Give that money to working families. Chris hughes is a cofounder of facebook and he says that his proposal would help close the income gap between wealthy americans and those who are struggling to make ends meet. His idea is this weeks cover story, guaranteed paycheck. In 2004, a group of Harvard Students launched a new social media site they called at the time the facebook. Among the cofounders with Mark Zuckerberg was his roommate, chris hughes, a scholarship student from a sma town in south carolina. He worked there three years before leaving. In 2012 facebook went public, raising 104 billion, chris hughes earned half a billion in hughes wants to help wealthy americans who are struggling. Since 1995 the income gap between the top 1 and bottom 50 continues to climb. At the end of 2017, the Federal Reserve found the top 1 of americans hold 39 of the countrys wealth. To help reduce income inequality, zuckerberg is among Technology Leaders proposing a universal basic income, 1,000 a month for everyone providedut hughes has a slightly different idea. He says caregivers, students, and parttime employees who are working but falling behind deserve financial stability. His proposal, a guaranteed income of 500 a month, every month, for working americans and families earning less than 50,000 a year. Who would pay for it . The 1 . So, is this a good idea, or a pie in the sky dream . Chris hughes is the author of fair shot rethinking inequality and how we earned, and as we mentioned, one of the founders of facebook. Thank you for having me. We heard a lot of talk about the universal basic income. This is not that. This is a slightly different plan. How did you come up with your version of this . Inspired by many of the same ideas that if youre working hard to make ends meet, you shouldnt live in poverty in america. It sounds so simple, but unfortunately its not true. And whats happened in reality is jobs have become more and more unstable, and half of americans dont have 400 in the case of an emergency, so oftentimes people talk about ubi or universal basic income as an idea well need when the robots arrive, selfdriving cars take over. That may be true, might not be true. Its an interesting debate to have, but in many ways i think the future is already here. Income inequality has not been this bad since 1929, and we have the power to combat it and change it. Frankly, i think its a moral issue, but also pragmatic one. The best way to stimulate the economy over the long term is to put more money in the hands of working people so Consumer Spending grows and the entire economy grows in turn. Your plan is similar to one that already exists, the earned income tax credit, but yours is slightly different because its not just people right now receiving a paycheck who would qualify for this. Is we dont need thek to prevent brand of government programs. Instead we should invest in what works. The earned income tax credit is a very Large Program that lifts more people out of poverty today than food stamps, unemployment insurance, and housing vouchers combined, and the way it does it is through cash, sometimes the best solution is the simplest. Tens of millions of americans get a boost to their bottom line, and they can use that money on whatever they see fit, and its extremely powerful. M is that we should invest in that program, modernize it to make it monthly, make the amount flat to 500, and also importantly expand it to a lot of untraditional kind of work. Childcare, elders a huge growth industry because of aging baby boomers, but if we recognize that kind of work as work, in addition to lyft drivers, gig economy,aditnal jo working person in america and combat income inequality. We mentioned leading up to this you made half a billion when facebook went public. Why you understand what its like to struggle . I grew up in north carolina. My dad was a traveling paper salesman, my mom was a Public School teacher, and i got Financial Aid to go to a boarding school and later in college where i wound up rooming with Mark Zuckerberg and working on facebook, but by all accounts getting what can only be called a lucky break, and my perspective on that is we have to be more honest about how much wealth the 1 is getting and how luck and fortune are playing a key role in order to talk about the other 99 , people who are working just as hard, but who havent gotten a raise in decades. So, my view is that those are the kinds of people i grew up with, are the kinds of people who need more help, not the kind of corporations and the 1 who getting the advantages of the tax cut that got passed in the last year. Where does this stand in terms of potential momentum that its picking up . So, theres actually a pretty big bipartisan consensus on the idea of the itc. Now, modernizing that and growing it, i think,ex frontier. It will take time, but i think if income inequality grows worse, well be looking for more and more solutions, and this, i think, is the most proven and promising. Chris, we want to thank you for your time today. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Now heres a look at whats making news as we head into a new week on the money. Federal reserve spoke and the markets listened. Stock markets were confused. Minutes from the Feds Open Market Committee meeting in january were le t fed saw a strengthening economy. That news sent stocks climbing initially, but then stocks pulled an about face and tumbled over concerns the fed would raise Interest Rates more quickly than first thought, slowing down economic activity. Stocks rebounded thursday when the fears calmed down. On friday. Existing home sales fell in january, down by 3. 