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Health Care Bill Nears Finish Line; Copenhagen: What Happened?

Aired December 21, 2009 - 15:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Making news right now on your national conversation: The lone holdout, he joined the club during the wee hours of voting. What sweeteners got added to health care reform?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Overall, we are capping the amount of pollution.

VELSHI: Cap and trade, parts per million, a nonbinding deal. What just happened in Copenhagen? Will our lives change at all?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not the end of the world.

VELSHI: Only one way to cope with craziness at the airports: patience.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Don't change your flights if you don't have to, because at least you're protected on the flight that you're booked on.

VELSHI: Chad Myers tracking the blast of winter that delayed thousands of your holiday plans.

Four shopping days until Christmas and this truly conversation for Monday, December 21, starts right now. Let's go.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: And hello again, everybody. I'm Ali Velshi, filling in for Rick Sanchez with the next generation of news. It's a conversation, not a speech. It's your turn to get involved.

There are probably a lot of crumpled coffee cups and empty cans of Red Bull around Senate offices today. They are right back at work after the crucial vote in the middle of the night. Senate Democrats got their 60 votes to push through on health care reform. Now they are laying the groundwork to pass their bill -- get this -- on Christmas Eve.

That is the goal of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Here's what he said just a few hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: Never have we been so close to reforming America's broken health insurance system. We are not over the finish line, but we would never have gotten this far without the support of doctors, nurses, medical professionals who know we need action, not excuses, anymore. Excuses are not going to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Well, Senate Democrats may be patting themselves on the back, but, you know, a lot of Americans aren't on board with this bill. A new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows 42 percent in favor. That's up eight points from earlier this month, though.

But with all the last-minute changes what is in and what is out of this phone book of a bill?

Let's ask Patricia Murphy in Washington. She's a columnist with PoliticsDaily.com.

Patricia, welcome to the show.

This bill has got a few surprises that people may not know about.

PATRICIA MURPHY, POLITICSDAILY.COM: It does. And in the Christmas season, we like to compare a bill like this to a Christmas tree, because it starts getting things tacked onto it in the middle of the night.

And so you talked about Ben Nelson. He is getting most of the attention. He's not the only senator to get some of these sweeteners. But because he was the only holdout, he went into closed-door session for about 13 hours and came out with a lot of things for his state to secure his vote.

So, the things that we are talking about, there is a Medicaid exemption for Nebraska. Every other state is going to have to pay to expand their Medicaid roles. Nebraska doesn't have to. That's going to be all on the federal government, about $100 million there.

Also, Senator Nelson is pro-life. He's very against abortion rights and this bill has been changed to reflect that. So, there were some specific pieces in this bill to make him happy, so that he would be that crucial 60th vote.

But, again, he's not the only one. And there are reporters going through the finer points of this bill to see who else has gotten something for themselves and their states.

VELSHI: Not everybody in Nebraska is happy with this. In fact, the state's other senator, Mike Johanns, let's listen to what he had to say a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MIKE JOHANNS (R), NEBRASKA: Less than 24 hours after the announcement of the special carve-outs for Nebraska, with virtually no warning, no preparation to speak of, 2,000 people gathered in Omaha, Nebraska, Nebraskans, to in one voice cry foul.

Nebraskans are frustrated and angry that our beloved state has been thrust into the same pot with all of the other special deals that got cut here.

In fact, Mr. President, they are outraged that a backroom deal for our state might have been what puts this bill across the finish line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Patricia, let's a little talk about what Nebraska got added in this deal, this sweetener, as it were.

MURPHY: Right.

Well, in addition to those Medicaid changes, again, that's going to be $100 million that Nebraska doesn't have to pick up the tab on, also, there are a couple of individual Nebraska insurance companies that have had a few exemptions carved out for them as well.

The governor of Nebraska said he's not taking the blame for this and the pro-life community in Nebraska is against it. So, it looks like these are some sweeteners that are actually turning out a bit sour for the senator.

VELSHI: Let's talk about Bernie Sanders. What was his role in this? What did he get and what did Montana's Max Baucus get?

MURPHY: Sure.

Senator Sanders was another holdout for the Democrats at the very end. He had been very positive all along. And then at the end said, he I'm not happy about the way the public option has been ripped out of this because of some of the objections from other senators. So, he said he wasn't sure if he was going to vote for this.

