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American Morning: Wake Up Call
Dow Drop a Downer for Asian Markets; Warren Jeffs Found Guilty; Drug Resistant Salmonella; Psychologists OK Gay Marriage
Aired August 05, 2011 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. It is Friday, August 5th. This is your A.M.: WAKE-UP CALL.
I'm Ali Velshi, joining you live this morning from New York.
Well, TGIF -- a new day. And TG-- it's not Thursday. Yesterday, the Dow posted the steepest one-day drop since the financial crisis three years ago, 512 points. That thud has left its mark in Asia. The Hang Seng, Nikkei and other major Asian markets all ending the weekend, the day, with losses. European futures open lower this morning. U.S. stock futures have been up and down all night. We'll update you as the hour progresses.
Investors turn shares, gold, commodities, oil, everything into cash. All of the selling erased the whole year's market gains for all three major indices in the United States, and really just snowballed after the closing bell.
Here's the recap of Thursday in 30 seconds starting with the opening bell, as a little clock in the upper right of your screen so you can follow the time line. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Watching stocks drop right now. The Dow down 72 points.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's another breath-taking plunge on Wall Street.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching the fall of the U.S. markets.
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: From big banks to Apple to Google, every single one is lower.
VELSHI: People are taking their money out of the stock market, out of gold, out of oil.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The ugly picture. The Dow now down about 300 points.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Three hundred seventy points plunging here as we are an hour away from the closing bell.
HARLOW: All of the Dow 30 blue chip stocks are down today.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
VELSHI: All right. This is me, Ali Velshi, CNN's business correspondent, talking to you now. A lot of the problem yesterday was Italy's debt, the European central bank buying up bonds to prop up the euro, and some other activity in Japan to prop up the yen.
Now, today the U.S. could own the so-called X-factor that could influences the markets. The monthly jobs report from the labor market. The highly anticipated monthly jobs report will be released around 8:30, exactly 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
Take a look at this chart. This is the jobs added and lost over the past 12 months. Things are improving nicely as you can see for a while.
But look what happened in May. It's sort of fell off of a cliff. And in 3 1/2 hours, we expect to learn that the U.S. economy added between 70,000 and 80,000 new jobs in July. Net new jobs, new jobs minus jobs lost.
Now, if that's true, it's bad news. If fewer jobs were added, that's really bad news.
The national unemployment rate is now at 9.2 percent. All of this bad news has raised the specter of a double-dip recession in the United States. A "New York Times" analysis thinks that that could be happening.
It was the topic on CNN's "A.C. 360" last night. The former U.S. comptroller and the global editor at large for "Reuters" said this about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID WALKER, FORMER U.S. COMPTROLLER GENERAL: Let me be clear, right now we need to focus on making sure we don't have a double dip recession.
CHRYSTIA FREELAND, GLOBAL EDITOR AT LARGE, REUTER: We are still incredibly frail and I think there is a real danger of a double dip recession.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Now, before we move on, let's put what happened on Thursday in perspective. I'm not going to break out into a rendition of Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy." But let's face it, things actually could have been a lot worse. Consider this -- it was the ninth biggest point loss ever on Wall Street. But as far percentage drops, which are substantially more important, it was the 116th worse, that's not very historic, is it?
Here's more perspective from history. See there have been some steep valleys and peaks over the years. But they have been followed by sure and steady recoveries.
Let's give Ben Stein the last word.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN STEIN, ECONOMIST: It's a large point drop. It's not a particularly enormous percentage drop. We've had a fantastic stock market recovery for the lows. We may very well be heading for a double-dip recession. But so far, things are not that terrible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: All right. There's graphic I'm going to show you that says it all. The NASDAQ, the Dow, and the S&P were all down yesterday. And these are the stock futures for today. The S&P is down right now in pre-market trading. The NASDAQ is down. The Dow is down.
This stuff changes a lot. So, we'll keep you posted on it.
We've also been watching global markets for you all night for a clue as to what's going to happen when markets open.
