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Should Candidate's Vietnam War Record Matter? A Look at How Men, Women view Money Differently

Aired February 14, 2004 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANNOUNCER: From New York City, America's financial capitol, this is IN THE MONEY.
JACK CAFFERTY, HOST: Good afternoon, and welcome to the program. I'm Jack Cafferty.

Coming up today on duty or off the radar. We will look at a dog fight ongoing over President Bush's air national guard status. See if the debate could slow down his bid for a second term.

Plus fighting the fat of land. The butter knives are drawn in a battle over Dr. Atkins and his diet. We will look at the thriving business that the Atkins diet build.

And gender spenders. On this Valentine weekend, John Gray will be here to tell us how men and women handle money differently. In my house, the men don't have any, that's how that works. We will hear from the author of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Joining me as always, two of the regular gang here. CNN correspondent Susan Lisovicz, and "Fortune" magazine editor-at-large Andy Serwer.

For those who think business news is boring. We turn your attention to ImClone, the drug Erbitux, Martha Stewart and Sam Waksal. I mean, the soap operas couldn't do better than this.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE", EDITOR-AT-LARGE: I don't know where to start the ironies. The FDA approved the drug Erbitux. The stock drops down because people think it's not going to get improved, then it shoots up the next day. Waksal is in jail, meanwhile, Martha Stewart is on trial. And we are not sure the drug is that effective.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Incredible. One of the things that you could count on Sam Waksal says consistently, even from prison, is that this drug is really valid. It's viable. And his words came true. He should have never sold the stock. It got the whole ball of wax going.

CAFFERTY: The viability of the drug, though, as I understand it is only for late-term colon cancer patients and it's not a cure. All it does is slow the growth of the tumors that may be there. And it has to be given with other forms of chemotherapy. Nevertheless it can provide in trials an extension of life for 20 percent of the late patients, and that's not insignificant.

LISOVICZ: That's the ultimate tragedy. While everybody is focused on Sam Waksal, Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic there are countless people there who were counting on that to get FDA approval in 2001. And now finally they have an opportunity to use the treatment.

SERWER: It's still a drug of last resort. The stock is still below where Martha's stop order was, which was around 60 bucks of course and the stock is in the 40s. So, you have to be careful. Hearing about people talking about buying the stock. I would just avoid this. There are better ways to spend your time and money than playing around with ImClone stock. Believe you, me it goes up and down and all over the place.

CAFFERTY: Good advice. Thanks, Andy, Susan.

As time and money begin to run out and the primaries roll on, the field of Democrats is narrowing but not by as much as you might think. For a look at the state of the presidential campaign we are joined by CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider in Washington.

Bill, nice to see you as always.

John Edwards said this, "We're going to have an election, this is not going to be a coronation." Well, he has not won anything except the state where he was born. If he could claim to be born in all 50 states he would be a viable option, but at this point he only won the state where he is born. Howard Dean, hasn't won a single delegate. Isn't it time for the Democratic leadership to start calling these guys and say, hey this is not helping?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: It's getting close to that. Dean said he will make a stand in Wisconsin. If he does not win the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday I think then he'll start getting those telephone calls urging him to get out or at least suspend his campaign. I think it will all be over by super Tuesday, which is March 2nd when most delegates will have been chosen. By then if Edwards and Dean really can't go anywhere, it's going to be clear. There will be pressure on them to get out.

CAFFERTY: Is John Kerry vulnerable at all?

Howard Dean had the great early speed, he's unstoppable, Internet raising all this money. John Kerry now is the consensus favorite to win it all.

Could he make a misstep here between now and the finish line?

SCHNEIDER: You know what often happens is voters get buyer's remorse. They say what have we done?

It happened with Jimmy Carter in 1976 and even in 1980, Ted Kennedy started winning the late primaries. It does often happen. I'm sure that's what Dean and Edwards are counting on. But the fact is we can't find evidence of anti-Kerry sentiment out there in the Democratic party. Democrats have a desperate desire to win, and to close ranks around the front-runner. Electability that's what they see in John Kerry and that's why they are closing ranks around him. So, I don't think buyer's remorse is likely to happen because Democrats feel so powerless and desperate to win, but they are determined to remain united.

CAFFERTY: No offense, but you and I are both old enough to appreciate the incredible irony of the debate over the last few days concerning the Vietnam War. President Bush's record in the national guard during the Vietnam War, John Kerry's photographs with Jane Fonda taken during the war. That's an incredible irony that in 2004, with the myriad of issues facing the electorate, we are debating what happened during the Vietnam War.

SCHNEIDER: It's the culture war. It has been gone on for almost 40 years, we have been arguing not just about Vietnam but about protests, and the sixties. Look, that was what was behind the famous red state/blue state map. That was a perfect map of liberal and conservative America. It's still very hot. Those issues still divide the electorate, but there's one big difference the Democrats have a war hero as their likely nominee. So, for the first time in a long time they can throw the Republicans on the defensive on the culture war issue.

And they can say to a conservative Republican what did you do during the war?

And the conservative Republicans, Bush and the White House have a little trouble answering that question.

CAFFERTY: Bill Schneider, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

CAFFERTY: George Bush the candidate facing new trouble from an old accusation we just alluded to. It's not about weapons of mass destruction or other issues raised by George W. Bush the president, but it goes back to George Bush the air national guard pilot.

And for more on that, we are joined by Jay Carney, who's the deputy bureau chief for "Time" magazine.

Jay, nice to have you with us.

JAY CARNEY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Thanks for having me.

CAFFERTY: Dental records, pay stubs, speeches, so far this issue surrounding whether or not President Bush showed up and did all of his time in Alabama with the national guard is not budging. What will it take to get this thing off the table?

CARNEY: You know, I don't think it will be ever be totally off the table. There are reports now that have some people in Alabama on the military base in Montgomery who say they saw the president there back when he was in the national guard and that he was fulfilling his duty. Now, there are a lot of others who say they never saw him including superiors. But it may be enough to put the issue of whether or not Bush even served his duty during that time in Alabama to rest. But the broader story is really about the two choices these two men made, John Kerry and George Bush during Vietnam. Both were sons of privilege, but George Bush who supported the war chose not to go, and in the past, back in 1994 and in an interview, he made it clear he chose to go into the national guard so he did not have to serve in Vietnam.

Where as John Kerry, while he was already wavering about whether the war was the right thing to do, enlisted, served, saw combat and won a chest full of metals. So, this issue could continue right up to election day.

LISOVICZ: Even if it does, isn't there a general understanding that what the president did or did not do in 1972 is almost irrelevant because he is a totally different person than he was several decades ago by his own admission?

He was, I guess to put it, a late bloomer. He is a different person.

Is that something that could help him in this very difficult reelection process?

CARNEY: I think it could. Certainly the American electorate has forgiven the sins of those who tried to avoid the war. Bill Clinton after all was elected and re-elected despite the fact that the public knew he actively tried to dodge the draft. The difference is we're at war. And we have a commander-in-chief who is sending Americans by the 10s of thousands to Iraq. And we have more than 500 deaths, thousands of wounded Americans. And it changes the dynamic. And it also changes with the fact that John Kerry was a Vietnam vet and a decorated vet who also then came back and later protested the war.

So, it's not the central issue or the deciding issue in the campaign by any means but it goes to character, and issues of truthfulness and uprightness. And the fact the president has basically refused to acknowledge that he went into the guard in order to avoid the Vietnam War, you know, gives the Democrats something to play with because they have a nominee who did serve.

SERWER: It's interesting, so far we elected two people who avoided going to Vietnam, Clinton and President Bush, and we did not elect Al Gore who did serve, now we'll try again I guess with Kerry.

How significant is it that they have been unable to find someone who categorically said, yes, George Bush was in Alabama, I served with him and he was there in the national guard?

CARNEY: Actually, they -- the "Washington Post" on Friday found someone who says that he saw bush doing his duty in the offices there. On the base in Montgomery. That contrasts with several others or many others including the superiors that Bush would have reported to back then who said they never saw George Bush on base. So, that it may be a draw in the end. I think the issue will then die down to some degree, the issue of whether or not he did his duty. But the broader issue of who served who did not serve, who went to Vietnam I think will continue to some degree as a back burner, but constantly simmering issue.

LISOVICZ: Quick answer to this, John Kerry should be careful how he handles it at this point.

