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Supreme Court's Ruling on Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Where Your Car is Made Affects the Price Tag; What the Pet Food Crisis Says About the Food You Buy
Aired April 07, 2007 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Paul's argument won the day. Jesus' message was for the whole world. A huge triumph for the new faith. The biggest struggle was yet to come.
Delia Gallagher, CNN, New York.
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FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For more on the challenges, the struggles and the revolution that became Christianity be sure to watch "CNN PRESENTS: After Jesus" the earliest Christians that is tonight and tomorrow at 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
A look at today's headlines straight ahead. Then it is Ali Velshi with IN THE MONEY. Here is a preview.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Coming up on IN THE MONEY the Supreme Court's ruling on greenhouse gas emissions and what it means to your wallet.
Plus, where your car came from and how that affects the price tag.
And what the pet food crises says about the food you buy. All that and more after a quick check of the headlines.
WHITFIELD: Hello again, I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Now in the news, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you, you are seeing snow flurries. Falling over metro Atlanta. All part of the wacky weather in parts of the country, in Cleveland, last night, the snow is so heavy officials had to call the baseball game between the Indians and the Seattle Mariners off. The main reason players couldn't see the ball.
Well dozens of people are searching for a new home this Easter weekend. After a huge apartment fire in Nashville, Tennessee. The blaze engulfed an entire block of apartment buildings, destroying 64 units and damaging nearly a dozen. One person suffered smoke inhalation. The cause of the fire is under investigation but authors say it may have been cooking related.
The pet food recall is expanding again. It includes dog biscuits sold under the Sunshine Brands and private labels marketed by Wal-Mart under the OlRoy brand. Test show the wheat gluten in the biscuits was contaminated with melamine, a chemical used to make plastics and other industrial products.
The captain of the sunken Greek cruise ship is being charged with negligence. He and five other officers are accused of causing the Sea Diamond to run aground and sink in the sea. The search continues for two passengers still missing since the ship went down on Thursday.
Monica Goodling the counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned. She gave no reason. But she recently refused to testify before Congress, which is investigating the administration's decision last year to fire eight U.S. prosecutors.
We will update the top stories at the bottom of the hour. Now time for IN THE MONEY.
VELSHI: Welcome to IN THE MONEY. I'm Ali Velshi, why a cleaner environment is going to cost you more money sooner or later.
Plus the pet food cries and what it can tell you about the food your eat. And with SMART, advise from the author to the "Corporate Dominatrix."
Well joining me today are Jennifer Westhoven and Jen Rogers. Before we get started this week ended with a strong jobs report for March, much stronger in fact than expected. It sounds like good news, but it isn't always. We weren't expecting the great numbers we saw at the end of the week. We don't have markets open at the end of this week so we are not entirely sure how markets are going to react to this when they open again on Monday.
What do you think?
JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, "HEADLINE NEWS" CORRESPONDENT: Well no celebration yet. But you might think that there would be one in the cards after this because, you know, corporate confidence has -- sorry, consumer confidence has gone to a six-month low. You really see all the ways we had bad housing numbers and then this week we got good housing numbers. We had higher gas prices. Those are still with us. But this is something you started to see the real worry that consumer confidence was going to go off a cliff, maybe people are going to stop spending, that's so important to the economy. Now there's something out there that says hey, things look better when people have good jobs, they don't get as worried. That may be comforting.
VELSHI: Perhaps the biggest thing between housing which on the docket every week and employment. Those are the two biggest things that make people make decisions about how they spend their money.
JEN ROGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But while this might be a little positive. I mean of course it is going to bring up inflation. That's going to be what everybody will be talking about next week. We are going to have to see how that plays into what happens in the market.
VELSHI: We have fewer people looking for work, more people earning. Which means more people can spend. We are going to talk more about this with Susan Lisovicz who spends her days on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to tell us how she expects it will play out.
Well good things never come cheap or easy. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the environment this week. But that ruling could be bad news for your bank account. Here is how we got where we are. Back in 2003 Massachusetts and 11 other states sued the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA was refusing to put limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Even though agency does regulate other kinds of smog. Well this week the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 is a pollutant. The EPA legally can and probably should regulate it. The impact of the decision could boost the cost of cars and some kinds of electric power. For more about this, we are joined by Raymond Kopp, he is with Resources for the Future a think tech in Washington, D.C., and he is a senior fellow and director of The Climate and Technology Policy Program. Thanks for joining us.