2 . That was in part because of higher prices and fewer houses for sale. En t number was below years, lucky charms is introducing a new shape. Parent compaenping that its uni as magically delicious as the other shapes. The hourglass will be phased out to make room for this hot new up next, were on the money looking for some new wheels. Consumer reports just released its 2018 reviews and ratings, so which was best in be a brand youve never heard of. Later, lessons from the poker table. Skills to help you make any money decision. Right now, though, look how the stock market ended the week. Uah. And with netflix included, you can watch on any screen. Prrrrrrr. At tmobile. i feel like fire the 2018 cadillac xt5. Worship me beauty, greater than the sum of its parts. Get this lowmileage lease on this cadillac xt5 from around 329 per month. Visit your local cadillac dealer. worship me dial your bingewatching up to eleven. For a limited time, get four unlimited lines for thirtyfive bucks each. Woah. And with netflix included, you can watch on any screen. Prrrrrrr. At tmobile. It may be the best brand youve never heard of. Consumer reports is out with its annual auto rankings combining road testing and Owner Satisfaction scores. The results show the Top Performing and most reliable vehicles and as phil lebeau found out this year, its a new brand that came out on top. It is not a well known luxury brand, especially among those looking for a new highend car, but genesis, which was started hyundai in late 2015, is the top auto brand right now, according to Consumer Reports. Coming in right ahead of established Luxury Brands audi and bmw. While there are other luxury vehicles on the market, these are luxury vehicles that are reliable and have a lot of features and electronics and the Le Electronics work and is not as complicating and distracting as other models. Consumer reportsrert card oy is based on the organizations own testing of vehicles it buys and the evaluation of more than a half million Consumer Reportst work on their cars and trucks. After analyzing the data, Consumer Reports designated ten vehicles as top picks, including the toyota highlander, ford f150, and the allelectric chevy volt. Consumer reports top pick as a green car. This is the first vehicle thats much more affordable, has a much larger appeal, and gets in our testing 250 miles of range. That makes it really usable and can appeal to a lot of people. While Consumer Reports says the overall quality of cars and trucks is improving, cann continue to struggle with reliability. Jeep is rated as the Second Lowest brand, right behind land rover and ahead of fiat, which is dead last for a second straight year. They dont perform very well, they dont satisfy their owners, and the reliability is not impressive. Fiatchris hysler says it appreciates the report from Consumer Reports, but says those opinions dont always align with what they are hearing back from their customers, and they believe that people should come in, drive a jeep, drive a fiat, that way, becky, fiatchrysler believes those are the opinions that really matter. I was going to ask just that. I have a jeep, Jeep Commander ive owned for ten years, feeling like its time to drive a new one because its got over 112,000 miles on it. I have to say, this report is making me question it, even though ive had one for ten years. How much sway does a report like this have with potential buyers . Depends. You may be swayed not to go back and take a look at jeep, but if you look at jeep sales over the last ten years, where they have finished near the bottom, not only in this report, but other types of reliability reports, it hasnt slowed down the success of jeep. Phil, thank you very much. Great to see you. You bet. Up next, we are on the money. Why skills from making bets can help you make better decisions. How lessons in poker can help you with your money. And later, from cute and cuddly to the super hightech, Liberty Mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. Hold on dad. Liberty did what . Yeah, Liberty Mutual 24hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. My dad says our insurance doesnt have that. Dont worry i know what a lug wrench is, dad. Is this a lug wrench . Maybe . You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. With its hightech the cameras and radar, contemporary cockpit, 360 Degree Network of driverassist technologies, and sporty performance, whats most impressive about the glc . All depends on your point of view. Lease the glc300 for just 449 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Mercedesbenz. The best or nothing. She was a world series of poker champion, now annie duke is betting that her skills from the poker table will help you when it comes to making money decisions. Her new book is called thinking in bets making smarter decisions when you dont have all the facts. I love the idea behind your book, but why do you say this is a more effective way to come to a decision . Well, mainly because the decisions that we make are bets. I think that we tend to think of bets as happening in a casino, but what a bet really is, is a decision about an uncertain future thats informed by your beliefs. As you say, there is a lot of uncertainty in poker, also in life, but you say that poker players really know how to use that uncertainty to their advantage. How does that translate for someone who maybe doesnt even know how to play poker . So, i think if we think about it, every time we make a decision, theres a set of futures that might occur, but we dont know exactly what the future is that will happen, so we can use that to our advantage, because when the future doesnt work out a certain way that we wanted, we become less emotional about it, which i think is really good. I think the other thing is we dont just assume because something turned out poorly that a person made a really bad decision or if something turned out well that they are brilliant, so it gives us a better analytical eye so we can learn better from the outcomes of our lives and we recognize the way that turns out is uncertain in the first place. How can you use strategies like this for somebody who is maybe trying to figure out what to do with their retirement money . Its really