If you go through this bill, you will see that there has been a carve-out for Vermont also. He said that his state of Vermont, like Massachusetts, shouldn't be punished for going ahead and providing universal coverage for their own citizens. So, there are some payments built in here for Vermont.

And then for Montana, you had talked about Senator Baucus. He's the chairman of the Finance Committee, very, very powerful and a key player in the bill. There is a specific exemption in there for any location that has been declared a disaster area for something that occurred on a specific date. I think it was July 17. It might have been January 17.

That actually is a small town in Montana. And Senator Baucus actually went to the floor today in the Senate to defend that. He said he's proud that he got that special exemption for that small town in Montana. And he said he wouldn't change it if he could.

VELSHI: All right. So, we can call them sweeteners or Christmas lights or carve-outs. Are they generally good for the country? Are they bad? Are they the cost of getting this bill?

How do you think people are going to respond to these carve-outs? Is it what had to happen to get this bill or does this now look like a hodgepodge of special interests and regional interests coming together on what was supposed to be a health care reform bill?

MURPHY: Democrats will tell you that this happens at the end of every bill. Republicans, though, have said it doesn't happen at the end of such a crucial piece of landmark legislation.

And my sense from watching this and talking to people around the country and looking at the poll numbers, it's less about the policy on these sweeteners, because many of them are defensible, the Montana town that has been declared just a national Superfund, that's really not a bad provision to have in there.

VELSHI: Right.

MURPHY: It's not the policy. It's just the process, the fact that this was jammed in there. This was a rider. Montana isn't even mentioned in the bill, so it looks like it's some sort of a secret.

So, if these are pieces that senators are proud of, they should just go ahead and say it out in the open. I think people are very suspicious of the way this has happened in the middle of the night.

VELSHI: Right. So, when you say Nebraska -- or Montana isn't mentioned, or these things aren't mentioned, so that particular date can only refer to one thing.

MURPHY: That's right.

VELSHI: I guess when you look back at the stimulus plan, $787 billion, there were complaints about the process and there were complaints about specifically pieces of pork that people think had nothing to do with stimulus, couldn't remotely be thought of as stimulus.

So, here we have still got a process problem. Then we have got, of course, the issue of cost -- $871 billion is the price tag on this one. That's not chump change. Here's how President Obama defended that bill earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want to be clear, for all those who are continually carping about how this is somehow a big-spending government bill, this cuts our deficit by $132 billion the first 10 years and by over a trillion in the second. That argument that opponents are making against this bill does not hold water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: OK. So, the president and the bill -- the position that they have is that it's going to reduce the federal deficit by $132 billion in the first 10 years. Do you believe that?

MURPHY: Well, I will tell you what. The Congressional Budget Office, which put out that estimate, even they said this is the best- case scenario, not so much that it will reduce the deficit, but that it could reduce the deficit if Congress enacts a lot of these spending cuts and sort of shrinking the Medicare program, for example.

If they do that, then, yes, it will cut the deficit. The problem is, Congress never has done that. And it's sort of like saying, I'm going on a diet the day of Thanksgiving. Do you really believe that? These people are compulsive spenders. So, it's hard to believe that they are going to stop the spending in order to cut the deficit here.

And again I think that this is another piece that the American people are having a really hard part -- having a hard time swallowing. This might be the right policy, but it's so expensive. They are asking if this is the right time. Is this something we can afford right now with ballooning deficits and debt?

VELSHI: Yes. That's a lot of comment that I have got while I have been on the road.

Patricia, thanks for joining us. You seem particularly awake for somebody who I know was awake all night dealing with this.

(CROSSTALK)

MURPHY: ... Red Bull.

VELSHI: But you have helped us make sense.

MURPHY: Thank you.

VELSHI: That's right. You have got the Red Bull. I have got the coffee here.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Patricia Murphy, thanks for joining us.

MURPHY: Thanks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is kind of a disaster.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not the end of the world, but it's frustrating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Snowed in and trying to get out by air, road and rail. Still, many frustrated travelers are going nowhere fast, even with the worst of the storm over. When will they get home? Will they make it home in time for the holidays? Our meteorologist, Chad Myers, will give us an update ahead. And three key words tossed around in the climate change debate, you have probably heard them: cap and trade. What the heck does that mean? And what does it have to do with global warming and our planet? We're drilling down.