We've got live team coverage for you. Nina dos Santos is in London. Andrew Stevens is in Hong Kong.
Andrew, let's start with you. You guys have seen those markets closed. They closed lower. They opened lower. But it may have broken some of the momentum going into the trading day. Tell us what you know.
ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you look at to how the markets closed, a lot of them closed near their lows of the day, Ali. So, the momentum was actually working against some of the Asian markets. Obviously, there is still this real link to the U.S. economy. Asia is the exporting capital of the world, countries like Taiwan, China is still a huge exporter, South Korea, all these markets taking a hit. Hong Kong on the back of obviously what happens in China takes those hits.
So, you do have this fundamental issue, this linkage with the U.S. So, what we're seeing here is a selloff pretty much across the board. No one escaped.
Australia was a very big fall (ph) today. Australia is interesting because it's a great bellwether for investor sort of sentiment about where the global economy is going. That was down 3.7 percent. Now, that's a big fall for Australia because it's a commodity index.
So, everybody is looking and saying, well, commodity prices are going to awaken because of the weak global economy. And you obviously can't discount what's going on in Europe either.
So, as with 2008, Ali, Asia is a bit of a bystander. Once again, it finds itself paying the price for issues which are not of its making but certainly it can't escape.
VELSHI: Yesterday was unusual in that the money didn't leave stocks to go into many commodities. Commodities were down almost across the board. The only place money was going to yesterday was cash or what appeared to be very safe bonds.
STEVENS: Yes, absolutely. It's cash. I was talking to chief equities strategist to HSBC here just before we came on air. And he was saying that, really, there's going to be a lot of volatility out there at the moment. Cash is the safest call at the moment.
We've seen the gold price tick up actually again in Asian trade. I think it's back around about its record levels. So, there is a little bit more thought going into exactly how do we play this.
But, still, if you want to be ultra safe here, it's cash.
VELSHI: Andrew, good to speak to you. Thanks very much for the analysis -- Andrew Stevens in Hong Kong.
Let's go to London -- Nina dos Santos joins us live.
And I know while this was all happening in U.S. markets, Nina, you were crunching the numbers. You were trying to make sense of it. A lot of this was triggered by activity by the European central bank yesterday in an effort to shore up the Italian situation?
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. Activity, but perhaps not enough activity for the likes of Spain and also Italy. There's two countries that many are saying that are becoming increasingly difficult in terms of sort of financing their money on the bond markets and too big really to fail. Again, the term too big to fail, Ali, is being bandied about everywhere. Of course, that was the hallmark of the Lehman Brothers crisis in the 2008 credit crunch.
And a lot of people are saying, just like Andrew Stevens was just telling you before, the move to cash really was a hallmark of what we saw about two or three years ago in these global financial markets.
Let's take a look at some of the figures today. A lot of the markets in Europe started the day down in excess of 3 percent. And what we're also seeing, Ali, on these markets, is that what's interesting is if you tally up the year-to-date losses for the European markets, it really shows that this where the weakness is.
A number of the European markets are down in excess of 10 percent. Some of them double digit declines year to date. Swiss market is down 18 percent so far this year. The Italian market is down 20 percent so far this year.
And, actually, the United States markets are only down by about 2 percent and the Asian markets are down by about 5 percent. And just that goes to show that Europe is where the problem is and Europe is where the problem is and Europe is where the markets are being affected the most at the moment.
VELSHI: Good for us to remember that and good for us to realize how interconnected they all are anyway because we got to bear the pain for that European problem yesterday.
Nina, thanks very much. We'll be checking in with you through the course of the morning -- Nina dos Santos in London.
Well, as stocks plunged yesterday, comedians' jabs went up. Here's your punch line.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
JAY LENO, "THE TONIGHT SHIOW WITH JAY LENO": Whoo, what a terrible -- 500 points it dropped today. It's unbelievable. Well, it's almost due to the fear that the debt crisis in Europe is getting worse. And several European nations are trying to borrow money from China. And Obama got up. He told them, "Hey, China is our sugar daddy. You get your own. You get your own."