RAYMOND KOPP, RESOURCES FOR THE FUTURE: Thank you Ali.
VELSHI: This almost seems strange to be reporting on the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and it is hard to get our head around what this means, how will this trickle down to my life somehow.
KOPP: Well since it has been ruled as a pollutant and EPA has the authority to control pollutants under the Clean Air Act, one could imagine without any further legislation, EPA controlling greenhouse gases. We can talk about how that might be done. You can also imagine that the fact that the Supreme Court has given EPA the authority or reaffirmed EPAs authority to control the greenhouse gases might move legislation and Congress which is currently being debated at the federal level both in the Senate and the House to develop additional legislation to control greenhouse gases. And as you mentioned the control of those greenhouse gases will likely lead to energy increases and other price increases in the economy.
WESTHOVEN: Tell me what it means for cars. I have seen a lot of analysis where you know analysts say Detroit is in trouble. They are going to have to do better in terms of fuel efficiency here. Obviously, if a car can go further on the same amount of gas that's less carbon dioxide, you know spit out into the environment. But how does this decision translate to the car companies? How do I actually get to see Detroit making these changes?
KOPP: Well that's a very good question Jen and it is hard to know right now. The Supreme Court, again, just reaffirmed EPAs ruling to control carbon dioxide emissions but it did not specify how those emissions might be controlled. And as you point out one way to control the emissions is to increase the fuel economy of vehicles. We already have regulations in place to do that. The economy standards have not been increased by a great extent recently so you might think of EPA controlling greenhouse gases from cars by increasing that fuel economy. But you can also think about alternative fuels to petroleum, bio-fuels, ethanol, which have perhaps lower carbon contents being alternatives.
So it is hard to know how the regulations are going to play out. One can imagine that regardless of the prices of petroleum products will probably rise and the price of cars may go up. By how much does prices rise is a function of how the legislation is crafted.
ROGERS: So as a consumer and as a driver, are you saying that is going to cost me more money going forward?
KOPP: I think it is -- it is a safe bet to assume that there is going to be controls on greenhouse gases in the United States as there are in Europe right now. Generally, that's going to translate into higher energy prices both electricity, natural gas, and petroleum products. You need to be prepared to pay more for gasoline at the pump and perhaps you need to be prepared to pay more for automobiles if fuel economy standards are going to be increased on the auto sector.
VELSHI: That's the one we think about all the time because Americans are really the biggest drivers in the world, but really most of the carbon emissions we are talking about in the United States and much of the world isn't from cars. I guess that's the second biggest, transport is the second biggest polluter. It is really the power we generate.
KOPP: Well Ali you are right, I mean transport is a big piece of the puzzle and it is about equal to the power sector. But I think generally most economists believe that the lowest cost reductions the place you can go get greenhouse gas reductions, most cheaply is in the power sector. There's lots of legislation being considered on the hill right now to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.
That said to be efficient in your control of these emissions you should look at all sources within the economy. Not just the transport sector and not just the power sector but carbon dioxide is emitted from large number of sources. The more sources you cover under regulatory program, the more ability you have to seek out those cheap carbon reductions first. Which are perfectly correct. Electricity is the place where we emit an awful lot of carbon dioxide and that's where legislation will be targeted.
WESTHOVEN: When we look at those power plants too though, we heard about this cap and trade system we really have evidence, though, that that works. Right, in terms of the acid rain?
VELSHI: This is the trading off of your right to pollute as it were.
KOPP: That's right. I mean a lot of people don't like to think about it as a right to pollute, it is a mechanism that puts a cap on the total aggregate level of particular emissions as you already mention, and we have that in place for sulfur dioxide. And that has worked quite well in the United States. The European Union has established a similar cap and trade program for carbon dioxide. That's the cornerstone of their regulatory structure to meet their commitments under the cudo (ph) protocol and while they had some start-up problems with that the first couple of years I think they are on track now to do quite well in that program is going to be very effective going forward. So I think we have good reason to believe that we know how cap and trade systems work. They tend to be very inefficient. But as I mentioned before there is no free lunch. The American people will end up paying something for the control of carbon dioxide.
VELSHI: Nothing that's good is cheap or easy. Raymond thanks for joining us.
KOPP: Thank you very much.
VELSHI: This cap and trade system is fascinating. Because not only is it going to become something we hear more of, and whether you call it the right to pollute or the ability to buy credit, it will be something that investors can eventually get their hands on. They will be able to trade it.
ROGERS: Money to be made.