And don't forget the other way to participate in this national conversation. You can call us. In the United States, the number 877- 742-5751. Even though we gave him the day off, he will still answer the phone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CALLER: Hey, Rick. It's Tom from Seattle.

Yes, I just want -- this whole health care thing, I was just curious to see, do the Republicans have any clue or any reality that nobody in America thinks they even tried to add to this product or finished product that the Democrats have come up with? I mean, do we have any word on them of their other options? It seems like I hear a lot of whining, but not much when it comes to solutions that might be better. Thanks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: All right, three words, cap and trade, they are the three biggest words of the current climate change conversation. It was the rallying cry at the summit in Copenhagen last week. And on this first official day of winter, well, maybe cap and trade means that you should wear a cap and trade your leaf blower for a snowblower.

But cap and trade, well, it really is rather complicated. It's a system that rewards countries and industries for taking measures to cut greenhouse emissions, carbon emissions. It charges them money if they don't. But, wait, watch this, because I'm about to uncomplicate cap and trade with some help from Sal Khan at the Khan Academy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAL KHAN, KHAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: For the sake of argument, let's imagine a world with exactly two power plants. And when we start off, each of them are producing 10 units of pollution. We want the total amount of pollution to be less, so we issue permits to produce only 18 units total, so 18 total, and we give nine to this first guy up here, so he gets nine permits to pollute.

And this guy gets permits to also produce nine units. Now, each of them could just reduce their pollution by one unit. It might cost this guy $100,000 to do it. And it might cost this guy over here $1 million to reduce his pollution by exactly one unit.

Now, instead of making this guy spend $1 million, what might happen is this guy down here realizes, gee, I can not only go to nine units, I could spend $100,000 more for a total of $200,000 and get down to eight total units of pollution.

And then out of the nine credits that I have been given, I will have one extra credit just by spending this extra $100,000. I can take that extra credit and sell it to this guy over here for, I don't know, $300,000. I spend $100,000 to get the extra credit. I can sell it to this guy for $300,000, so he has 10 units or 10 -- permits to create 10 units.

And now instead of spending $1 million to make his plant more efficient, he is able to $300,000 and essentially makes this plant more efficient. The benefit is, is that overall we are capping the total amount of pollution, but we are allowing the trading, we are allowing the trading, or the market mechanisms, to decide who is in the best position to reduce their total emissions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: I would say very few people at this network enjoy animations and drawings and diagrams more than I do. That was very good. Sal Khan has done a great job of breaking that down and explaining what cap and trade is, although we didn't quite get there with Copenhagen, the meeting in Copenhagen.

Well, many airline passengers are still trying to get to their destinations. This monster winter storm this past weekend led to tens of dozens of canceled flights, hundreds of them. But you know what? Remember those nightmare tarmac delays? A couple years ago on Valentine's Day, JetBlue had one. There have been many of them.

Well, they might be a thing of the past starting now. A closer look at some new rules to protect you, the traveler, details on that -- you are going to want to know this -- in about seven minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Well, some cynics are calling the Copenhagen climate change summit a big waste of time, mainly since nothing technically binding came out of it.

But, before you get carried away with that, hold on a second. More than 100 world leaders stood together, not figuratively, they actually stood together in the same place literally to discuss a single topic, climate change. They managed to focus the debate to a finer point than has ever been achieved before. And that's something. That's progress, right?

Watch this report from ITN'S Lawrence McGinty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE MCGINTY, ITN REPORTER (voice-over): So, this is how it ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. After an acrimonious all- night session, President Obama's Copenhagen accord finally came to the vote among the 193 nations here. They didn't accept it. They merely noted its existence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The conference of the parties decides to take note of the Copenhagen accord of the 18th of December, 2009.

MCGINTY: Some applauded. Some didn't.

(APPLAUSE)

MCGINTY: It's a weak deal, but it offers countries like the Maldives billions of dollars in aid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand that this is not a complete document. But it has features that it can migrate to become a completely binding and a very good planet-saving document.