CONAN O'BRIEN, "CONAN": The stock market, you probably heard, was down today. That's not great. But I thought enough bad news this week. What if I start tonight's show with some good news? Would you like some good news?
CROWD: Yes.
(CHEERS)
O'BRIEN: Yes. The new season of "Jersey Shore" premieres tonight.
(CHEERS AND BOOS)
O'BRIEN: Good God, what the hell was that? That was horrifying. What a horrifying reaction. The joy and the anger mixed together. No, new season premieres tonight. So, now, America can take a break from feeling broke and concentrate on not feeling ashamed.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
VELSHI: Here's our quote of the day. Quote, "I didn't come into this job to quit. I came into this job to fight." Find out what newsmaker said that and why you need to know, coming up in 90 seconds.
It is 10 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Well, 11 minutes after hour. This is your A.M.: WAKE- UP Call.
Now, back to the quote of the day came from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEON PANETTA, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I didn't come into this job to quit. I came in to this job to fight. And I -- you know, my intention is to fight, to make sure that hopefully some common sense prevails here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Panetta was talking at his first Pentagon news conference since taking over as the secretary of defense a month ago.
Most of the briefings centered on questions about the debt ceiling deal required by the Pentagon to cut about $400 billion from his budget. He says, I'm not going to quit. I'm going to fight.
Thousands of furloughed Federal Aviation Administration workers will soon be back on the job. The Senate is set to approve a temporary measure today that will resume funding for the FAA. Lawmakers went on recess this week after passing the debt ceiling deal. But they left the FAA in limbo because of partisan bickering. That came at a high price with the government losing out on $30 million a day in aviation taxes. Airport construction projects were halted. And each side blamed the other.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: This is their modus operandi: government by crisis that they make up, government by hostage taking, government by threat.
REP. CONNIE MACK (R), FLORIDA: The one person that has the power to bring it up for a vote chose not to and that is Senator Reid. So, I would say that -- and maybe the secretary didn't want to say it, but Senator Reid should call the Senate back in, take up the bill, and pass it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Congress is going to take up the issue again when it returns from its recess in September.
The only thing worse than salmonella is salmonella that's hard to treat. The CDC says the bacteria linked to the current ground turkey recall is more resistant than unusual to antibiotics and that's causing more people to be hospitalized. Nearly 80 people have been diagnosed with salmonella and one has died from eating ground turkey that's traced to Cargill Meats.
Let's go to Rob Marciano live in Atlanta.
At least 15 states again under heat advisories. Rob, when is this going to break?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's going to begin to wane a little bit next week. But we saw several more days of record-breaking heat or near record-breaking heat to contend with, especially across the central and Southern Plains.
These are the list of records from yesterday. Wichita Falls, which has had an incredible streak of 100 plus days, 111 yesterday. Dallas seeing 108. They also set a record for the record low minimum or high minimum. Oklahoma City, 108, and Austin, Texas, seeing 107. So, big highly populated cities seeing temperatures that are dangerously hot and you'll see 'em again today.
One hundred eight is expected in Dallas, 104 in Little Rock, and 110 in Oklahoma.
How about any relief tomorrow? We come down a degree or two Sunday, maybe another degree. So, we'll start to break it down but not really -- not in earnest until next week. And even then, we probably will still touch 100 in a lot of these spots.
Northeast looks good, couple of showers, coolers. And the West Coast looks nice as well.
If you're traveling today, Kansas City, some thunderstorm, St. Louis as well, San Francisco, the usual this time of the year, morning fog and some wind.
And just to briefly touch on Emily, well, died at least for now as it tries to make it over Hispaniola. Those mountains just tore it apart. It may reemerge in the southern Bahamas. If so, we will watch it very, very carefully.
VELSHI: You said -- you said that was going to happen. You said that was possible.
MARCIANO: Yes. You know, all bets were off, right, until this thing got over Hispaniola. And right now, the table, the betting tables, are closed.