WESTHOVEN: We will also never know what we didn't pay if we prevent some damage from global warming.
VELSHI: No you are absolutely right. This continues to be a good issue. We are going to take a break. When we come back the kinds of cars Americans are buying these days are actually changing. We will look at what models are in demand now and why. Stay with us.
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VELSHI: Carmakers are tripping over themselves to get more hybrid models on the market. Because they are just the coolest things and they are so good for the environment. But do you know lot of people that drive hybrids? Probably not. Do you own one? Probably not.
Joining us now Charlie Vogelheim he is the president, the vice president of Automotive Development at J.D. Power and Associates and to tell us about these trends that we think are the hottest thing but really aren't.
CHARLIE VOGELHEIM, J.D. POWER AND ASSOCIATES: Well you know Ali it really is a very popular trend. But what people find out when they go into a dealership and really look into buying one, that economically maybe it does not make the most sense to them. Maybe it costs a little bit more to get into it. They don't drive it enough in the right conditions to really make it worthwhile over time. I'm still hopeful and again, the industry is looking at the hybrids as a solution. As more and more are sold maybe the costless come down and there will more out there.
ROGERS: For me it is not so much the economics. I have gone at looking and buying a hybrid. But sort of who they serve. A Prius does not work for me. Plug your ears. What are they coming out with the hybrid minivan? That's what I need. I don't need -- you know, I need more space.
VOGELHEIM: That's a great question. Actually the Prius does well for certain people, because again space utilization is a big deal in cars now, nowadays in terms of how much room have you and everything. Obviously, some people need more room in their future. Minivan is the power train and will be in the future. We are seeing it in the SUVs. A lot of time in the SUVs it is used for performance enhancement and not necessarily better mileage.
WESTHOVEN: When we say a lot of Americans don't have hybrids and there is a lot more hype about them than there is buying of them, you are not saying the gas mileage isn't important. We see trends for years now where people really are gravitating; the Asian car companies are getting more and more market share all the time. We are not seeing any response from the American car companies.
VOGELHEIM: Gas mileage is very important. It will be more important as we see the gas prices continuing to escalate. What people need to remember also when we see slightly bigger cars and going to SUVs or even minivans is, you know, when some of us were growing up, they didn't have the baby seat laws and things like that to put three, four children in the back of a car. You need some room just to fit the chairs, the safety equipment that these children are sitting in.
ROGERS: We would roll around in the back, a little jump seat, and no seat belt.
WESTHOVEN: My mom said get down on the floor.
VELSHI: I have to totally change gears in this conversation because that minivan thing just threw me right off. Let's talk about other trends. The fact of the matter is we are probably selling, we are seeing fewer people buying cars in the United States than ever before. The trend is going down. We are still selling 16 million cars a year. Most of that share is still going to the non-U.S. badged carmakers, the Hondas and the Toyotas, and the Americans continue to lose share. What's the problem? To extend Jennifer's question, what's the problem?
VOGELHEIM: Well you know to a certain point you can go, the problem is the success. It was there before. When they had all of the market share they really only could only go down from that point. We become to enter a global market here and everybody starts to build cars and whether it is power train or it is just the look and feel of the car, it meets certain demands and it is just greater competition. To your point, you know, $16 million, that's great. It has been steady the last couple of years.
So people are shifting the pieces of the pie, the pie is not necessarily getting any bigger. You start to mix and match. We talk about -- we use to say the big three and now it is the Detroit three. There's two that are U.S. one is right now German, it is up for sale, it may come back. They own other companies and other --
VELSHI: And they make cars everywhere and they design them everywhere.
VOGELHEIM: General Motors has Saub, Ford has Mazda, they are a global, I mean companies now and we start seeing certainly the U.S. market, China will soon be number two in the world. And Buick, number one brand for General Motors over in China, so it is not doing that well here but it is doing well in other places.
VELSHI: You know one of the business lines you guys are in is quality.
VOGELHEIM: Yes.
VELSHI: Is our perception issue that cars made elsewhere are better quality than the American cars? Does that really play out? Because people seem to think it is. The perception remains there whether it is true or not. Is it true?
VOGELHEIM: It is still true. There is still several of the import brands do the best and the quality. There are very strong domestic brands in the quality ratings. But overall, quality is better. You know meeting with all the different journalists and automotive experts the last couple of days here in New York during the auto show; quality really isn't as much of a factor. There aren't any bad cars built. Every now and then we get a bad one but the brand itself, everyone seems to be doing so much better.