MCGINTY: Not everyone agreed. In the overnight session, the Sudanese delegate was vitriolic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: L-9 asks Africa a to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of few countries.

MCGINTY: It's enough of a deal, however, for President Obama to hail it as a historic beginning, a decade after the first negotiations.

OBAMA: Today, we have made meaningful and unprecedented -- made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen.

For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change.

MCGINTY (on camera): With the eyes of the world on Copenhagen, they have come up with a deal which hasn't been accepted, only noted, which isn't legally binding, and which contains no numbers for how much the rich countries are going to cut their carbon dioxide pollution.

(voice-over): For the world summit, they had rechristened the Danish capital "Hopenhagen." Now they are calling it "Brokenhagen."

Lawrence McGinty, ITV News, in Copenhagen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: We're talking to people not about who's to blame or how they are feeling. We're talking to people about things that they have done to improve their situation or to improve their town's situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: All right, Americans sounding off on the economy, health care and the recession. I toured Georgia and the Carolinas on the CNN Express. I will tell you what people had to say.

And finally some good news for airline passengers. The Department of Transportation cracks down on tarmac delays. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. You have heard all those nightmare stories, people stuck inside a plane on the tarmac for hours on end. Maybe you have been one of those passengers.

Well, this should come as some relief, the Department of Transportation announcing a new rule today. Soon, domestic flights in most cases won't be able to wait around on the tarmac for more than three hours with passengers on board. Boy, three hours on the tarmac still sounds like a lot of time to me.

International flights arriving or departing in the U.S. must give in advance times for getting people on and off. That would be great if this took effect right this moment because there are a lot of delays and cancellations over this messy weather still happening in the United States. But it will take four months for travelers to see the benefits of this new rule.

It comes after some unbelievable delays made headlines. One of the worst happened in Rochester, Minnesota, in August. Forty-seven passengers -- you're looking at that tape from that day now -- had to wait on the tarmac for nearly six hours overnight, nothing to eat but pretzels.

All right, Chad Myers is there joining us. He is there getting ready to tell us what's going on, details of the storm that slammed the East Coast and the next one sadly that is on the way. Stay there. It is going to affect your holiday travel plans. You are going to want to know all about it.

And at least one member of the first family is enjoying the snow outside the White House. You don't want to miss the story.

And doing forget you can join us for this national conversation. Whether you -- whenever you visit Atlanta, just give us a call, 1-877- 4CNN-TOUR, for the tour of the CNN Center and CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: On the calendar today is the first official day of winter. I personally thought it blew in a little early. And it blew in hard over the weekend. In the Northeast today, lots of plows, snow shovels, rock salt, people digging their way out of the snow. Officials are blaming the awful weather for at least four deaths.

And, today, airports remain in a scramble after they have had to cancel hundreds of flights over the weekend. It came at the worst time for holiday travelers. Thousands of people are still stuck and waiting for their flights and stores might find themselves taking a bit of a hit. Just try to go holiday shopping in this miserable mess. But at least scenes this in Baltimore are over with, well, for now.

Reynolds Wolf is not too far from there. He's in Annapolis, Maryland, where the clean-up is well under way. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there.

Well, I'm coming to you from Annapolis, where the sun is out, the snow continues to melt, but we have got quite a few puddles and a few spots of ice here and there on the roadway.

I'm with CNN photojournalist Ken Tillis.

And, Ken, let's walk our way up the street just a little bit, and watch out for some traffic, too.

The traffic has actually had, really, no major issues. We've had about 30 trucks, 30 vehicles here in the city that have been doing a great job moving a lot of the snowfall out of the main streets. We've had salt on the sidewalks. That certainly helped matters. And around the state, outside the city, around the state, we've had around 814 vehicles that have also been keeping the roadways relatively clear.

Still, though, you have a lot of people out there. You have a few slick spots in the roadway. So, by all means, take it easy. Be careful out there.

In Annapolis, though, the snow dumped about 20.8 inches of snowfall, and this is a city that was founded back in 1649. And this is going to end up stacking up as one of the most historic snowfalls they have ever had.

And it was so bad, in fact, they actually had some issues with the newspaper. The newspaper that comes out on Sunday, the edition was actually not able to be sent out. So, today, people are going to get a double issue of newspapers. So they're going to have a nice big stack for them to use.