VELSHI: So, you know, yesterday, I was a little occupied as you may have noticed with the stock market thing. So, I spoke to my wife early late and she was in Miami. And I said, you know, you better check on this whole storm thing and how it's going to affect your travel back this weekend. And she goes, no, the storm broke up. I said, no, it didn't. And she said maybe you should tune in to CNN, it broke.
MARCIANO: One more lesson to always listen to your wife.
VELSHI: Yes.
MARCIANO: Hey, one thing, listen -- the heat story, there's an interesting wrinkle in this, not only in Texas but across the country. Prescription drugs, a lot of them are being shipped -- buying them because it's cheaper.
VELSHI: Sure.
MARCIANO: Insurance companies are even doing it as well. But if temperature gets above, you know, 85, 86 degrees or even cooler than that in some of the shipping, that will do chemical things to these drugs that make them either ineffective or increase the side effects.
So, doctors are recommending, if you can, go to the pharmacy, pick up your drugs or have them shipped to work because the heat is not so good.
VELSHI: I haven't thought about that, but they always say keep it, you know, within the temperature range.
All right. Good advice, Rob. Thank you very much. Rob, I'll check in with you through the course of the morning.
Hey, you know, we always do a national day here. Today is National Day of Twins. Twins. It's actually all weekend long.
So, in order for twins all around, check out the pictures of these super cute twins.
It's 16 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Eighteen minutes after the hour. Time now for your Political Ticker with Tim Farley. He's the host of "Morning Briefing" on Sirius XM POTUS live from Washington.
Good morning to you, Tim.
Before we start, I want to play you clip a clip from our Candy Crowley's interview with California Governor Jerry Brown. Look at the terrible day we had on Wall Street yesterday and concerns that the U.S. might be headed into another recession. I don't know if that's true.
Governor Brown says America cannot govern when it has two parties so opposed to each over. Listen to what he had to say.
TIM FARLEY, "MORNING BRIEFING," SIRIUS XM POTUS: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JERRY BROWN (D), CALIFORNIA: If the country cannot make decisions about how it spends money or how it deals with its basic problems, but instead squabbles with the scapegoating, finger- pointing, and blaming, I think that is an ominous sign going forward.
(END VIDEO LCIP)
VELSHI: All right, Tim. An ominous sign going forward. It came up a lot in discussions and analysis last night that if we need the government to look like it is doing the right things to create environment for jobs or anything else to do with economic growth, maybe we can't do it with the squabbling going on in Washington.
FARLEY: Well, the squabbling, I think, is going on throughout the country, Ali. Really, the representation in Washington, D.C. is the representation of the people who elected those individuals.
And, frankly, when is the last time you heard in a campaign, I'm going to go to Washington, D.C. to get along with everybody and make deals. People say I'm going to go to D.C. to fight, fight for you. And people feel that's the misrepresentation system in this country and sort of I think it's a reflection of all the angst right now about the unemployment and about the economic numbers. And I think that's a big part of what's going on right now.
VELSHI: It's a little bit about people looking out for their interests because things are so tough. I think you're right about that.
Hey, Tim, we're a little over three hours away from the July jobs report which, by the way, was supposed to be the biggest economic thing we were talking about in the last two weeks and it's been everything but.
How is President Obama and Congress -- how are they going to weather these ongoing crisis?
FARLEY: Well, you hit the $64,000 dollar question, or in this case, the $14 million question because there are 14 million unemployed. And we'll see today what the exact number is.
It's really hard, but Congress is out of town right now. And the president keeps looking for ways -- he's pivoted the job so many times now that his pivot foot is probably getting a little bit worn out, to use a basketball metaphor.
This is the key right now, though, is they've got to figure out a way to do it without necessarily, I guess, spending too much more money and I'm not sure that there's no clear path, the way economists are talking about it on how to do.
He's talking about veterans today and getting them back into the workforce. He has some incentives that he's laying out at the Washington Navy yard this morning. So, we're going to hear the president talk about those numbers as well as at least that part of the solution when he talks a little bit later this morning.
VELSHI: And this FAA funding deal -- I mean, they couldn't get this done before they took the recess and then a couple of days of media firestorm and the transport secretary going out there and yelling at Congress and -- all of a sudden, poof, yesterday, deal done.
FARLEY: Yes, exactly. Don't you love the metaphors of keeping people hostages and Senator Chuck Schumer said, putting a gun to the head of people, you know, when you're talk about airlines anyway.
Yes, the Senate is doing unanimous consent. They'll have two or three senators. They'll take 10 minutes and they'll get it done. And, by the way, they're going to have to revisit this in September because it's really done. This is the proverbial kicking the can down the road again, Ali Velshi.
VELSHI: All right. Tim, good to see you. Have a great show this morning. Thanks for your analysis. Tim Farley is the host of "Morning Briefing" on Sirius XM POTUS.
We're keeping a eye on the world markets this morning, after a dismal day on Wall Street. We're going live to Hong Kong in just minutes.
It's 22 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. Let's go around the world with Anna Coren in Hong Kong.
While everybody else is looking at the markets, Anna is actually keeping her eye on other things after the big selloff here in the United States. There's got to be a lot of worry this morning worldwide, Anna. Good morning.
ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ali.
Well, as you know, fears of a new financial crisis have sent global markets in a tailspin. Trading has been underway in Europe for several hours now. And they're certainly following Wall Street's lead. The FTSE and the DAX are both down more than 2 percent.
Well, here in the Asian Pacific, markets plummeted. Hong Kong's Hang Seng got the most, closing down 4.3 percent.
In Australia, the S&P ASX 200 also took a hammering, down 4 percent. That is the lowest level in two years. Ali, $60 billion was wiped from the value of the Australian stocks. So, it's not good for share portfolio. Commodity prices obviously a real factor Down Under.
The Nikkei, not far behind, closing down 3.72 percent.
That is the big story, obviously, that we are closely following -- Ali.
VELSHI: Often, you see money going out of stocks, you see commodity-rich countries like Australia benefitting from it. This was the unusual thing about yesterday. Money was coming out of everything. Nobody was making money today.
Anna, great to see you. Thank you so much for joining us -- Anna Coren in Hong Kong.
So after the Dow's bad day yesterday, you might be wondering as Anna said, about your own portfolio, your own 401(k). Christine Romans will be here after the break to talk about it. It's important.
It's Friday. It's 26 minutes after the hour. The world is still here. This is your A.M.: WAKE-UP CALL.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Good morning. It is Friday, August the 5th. This is your A.M.: WAKE-UP CALL.
I'm Ali Velshi, joining you live from the New York this morning.
We're just crossing the half hour. The world is still reeling from that 512-point drop on Wall Street yesterday. The Dow posted its steepest one-day point drop since the financial crisis three years ago.
The Labor Department releases U.S. job numbers three hours from now, 8:30 Eastern Time.
Take a look at this chart. See how brutal May and June -- that's on the right side of the chart where job-wise compared to previous months. Now, we expect to learn that the U.S. economy added between 70,000 to 80,000 jobs in July, far lower than what we need to get out of this unemployment pickle that we're in right now, with the national unemployment rate of 9.2 percent.
All of that political drama you saw during the debt ceiling fiasco -- well, there could be more where that came from. And considering about 80 percent of Americans are not happy with Congress right now, there could be some political debts to pay.
Here's what "Marketplace's" host, Kai Ryssdal told Piers Morgan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAI RYSSDAL, HOST, MARKETPLACE: There's a case to be made that given the political discord that we have in Washington, the economy we have right now is going to be the economy that we have come Election Day, because we're not going to get anything done in the Congress in the next 16, 18 months, and that bodes pretty ill for everybody in power, not just the president, but the Republican Party in the House and the Democrats in the Senate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: U.S. market tanked yesterday. You probably know that already. The world markets tanked overnight. What about your 401(k)? Well, to help to ease your fears, Christine Romans, my friend, is here live in New York with us. Ease my fears, Christine?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm the good cup this morning, right? Well, OK. I'm going to ease your fears, Ali. Two things I want to tell you about. One, that Dow drop was 116th worse percentage wise ever. Think about that.
VELSHI: And that's more important than these point drops.
ROMANS: Yes. A 116th times we've done this, and we'll probably do it again, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not today, but maybe in three years, who knows, but this is a big move for the markets. Also, another thing here, four out of five times with the S&P, I mean, that's the really big gains people care about, right? VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: Out of five times over the past 20, 25 years where we've had a move like that. The day after or the next day, stocks have been higher. So, you bail out now. Stocks could very well start moving higher again because (INAUDIBLE). So, you know, you cannot time the market. And I've been covering markets long enough to know that anybody I know who is smart says, you cannot time the market. So, you pull your hair out, be careful here.
VELSHI: OK. That wasn't -- that was a little low. There's no need for a hair joke, but here's the issue.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: You have to be smart twice, right? If you decide to time this market, you got to get out at the right time hope they are right because markets are going lower, and then, you got to get in at the right time, and you know, get back in, and that's what people miss. So, when you got out in 2008 because of those crazy markets and you didn't get in in the spring of 2009, you missed one of the best years in the market's history.
ROMANS: And I'm going to tell you something with 100 percent certainty, most people are not smart enough to make those two perfect market timing decision. You just aren't. That's why got to have a plan. You got to be working your plan. And you always hear this from us when the market does something crazy. Come on. If you need to look at your 401(k) and reallocate and be -- just like you go to the dentist.
It should be routine, every six month, every quarter, every year. I don't care. I don't care how often you want to do it, but just make sure that you're doing it not on a day like this morning.
VELSHI: Right. That's exactly right.
ROMANS: Also, you know, we've seen -- the fear factor, that fear indicator has been going up for a very long time. It's a very smart market professionals. It's not really a surprise that they stress the market. They've been seeing it all around. We've been telling you these little pieces of the story that had been showing stress in the market for some time. Just, you know, everyone, this something a really smart guy in commodities told me once. He said, Christine, don't just do something, stand there.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: Don't just do something. Stand there. Christine, we're going have a busy day because of that job numbers. You and me. I hope you slept last night.
ROMANS: I did, but, you know, I'm still hoarse from all of this -- I don't know.
VELSHI: I know. It's been crazy day. All right. We're going to be spending a lot of time together today. I'll see you in a half an hour on "AMERICAN MORNING."
ROMANS: All right. Bye-bye.
VELSHI: In today's "Businessman Special," we are talking about the business social media network LinkedIn. It reported the surprise profit. Find out how they plan to keep the trend going coming up in two minutes. Three minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Thirty-six minutes after the hour. Welcome back to you're A.M. WAKE-UP CALL. I'm Ali Velshi. Back to today's Businessman Special." LinkedIn has doubled it sales in the last year. The stock is up. More people are joining linked in every day.
How is this company going to keep it going? The company CEO released a statement saying, quote, "We plan to continue to invest in our team technology and products in order to increase the value we deliver to members and realize the full potential of the LinkedIn platform."
What on earth does that mean? You realized that that statement can apply to any company doing anything, anywhere in the world. Maybe we'll have to find out what they're up to at some point. "Political Ticker" time. Let's bring in comedian and host of "StandUp with Pete Dominick" on Sirius POTUS XM.
Whatever you call it. Pete, it's twins' weekend, so we figured we'd book you. We were separated at birth. I will just spend (ph) a little more.
PETE DOMINICK, HOST, STANDUP WITH PETE DOMINICK: Yes, but you're more ageless and raceless. And I'm just this kind of pale, whitish guy.
VELSHI: You are smart and you are funny. Sounds like a line from the movie, "The Help." Pete, talk to me about this. Remarkable low approval rate for Congress in this "New York Times"/CBS Poll. We all think that Congress generally gets a low approval rate, but we're talking really low.
DOMINICK: Yes. I mean, this is one of the highest disapproval rates of Congress ever since they started asking this question. At the same time, