Administration. Gm failed to report a ignition die tech in millions of cars. The smoking gun is unreported memo from a parts supplier that laid out the problem. Regulators slap gm with a maximum fine of 35 million. Is it enough . Joining me two people that should know. We have former nits at that attorney and we have a lawyer for family of people who died in crashes of gm cars covered by this recall. Alan, start with you. You were in enforcement in nhtsa. Are you surprised by their action . Did it go far enough . This is about as far as nhtsa can go. Nhtsas authority for civil penalty is only 35 million. The Department Proposed legislation that would increase the maximum civil penalty to 300 Million Dollars, which is directional ally correct. Even a 300 milliondollar penalty might not be enough to deter a Huge Corporation like General Motors seeking to avoid expensive recall that could cost 35 billion. This is rounding error to gm. Thats right. I looked at it as a matter of fact. Profits for gm. 20 billion. 35 milliondollar fine, ouch but it doesnt hurt that much. What would be appropriate disincentive for automakers to get them to report these problems. Good afternoon, gerri, good to see you again. Theyre talking the wrong language to gm. Gm can basically print money and will make 35 million before this segment is over. What think need to do convince someone at gm, if you do this, you will end up in an orange jumpsuit and you will be looking out through jail cell bars. That is the only way to assure that this does not happen again. Gerri bob, is saying that we need some criminal penalties here. Alan, you said it as well in the past. But are criminal penalties against gm likely to happen . Well nhtsa doesnt have authority for that. The department of justice on the other hand, recently reached a, settlement with toyota that involved 1. 2 billion penalty and arsenal that department of justice used was the antiwire fraud statute which is a criminal statute that people can go to jail for. Imagine if youre a gm executive in 2004. Should i do the recall if it costs 100s of millions of dollars. If i dont do it, nhtsa wont ever find out, maybe we dont have to pay the money for it. But if that same gm executive said, if i dont do this, i might go to jail, i could behind bars, you know what that means . I cant use the Corporate Jet i at this it will make a difference if those individuals could go to jail. Gerri well, i think you make a good point there. Ii want to dig in a little into what gm did wrong. That is what came out today. The smoking gun in this case, it was a memo from a parts supplier, continental. It was from 2009. Bob, this was never reported to nhtsa. That is the issue here. This is how they broke the law. This is how gm broke the law. They failed to report. How much time do these companies have to report problems . A year. Two years . This thing was back in 2009 . They have days. As soon as theyre made aware of the issue they have days to let the government know. Keep in mind, people will forgive a car company if they discover a defect and address it honestly an quickly. What no one can forgive is what happened here. It takes, it takes this question back to what you started with and what good is nhtsa if we have to wait until the department of justice starts to act to seek criminal allegations. If you have 30, that would be three menpies in to you same as 35 Million Dollars to gm with 30 billion cash on hand. My thoughts on nhtsa are strong, gerri. That it is antiquated and it can not any longer be expected to police these International Billion Dollar companies. They just need to blow nhtsa up and start over, design a company that can make sure that compliance occurs, and that folks like my clients wont lose loved ones while this defect is being buried. You are representing many, many people who were hurt in these cars. I want to play the sound from todays press conference because it was pretty shocking actually. The transportttion secretary anthony fox, talking about why gm is in such hot water with federal regulators. Listen to this. We know no one is perfect. But what we can not tolerate, what we never accept is a person for a company that knows danger exists and says nothing. Literally, silence, can kill. Gerri silence can kill. Alan, that sent shivers down my spine when i heard it. But it doesnt have a big impact today on gm itself. What is the impact of what nhtsa had to say . Is it anything more than a fine, if you will . There are other provisions besides the civil penalty of 35 million. Gm was supposed to making structural changes and how they considereddand reviewed defects and expedite the process. They were supposed to coordinate those changes with nhtsa. If there is cultural change that will come about, of course that would be a good thing but time will tell whether that is really going to happen. Gerri bob, we mentioned before the suits you have against gm you are representing a number of folks who say they got hurt with these cars. We know there have been 30 teach deaths. Gm has said that as well. What does todays revelations, what does it mean for your cases for your clients and do you believe theres a whistleblower in this case . There could very well be. My clients today expressed to me that theyre outraged about the level of fines that was levied against nhtsa. Nhtsa has an additional power they chose not to exercise which was disappointing to every single one of my clients and that is, they can order gm to instruct their