ROGERS: Coming out of the auto show is there my must-have that people are gravitating towards, a feature that has a lot of bells and whistles that you see coming on that consumers are really going to gravitate towards?
VOGELHEIM: Well it is a great question. Because there wasn't really a star car of the show per se. Something really wild in design or power train, you know, it was the Prius that was introduced here a couple of years ago that really came out as the star. What we were talking about is a lot of it with the cars, now a days it is the environment and what you are finding yourself into so it has to do with the electronics, the sound, the features that are in the car.
And if I asked you what your favorite option or feature in a car is, a lot of people I was talking to said heated seats, that's all I care about. But it might be the audio visual, you know if you have children, maybe it is the DVD player. Maybe it is a sound system. Blue tooth for your cell phone. All of a sudden you are creating an environment in a car. Whether that's entry level, whether it starts with the Hyundai and goes all the way up to the Mercedes, or other cars out there with the varying price range it is all about creating this environment that you find yourself comfortable. Starting with the heated seats and getting more comfortable.
VELSHI: Charlie, thank you so much. Good to talk to you.
VOGELHEIM: Yes, my pleasure.
VELSHI: I can believe you asked about minivans.
ROGERS: I told to you plug your ears.
VELSHI: At this year's New York Auto Show, which will be of no use to Jen Rogers, GM has introduced Americans to three concept cars that were designed in Korea. Well in this week's "What Works" CNMONEY.com's Peter Valdez says we should get ready for more international flavor from Detroit's automakers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETER VALDEZ, CNNMONEY.COM: I'm here at the New York Auto Show. Behind me are three small car concept vehicles. These cars were designed in Korea by one of GM's 11 global design centers and I think one of the reasons that GM brought these cars is here is to start getting the Americans used to the idea that GM isn't just an American car company. They are a global car company. If they are going to be competitive here in America, they need to start bringing in the expertise of some of those overseas divisions here to the U.S. For example small cars, they are a big deal in Korea and GM relies on them to develop small car platforms. Not just here but all over the world.
This whole global rationalization thing does not just apply to engineering it also applies to design. But Ford and GM now have executives in charge of their entire global design operations. When GM has a big design job, they now have a competition among design groups from all over the world. When they need a new look for Saturn, the folks that won the job were opal designers from Europe. And when they needed a new look for the next generation Buick Lacrosse, Chinese designers actually submitted some very nice ideas. So the next Buick Lacrosse that comes out may have an interior with a lot of influence from Chinese designers.
What I'm not talking about here is the world car. That's the idea that you are going to have one car, you are going to build it and sell it everywhere in the world. We pretty much know that does not work too well. What we are talking about is tapping into expertise of different divisions of the company from different parts of the world. For example, rear wheel driving from Australia, maybe small SUVs from Brazil and small cars from Korea taking that engineering expertise and combining it with the best possible design no matter where in the world it happens to come from. And putting all that together to create the best specific products you can for the different markets that where they fit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Well coming up after the break we will take another look at that strong jobs report we were talking about and why some people think lower unemployment is a bad thing.
Later, work harder or else. We will hear from the author of "The Corporate Dominatrix."
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VELSHI: If an unemployment report comes out on Friday but traders have the day off for Good Friday, what does it mean? Susan Lisovicz joins us now to tell us in this week's "Street Talk."
WESTHOVEN: Why does that sound like blond walking into a bar with a Chihuahua?
VELSHI: What a privilege to have Susan here. Usually you are on the floor at the Exchange. Markets can't react.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is very unusual. It is because the way Easter fell. First time it happened in eight years. But the bond market interestingly enough, which gets more holidays than the stock market, opened just for a few hours to react to this report because it was so important. Everybody is concerned about how much the housing market is going to affect the broader economy. Guess what. There is a big sigh of relief. Many more jobs created in the month of March and a third of them coming from construction that's the housing market.
Also, the two previous months, January and February revised upward much unemployment rate, surprisingly dropping down 4.4 percent. Basically you want a job that you can get one in the USA.
ROGERS: We talked about inflation earlier. I mean, you get nervous about going into next week with that. The concerns about what the Fed is going to do. I mean is this --
LISOVICZ: Actually that's a great point. Is the glass half full or half empty? On the one point you are relieved, on the other hand, the bond market, which was open, sold off. Why? Because think that inflation is a problem when the labor market is that tight.
VELSHI: Because people earn more and they all have money to spend.