CARNEY: He has to. The Democrats have to. Because there is a risk of backlash here. Although the national guard during Vietnam is quite -- was quite a different institution than it is now, the fact is there are thousands of national guardsmen and women who are over in Iraq serving now. Some 40-odd national guardsmen who have been killed in Iraq. So, there has to be a lot of caution on the Democratic side about how they characterize service in the national guard, otherwise it may backlash against them.

LISOVICZ: Jay Carney, Washington bureau chief for "Time" magazine. Thanks for joining us.

CARNEY: Thank you.

LISOVICZ: Just ahead, more hands on the assembly line. President Bush says he has a plan to create millions of new jobs. Find out if the numbers back him up.

Plus a better mousetrap with Comcast angling for Disney.

We will see how stock in the cable company is doing.

And how about some butter on your butter? Yuck! Dr. Robert Atkins built a mega business on the low carb craze. See how the dispute over his own health could affect the Atkins company.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: President Bush came out with his annual economic report this weekend including a prediction that over the coming year the economy will create 2.6 million jobs. Well, they could use a few in Alaska. The labor department says that state that the country's highest jobless figure, 7.7 percent unemployed. Michigan and Oregon are tied for second at 7.2 percent. North Dakota has the lowest jobless rate in the country 3.2 percent. South Dakota is second, 3.4. And getting out of the Great Plains, Virginia shows a 3.6 percent unemployment rate. This week's jobless claims from across the country came in higher, rising to 363,000.

CAFFERTY: The president only created the new jobs on paper. Turning them into real work is another story. For a look at whether everything is in place for the president's jobs plan, let's bring in Robert Reich who's the former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration and now a professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis University.

Mr. Reich, nice to have you with us.

ROBERT REICH, FORMER SECRETARY OF LABOR: Well, good morning. CAFFERTY: There's no secret if the American economy gets up and going it can crank out a lot of jobs in a short period of time. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan seemed to suggest in his testimony before Congress this past week that it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the president's jobs figure could be realized by the election.

Where do you stand on that?

REICH: It's not beyond the realm of possibility but it will be very difficult, because to get to 2.6 million new jobs this year means every month you have to have about what, 280,000 jobs. Last month the United States created about 112,000. That's about half what we need in order to get to that 2.6 million. So, it's going to be a very, very tough climb.

SERWER: Mr. Reich -- I did the math, by the way, it's about 227,000 jobs, but it's more or less the same thing as what you are talking about here.

Isn't this the president's job, though, to jawbone, to be a cheerleader, to be and give rosy forecasts like that? that's part of the job, isn't it?

REICH: I suppose. Last year the prediction was 1.5 million new jobs, actually we lost jobs last year. We lost jobs the year before. I think it's the president's responsibility to be clear with the American people about what reasonable expectations are. That's important just because people need to know how they are going to fare, but also important politically. One of the big errors that George Bush senior, if you want to call the first George Bush that, one of the big errors he made was to give the people the impression that the economy was really much better than it was actually, and that cost him dearly. I think, it's important for this president in terms of his future political life, reelection, to level with the American people about how difficult this job creation has been coming out of this recession.

LISOVICZ: Mr. Secretary, the statistics have been overwhelming in terms of economic recovery. The third quarter GDP, the best in 19 years. Fourth quarter corporate profits the best in 10 years.

Couldn't you buy the argument that the jobs market, the labor market is simply lagging what has been a slow but steadily evolving recovery?

REICH: We never had a lag this long. We are 26 almost 27 months after the official end of the recession and we are still having anemic jobs growth. Now it is true after every recession jobs take a while to come back but never this long. What is happening here is something new. And that is because of the marvels of telecommunications, technology, and cargo ships, all new technologies, it is possible for employers to basically hedge their bets about the recovery and hire foreign workers, outsource their jobs instead of hiring Americans. This causes a lot of consternation, a lot of fear on the part of Americans. But what it really means is that jobs will take much longer to come back.

CAFFERTY: How much does the dramatic increase in productivity in this economy have to do with that, Mr. Reich?

REICH: I mean, part of it is productivity. Every time you substitute technology for labor, if you have supermarket checkout automated checkout or you have these little kiosks at the airports instead of people there giving you tickets, on and on and on, that improves the productivity of the company and indirectly the productivity of the country but it does not improve the job situation because all those supermarket checkout people who are substituted by automated checkout counters lose their jobs.

CAFFERTY: What about the politics of making a public statement that we can create 2.6 million jobs by election time?

I mean, if he's wrong to any great degree it's like handing the Democratic candidate a club and saying here hit me in the head with this. Karl Rove and the guys who advise him in the White House are not politically naive, on the contrary.

What is the motivation to come out and say this that way?

REICH: The 2.6 million jobs is an interesting figure. If we actually did, if the president was successful in presiding over an economy that generated 2.6 million new jobs this year, that would bring the total jobs just about back to where it was at the start of 2000 when the president came on. And that would be at least good for the president in the sense he could say I did not lose jobs during my tenure. Otherwise this president becomes the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over an economy that lost actually jobs. So, that 2.6 million figure is important for the administration. I agree with the implication of your question, it's dangerous doing so.

Bill Clinton used to predict in 1992, 1993, at the beginning of the Clinton administration, predicted 2 million jobs a year. That was a much safer prediction at a time when it was also a very anemic jobs recovery.

SERWER: Well, we did create 3 million jobs in 1999, I guess we'll have to see, it's a big target.

REICH: Well, 1999 was huge huge, irrational, exuberance year.

SERWER: All right, we have got to wrap it up. Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. Robert Reich, thanks very much.

REICH: Thanks.

SERWER: Up next on IN THE MONEY, under siege. Disney's Michael Eisner is fighting a buyout move by Comcast. We'll check shares in the cable firm gunning for the mouse.

And later, hefty profits, see how the Atkins company bulked up by telling America what to eat. And Cupid checkbook, John Gray of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" fame, talks to us about love and money.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SERWER: Comcast surprised Wall Street by making an unsolicited bid for the Walt Disney Company. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says the roughly $50 billion deal would make Disney more profitable at a time when Michael Eisner is facing an attempt to oust him by Roy Disney, a major dissident shareholder and nephew of company founder Walt Disney. Comcast is gone from a small regional cable company down in Mississippi to the largest national cable firm. The big acquisition was the $29 billion purchase of AT&T's huge cable assets in 2002. Now Comcast is setting its sights on the next big thing so that's our stock of the week. This is high drama on Wall Street as good as it gets, and it ain't over. It will be interesting. Disney has not responded yet, have they?

LISOVICZ: Disney quickly hired a couple of big brokerage firms to advise it how to defend itself. And coincidentally this bid came as Walt Disney was meeting as scheduled with financial analysts down in Florida. So, Michael Eisner who has already been embattled from so many sides had to present his case. He says they are not selling.

CAFFERTY: Well, we'll see.

LISOVICZ: Right.

CAFFERTY: He may not have a choice in whether they sell or not at the end of the day.

LISOVICZ: Exactly.

CAFFERTY: One thing indicated in the rise of the Disney stock price is maybe the Comcast bid isn't high enough. They may have to put more money on the table or perhaps some other outfit may come in and start a bidding war. The question I have, this idea of marrying content with delivery systems, sometimes looks good on paper like, for example, with AOL and Time Warner, remember that deal?

LISOVICZ: Heard of it.

CAFFERTY: It took Time Warner stock from $90 to $10.

Is this a good idea?

SERWER: I never understood why you have to do these kind of things. There is this old expression if you want some milk you don't have to buy a cow right. You can just do a joint venture with these companies. Putting these things together, there's never really been proof positive that it's worked. I think what Comcast is doing here, they've got to get bigger. They have been an incredible growth story. It's a very complicated company with a lot of different pieces. It's smaller than Disney in terms of revenue, bigger in terms of market valuation. The thing is, the company may have been slowing down, it needs to find a new avenue. LISOVICZ: And Disney was vulnerable, no question about it. But one similarity is the egos and ambitions of the people at top -- Michael Eisner and Brian Roberts.

SERWER: I think the really question, Jack, is would Disney be in the situation if they had a secession plan, where Michael Eisner was would have been going out, because they wouldn't be in a position of weakness. They still could be a stand-alone company. Big question.

CAFFERTY: And conventional wisdom is Eisner does not last through this thing, which ever way it goes.

I think that's probably right. And I think eventually...

LISOVICZ: He lasted 20 years.