customers to park these defective cars until fixed. You know, keep in mind the defect by their own admission could happen at anytime. If it does happen, those in the car, or those driving around in the car can be hurt or killed. And that is something, i feel extremely strong about and so do every single one of my clients. They do not want to see the loss that they had to feel and deal with occur to the next person. Gerri thanks to both of you for being on the show tonight. And i just want to mention before you go, we asked jeff boyer, the head of General Motors safety division, the newly appointed safety czar to come on. Gm declines. Thanks for being on both of you. Thank you. Good seeing you, gerri. Thank you very much. And if youre planning on hitting the road for memorial day weekend, brace yourself for some serious traffic. Aaa expects the number of travelers to hit a postrecession high but the good news is this. Gas prices will likely go down, putting more money back in consumers pockets. Here with the summer forecast is phil flynn, Senior Market analyst from the Price Futures Group in chicago and fox news contributor. Phil, welcome back to the show. Thanks, gerri. Gerri is it a good economic signal that more people will be on the road . Either that or the entire country has gone stir crazy after this winter. I have got to get out of this house, im telling you. They wouldnt leave their house for six months. Gerri thats true. No, i think that is part of it but when you look at the Consumer Confidence number, usually gasoline and Consumer Confidence are really inbred. If gas prices fall down, people feel better about themselves. When prices go up it really hurts them. I think one of the reasons why consumers lost a little confidence was because those gas prices did go up. There are other reasons obviously from daytoday seems like the consumer mood is really dictated by prices. So a big break in gasoline prices which could happen may make them feel better. Phil, i have to say other things are going up in price even if some folks believe gas prices are going down. Here is the forecast from aaa just to share with our viewers. Holiday traffic congestion, this isnt people on the roadd just people clogging roads, up 25 from last year due to Better Weather and economy. Help me undeestand, phil. The expectations of gas prices go down, more people on the road, how can those two things exist at the same time . More demand, lower prices . Im confused. Well, what has happened here we got through the summertime switch on gasoline prices. Usually every year you put on 10 cents a gallon during that switchon some years it is more and some years it is less. 10 cents a gallon can be contributed to cleaner burning blend of gasoline. Other thing we have here u. S. Refiners can really kick up production. We can now produce more gasoline in this country than we ever have before and refiners have expanded production to take better advantage of this crude boom that weve had in this country. So unlike other years we used to scream we need to build more refineries . To meet growing demand now the refiners really are increasing that production and meeting demand better than they ever have before. Gerri so, is it the increased production, increased inventories that is going to drive prices down this sumer . Thats your outlook, thats the out look for aaa. Yeah, i think it is. The shale gas and Oil Revolution is really going to help put downward pressure on prices. And demand situation in the u. S. Is not as strong as it might been a couple years ago. But the other, obviously the other wildcard is the cost of crude oil. You know, one of the things that could go wrong with this forecast, if the ukraine situation really heats up, if we see a cutoff of supply somewhere on the globe well see a price spike but barring that or barring a bad hurricane, we really are in an era where gasoline prices are going to start to fall. I said this before. The dynamic for gasoline is changing. And thats a good thing because thats going to gift economy a boost. Gerri a boost. Im a lot more popular when i talk about gasoline prices going down than when they go up. So im happy. Gerri i wonder why. Put you on the spot here mister. Put you on the spot. Yes. Gerri 3. 65 a gallon for rec lar unleaded. Where are we going . I think we could see by memorial day down another nickel on area. You want me to go crazy so people can get mad at me if im wrong . Gerri yeah. Some parts of the gasoline well see gasoline below 3 a gallon, probably someplace in this country, midwest or gulf coast or 2. 99 or 2. 98. Not in big cities. You will have to travel to find it. Smaller cities you will see gas below 3 a gallon. Fly there, rent a car, fill it up. Road trip. Road trip. You will be stuck in traffic because everybody is going on same trip. 30 more people traveling this year. Planes, trains automobiles. I think were cooped up. I think youre right. Were seeking a little relief. Phil, thank you. Thank thank you. Gerri weve got more to come this hour, including my favorite thing, your voice. We want to you join our conversation. So during show you hear something you like, you dont like, facebook me, tweet me, me, gerriwillisfbn or at gerriwillis. Com. We love to hear from you. Next new report shows Housing Starts are surging but is this report built on a house of cards . Weil break it down next. My name is jenny, and i quit smoking with chantix. 