LISOVICZ: Exactly and that the Fed is less likely now to cut rates because of its concerns about the slowing economy. Ready to raise them.
VELSHI: On average, hourly wages were up .3 percent, that is exactly what was expected. One dude's wages went up a whole lot more. Allen Mulally the boss at Ford, that was better than a .3 percent increase.
ROGERS: I can't even do the math.
VELSHI: Twenty eight million for the four months that he has been on the gig.
LISOVICZ: Yes in four months, $28 million is not bad for twelve months. This is -- if you are going to talk big numbers let's talk about more big numbers associated with the same company that company lost nearly $13 billion for 2006. Having said that, it will take a big man, a big person, and a strong executive to turn that company around. Ford was able to lure him from Boeing where he was credited with turning around the commercial aircraft division, which took --
VELSHI: Which by the way is really panning out for Boeing. They are actually doing very well. So this is -- Mullally did good work there.
LISOVICZ: And he got paid very well at Boeing as well.
WESTHOVEN: I mean the timing of this though is just awful. Because it is so in the face of, you know, the president just came out and said pay for performance is a good idea. And this is a clear example of no performance yet, and yet, a huge pay package sort of saying well, you know, we needed to pay him this amount of money to turn this leaky ship around. But it hasn't turned around.
LISOVICZ: Ford's numbers were actually better than expected for the month of March but they were still down 9 percent.
We will leave it at that. Better than expected.
VELSHI: Pay for performance. All right. We will -- this subject will never get old. Susan good to see you here.
LISOVICZ: Pleasure being with you guys.
VELSHI: Coming up next on IN THE MONEY, if tainted pet food can make it to the supermarket see if the food you eat is any safer. IN THE MONEY continues in a moment.
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VELSHI: Well if you assume the food you eat is safer than the recently recalled pet food. You should hear what our next guest has to say; she claims the cats and dogs that died were the canaries in the coalmine as it were. Joining us now is Jean Halloran she is the director of food policies initiatives at the Consumers Union which publishers "Consumer Reports" magazine. Jean thanks for joining us. What are you talking about? I'm hoping that our food supply that there is something that keeps it a little safer than being accidentally contaminated.
JEAN HALLORAN, CONSUMERS UNION: Well, our -- in our view, the food safety system is really kind of in disarray at this point. We have very few checks on the safety of our food compared to what we need. We just had a series of incidents with spinach, with peanut butter, with tomatoes, with imported melons. We think we need more protection at this point to deal with this kind of global food supply that we have now.
WESTHOVEN: Are you really saying I mean in this instance, it seems, you know, there's something wrong in the pet food. It is likely wheat gluten but nobody is exactly sure yet. It appears to have come from China. China is saying no, it did not come from here. There is one count that says 3,000 pets are dead. Are you really saying this is something that could easily happen to human food just as easily?
HALLORAN: Well, it is hard to say. But it is certainly a possibility that something like this could happen with human food. In fact, we don't even really know if wheat gluten has been shipped from this company in China for use in the human food supply. The trouble is that the FDA only inspects about 1 percent of the food that comes into this country. And they don't even need to -- they don't even know to look for strange toxic substances like rat poison or melamine.
ROGERS: I find that 1 percent figure really frightening. I mean what are you supposed to do as a consumer? Is there something you should be looking on boxes to make sure it is not imported from a certain country? I can't grow all my own food. I don't know what I would make. I mean, what are my options here? HALLORAN: Well, that's another difficulty. The Congress five years ago passed country of origin labeling so we would know when food comes from foreign countries. When there is a problem like this people can take appropriate action. However, that's been delayed and delayed. It still has not gone into effect. That's something that could help here.
VELSHI: Although in fairness, Jean, and it think it is probably useful to list all the things that could help, it is probably not a practical solution. My tracing the food I consumed to its point of origin is going to be particularly, with the amount of food I consume, it is going to be largely impractical matter for me and most Americans who either purchase their food ready or get it from grocery stores. What's really fundamentally the answer? What could you have done? What could any pet owner for that matter have done? This was not something we could control.
HALLORAN: Right. There are some things the individual consumer can do. You can buy food locally. You can buy organic. You can buy from a local farmers' market if you really want to protect yourself. Especially when you hear about an outbreak like this and you want to protect yourself or your pets. Long term, this is really the job of the Food and Drug Administration. We should have a government that's out there protecting us in this era of a global food supply.
