businesses. And is it the end of the dollar menu at places like mcdonalds . They cant afford to be putting those hamburgers out there, if the prices are skyrocketing. Are you hearing complaints from all over the country . Its been a worry for the beef industry on how consumers are going to react. But so far consumers are expecting higher prices of food, and it hasnt affected the consumer demand for u. S. Beef here or across the globe. Gerri theres a big demand at the willis household. I can tell you that, kevin. Appreciate that. Gerri thanks for coming on the show. Thanks so much. Youre welcome. Gerri other big news in case you missed it, its golf this week. The Masters Tournament in augusta, georgia is in full swing, and boy howdy ill be watching this weekend. But they say the fan participation is sluggish. Here to explain is jeff flock, joining us from the Highland Park country club. You get all the best assignments. Jeff . Reporter they open for business tomorrow as a matter of fact, gerri, today they opened the course for us for a special Fox Business Network special on golf. Oh, dear i think i killed a raccoon out there or something. The reason were here, though, is because gary cohen is here, the ceo of easy links. Gary, you used to run a big Famous Company called red box or market it. You want to do the same for golf in terms of popularity and growth . Thats right, to do so we Just Launched teeoff. Com, in the polar vortex, thats okay, people are starting to warm up to golf, and theres a lot of pentup demand. Reporter as we watch pros here, this is jeff wright, the guy who is kind of spearheading the teeoff thing. You can seeger ri, he hits a good ball. Numbers of courses out there. Huge attrition, we overbuilt course, numbers of participation, interesting to note that weve had actually an erosion in that. But you yet still see potential, gary are. I think theres a lot of potential, jeff. A, the economy is getting better, which is increasing the amount of people who are playing golf. And, b, the key here is that only about 15 of golfers book online and thats a pretty low number. Theres a lot of opportunity there. Reporter i was going to say, at 15 , 85 do it the oldfashioned way. This is our producer getting ready to hit. I dont want to put too much pressure on him. Maybe put the leader board up. Weve been playing all day, maybe you see the numbers on the board. Actually, i didnt do very well. Lets see what jason does here. I think i was 19 over for the first nine holes. No pressure jason. No pressure. Go ahead. Ooh theres the tree thats a tree. If you looked on that leader board, gerri, you see i was almost beating tim blake, the sound man. This is tim right here. He was actually playing with the microphone, and i almost beat him by two strokes. So it goes. Gerri jeff, amazing. Let me ask you this question, im really interested because theyre saying that down in atlanta at the masters, theyre not getting the crowds they expected. Some folks are saying because tigers not there. I know thats very dependent on corporate dollars to get people in the front door. Is it possible that corporate sponsorships are down . Reporter well, you know, they certainly were during the time. Recession. They really feel, gary was saying he feels like things are on the way back. Put numbers together, and this is interesting particularly to you, because we look, golf last year lost a lot of male players, women, 260,000 more women started playing last year. So thats huge. Thats an Untapped Potential that could be great for golf. Gerri yeah yeah were going to take over and give you guys a hard time. More competition for you i got to ask but Jason Duffner, were sponsoring him. That is so exciting. Fox business sponsoring a golfer at the masters. There he is right there. And this fella, let me tell you, if you follow golf at all, you know him. Hes very famous, and famous for a lot of reasons. Tell me, are you going to talk to Jason Duffner . What are you thinking about this, flock . Reporter i better not talk to him today. He did not have a great round. Maybe he felt pressure like i do on live tv. He had a 9 on number five ouch reporter i hit that good. Golf, you hit one good shot and you think you are a pro. Gerri love it, jeff. Thank you so much. Cripit and rip it. Gerri next time, take me with you. Thanks a lot. Still to come, 2 cents more and steve case making a milliondollar investment in tent startups. What hes planning on doing with his new 100,000 investment. Id like some of that dough. Ase a simple question can you keep your lifestyle in retirement . I dont want to think about the alternative. I dont even know how to answer that. I mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. I try not to worry, but you worry. What happens when your paychecks stop . Because everyone has retirement questions. Ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. To get the real answers you need. Start building your confident retirement today. A short word thats a tall order. Up your game. Up the ante. And if you stumble, you get back up. Up isnt easy, and we ought to know. Were in the business of up. Everyday delta flies a quarter of Million People while investing billions improving everything from booking to baggage claim. Were raising the bar on flying and tomorrow we will up it yet again. Gerri coming up, the texstartup that got 100,000 investment from steve case. Advice for all entrepreneurs, coming up. Gerri starting up a company in todays economy. Well, its risky, right . Tonight were talking to one startup thats gotten major recognition and money in the tech industry. Joining me now matt williamson, cofounder and ceo of Windsor Circle which got 100,000 from aols steve case at a google event last week. Welcome to the show. Tell us what your company does . Were Windsor Circle and help marketers get more from existing customers. We make crunch data out of systems like ecommerce, apply science to it and mind a customer to buy more or helping them find an additional product. Gerri i understand if i go to one of the websites using your technology, if i buy something there, i might get email saying gerri, heres a coupon to buy more. You are locking in the customers for your customers, i want you to explain, though, very interesting how case shows you what was the competition like . What did you have to do to get this money . Thank you for that question, gerri. So steve has a bigrition and the vision is there is a tremendous amount of innovation happening outside of Silicon Valley and new york and outside the corridors, so the google for Entrepreneurs Organization which is part of google and steve case teamed up to showcase some of these companies and some of the technologies. So we were selected as one of ten from around the country, and steve case is a judge in the competition. So you had to take everything youve been doing for three years and crunch it down to a fiveminute pitch. Something that entrepreneurs do with regularity, and on stage we gave a five minute pitch. Answered a few questions and the judges had to go back and say based on their investment knowledge, which is the most likely and the most interesting and that kind of thing. Gerri so were seeing pictures of the pitches, and its clear you had to do it in front of a bunch of people. Was that unnerving . Difficult . What do you think it was about your pitch that actually sold steve case . Yeah, so there were ten really Amazing Companies there, and yes, the room was filled not only with just an audience, these were some of the best Venture Capital firms in Silicon Valley. It was a real privilege to be in front of them. They said to all of us, great job. The thing that really propelled Windsor Circle was the amount attraction weve been able to generate. We are a couple years into it. We have 150 brand name clients. Theyre making tremendous amounts of money in the technology were deploying. The elusive traction is something Windsor Circle is able to get their arms around, it propelled us forward. Gerri you are selling me. Impressive pitch. 80 of new businesses fail in the first three years, what youve done is surprising. I have to tell you, i expected a 19yearold with some kind of app. Not you. Youve got a real business. Thanks for coming on the show, appreciate it. Real pleasure, thank you, gerri. 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Request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing. Gerri what a day in the markets nazdaq down 3 , dow down nearly 2 , it is popular for people in my business to talk about why stocks do what they do, but we have no idea. People are reassessing. Thinking about momentum stocks, tomorrow could be worse or better. Thank you for joining us on the willis report, well see you tomorrow. Neil here is what happens when you keep letting the people down, they stop believing your numbers add up, president damning statostocs that just seem more and more like damn lies, welcome i am neil cavuto. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me a hundred times, well shame on all of us. That is where we stand with this white house right now. We have a hard time believing going coming out of this white house right now. We conclude that any