The conditions are going to get pretty good for the rest of the week. We can expect temperatures to warm up again. But we have, at the same time, yet another storm system that's going to start coming right through the nation, affecting millions of people. And it's going to be very interesting to see how that pans out in the coming days.

That is the latest we've got from Annapolis. Let's send it back to you in the studio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Thank you, Reynolds.

For all the latest on this, let's go to Chad Myers. He's in the CNN Weather Center.

What's it looking like?

MYERS: Looking like I used to stand right where he was standing, and there used to be a restaurant there that would serve the best Monte Cristo you can find. You know what that is?

VELSHI: There's nothing -- there is no place in America you don't know about, Chad. I have learned that about you over the years.

MYERS: Very few restaurants I haven't eaten in either.

(LAUGHTER)

MYERS: I have got that going -- I have got that going for me.

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: All right. Is this -- is that Jesus packing heat? This is definitely not your average Christmas display. And needless to say, neighbors are not so merry to see it.

Protesters in Iran voice anti-government slogans at a top-ranking cleric's funeral. We have the pictures that you don't want to miss.

And don't forget, the other way to participate in this "National Conversation," call us in the United States, the number is 877-742- 5751. And, yes, I have read the tweets from all of you who are mad that we don't have the tweets on TV. We're getting them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CALLER: Hey, Rick. This is K.C. from West Virginia. I have a question. We're showing that more than 50 percent of the people are not in favor of the health bill now. We're not breaking it down though. Are these people not in favor because of the fact that they don't want a health bill all together or they are not satisfied with the bill that has been proposed?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

VELSHI: That is an excellent, excellent question. Why are people not fully in support of that bill? Do they want something that's better or do they not want health care reform? Fantastic question. I'm getting a lot of that on Twitter, by the way, about the health care bill. And I have been getting a lot. In fact, if you guys could just take another break and come back to me in a few minutes while I answer everybody on Twitter who wants to know why we are not putting their tweets up on TV -- all right, let's put some tweets up on TV. Excellent comments from you all about health care.

"Health care bill is imperfect, but so was Medicare when it was passed and it got tweaked to its present form. Hand-wringing should cease." How about this one? "Sweeteners," we're talking about sweeteners or carve-outs or Christmas lights, the things that made some people sign onto the bill. "The sweeteners will benefit those who they've always benefited, the House and Senate lobbyists that bought them off.

How about this one, they benefit the insurance companies. It's no longer the United States of America, it's the corporations of America. And "Barack Obama will be the first president to really tackle issues with health care in decades. Gobama! Now onto other stuff."

Quite a varied range of opinion from all of you in Twitterland. My apologies for not getting more of that on TV. We'll take care of that.

VELSHI: All right. Massive crowds of people in Iran against using almost any occasion to gather and voice their displeasure at the government in Tehran. Today it's this, the funeral parade honoring a man considered the most powerful breakaway cleric in Iran, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, died yesterday. He was 87 years old.

These are official pictures released by the Iranian government. Now let's take a look at the next video. These are very unofficial pictures shot by someone supposedly in the crowd. We have got to rely on uploaded images since CNN and all other non-Iranian news agencies are banned from covering public events like this one.

The crowds are chanting their support for the grand ayatollah, the same people who are still particularly unhappy with the results of this summer's presidential election. Many of these people see the election as flawed. You can see the green color that they're carrying, which symbolizes their political position.

They see the election as flawed, illegal, illegitimate. There are some reports of clashes with riot police. Nothing official, however. And no word of anyone hurt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: How are you different than somebody who graduated five years ago?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I think they had it a little bit better. I mean, I graduated in a depression. I mean, not like just economic depression, like everybody is depressed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Well, she was a member of the class of 2009. She is trying to make her way in the worst job market in decades. I met her on my drive down "Recovery Road," a thousand mile road trip of sorts to find out what matters most to people like you. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. I'm going to let you in on one of the best parts of my job at CNN. It's not sitting here. It's the times I get to leave the studio and meet people like you and talk about the economic issues that are important to you and your families.