WESTHOVEN: You know, maybe having those stickers sets up some kind of accountability. It does not necessarily mean that I see a country and can't do something. But when something goes wrong, the government is then actually able to find out what really happened. And that brings me to I wanted to ask, you know, when I watch this FDA, there are a lot of times when they are relaxing labeling requirements. What's your opinion of this current FDA?
HALLORAN: Well it is very disturbing. Because we have just seen one cutback after another in the budget at the FDA. And even after all of these problems we had this fall, FDA for next year has requested a budget that's smaller in real terms than last year's. They are not even accounting for inflation.
ROGERS: What about Congress, do you see anything coming out of, you know, Washington that will help us any time soon?
HALLORAN: Well, we do have a Congress that's more concerned about food safety this year. And hopefully they may bring FDA to task. But we have had a situation where, for example, FDA has cut their inspections actually cut their inspections of imported food since 2003. It is only 75 percent of what it was.
VELSHI: Jean, good to talk to you. It is frightening stuff. Thank you for coming and telling us about this.
HALLORAN: Thank you.
VELSHI: Jean Halloran from Consumers Union.
Just ahead on IN THE MONEY, women with their own unique spin on office politics. We will speak with the author of "The Corporate Dominatrix." Stay with us for that.
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VELSHI: Do you consider yourself dominant or submissive? Do you like to play by the rules or do you prefer to enforce the rules? Our next guest says the kinky world of S&M provides the perfect metaphor for the corporate world. Joining us now is Lisa Robyn, the author of "The Corporate Dominatrix." Six rules to play to get your way at work. Is it Lisa or is it mistress Lisa?
LISA ROBYN, AUTHOR, "THE CORPORATE DOMINATRIX:" It is mistress Lisa.
VELSHI: May I ask you questions?
ROBYN: Yes, you may.
VELSHI: All right. I'm guessing that the book is not for me.
ROBYN: You obviously have been trained.
VELSHI: I have. Is this for women?
ROGERS: He's speechless.
ROBYN: It is primarily for women. I think men can probably get something out of it as well.
VELSHI: All right. You have outlined different types from the S&M world. I think most Americans we have seen from the employment work have experience with work; fewer Americans have experience, I suspect with S&M. But you are taking --
ROBYN: Probably more than you think.
VELSHI: You are taking -- do you guys have any questions?
ROGERS: We are just waiting.
WESTHOVEN: It is fun to watch.
VELSHI: You figured out ways to apply that to -- you guys can jump in any time. To apply that to the working world, so Jennifer wanted to ask you about one of those.
WESTHOVEN: I think the fun part is you got these six different types. What's so fun, I think, when you see them, you start to identify which ones you are. Now the point is you want to add in the others. But it is still fun. I noticed there is one that says the Amazon, independent, fearless, protective. It also said fierce sometimes, and maybe even quick to lose your temper. I notice that's sometimes a way that I operate. When I looked also because you were saying what about trying something else? That's how you can be -- you can have interactions at work for our people. I was looking at the goddess, which was providing inspiration for others. Looking for meaning in your work and taking a higher ground. But really all these categories were fascinating. Are you a schoolgirl, a nurse?
ROBYN: There are three stages. The first stage is figuring out your defining role. The role that you feel most comfortable with. The second stage is role taking. Which role do you need to take to accommodate a particular situation? The third stage is role-playing, when you are actually interacting with another person or multiple people. If you identified most with the Amazon, then that's probably your defining role. There are secondary roles. If you also felt that they were elements of the goddess that applied to you. But you don't want to get crazy and say oh, I'm four types because people will think you are schizophrenic.
ROGERS: Can you generalize and say what the most successful women are, the women that you see heading up big companies? Where do they fall in here?
ROBYN: I would say that is a good question. I would say most CEOs are queens because they are empire builders. But there are secondary roles; there are some queens that have elements of the governess.
ROGERS: Is the queen -- the governess display trustworthy, patience, any of our queens ever the schoolgirl?
VELSHI: In other words, do --
ROGERS: Go together at all.
ROBYN: I think that the schoolgirl role comes into play with women in authority. When they kind of have to accommodate management to a lesser degree. That's a role that's most difficult to embody when you get to higher levels of management. When you are first starting out after you get out of school and you are, you know, in your entry level job, it is much more comfortable for women to assume the school girl role because they are apprentices. They are learning about their particular job. But as they move up, they start to naturally take on these other roles. And they shed that schoolgirl role.
