this is based on the forward looking indicators of the business cycle. that s all we do is watch those indicators, monitor them. there s an overwhelming message when we look at those indicators that is consistent only with the new recession starting here. when you think back to 2008, while we made that call, then it was prior to the lehman crisis economists were looking backwards at gdp. once we saw the lehman crisis everybody was on board with the fact there was a recession. before that there was a question. correct. when you see gdp positive or jobs numbers positive, you say there isn t a recession and you get pushback. time will tell. harvard professor, chief economist for international monetary fund. you ve been on the show before. your point of disagreement, you say a lot of people feel the recession never ended. now, we are four years away from the official start of this recession. it started in december of 2007. we re certainly three years into the worst of it. w
dramatic day in the trial of dr. conrad murray, who s accused of causing the death of michael jackson. to ted rollins in los angeles. reporter: piers, it was a riveting day in court today, we got to listen to conrad murray, basically, this will be it for jurors, unless he takes the stand, he gets to tell his side of the story through a police interview. a two-hour audiotape that jurors heard about an hour and 40 minutes of. in it he talks about giving michael jackson propofol every single night during the two months he was taking care of the pop star, except, he said, for the few days leading up to his death. he said he was trying to help jackson break away from the addiction to propofol, he said jackson was his friend, he said he was doing everything he could to jackson and jackson was demanding he give him that, what he would call, milk. i got to sleep, dr. conrad. i have this rehearsals to perform, i must be ready for the show in england. tomorrow i will have to cancel
about a few weeks ago that would be more likely to garner bipartisan support and actually get done? the problem the president is facing republicans have said no to basically everything so far. i think they will agree to certain provisions, certain tax cuts in the president s plan but it s going to be like pulling teeth for the president. when i said republicans want a lousy economy on election day, i certainly didn t want to paint with too broad a brush. it s not every republican. but undoubtedly the just say no policies of the republican party do tend to lead one to believe that a lot of republicans wouldn t mind a bad economy on election day because that is almost a sure way to get rid of president obama. there is a danger, though, with that. if this economy, which is shaky right now, takes another turn, another clear turn down ward shall the next president of the united states, if it is not barack obama, is going to have a worse situation that they inhair ilt that they
better than 6-year-old kindergartners. why? because school makes kids smarter. the experience of being young in class makes kids work harder and as a result they learn more. the kids who are oldest in the class are already doing pretty well and they re not motivated to work as hard. there s so many moms and datdads who think this red shirting a sports term, but holding their kid back one year is going to let them mature a little bit. maybe be a little more confident when they head into kindergarten nap is a miscon jepgs you say that s hurting children. parents listening now are saying, should realize, they shouldn t hold their kid back? that s right. and the reason is because kids don t learn in a vacuum. people are social learners, and so kids will learn much better if they have older classmates with better social skills and better academic skills to look up to than they will when they re the only people in the class with their level of skill. let s broaden out the d
there, or are you alone? reporter: i am alone except for the crew and some other reporters. i had to look around. we re sort of in a bubble. you know how that is, but, where do we start, ali? oh my gosh. there is so much to talk about in this case. when you talk about propofol. we didn t know anything about propofol before michael jackson. some people get it when you go into procedures but you didn t know the name of it. as you said, opening statements, starting about 8:45 local time, which is 11:45 eastern. that s when the judge will come in, give the jury instructions, about 15 minutes. after that, the arguments are expected to start in this case. the prosecution and from the defense. that are ge on for a bit. 10:15, they ll take a little breather. after that, ali, they re going to come back, continued with the arguments. we don t expect we don t expect doesn t always go as planned, we don t expect the first witness to start testifying until a little later on this aft