We did it again a few days ago. Seven of us piled onto the CNN Express in North Carolina and pointed south. We drove a thousand miles on what we call the "Recovery Road." Here's a bit of what we found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI (voice-over): This trip is a little different than the ones we have done before. This one is called "Recovery Road." It's about recovery, but it's about resourcefulness. We're talking to people not about who's to blame or how they are feeling. We're talking to people about things that they have done to improve their situation or to improve their town's situation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think what we're seeing is this town in the middle of a slow change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We must be poised to answer as a community, whether or not we have what it takes to get the resources into the hands of the folks that are creating jobs.

VELSHI (on camera): There is a young lady over there who is retraining...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My entire life I worked in science.

VELSHI: And now you have decided that you are going to be an educator.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to get out there and do what it takes to find that job. And if that means moving to a new place, which wasn't possible for me, then going back to school may be your best option.

VELSHI: This issue of retraining is a big deal though, because for a lot of mid-career people, they lose their jobs. It disorients them. And for a long time, they're waiting for that job to come back or something to change. You had to make some decision at some point to say, I'm going to have to go after something different.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can sit around and wait. But I think -- what is it, "God helps those who help themselves"?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm Jane (ph) (INAUDIBLE), broadcasting live, downtown (INAUDIBLE) Square with Ali Velshi from CNN. Welcome to (INAUDIBLE).

VELSHI: Well, it's my pleasure to be here. We just think this is a fun town. And you have got the sleigh out here. So you know, these poor guys have been stuck on the bus all day. We decided to get up and the first thing our driver says is, I want a picture of this sleigh. So how are things around here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Things around here are very good, considering.

VELSHI: This was a heavy manufacturing area for a long time. And those jobs have been in decline for more than a decade.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Until we get some decent-paying jobs back in these areas, I mean, it's going to be a struggle.

VELSHI: We ran into a family that runs an old pharmacy around the corner.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This business has been in existence since the 1890s.

VELSHI: Is that stuff -- is that usually also covered by insurance?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a business that is very anxious to know what the administration and Congress are getting ready to do regarding health care.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is one of our new offices. We're going to let one of our new employees that is from Texas...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where people are laying people off, we haven't had to lay anybody off. The lord has been good to us in that effect.

VELSHI: You're all of a generation where you have not seen in this in your lives. I mean, a lot of people haven't seen this in their lives. So this is pretty serious.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a very competitive (INAUDIBLE), a very competitive field.

VELSHI: How are you different than somebody who graduated five years ago?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I think they had it a little bit better. I mean, I graduated in a depression. I mean, not like just economic depression, like everybody is depressed.

VELSHI: Each of you, I think, I'm going to ask you for the lesson. If somebody is looking at you right now, what's your advice to them?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Study hard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Plan for the future.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Make sure you're happy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't ever feel like you're too good to do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Help people out so that when you need help, they can help you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't be intimidated by the situation. I mean, it's a horrible situation, can't use it as an excuse. You've got to put on your big boy pants and go for it. (END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: It's a big lesson of the trip. Put on your big boy pants and go for it. And I don't want to whitewash things. The economy is still tough out there. There is still a lot of outrage at Washington and Wall Street. People kept asking me, what has changed since the beginning of the economic collapse? Well, I'll tell you what has changed when we come back.

Take a a look at this apartment complex near San Francisco. It gives new meaning to the term ocean-side view. We've got that story next. And don't forget to visit Rick in the studio when you're in Atlanta. Go to cnn.com/tour for more details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: "Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer" has become a catchy tune and part of our American lexicon. Jesus packing heat? Not so much. Let's do "Las Fotos del Dia."

All right. To California we go. That's Jesus packing heat, staring down the barrel of a shotgun at Santa's dead body. And, yes, you can see Rudolph somewhere there sprawled across the hood of a pickup truck. This is how one man is protesting the commercialization of Christmas. He's doing it in his own yard. Needless to say, his neighbors are not too merry about that. They want the display taken down. Police say the homeowner has not broken any laws.