CAFFERTY: All right, on to other things. Coming up, just as the Atkins diet craze becomes the heavy weight in the diet industry, questions arise about the man who started it all. Could it slow a super business to a crawl? We'll take a look at what is at stake.

And you if are still looking for a sweetheart on this Valentine's weekend, call Andy. Make (UNINTELLIGIBLE) or try the web. The online dating business is growing fast, but does true love online turn into real money?

Web master Allen Wastler will have some answer for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

CAFFERTY: New controversy this week over lowcarb guru Dr. Robert Atkins. Atkins died last year, and At the time of his death he was reportedly obese and suffering from a heart condition. And that's raised concerns about the safety of his hugely popular Atkins Diet recommendations.

Here with more on the fallout from all of this is CNN medical correspondent Holly Firfer.

Hi, Holly.

HOLLY FIFFER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jack.

Well, yes. We heard about Dr. Atkins. He claimed that his weight loss program low carb could help you lose weight yet we find out that on his autopsy report he died actually from falling and hitting his head, it had nothing to do with his heart attack that he had, he was a little overweight. Now, he wasn't morbidly obese not even obese, he was little heavy.

Now, doctors, are saying that was from keeping him alive. He was in a coma. And we know when you are on life support you tend to gain weight, it can bloat you because they give you a lot of fluids to keep the organs going. But as far as his heart health goes, his doctor said, yes, he did have health problems but it came from a virus he contracted while in Turkey. It weakened the heart muscle and therefore he had heart problems, but it was a heart attack. And so now the Atkins people are saying the diet is perfectly safe, although they tweaked it a bit not quite as many high fat foods, meats, mayonnaise (ph), it's just not just butter beef and bread. They are saying more chicken, more fish. Sort of moderating, but they still claim it's still healthy.

CAFFERTY: There you go. CNN medical correspondent, Holly Firfer, thanks for being with us. I appreciate it.

FIRFER: Sure.

CAFFERTY: Atkins advocates are nothing if not influential. Just last week the Atkins physicians council turned to Congress to support a new food pyramid that will minimize the intake of carbohydrates in hope of fighting America's obesity epidemic.

Dean Rothbart chairman and executive editor of "LowCarbBiz" is here to tell us more about the business of Atkins and a big business it is. Welcome to the program, nice to have you with us.

DEAN ROTHBART, CHAIRMAN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "LOWCARBBIZ": Good to be here.

CAFFERTY: Give us a sense of the Atkins food industry in this country.

ROTHBART: Well, Atkins itself as a brand is approaching a billion a year. But the low carb economy as a whole passed $15 billion in 2003, and it is growing at nearly 100 percent.

SERWER: Dean, Andy Serwer here. You look good, you on Atkins yourself?

ROTHBART, Thanks, Andy. Yes, I have been on Atkins about three years, and have trimmed about 50 pounds.

SERWER: See, I knew that. I knew that.

ROTHBART: Yes.

SERWER: Listen, talk to us a bit about how Atkins has been changing the U.S. Economy.

Which businesses have been doing well, which ones have been getting hurt?

ROTHBART: The impact of Atkins is most felt by Fortune 500 companies. Companies like Pepsi's Frito-Lay unit or Kraft. Some of the huge manufacturers who suddenly have seen people stop eating their snack foods or eating a whole lot less of what they manufacturer. Pasta makers are hurting, orange juice makers are hurting. And the fortune 500 has been very slow in actually come into the market. We are beginning to see some brand line extensions like through Unilever or Frito-Lay test marketing a couple of brands. This has been fantasy land for small companies that have become big, and you if will excuse the expression, fat overnight.

LISOVICZ: Dean, just to go over sort of the basics of the Atkins regimen. No bread, no pasta, no fruit, no quality of life. I mean, there's no point in getting up every day and having a good dinner.

SERWER: It's not that bad.

ROTHBART: I've got to tell you, on the way in to the studio today, there's a chain I'm out of Denver called Einstein Bagels, believe it's national. I stopped in and I had a bagel with cream cheese, a low carb bagel they just introduced.

LISOVICZ: That's a New York kind of breakfast.

ROTHBART: That's a New York kind of breakfast.

I mean, the -- there's an image of the Atkins diet of being bacon cheeseburgers without bread. But in fact, the industry is so quickly creating just about anything you can eat with full carbs, these days there's a low carb variety of from ice cream to pasta to pizza to my bagel this morning.

LISOVICZ: Isn't it a fad?

Won't Americans get sick of this?

ROTHBART: Let me tell you, Atkins I believe as a brand is going to -- is going to be something where people will eventually turn bored with Atkins as a brand. But the low carb diet as a whole is not going to be a fad largely because you have two major trends that are not going to go away soon, and that is we have a fat population. I mean, a medically obese population, and because we have an increasingly diabetic population. We know low-fat has not worked. This country has been on a low-fat diet for 30 years and we have all gotten fatter. So low carb has that promise. I think people may tire eventually of everything Atkins, but there's a lot of other people coming down the road with good product that are low carb.

CAFFERTY: Isn't that the key word, promise?

Aren't people in this country literally desperate for anything that promises an easy way to lose weight?

I mean, if you want to write a best-seller write a diet book. For the last 30 years plus, the best sellers that come out that have to do with diet, they zoom to the top of the best seller list like that.

To what degree, and I don't single out Atkins for that, but to what degree do all of these ideas about losing weight pray to a degree on the desperation or maybe even the gullible of people who will try anything to shed a few pounds?

ROTHBART: Well, I think -- first of all I agree with you almost 100 percent. And the only area I would tell you different is that what I think manufacturers do wrong in low carb, low fat, whatever the diet happens to be is they promised a magic bullet. You go on low carb, eat as much as you want and you'll lose weight, and that is wrong. The reality of it is that I -- from everything that I can study low carb diets work if you want to do a low fat diet it works, but the truth is you need some self-discipline. You need to exercise and people don't want to hear that. And, so, it's a bit of a conspiracy between the manufacturers who don't want to tell them that and the dieters who don't want to listen to it.

SERWER: Some of that is common sense. Stop eating so much French fries if you are 40 or 50-years-old. You shouldn't do that.

We have got to leave it at that. Dean Rothbart, our former journalist and chairman and executive editor of "LowCarbBiz", thanks much.

ROTHBART: Good to be here.

SERWER: There's much more to come on IN THE MONEY. Still ahead -- sweetheart deals. Find out why men and women can look at the same dollar bill and see something completely different. We'll speak with author John Gray.

And take your mouth for a joyride, we will point you towards our fun site of the week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SERWER: Consumers are expected to shell out about $13 billion for Valentine's Day this year. A big jump over 2003. But don't let Cupid fool you, love and money don't often get along that well. After splurging on fancy dinners and flowers, couple also come back to what they fight over most -- money.

Joining us today to talk about why men and women understand money so differently is author and family therapist John Gray. A new edition of his best seller "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" has just come out in paperback, obviously a huge franchise.

Welcome. Nice to see you here on the show.

JOHN GRAY, AUTHOR: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure.

SERWER: Some of this is intuitive I guess. Talk a bit about why men and women look at money so differently.

GRAY: First of all, at our own marsvenus.com poll we find the number one thing people fight about is money. That's been my experience. As a therapist, and you are going deeper into it, although money is the charged subject, it's always about personal value. People -- money means something different to both people. To men, money means a sense of esteem, what he can accomplish, what he can achieve, and where he has his power, sort of control in life. And for women money has a different connotation, it means security. Women tend to be much more security oriented. We need to protect for the future what might happen. We need money. So often the biggest conflict is in spending habits. How he spends, how she spends what he is spending money on, what she is spending money on. The arguments emerge from that. Where as the man might want a big screen TV, and she says why spend money on that and she says I haven't spent money on myself. Or he buys shoes, and she says want shoes. Why do get shoes? I need shoes, you don't need shoes. When are going to where shoes?

LISOVICZ: First thing, you know as a women is you always spend money on shoes. Never deprive yourself of the shoe.

SERWER: Sarah Jessica Parker, right.

GRAY: She can buy as many shoes as she wants.

(CROSSTALK)

GRAY: You know what will happen for a guy, he will go to the store and buy a Sony head phone or something or a little radio or something, she'll say why did you buy that, you don't need that? He says I wanted that. She say, but you already got one, is it broken?

So there's this whole sort of interrogation, and that can cause a lot of annoyance and irritation.