good to think about how do we get to the end point, right, whats the end point that we want to look at, as opposed to thinking about one possible future. When youre not thinking ahead to what are the different scenarios and how might things go wrong, for example, which is one thing that we dont like to think about when we think about uncertainty, what can happen is you can start to think about bets, how do i get rich, that one future, which causes you to have let it ride or pressing strategies, causing you not to be diversified, so you have to think about whats the future i get rich and whats the future where im safe and things go well. Whats the future where i go broke. And when you get to the future where i go broke and the possibility of that, it reveals the let it ride strategy and reveals diversification that kind of free lunch is really the way to go. Imagine yourself in the future and what your goal is trying to get to and how is that competing with what your shortterm desires are. You know, as you point out, just because youre coming into something with a lot of facts and some experience, it doesnt necessarily mean things are going to go your way. Back in 2011 you cofounded a poker league, the league later filed for bankruptcy. What did you learn from that and how would you take strategies from what you learned there into what you do down the road . Sure. I think i learned what most people learn from a startup, which is you know that youre going into something thats really uncertain. Obviously, the majority of startups fail. Right, right. You know, youre, obviously, trying to start something thats going to be great, but you also understand its high risk. Would you take the risk again, or did it make you risk averse . I dont think it made me risk averse. I think that what you try to do is think about whats the information that i maybe overlooked that i can take into the future with me in order to increase the probability that if i start Something Like that again that it would succeed. I think you learn from every single experience about, you know, how do i improve my Decision Making going forward, and i think as long as youre learning and youre improving your Decision Making going forward, then its always worthwhile. Annie, great advice. Love the idea for the book, again, its called thinking in bets, well see you again soon. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Up next, a look at the news in the week ahead and the hot new toys that will be making it on to your kids wish lists this year. Stick around. G. And this is franks record shop. Frank knowns northern soul, but how to set up a limited liability company. Whats that mean . Not so much. So he turned to his friends at legalzoom. Yup they hooked me up. We helped with his llc, contracts, and some other stuff thats part of running a business. So frank can focus on the beat. You hear that . This is franks record shop. And this is where life meets legal. If our world isnt stuck in the past, why is Higher Education . We say if theres a better path, you should take it. And when there isnt, well, you know where im going with that. Dont do things by the book if the book cant keep up. Take your page from one that hasnt been written. We took two renowned universities, including a premier medical school, and created a Single University that defies convention. At jefferson, were making modern look old and making old look new and making sure new is not enough. Were adding more weight to your degrees and more meaning to your careers, going where others wouldnt dare, making connections few think to make and setting tomorrows standards by breaking todays. Because we believe the lines that are drawn are meant to converge. Thats where the future is born. And once you realize youre not limited to whats possible, guess what . You redefine all that will be. Here are the stories coming up that may impact your money this week. On monday we will see how many new homes were sold in january. The durable goods report comes out on tuesday. That measures items that are expected to last more than three years. Then on wednesday, the second read on the Fourth Quarter gdp will be released, and on thursday well be getting auto sales for february. Then friday Marks National read across america day. Its celebrated on the birthday of theodore geissel, or like you know him, dr. Seuss. Robots, dinosaurs, and dolls. Those were some of the thousands of dolls showcased this past week at the new york toy fair, thats the largest toy fair in the country. So what are some of the hottest trends we can expect to see this year . We took a look. Theres over 1,000 companies here, and if you can envision seven football fields filled with toys and games, thats how many toys are in this building. Neuroscience with the 99 . We can have our brains control other peoples bodies. Really, really hot, so were going to see toys that code, toys that are using technology. This is the first super robot. They have facial recognition, voice command, walking, talking robot with books. A. R. Is a home run. If you can make the books come alive with technology, it adds value to it. Thats truly a way for us that a. R. Works. A lot of millennials are parents now, and a lot of brands that they love to have a resurgence, because parents want to share what they played with when they were a kid with their kid. All fun and games until somebody gets goo over them. Joining us now, the president and ceo of the toy industry association. Steve, thank you for being here. Absolutely. You brought some stuff for us to actually play with and talk about the trends driving these things. So much cool stuff. Weve got all kinds of fun things to play with. Stretch armstrong, which hasnt been around in years and years, is now making a comeback. Whats going on . Nostalgia play, parents want it for their kids. Hasbro has done a great job, created their own program on netflix, so now its on tv, the teenage heroes are on there,