D.C., sit boy. Bo, shake. Now drive. Wait a minute, somehow I think driving a police escort car isn't supposed to be one of the first dog's new tricks. That is the first dog, the president's dog, Bo, jumped into the first seat of this cruiser last week. The officer driving the vehicle had stopped to drop off the first lady, Michelle Obama. They left the door open. Bo recognized that it was a photo op and he couldn't resist. Here's Bo, by the way, hamming it up again this weekend when that massive snowstorm slammed D.C., Bo didn't complain, he frolicked in the snow on the White House lawn, again stealing some of the spotlight from his famous family.

All right. Back to California. Nothing quite like secluded beachfront property. The quiet breeze, the slap of the surf. No one to interrupt except Mother Nature and a crumbling cliff. People were ordered to get out of an apartment building that is now 10 feet from the edge of a cliff. Cranes are placing heavy boulders at the cliff's base to try and stop erosion. But you know what they say, when you fight Mother Nature, Mother Nature usually wins.

Well, if 2009 was the year of the bailout. What does 2010 have in store for Wall Street and for people like you and me? I will pose that question to my next guest, Nomi Prins. She wrote a book about it, it's called "It Takes a Pillage." And she used to be one of those Wall Street types, so stick around for that.

And tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. Eastern, will all the snow in the Northeast mean you're going to find a deal on last-minute shopping where you live? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Well, Americans love success stories. In 1998 there was perhaps no one with a more winning persona than Tiger Woods. But 11 years later, listening to his conversation with our own Larry King is revealing and almost prophetic.

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CALLER: It's a real pleasure to talk to you, Tiger. And my teacher and I often discuss golf. And we were wondering what is it like to be a role model? And do you ever find it to be quite a burden?

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": Good question.

TIGER WOODS, GOLFER: That's a great question. Do I find it to be a burden? No, I don't.

KING: Because you are a role model.

WOODS: You know what? I think it's awesome. I really do. Because it's not too often you actually get a chance to influence a lot of people in a good way. And if you have that opportunity, I think you should take it. Anyone should be -- anyone who is living should be a role model in some way, shape, or form. And if I'm in a position where I can influence more than one person, you know, I'm going to take advantage of that.

KING: Therefore, you think you owe the public more than just playing good golf? You owe them a stable life? You owe them what you...

WOODS: No, I don't owe them. I want to give back to them. There's a big difference. Owing somebody seems like, you know, they've given a lot to me.

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VELSHI: You can see the entire interview, Larry King and Tiger Woods, tonight at 9:00 Eastern only on CNN.

Well, American banks nearly went under, some of them did, saved from certain demise by billions of federal dollars which, by the way, are your dollars. At least that's what we're told. Home buyers borrowed too much mortgage money and they couldn't pay it back. That kicked off the crisis. That's also what we're told. Bailed-out corporations saved by TARP money are being watched like hawks, full oversight. That's also what we're told. Well, the woman who wrote this book says we're all being told a bunch of B.S. It's called "It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses & Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street."

Here she is the interesting thing, it's by a former Wall Street who probably isn't all that popular there after this book hit the shelves. Here she is, Nomi Prins. Nomi, thanks for being with us. You really were something of an insider in Wall Street. You were fairly senior. You had a managing director position at Goldman Sachs. You've worked at other Wall Street firms. You seem to have a lot of vitriol about the behavior on Wall Street.

NOMI PRINS, AUTHOR, "IT TAKES A PILLAGE": Well, I think, Ali, you know, the behavior on Wall Street, particularly recently and leading up to the bailouts and the trillions of dollars really of subsidies that the government handed to the industry to stay afloat have been shameful.

And you know, as I've written in the book, as I think people know, it really wasn't just a bunch of mortgages that went under that caused the financial implosion of last year. If it was, it wouldn't have been so expensive to clean up. It was a lot of the practices that went on and that are still going on today on the Street.

VELSHI: And that's the important part. You know, I just got back from another one of these road trips. And one of the most common things I get from people is, what has changed? How has Wall Street changed since the bailout? What's in place now? Because obviously something is in place to make sure that what happened in 2008 isn't going to happen again, right?

PRINS: It is such a great question and so good that you were out there talking to people, because that is the number one question. Not a lot has changed. Unfortunately there's more risk being taken today, and risk being the operative problem that happened leading into the financial implosion last year than had been taken last year. It's up substantially. The profits that banks are making from trading, from their most speculative businesses, are far higher this year than they were the year into last year's financial implosion.