LISOVICZ: How do you work it out?

Women basically have been handling the finances forever. But the dynamics have changed as women have increasingly gone into the work force, and now increasingly drawing the pay equity with husbands.

So, has that changed the dynamic at all?

GRAY: Well, putting conversations about money -- spending money to the side, just the fact that women are the major providers in the family, that has a stress on a mans self esteem, because historically men have always found their self-esteem in what can I provide for her? What can I provider for her?

And if suddenly she is providing more what does she (sic) provide for her?

Not only is this a stress on him but also a stress on her. Many women are saying what does he provide for me?

It's like I'm his mother now. I take care of him, cook for him, I do this for him, and pay his way, what does he give to me?

It's very important for relationship to work that there's a clear feeling of I can depend on my partner and I'm getting something from them.

CAFFERTY: John, let me ask you a question based on a personal tragedy in my own house this week. My cat was sick, it's a cat. Went to the vet, they did a couple things, they gave it an IV, took an X- ray. When the cat comes home, stayed overnight one night, he is still walking around kind of like he ain't feeling real good and I said how much was the bill?

Well, the bill was $530. But the price of asking that question was much higher. Let me tell you.

What do you mean how much did it cost, this is a life, it's a cat. And I got in a lot of trouble.

How do you resolve conflicts over money if you have them?

It's not an ongoing problem because I usually just give it to her and keep my mouth shut.

But how do you resolve it?

I mean, if you have conflicts like that what do you do about it?

GRAY: There's two things. One is, once you've had the problem how do you resolve it at that point, which I will address real quickly. But the other one is how to avoid those problems. And one of the ways you avoid those problems or try at least try to avoid those problems is have a discussion when you are not heated up and talk about your spending priorities. Where your values are, the way your parents spent money, how you think it should be spent and how you would like communication between you and your partner to be. That's really important.

I've had lots of conversations with my wife where I told her I don't like if she challenges me on what I'm spending money on if it's a small expense. And we sort of put, based upon our income, we put a bracket. If I spend a few hundred dollars on something I don't want her to interrogate me. Do you need that? Why do you need that? You already have one. It's just annoying, I work hard, I should be able to spend the money I want to spend. But I can't go out and buy a ranch, OK, that's a different story. I need to bring her more into the play.

CAFFERTY: Next time what I will do is discuss the issues when the cat is feeling well and see if I can help myself. John, I have to leave there. Where pressed for time -- what?

GRAY: How do you resolve it?

You don't say anything, you made the mistake, let her talk and then you say I'm sorry, I was insensitive.

CAFFERTY: That's right, when she's happy, everybody is happy. When she's not happy, nobody else have a chance. John Gray, nice to have you with us. "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus."

Just ahead on -- it's a true story. I got in so much trouble.

SERWER: I bet you did.

CAFFERTY: Coming up on IN THE MONEY, love stinks. If all this relationship stuff isn't for you, then the fun site of the week is just the thing. We'll show you some items you can buy for your less than loved one.

And speaking of lost love, if you are lonely, feel free to e-mail us at IN THE MONEY. Trouble us with your problems like we care -- no, we really do. We want to hear from you. We have this guy Jake on the staff who has an ongoing relationships with many viewers in the audience. He writes back forth with them. So you can write to us at inthemoney@cnn.com.

And we'll be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: Well, if you find yourself alone this Valentine's weekend, fear not. Our Web master Allen Wastler has everything you need to know about finding love online.

SERWER: You can find it there.

ALLEN WASTLER, MONEY.COM: You can find a lot there.

(CROSSTALK)

WASTLER: You know what else you are finding there with love, a lot of green. It's getting to be a big business. In the first half of 2003, $214 million was made off of people going to the online personals, all right.

SERWER: Wow.

WASTLER: If you want to put it in real people numbers, that's about 20 million people, 14 percent of the Internet population. I know what you are thinking, Jack. You're think, OK, we've got losers. A bunch of guys -- a bunch of guys just clicking on. I want to find love.

(CROSSTALK)

WASTLER: Actually only 50 percent of that is males, 40 percent are women. They are doing it through regular subscription services, you basicly pay around 20 bucks...

LISOVICZ: Whatever happened to the blind date?

WASTLER: It can be pretty blind on this, too.

SERWER: This is the original blind date...

WASTLER: At least you get a data file. You get a little data file to tell you a little bit.

SERWER: Look at that. Did they met online. They meet online. Those two -- they met at a bar.

WASTLER: OK.

Now, so more and more of the Internet business makers are look at this as a serious way of getting in. If you look at Yahoo!'s latest results, about one fifth of the revenues came from this personal service. So, they are thinking we can build it. CAFFERTY: It must work or it wouldn't be the growth industry you are talking about it being. So people must find...

(CROSSTALK)

WASTLER: It actually skews to the Internet population really well, because you got -- it is a basically a younger set looking for this and they are very time compressed. They are just going through the data files saying, OK, I want someone who's a nonsmoker, who's very polite, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), boom, boom, boom.

You narrow it down.

SERWER: A lot of people who met online are married. I mean, it's definitely happening now.

LISOVICZ: Now Allen, fun site of the week?

WASTLER: Yes, we talked enough about love and everything, OK. So the fine folks at Despair Incorporated, they've came up with bittersweets. You know the little heart things, they usually say hug me or love you?

These have messages like "i miss my ex," "table for one," "dignity free."

LISOVICZ: How about prenuptial.

WASTLER: Here you go, prenupt agreement.

SERWER: You must have read that, Susan.

WASTLER: "p.s I luv me," is my favorite.

SERWER: You know what, they're garlic favored too, I bet.

CAFFERTY: Thanks, Allen.

Coming up, we will read your thoughts on when you can retire, and we'll bring you our new e-mail question of this week. Don't be shy, you can e-mail us now if you would like, we're at inthemoney@cnn.com.

First, Susan got the latest edition of "Money and Family."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISOVICZ: Sending your kids to college these days is not cheap. So, if you are a parent applying for financial aid, here are a few tips to get the money you need. To be eligible for government grants or subsidized loans your child has to fill out the free application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. You can get a copy online at fapsa.ed.gov. This is how the system works. You send the forms to the government and they send them to your prospective colleges. Even though the governments deadline isn't until June 30. Don't wait to send in the applications. Most colleges of your prospective colleges will have their own deadline that can be as early as February. So, find out the deadlines of each school your interested in. It's best to apply for financial aid as early as possible. Don't wait until April because you are worried about including recent tax information. It's completely legitimate to estimate tax figures based on last year's return and update them later.

Also be sure to fill out the entire FAFSA form correctly. If there are omissions or mistakes, the central processor will reject your forms, sending it back to you without mailing it on to the colleges. The safest route is to fill out the forms online because it will alert you of missing information or mistakes right away.

I'm Susan Lisovicz for "Money and Family."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: It's time for your answers to our e-mail question about what it will take for you to retire at age 65.

Richard from California wrote this -- "The economic downturn has cut into my savings so much that nothing short of a miracle will make retirement at 65 possible. But working past 65 was always my plan. I find the idea of putting on slippers and reading the paper somewhat abhorrent.

Gregory from California similar response -- "What will I need to retire at 65? More than I've got or will have. Right, now I'm looking at retiring at 85."

Perhaps our older viewers could learn a lesson from young Mike in Los Angeles who wrote this, "I'm 19-years-old but my parents and I have already begun planning for my retirement by setting up a Roth IRA in my name. I'm also on the proper career path and making other investments to hopefully retire before I'm 65."

LISOVICZ: Scary.

CAFFERTY: Mike, you and I are just the same. When I was 19 I was doing that, too.

LISOVICZ: Right.

CAFFERTY: Now our e-mail question for this Valentine weekend, you have ever had an office romance and if so what are the consequences?

And if you have pictures you can send some of those too.

send your answers to inthemoney@cnn.com. You can also learn more about the show and get the much desired fun site of the week by logging on to our show page. It's money.com/inthemoney.

On that note, thank you for joining us for this week's edition of IN THE MONEY. Thanks to the gang around here, financial correspondent, Susan Lisovicz, "Fortune" magazine editor-at-large, Andy Serwer, and my old pal, money.com managing editor, Allen Wastler. Join us tomorrow at 3:00 when we'll look at President Bush's standing among conservatives.