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Dont settle for anything less. Ill keep asking. Whats in your wallet . New report shows strong housing numbers in april but they may not be what you think. John burns is with us. Housing starts were up 13. 2 . I was excited. But you dig in the numbers are not as positive as i expected. Do you agree and tell us why they might not be that exciting . I agree. The crazy swings are always due to multifamily construction. That is what this was. Get seasonal adjustment and get a big number. It was weatherrelated. Communities got started in march were started in april and there you go. Single family starts were up 1 where we thought it would be. Gerri single faming housley market cant get started. You talk to folks a lot of time in your survey, a lost homebuilders. What is the outlook given what theyre telling you . We talked about 250 every month. We talked to 50 last week and they, this year was a bit of a disappointment in compare to last year but all in all we think the industry will be up 10 yearoveryear. Last year was up 18. So people were hoping we would be up another 18. It is not going to happen. It is really, there has been so much discussion about entry level buy buyer not being there, that is true. Construction volume is still more to the supply chain not being broken. Gerri what do you mean no. Well, the cities have gotten more difficult to deal with. Theyre part of the supply chain. I hear even in texas it is tough to get communities open now. All materials providers are raising prices because theyre not in capacity at their plants of the labor just isnt coming back to the industry. People think of this as unskilled labor but there is some skill involved. Gerri sure. They have to train people and get them going. Frankly they need to pay them better too. During the downturn they cut labor rates dramatically. They need to come back up. Gerri very interesting. So its a combination of regulatory problems at the local level. Right. Gerri but also sort of systemic problems in the industry itself. They had to cut back so dramatically in the past that ramping up now is far more difficult. Tell me more about what you see for the balance of the year. I know youve got your outlook for the region and for california. Right. Gerri is there anything that could give this market a rocket booster assist, so people firsttime homebuyers could really get . Yeah. Weve got 10 offices all over the country. I was just in atlanta last week. It was atlanta builders complaining about getting things titled. You didnt think that was going on in atlanta. The real upside to this would be economy taking off which is really unlikely. There is a lot of pentup demand. And bulls talking about a million 1 2 household formations next year. I just dont see it happening. It will happen in the apartment market first and not happening in the rental market. So, you know, could be strong job growth. I dont think even falling Interest Rates are going to make a big difference. I just dont see a huge upside. That being said, were talking, our forecast this year well be up 10 over last year terms of it volume and up about 5 in terms of price. Thats a great year. Well take that every year. Gerri thats a great year especially when you compare it to where weve been. Before you go, please tell me, i know some markets are red hot, some markets not. Tell us about how this market is very mixed. So northern california, anything communable to Silicon Valley is on fire. Anything communable to bellview or downtown seattle is on florida. Actually southern florida, naples market which slows down in april, we were just there, the market is really strong. Go up to the northeast, the exact opposite. It was just starting to join the recovery. Were actually finding that the job market is starting to slow substantially all throughout the northeast. And midwest is a real laggard. And phoenix is actually shot up too far. Were calling it a hockey stick market. It went down too far. It went up too far. Now it is going through a bit of a period of adjustment. Gerri john, great information. Thank you. You bet, gerri. Gerri we have a news alert for you now. A top official at the Veterans Affairs department is stepping down. Comes amid a firestorm over long appointment waits, falsified records and even deaths at va hospitals since we told you over the last few days. Undersecretary Robert Petzel announcing his resignation after being grilled by a Senate Committee yesterday. Whistleblowers, including a former va physician allege wait times up to 21 months for appointments were covered up and put on a secret waiting list. They claim at least 40 veterans have died while waiting for care. Petzel announced in september he planned to retire this year. We will keep on top of that story for you, believe you me. Coming up later in the show, an unwelcome surprise for consumers regarding obamacare. Are you getting swamped with requests from friends, coworkers, family members, they have things they want to you do for them . You have no time for yourself . Next we answer, the question, how do you fix that problem . How do you do that . How do you say no . Americas newest Real Estate Brand is all ready the brand of the year. Berkshire hathaway home services. Good to know. Iprise asked people a simple question in retirement, will you outlive your money . Uhhh. No, that cant happen. Thats the thing, you dont know how long it has to last. Everyone has retirement questions. So ameriprise created the exclusive. Everyone has retirement questions.