VELSHI: This is interesting because it is not a black or white. It is not a dominant or submissive. You have a bit continuum starting with the goddess at one end and the schoolgirl at the other. But what I was surprised is that I would have assumed that any submissive tendency wouldn't be useful for work. What you indicate when you are read -- when I was reading about the nurse and the school girl, you are actually saying that there are really beneficial attributes to those roles that can help a woman at work.
ROBYN: Correct. I break down the dominance meter into three areas. Highly dominant, moderately dominant, and what I call imperceptibly dominant or submissive. And that submissive role, submission to authority is part of the workplace.
VELSHI: So not necessarily a bad thing.
ROBYN: It is not a bad thing, at all.
VELSHI: Speechless. Everybody is speechless.
WESTHOVEN: It is you are looking for what you know what you do. You already do one or two all the time. But then there are these other roles that maybe you haven't tried that could really help you.
ROBYN: What you want to do is customize the role to the particular situation. You know, there's the goddess, there's the queen, there's the governess, there is the nurse, there is the Amazon and there is the schoolgirl. So you have six distinct roles with different qualities, characteristics, and types of power to choose from. Each role has a different type of power.
ROGERS: Do some of these roles, you know, sort of offend some of the men in the workplace? Are they threatened?
ROBYN: I don't think so. Again, you are accommodating the particular situation. If you are a natural queen and you are dealing with someone who is intimidated by you, that's when you call in the schoolgirl. It really is customizing your reaction, customizing the role to the particular situation at hand. And, you know, I didn't create the workplace as it is. I'm just showing women how best to get ahead, given what they have to deal with day-to-day.
VELSHI: Final question. Why do women need this in this day and age? Is this -- is it a step backward that women have to sort of think about this role-playing to get ahead in the work force?
ROBYN: I don't think so. Women are natural role players, we are mothers and we are daughters, we are sisters and girlfriends. And I think that women come to these roles very naturally. Most women are probably embodying these roles. But they are not using them strategically. They are really not -- they are not top of mind. What I'm trying to get women to do is be much more in tune with who they are naturally, what they are comfortable with and not necessarily typecasting themselves or having other people typecast them and trying on other roles so that they are more multi-dimensional.
VELSHI: Very interesting. It is a good read. Thanks for joining us.
ROBYN: Thank you.
VELSHI: Mistress Lisa Robyn. It is a good read. "The Corporate Dominatrix" six roles to play to get your way at work. The only way I get my way at work is if we take a commercial so we can get paid. .
Coming up next on IN THE MONEY the ban on in-flight cell phone use remains intact. We will talk about who wins and who loses.
Plus see what you can learn about a career makeover from a former major league baseball star. We are coming back with more IN THE MONEY.
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VELSHI: If you like peace and quiet when you travel stay home. Well, OK. This week's decision to keep in-flight cell phone use forbidden is something that some of you may be interested in. It looks like complaints from people like you turned the tide. Jen Rogers is here with more on that and some other possible changes in the skies that you might or might not like.
ROGERS: That does not seem like you like it very much.
VELSHI: I don't think you should be regulating cell phones at all. But please tell us the story.
ROGERS: Let me tell you the news of what happened. For now this ban is going to stay in effect. We are going to be safe for a little while longer at 35,000 feet from hearing -- can you hear me now? Is this any better? I just crossed over the Mississippi. This could be coming down the pike. It may not be dead forever. The deal here is that in Europe and the Middle East, this is probably coming sooner rather than later. Already in the works and that here in the U.S., within likely the next 12 months, we might be able to have Internet access and you can use your blackberry but --
VELSHI: That's not a bad compromise.
ROGERS: You wouldn't have to hear somebody talking to you but you could still communicate.
WESTHOVEN: The FCC says that they are not having phone service not because it is polite but because of the technology. But we are having --
VELSHI: I'm not convinced of that.
WESTHOVEN: But then they are going to block anybody who tries to use things to sneak through the technology.
VELSHI: The technology problem is that if they can't bill properly for it there are no planes that have been affected by interference. I wish they would be honest about the whole thing. It is 2007, if you don't want to hear people making noise when you travel don't travel. I get that it can be annoying. I would hate to be sitting next to me on a plane. I mean, that would be -- that would be the end of it.
ROGERS: You have to realize how annoying this is to people. The FCC was inundated with people writing in and expressing how terrible this would be. Some of the e-mails are crazy to hear. You can imagine people writing in. Saying you know, these days it is impossible to get on a bus without at least one person hollering into their cell phone. It is bad enough when one can get off in ten minutes. But to suffer through hours of such torture. Someone is going to explode.
WESTHOVEN: It could be a fight.
VELSHI: It is a bus. Ride your own car, get your own plane.
WESTHOVEN: What you do is say you can use your cell phone for emergencies and you can use it quickly. You can use it quietly. If you don't, the flight attendant comes over. VELSHI: If it is an emergency, really an emergency, I'm going to be late.
ROGERS: They don't want to lift your bag up. They are not going to want to come over and baby-sit you telling you what to do.
WESTHOVEN: They decide when I can't have too many more drinks.
VELSHI: All right. This conversation will continue off camera.
The major league baseball season is in full swing. One former star isn't lamenting days gone by on the ball field. He has found success in a different field.
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VELSHI (voice over): A big stick and a big personality made slugger Mo Vaughn a star during his 12 years in the major leagues. When his baseball career ended in 2003, he had no intention of retiring. Instead he traded his uniform for a business suit and the baseball diamond for the boardroom.
MO VAUGHN, FORMER BASEBALL PLAYER: We have the meeting at 7:00.
VELSHI: These days most fans are thousands of low-income families around New York City.
VAUGHN: Affordable housing is a need. It is not only a need here in New York, it is a worldwide need.
VELSHI: With the help of business partner Gene Snere (ph) he founded Omni New York in 2004. Since then the company has turned notoriously run-down buildings in crime-infested neighborhoods into safe havens for affordable housing with the help of government bonds and tax credits.
VAUGHN: When we purchased this building it was run down. There were tenants afraid to come out at night.
VELSHI: Grace Towers in East Brooklyn was transformed from a hub for drug deals and prostitution to a peaceful residential complex for families.
NELSON LEE, GRACE TOWERS RESIDENT: When they take me out.
VELSHI: Headfirst is how Mo dives into each new project. And while he says his new career is lucrative, for Mo it is not just about the money but rehabilitating run-down buildings and communities.
VAUGH: I don't think anybody will be the thrill of catching the 3-2 witch at the bottom of the ninth to winning the game. This is as close as it can get to it.
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VELSHI: We will be right back with more IN THE MONEY stay with us.
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VELSHI: The tax deadline is approaching. If you were too busy preparing your 1040 you may have missed one of these stories the government is suing the operators of more than 125 Jackson Hewitt Tax Preparation Offices in four states for what it calls a massive series of tax fraud schemes. The Justice Department says the franchisees bilked the government out more than $70 million by using phony w-2 forms and bogus deductions. The IRS is having problems of its own. A new report says thousands of taxpayers could be at the risk the identity theft because the IRS failed to protect information on its own lap top computers. About 500 of those laptops have been lost or stolen over the last three years.
And this Easter weekend is becoming more of an expensive deal for more Americans. Easter has become the retail industry's third biggest holiday behind Christmas and Valentine's Day. The National Retail Federation says Easter season sales are expected to be up 11 percent over last year. One reason could be the rising prices of all that Easter chocolate. Hershey's announced last week prices are increasing the counter rising cost for corn syrup and packaging. And Coco itself is more expensive.
WESTHOVEN: And because everybody is eating dark chocolate and uses more of the Coco so there is less available.
ROGERS: I waited to buy my candy. I'm waiting to the last minute. I will go and hopefully get it on sale. I noticed it was more expensive before.
VELSHI: Easter candy is a great deal right after Easter.
ROGERS: They put it on sale that morning. You can go and get a good deal. I'm telling you. You just wait. Just wait until you can't wait any longer.
VELSHI: Now this Jackson Hewitt, Jackson Hewitt is the second largest tax preparation agency in the country, it is a reminder that your tax return, whether you do it yourself or you do it with software, or you get someone else to prepare it, you are still responsible if there is an error or something missing. It does not absolve you.
WESTHOVEN: Yes I think in this case many people are not going to be criminally on the hook but they may have to give back a lot of their refunds. I thought it was very surprising what was happening there. Not just that they would help you engineer or push it a little bit. They were engineering massive deductions on a widespread scale and taking kickbacks.
ROGERS: It just shows you, read it before you sign it and then when you are looking for somebody to do your taxes don't go with somebody that is like on a base how much they are getting paid on how big your return is.
VELSHI: Flat rates are always good when you are getting your taxes prepared.
All right thanks folks for joining us, Jen Westhoven and Jen Rogers. That is it for this edition of IN THE MONEY we will see you back here next week Saturday at 1:00, and Sunday at 3:00. See you then.
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