Is Mr. Bush alienating his core supporters with heavy government spending and nation building? That's tomorrow at 3:00. Hope to see you then.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






How Men, Women view Money Differently>


Aired February 14, 2004 - 13:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: From New York City, America's financial capitol, this is IN THE MONEY.
JACK CAFFERTY, HOST: Good afternoon, and welcome to the program. I'm Jack Cafferty.

Coming up today on duty or off the radar. We will look at a dog fight ongoing over President Bush's air national guard status. See if the debate could slow down his bid for a second term.

Plus fighting the fat of land. The butter knives are drawn in a battle over Dr. Atkins and his diet. We will look at the thriving business that the Atkins diet build.

And gender spenders. On this Valentine weekend, John Gray will be here to tell us how men and women handle money differently. In my house, the men don't have any, that's how that works. We will hear from the author of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Joining me as always, two of the regular gang here. CNN correspondent Susan Lisovicz, and "Fortune" magazine editor-at-large Andy Serwer.

For those who think business news is boring. We turn your attention to ImClone, the drug Erbitux, Martha Stewart and Sam Waksal. I mean, the soap operas couldn't do better than this.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE", EDITOR-AT-LARGE: I don't know where to start the ironies. The FDA approved the drug Erbitux. The stock drops down because people think it's not going to get improved, then it shoots up the next day. Waksal is in jail, meanwhile, Martha Stewart is on trial. And we are not sure the drug is that effective.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Incredible. One of the things that you could count on Sam Waksal says consistently, even from prison, is that this drug is really valid. It's viable. And his words came true. He should have never sold the stock. It got the whole ball of wax going.

CAFFERTY: The viability of the drug, though, as I understand it is only for late-term colon cancer patients and it's not a cure. All it does is slow the growth of the tumors that may be there. And it has to be given with other forms of chemotherapy. Nevertheless it can provide in trials an extension of life for 20 percent of the late patients, and that's not insignificant.

LISOVICZ: That's the ultimate tragedy. While everybody is focused on Sam Waksal, Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic there are countless people there who were counting on that to get FDA approval in 2001. And now finally they have an opportunity to use the treatment.

SERWER: It's still a drug of last resort. The stock is still below where Martha's stop order was, which was around 60 bucks of course and the stock is in the 40s. So, you have to be careful. Hearing about people talking about buying the stock. I would just avoid this. There are better ways to spend your time and money than playing around with ImClone stock. Believe you, me it goes up and down and all over the place.

CAFFERTY: Good advice. Thanks, Andy, Susan.

As time and money begin to run out and the primaries roll on, the field of Democrats is narrowing but not by as much as you might think. For a look at the state of the presidential campaign we are joined by CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider in Washington.

Bill, nice to see you as always.

John Edwards said this, "We're going to have an election, this is not going to be a coronation." Well, he has not won anything except the state where he was born. If he could claim to be born in all 50 states he would be a viable option, but at this point he only won the state where he is born. Howard Dean, hasn't won a single delegate. Isn't it time for the Democratic leadership to start calling these guys and say, hey this is not helping?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: It's getting close to that. Dean said he will make a stand in Wisconsin. If he does not win the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday I think then he'll start getting those telephone calls urging him to get out or at least suspend his campaign. I think it will all be over by super Tuesday, which is March 2nd when most delegates will have been chosen. By then if Edwards and Dean really can't go anywhere, it's going to be clear. There will be pressure on them to get out.

CAFFERTY: Is John Kerry vulnerable at all?

Howard Dean had the great early speed, he's unstoppable, Internet raising all this money. John Kerry now is the consensus favorite to win it all.

Could he make a misstep here between now and the finish line?

SCHNEIDER: You know what often happens is voters get buyer's remorse. They say what have we done?

It happened with Jimmy Carter in 1976 and even in 1980, Ted Kennedy started winning the late primaries. It does often happen. I'm sure that's what Dean and Edwards are counting on. But the fact is we can't find evidence of anti-Kerry sentiment out there in the Democratic party. Democrats have a desperate desire to win, and to close ranks around the front-runner. Electability that's what they see in John Kerry and that's why they are closing ranks around him. So, I don't think buyer's remorse is likely to happen because Democrats feel so powerless and desperate to win, but they are determined to remain united.

CAFFERTY: No offense, but you and I are both old enough to appreciate the incredible irony of the debate over the last few days concerning the Vietnam War. President Bush's record in the national guard during the Vietnam War, John Kerry's photographs with Jane Fonda taken during the war. That's an incredible irony that in 2004, with the myriad of issues facing the electorate, we are debating what happened during the Vietnam War.

SCHNEIDER: It's the culture war. It has been gone on for almost 40 years, we have been arguing not just about Vietnam but about protests, and the sixties. Look, that was what was behind the famous red state/blue state map. That was a perfect map of liberal and conservative America. It's still very hot. Those issues still divide the electorate, but there's one big difference the Democrats have a war hero as their likely nominee. So, for the first time in a long time they can throw the Republicans on the defensive on the culture war issue.

And they can say to a conservative Republican what did you do during the war?

And the conservative Republicans, Bush and the White House have a little trouble answering that question.

CAFFERTY: Bill Schneider, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

CAFFERTY: George Bush the candidate facing new trouble from an old accusation we just alluded to. It's not about weapons of mass destruction or other issues raised by George W. Bush the president, but it goes back to George Bush the air national guard pilot.

And for more on that, we are joined by Jay Carney, who's the deputy bureau chief for "Time" magazine.

Jay, nice to have you with us.

JAY CARNEY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Thanks for having me.

CAFFERTY: Dental records, pay stubs, speeches, so far this issue surrounding whether or not President Bush showed up and did all of his time in Alabama with the national guard is not budging. What will it take to get this thing off the table?

CARNEY: You know, I don't think it will be ever be totally off the table. There are reports now that have some people in Alabama on the military base in Montgomery who say they saw the president there back when he was in the national guard and that he was fulfilling his duty. Now, there are a lot of others who say they never saw him including superiors. But it may be enough to put the issue of whether or not Bush even served his duty during that time in Alabama to rest. But the broader story is really about the two choices these two men made, John Kerry and George Bush during Vietnam. Both were sons of privilege, but George Bush who supported the war chose not to go, and in the past, back in 1994 and in an interview, he made it clear he chose to go into the national guard so he did not have to serve in Vietnam.

Where as John Kerry, while he was already wavering about whether the war was the right thing to do, enlisted, served, saw combat and won a chest full of metals. So, this issue could continue right up to election day.

LISOVICZ: Even if it does, isn't there a general understanding that what the president did or did not do in 1972 is almost irrelevant because he is a totally different person than he was several decades ago by his own admission?

He was, I guess to put it, a late bloomer. He is a different person.

Is that something that could help him in this very difficult reelection process?

CARNEY: I think it could. Certainly the American electorate has forgiven the sins of those who tried to avoid the war. Bill Clinton after all was elected and re-elected despite the fact that the public knew he actively tried to dodge the draft. The difference is we're at war. And we have a commander-in-chief who is sending Americans by the 10s of thousands to Iraq. And we have more than 500 deaths, thousands of wounded Americans. And it changes the dynamic. And it also changes with the fact that John Kerry was a Vietnam vet and a decorated vet who also then came back and later protested the war.

So, it's not the central issue or the deciding issue in the campaign by any means but it goes to character, and issues of truthfulness and uprightness. And the fact the president has basically refused to acknowledge that he went into the guard in order to avoid the Vietnam War, you know, gives the Democrats something to play with because they have a nominee who did serve.

SERWER: It's interesting, so far we elected two people who avoided going to Vietnam, Clinton and President Bush, and we did not elect Al Gore who did serve, now we'll try again I guess with Kerry.

How significant is it that they have been unable to find someone who categorically said, yes, George Bush was in Alabama, I served with him and he was there in the national guard?

CARNEY: Actually, they -- the "Washington Post" on Friday found someone who says that he saw bush doing his duty in the offices there. On the base in Montgomery. That contrasts with several others or many others including the superiors that Bush would have reported to back then who said they never saw George Bush on base. So, that it may be a draw in the end. I think the issue will then die down to some degree, the issue of whether or not he did his duty. But the broader issue of who served who did not serve, who went to Vietnam I think will continue to some degree as a back burner, but constantly simmering issue.

LISOVICZ: Quick answer to this, John Kerry should be careful how he handles it at this point.