And on the other side -- and I'm sure you've gotten this from people around the country, bankruptcies are higher -- personal bankruptcies are higher. Delinquencies on mortgages are higher, foreclosures are higher. Every other measure of real people's real problems is worse this year than it was before the bailout.

VELSHI: One of the things that really has people angry, of course, and you probably talked about this many times, is compensation. John Mack from Morgan Stanley said he's not going to take his bonus for 2009. He's now leaving the company anyway. It even seems -- even the people I know from Wall Street seem to be upset at the agree of compensation at the highest level of some of these companies.

The fact that no one seems to have said we had a hand in this thing and we're going to share in some of the pain by not getting paid that much, is that a normal way to think about things? Does that make sense?

PRINS: I think it does make sense for everyone who is not really attacking this notion of getting substantial pay this year. I think if certain firms had admitted -- and if they had to have admitted, they would also have had to dial back the amount of bonuses that they're paying out this year, rather than going on this notion that we deserve it, we're entitled, we're great, we're talented.

But admitting, look, we got so much help, so much help that no one else got, and it's on the back of that help that we're able to even exist, let alone pay this much money.

VELSHI: Listen, you -- this is a complicated one and you don't have a lot of take to explain it. But, Glass-Steagall, you say that the repeal of a law called Glass-Steagall really contributed to the mess that we were in. And you think that it or something like it should be put in place. Is there some way you can explain that in a way that people who don't have sort of a lot of depth in financial knowledge would understand?

PRINS: Oh, sure, Ali. You know, Glass-Steagall did, it was a 1933 act that separated the risk-taking banks from the non-risk-taking banks. So the non-risks, the commercial banks that deal with deposits and loans and real individuals and real situations, they were given the ability to have federal backing.

The FDIC was created to back deposits and all sorts of certainties were provided to that set of banks. They were separated by the Glass-Steagall Act from the risk-taking banks. The investment banks that had basically traded and borrowed and done all sorts of speculative and potentially murky types of activities that led to the 1929 market crash and years and years of a Depression.

The act separated those two, said government helps these guys, government does not help the risk-takers. They're on their own. They fail, they fail. And that act was -- existed for decades of a more stable environment in banking. And when it was repealed in 1999...

VELSHI: It was actually only repealed a decade ago, yes.

PRINS: Just a decade ago. That unleashed record mergers and this convolution of the risk-takers with the deposit-takers. And that created an environment where it's hard to regulate, it's hard to see, and it's easy to take on risk and basically implode a system as we almost saw happen last year on the back of taking that risk. And that was a very dangerous thing (ph).

VELSHI: Nomi, why is that sort of thing not coming back? Will 2010 see legislation introduced to bring that sort of separation of risk-taking financial institutions from safer ones? Will we see that?

PRINS: You know, I hope so. There has been some inkling in it -- in the House bill, but nothing very preventative, just some talk. There has been a couple of senators who just recently -- Senator Cantwell and as well as Senator Sanders from Vermont, who said we should really dissect these risk-taking from these consumer-oriented institutions.

And I hope that gains some traction into next year, because without doing something like that, we're sitting on a pile of public subsidized risk that's going to get worse in our faces. VELSHI: Hey, really good explanation of it. I want to get your quick take on something. That business with President Obama a week ago inviting bankers to the White House, some came, some didn't, is that a photo op? Or did something material come out of that?

PRINS: You know, I don't think that policy based on promises is very good policy. And what came out of that was a promise from the bankers that showed up, seven out of 10 showed up, three didn't, to do better, to lend more to small businesses. And I don't think that promises really work with Wall Street because it's always also on to the next deal and the next amount of money.

And those things get forgotten. And I think we need really, you know, stronger legislation to make sure that the lending, the credit, all the help that was given to the industry actually gets laid out to help the greater economy.

VELSHI: Nomi, it's interesting to hear this sort of criticism from somebody who was so involved in Wall Street themselves. Usually you hear it from people who have no connection to it. You know the inside scene. "It Takes a Pillage," fantastic name for the book, "Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses & Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street." Nomi is now a senior fellow at Demos.

Thanks very much for being with me. I'll be here all week for Rick. But right now let's take you to "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Suzanne Malveaux.