CARNEY: He has to. The Democrats have to. Because there is a risk of backlash here. Although the national guard during Vietnam is quite -- was quite a different institution than it is now, the fact is there are thousands of national guardsmen and women who are over in Iraq serving now. Some 40-odd national guardsmen who have been killed in Iraq. So, there has to be a lot of caution on the Democratic side about how they characterize service in the national guard, otherwise it may backlash against them.

LISOVICZ: Jay Carney, Washington bureau chief for "Time" magazine. Thanks for joining us.

CARNEY: Thank you.

LISOVICZ: Just ahead, more hands on the assembly line. President Bush says he has a plan to create millions of new jobs. Find out if the numbers back him up.

Plus a better mousetrap with Comcast angling for Disney.

We will see how stock in the cable company is doing.

And how about some butter on your butter? Yuck! Dr. Robert Atkins built a mega business on the low carb craze. See how the dispute over his own health could affect the Atkins company.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: President Bush came out with his annual economic report this weekend including a prediction that over the coming year the economy will create 2.6 million jobs. Well, they could use a few in Alaska. The labor department says that state that the country's highest jobless figure, 7.7 percent unemployed. Michigan and Oregon are tied for second at 7.2 percent. North Dakota has the lowest jobless rate in the country 3.2 percent. South Dakota is second, 3.4. And getting out of the Great Plains, Virginia shows a 3.6 percent unemployment rate. This week's jobless claims from across the country came in higher, rising to 363,000.

CAFFERTY: The president only created the new jobs on paper. Turning them into real work is another story. For a look at whether everything is in place for the president's jobs plan, let's bring in Robert Reich who's the former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration and now a professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis University.

Mr. Reich, nice to have you with us.

ROBERT REICH, FORMER SECRETARY OF LABOR: Well, good morning. CAFFERTY: There's no secret if the American economy gets up and going it can crank out a lot of jobs in a short period of time. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan seemed to suggest in his testimony before Congress this past week that it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the president's jobs figure could be realized by the election.

Where do you stand on that?

REICH: It's not beyond the realm of possibility but it will be very difficult, because to get to 2.6 million new jobs this year means every month you have to have about what, 280,000 jobs. Last month the United States created about 112,000. That's about half what we need in order to get to that 2.6 million. So, it's going to be a very, very tough climb.

SERWER: Mr. Reich -- I did the math, by the way, it's about 227,000 jobs, but it's more or less the same thing as what you are talking about here.

Isn't this the president's job, though, to jawbone, to be a cheerleader, to be and give rosy forecasts like that? that's part of the job, isn't it?

REICH: I suppose. Last year the prediction was 1.5 million new jobs, actually we lost jobs last year. We lost jobs the year before. I think it's the president's responsibility to be clear with the American people about what reasonable expectations are. That's important just because people need to know how they are going to fare, but also important politically. One of the big errors that George Bush senior, if you want to call the first George Bush that, one of the big errors he made was to give the people the impression that the economy was really much better than it was actually, and that cost him dearly. I think, it's important for this president in terms of his future political life, reelection, to level with the American people about how difficult this job creation has been coming out of this recession.

LISOVICZ: Mr. Secretary, the statistics have been overwhelming in terms of economic recovery. The third quarter GDP, the best in 19 years. Fourth quarter corporate profits the best in 10 years.

Couldn't you buy the argument that the jobs market, the labor market is simply lagging what has been a slow but steadily evolving recovery?

REICH: We never had a lag this long. We are 26 almost 27 months after the official end of the recession and we are still having anemic jobs growth. Now it is true after every recession jobs take a while to come back but never this long. What is happening here is something new. And that is because of the marvels of telecommunications, technology, and cargo ships, all new technologies, it is possible for employers to basically hedge their bets about the recovery and hire foreign workers, outsource their jobs instead of hiring Americans. This causes a lot of consternation, a lot of fear on the part of Americans. But what it really means is that jobs will take much longer to come back.

CAFFERTY: How much does the dramatic increase in productivity in this economy have to do with that, Mr. Reich?

REICH: I mean, part of it is productivity. Every time you substitute technology for labor, if you have supermarket checkout automated checkout or you have these little kiosks at the airports instead of people there giving you tickets, on and on and on, that improves the productivity of the company and indirectly the productivity of the country but it does not improve the job situation because all those supermarket checkout people who are substituted by automated checkout counters lose their jobs.

CAFFERTY: What about the politics of making a public statement that we can create 2.6 million jobs by election time?

I mean, if he's wrong to any great degree it's like handing the Democratic candidate a club and saying here hit me in the head with this. Karl Rove and the guys who advise him in the White House are not politically naive, on the contrary.

What is the motivation to come out and say this that way?

REICH: The 2.6 million jobs is an interesting figure. If we actually did, if the president was successful in presiding over an economy that generated 2.6 million new jobs this year, that would bring the total jobs just about back to where it was at the start of 2000 when the president came on. And that would be at least good for the president in the sense he could say I did not lose jobs during my tenure. Otherwise this president becomes the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over an economy that lost actually jobs. So, that 2.6 million figure is important for the administration. I agree with the implication of your question, it's dangerous doing so.

Bill Clinton used to predict in 1992, 1993, at the beginning of the Clinton administration, predicted 2 million jobs a year. That was a much safer prediction at a time when it was also a very anemic jobs recovery.

SERWER: Well, we did create 3 million jobs in 1999, I guess we'll have to see, it's a big target.

REICH: Well, 1999 was huge huge, irrational, exuberance year.

SERWER: All right, we have got to wrap it up. Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. Robert Reich, thanks very much.

REICH: Thanks.

SERWER: Up next on IN THE MONEY, under siege. Disney's Michael Eisner is fighting a buyout move by Comcast. We'll check shares in the cable firm gunning for the mouse.

And later, hefty profits, see how the Atkins company bulked up by telling America what to eat. And Cupid checkbook, John Gray of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" fame, talks to us about love and money.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SERWER: Comcast surprised Wall Street by making an unsolicited bid for the Walt Disney Company. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says the roughly $50 billion deal would make Disney more profitable at a time when Michael Eisner is facing an attempt to oust him by Roy Disney, a major dissident shareholder and nephew of company founder Walt Disney. Comcast is gone from a small regional cable company down in Mississippi to the largest national cable firm. The big acquisition was the $29 billion purchase of AT&T's huge cable assets in 2002. Now Comcast is setting its sights on the next big thing so that's our stock of the week. This is high drama on Wall Street as good as it gets, and it ain't over. It will be interesting. Disney has not responded yet, have they?

LISOVICZ: Disney quickly hired a couple of big brokerage firms to advise it how to defend itself. And coincidentally this bid came as Walt Disney was meeting as scheduled with financial analysts down in Florida. So, Michael Eisner who has already been embattled from so many sides had to present his case. He says they are not selling.

CAFFERTY: Well, we'll see.

LISOVICZ: Right.

CAFFERTY: He may not have a choice in whether they sell or not at the end of the day.

LISOVICZ: Exactly.

CAFFERTY: One thing indicated in the rise of the Disney stock price is maybe the Comcast bid isn't high enough. They may have to put more money on the table or perhaps some other outfit may come in and start a bidding war. The question I have, this idea of marrying content with delivery systems, sometimes looks good on paper like, for example, with AOL and Time Warner, remember that deal?

LISOVICZ: Heard of it.

CAFFERTY: It took Time Warner stock from $90 to $10.

Is this a good idea?

SERWER: I never understood why you have to do these kind of things. There is this old expression if you want some milk you don't have to buy a cow right. You can just do a joint venture with these companies. Putting these things together, there's never really been proof positive that it's worked. I think what Comcast is doing here, they've got to get bigger. They have been an incredible growth story. It's a very complicated company with a lot of different pieces. It's smaller than Disney in terms of revenue, bigger in terms of market valuation. The thing is, the company may have been slowing down, it needs to find a new avenue. LISOVICZ: And Disney was vulnerable, no question about it. But one similarity is the egos and ambitions of the people at top -- Michael Eisner and Brian Roberts.

SERWER: I think the really question, Jack, is would Disney be in the situation if they had a secession plan, where Michael Eisner was would have been going out, because they wouldn't be in a position of weakness. They still could be a stand-alone company. Big question.

CAFFERTY: And conventional wisdom is Eisner does not last through this thing, which ever way it goes.

I think that's probably right. And I think eventually...

LISOVICZ: He lasted 20 years.

CAFFERTY: All right, on to other things. Coming up, just as the Atkins diet craze becomes the heavy weight in the diet industry, questions arise about the man who started it all. Could it slow a super business to a crawl? We'll take a look at what is at stake.

And you if are still looking for a sweetheart on this Valentine's weekend, call Andy. Make (UNINTELLIGIBLE) or try the web. The online dating business is growing fast, but does true love online turn into real money?

Web master Allen Wastler will have some answer for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

CAFFERTY: New controversy this week over lowcarb guru Dr. Robert Atkins. Atkins died last year, and At the time of his death he was reportedly obese and suffering from a heart condition. And that's raised concerns about the safety of his hugely popular Atkins Diet recommendations.

Here with more on the fallout from all of this is CNN medical correspondent Holly Firfer.

Hi, Holly.

HOLLY FIFFER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jack.

Well, yes. We heard about Dr. Atkins. He claimed that his weight loss program low carb could help you lose weight yet we find out that on his autopsy report he died actually from falling and hitting his head, it had nothing to do with his heart attack that he had, he was a little overweight. Now, he wasn't morbidly obese not even obese, he was little heavy.

Now, doctors, are saying that was from keeping him alive. He was in a coma. And we know when you are on life support you tend to gain weight, it can bloat you because they give you a lot of fluids to keep the organs going. But as far as his heart health goes, his doctor said, yes, he did have health problems but it came from a virus he contracted while in Turkey. It weakened the heart muscle and therefore he had heart problems, but it was a heart attack. And so now the Atkins people are saying the diet is perfectly safe, although they tweaked it a bit not quite as many high fat foods, meats, mayonnaise (ph), it's just not just butter beef and bread. They are saying more chicken, more fish. Sort of moderating, but they still claim it's still healthy.

CAFFERTY: There you go. CNN medical correspondent, Holly Firfer, thanks for being with us. I appreciate it.

FIRFER: Sure.

CAFFERTY: Atkins advocates are nothing if not influential. Just last week the Atkins physicians council turned to Congress to support a new food pyramid that will minimize the intake of carbohydrates in hope of fighting America's obesity epidemic.

Dean Rothbart chairman and executive editor of "LowCarbBiz" is here to tell us more about the business of Atkins and a big business it is. Welcome to the program, nice to have you with us.

DEAN ROTHBART, CHAIRMAN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "LOWCARBBIZ": Good to be here.

CAFFERTY: Give us a sense of the Atkins food industry in this country.

ROTHBART: Well, Atkins itself as a brand is approaching a billion a year. But the low carb economy as a whole passed $15 billion in 2003, and it is growing at nearly 100 percent.

SERWER: Dean, Andy Serwer here. You look good, you on Atkins yourself?

ROTHBART, Thanks, Andy. Yes, I have been on Atkins about three years, and have trimmed about 50 pounds.

SERWER: See, I knew that. I knew that.

ROTHBART: Yes.

SERWER: Listen, talk to us a bit about how Atkins has been changing the U.S. Economy.

Which businesses have been doing well, which ones have been getting hurt?

ROTHBART: The impact of Atkins is most felt by Fortune 500 companies. Companies like Pepsi's Frito-Lay unit or Kraft. Some of the huge manufacturers who suddenly have seen people stop eating their snack foods or eating a whole lot less of what they manufacturer. Pasta makers are hurting, orange juice makers are hurting. And the fortune 500 has been very slow in actually come into the market. We are beginning to see some brand line extensions like through Unilever or Frito-Lay test marketing a couple of brands. This has been fantasy land for small companies that have become big, and you if will excuse the expression, fat overnight.

LISOVICZ: Dean, just to go over sort of the basics of the Atkins regimen. No bread, no pasta, no fruit, no quality of life. I mean, there's no point in getting up every day and having a good dinner.

SERWER: It's not that bad.

ROTHBART: I've got to tell you, on the way in to the studio today, there's a chain I'm out of Denver called Einstein Bagels, believe it's national. I stopped in and I had a bagel with cream cheese, a low carb bagel they just introduced.

LISOVICZ: That's a New York kind of breakfast.

ROTHBART: That's a New York kind of breakfast.

I mean, the -- there's an image of the Atkins diet of being bacon cheeseburgers without bread. But in fact, the industry is so quickly creating just about anything you can eat with full carbs, these days there's a low carb variety of from ice cream to pasta to pizza to my bagel this morning.

LISOVICZ: Isn't it a fad?

Won't Americans get sick of this?

ROTHBART: Let me tell you, Atkins I believe as a brand is going to -- is going to be something where people will eventually turn bored with Atkins as a brand. But the low carb diet as a whole is not going to be a fad largely because you have two major trends that are not going to go away soon, and that is we have a fat population. I mean, a medically obese population, and because we have an increasingly diabetic population. We know low-fat has not worked. This country has been on a low-fat diet for 30 years and we have all gotten fatter. So low carb has that promise. I think people may tire eventually of everything Atkins, but there's a lot of other people coming down the road with good product that are low carb.

CAFFERTY: Isn't that the key word, promise?

Aren't people in this country literally desperate for anything that promises an easy way to lose weight?

I mean, if you want to write a best-seller write a diet book. For the last 30 years plus, the best sellers that come out that have to do with diet, they zoom to the top of the best seller list like that.

To what degree, and I don't single out Atkins for that, but to what degree do all of these ideas about losing weight pray to a degree on the desperation or maybe even the gullible of people who will try anything to shed a few pounds?

ROTHBART: Well, I think -- first of all I agree with you almost 100 percent. And the only area I would tell you different is that what I think manufacturers do wrong in low carb, low fat, whatever the diet happens to be is they promised a magic bullet. You go on low carb, eat as much as you want and you'll lose weight, and that is wrong. The reality of it is that I -- from everything that I can study low carb diets work if you want to do a low fat diet it works, but the truth is you need some self-discipline. You need to exercise and people don't want to hear that. And, so, it's a bit of a conspiracy between the manufacturers who don't want to tell them that and the dieters who don't want to listen to it.

SERWER: Some of that is common sense. Stop eating so much French fries if you are 40 or 50-years-old. You shouldn't do that.

We have got to leave it at that. Dean Rothbart, our former journalist and chairman and executive editor of "LowCarbBiz", thanks much.

ROTHBART: Good to be here.

SERWER: There's much more to come on IN THE MONEY. Still ahead -- sweetheart deals. Find out why men and women can look at the same dollar bill and see something completely different. We'll speak with author John Gray.

And take your mouth for a joyride, we will point you towards our fun site of the week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SERWER: Consumers are expected to shell out about $13 billion for Valentine's Day this year. A big jump over 2003. But don't let Cupid fool you, love and money don't often get along that well. After splurging on fancy dinners and flowers, couple also come back to what they fight over most -- money.

Joining us today to talk about why men and women understand money so differently is author and family therapist John Gray. A new edition of his best seller "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" has just come out in paperback, obviously a huge franchise.

Welcome. Nice to see you here on the show.

JOHN GRAY, AUTHOR: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure.

SERWER: Some of this is intuitive I guess. Talk a bit about why men and women look at money so differently.

GRAY: First of all, at our own marsvenus.com poll we find the number one thing people fight about is money. That's been my experience. As a therapist, and you are going deeper into it, although money is the charged subject, it's always about personal value. People -- money means something different to both people. To men, money means a sense of esteem, what he can accomplish, what he can achieve, and where he has his power, sort of control in life. And for women money has a different connotation, it means security. Women tend to be much more security oriented. We need to protect for the future what might happen. We need money. So often the biggest conflict is in spending habits. How he spends, how she spends what he is spending money on, what she is spending money on. The arguments emerge from that. Where as the man might want a big screen TV, and she says why spend money on that and she says I haven't spent money on myself. Or he buys shoes, and she says want shoes. Why do get shoes? I need shoes, you don't need shoes. When are going to where shoes?

LISOVICZ: First thing, you know as a women is you always spend money on shoes. Never deprive yourself of the shoe.

SERWER: Sarah Jessica Parker, right.

GRAY: She can buy as many shoes as she wants.

(CROSSTALK)

GRAY: You know what will happen for a guy, he will go to the store and buy a Sony head phone or something or a little radio or something, she'll say why did you buy that, you don't need that? He says I wanted that. She say, but you already got one, is it broken?

So there's this whole sort of interrogation, and that can cause a lot of annoyance and irritation.

LISOVICZ: How do you work it out?

Women basically have been handling the finances forever. But the dynamics have changed as women have increasingly gone into the work force, and now increasingly drawing the pay equity with husbands.

So, has that changed the dynamic at all?

GRAY: Well, putting conversations about money -- spending money to the side, just the fact that women are the major providers in the family, that has a stress on a mans self esteem, because historically men have always found their self-esteem in what can I provide for her? What can I provider for her?

And if suddenly she is providing more what does she (sic) provide for her?

Not only is this a stress on him but also a stress on her. Many women are saying what does he provide for me?

It's like I'm his mother now. I take care of him, cook for him, I do this for him, and pay his way, what does he give to me?

It's very important for relationship to work that there's a clear feeling of I can depend on my partner and I'm getting something from them.

CAFFERTY: John, let me ask you a question based on a personal tragedy in my own house this week. My cat was sick, it's a cat. Went to the vet, they did a couple things, they gave it an IV, took an X- ray. When the cat comes home, stayed overnight one night, he is still walking around kind of like he ain't feeling real good and I said how much was the bill?

Well, the bill was $530. But the price of asking that question was much higher. Let me tell you.

What do you mean how much did it cost, this is a life, it's a cat. And I got in a lot of trouble.

How do you resolve conflicts over money if you have them?

It's not an ongoing problem because I usually just give it to her and keep my mouth shut.

But how do you resolve it?

I mean, if you have conflicts like that what do you do about it?

GRAY: There's two things. One is, once you've had the problem how do you resolve it at that point, which I will address real quickly. But the other one is how to avoid those problems. And one of the ways you avoid those problems or try at least try to avoid those problems is have a discussion when you are not heated up and talk about your spending priorities. Where your values are, the way your parents spent money, how you think it should be spent and how you would like communication between you and your partner to be. That's really important.

I've had lots of conversations with my wife where I told her I don't like if she challenges me on what I'm spending money on if it's a small expense. And we sort of put, based upon our income, we put a bracket. If I spend a few hundred dollars on something I don't want her to interrogate me. Do you need that? Why do you need that? You already have one. It's just annoying, I work hard, I should be able to spend the money I want to spend. But I can't go out and buy a ranch, OK, that's a different story. I need to bring her more into the play.

CAFFERTY: Next time what I will do is discuss the issues when the cat is feeling well and see if I can help myself. John, I have to leave there. Where pressed for time -- what?

GRAY: How do you resolve it?

You don't say anything, you made the mistake, let her talk and then you say I'm sorry, I was insensitive.

CAFFERTY: That's right, when she's happy, everybody is happy. When she's not happy, nobody else have a chance. John Gray, nice to have you with us. "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus."

Just ahead on -- it's a true story. I got in so much trouble.

SERWER: I bet you did.

CAFFERTY: Coming up on IN THE MONEY, love stinks. If all this relationship stuff isn't for you, then the fun site of the week is just the thing. We'll show you some items you can buy for your less than loved one.

And speaking of lost love, if you are lonely, feel free to e-mail us at IN THE MONEY. Trouble us with your problems like we care -- no, we really do. We want to hear from you. We have this guy Jake on the staff who has an ongoing relationships with many viewers in the audience. He writes back forth with them. So you can write to us at inthemoney@cnn.com.

And we'll be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: Well, if you find yourself alone this Valentine's weekend, fear not. Our Web master Allen Wastler has everything you need to know about finding love online.

SERWER: You can find it there.

ALLEN WASTLER, MONEY.COM: You can find a lot there.

(CROSSTALK)

WASTLER: You know what else you are finding there with love, a lot of green. It's getting to be a big business. In the first half of 2003, $214 million was made off of people going to the online personals, all right.

SERWER: Wow.

WASTLER: If you want to put it in real people numbers, that's about 20 million people, 14 percent of the Internet population. I know what you are thinking, Jack. You're think, OK, we've got losers. A bunch of guys -- a bunch of guys just clicking on. I want to find love.

(CROSSTALK)

WASTLER: Actually only 50 percent of that is males, 40 percent are women. They are doing it through regular subscription services, you basicly pay around 20 bucks...

LISOVICZ: Whatever happened to the blind date?

WASTLER: It can be pretty blind on this, too.

SERWER: This is the original blind date...

WASTLER: At least you get a data file. You get a little data file to tell you a little bit.

SERWER: Look at that. Did they met online. They meet online. Those two -- they met at a bar.

WASTLER: OK.

Now, so more and more of the Internet business makers are look at this as a serious way of getting in. If you look at Yahoo!'s latest results, about one fifth of the revenues came from this personal service. So, they are thinking we can build it. CAFFERTY: It must work or it wouldn't be the growth industry you are talking about it being. So people must find...

(CROSSTALK)

WASTLER: It actually skews to the Internet population really well, because you got -- it is a basically a younger set looking for this and they are very time compressed. They are just going through the data files saying, OK, I want someone who's a nonsmoker, who's very polite, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), boom, boom, boom.

You narrow it down.

SERWER: A lot of people who met online are married. I mean, it's definitely happening now.

LISOVICZ: Now Allen, fun site of the week?

WASTLER: Yes, we talked enough about love and everything, OK. So the fine folks at Despair Incorporated, they've came up with bittersweets. You know the little heart things, they usually say hug me or love you?

These have messages like "i miss my ex," "table for one," "dignity free."

LISOVICZ: How about prenuptial.

WASTLER: Here you go, prenupt agreement.

SERWER: You must have read that, Susan.

WASTLER: "p.s I luv me," is my favorite.

SERWER: You know what, they're garlic favored too, I bet.

CAFFERTY: Thanks, Allen.

Coming up, we will read your thoughts on when you can retire, and we'll bring you our new e-mail question of this week. Don't be shy, you can e-mail us now if you would like, we're at inthemoney@cnn.com.

First, Susan got the latest edition of "Money and Family."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISOVICZ: Sending your kids to college these days is not cheap. So, if you are a parent applying for financial aid, here are a few tips to get the money you need. To be eligible for government grants or subsidized loans your child has to fill out the free application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. You can get a copy online at fapsa.ed.gov. This is how the system works. You send the forms to the government and they send them to your prospective colleges. Even though the governments deadline isn't until June 30. Don't wait to send in the applications. Most colleges of your prospective colleges will have their own deadline that can be as early as February. So, find out the deadlines of each school your interested in. It's best to apply for financial aid as early as possible. Don't wait until April because you are worried about including recent tax information. It's completely legitimate to estimate tax figures based on last year's return and update them later.

Also be sure to fill out the entire FAFSA form correctly. If there are omissions or mistakes, the central processor will reject your forms, sending it back to you without mailing it on to the colleges. The safest route is to fill out the forms online because it will alert you of missing information or mistakes right away.

I'm Susan Lisovicz for "Money and Family."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: It's time for your answers to our e-mail question about what it will take for you to retire at age 65.

Richard from California wrote this -- "The economic downturn has cut into my savings so much that nothing short of a miracle will make retirement at 65 possible. But working past 65 was always my plan. I find the idea of putting on slippers and reading the paper somewhat abhorrent.

Gregory from California similar response -- "What will I need to retire at 65? More than I've got or will have. Right, now I'm looking at retiring at 85."

Perhaps our older viewers could learn a lesson from young Mike in Los Angeles who wrote this, "I'm 19-years-old but my parents and I have already begun planning for my retirement by setting up a Roth IRA in my name. I'm also on the proper career path and making other investments to hopefully retire before I'm 65."

LISOVICZ: Scary.

CAFFERTY: Mike, you and I are just the same. When I was 19 I was doing that, too.

LISOVICZ: Right.

CAFFERTY: Now our e-mail question for this Valentine weekend, you have ever had an office romance and if so what are the consequences?

And if you have pictures you can send some of those too.

send your answers to inthemoney@cnn.com. You can also learn more about the show and get the much desired fun site of the week by logging on to our show page. It's money.com/inthemoney.

On that note, thank you for joining us for this week's edition of IN THE MONEY. Thanks to the gang around here, financial correspondent, Susan Lisovicz, "Fortune" magazine editor-at-large, Andy Serwer, and my old pal, money.com managing editor, Allen Wastler. Join us tomorrow at 3:00 when we'll look at President Bush's standing among conservatives.

Is Mr. Bush alienating his core supporters with heavy government spending and nation building? That's tomorrow at 3:00. Hope to see you then.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






How Men, Women view Money Differently>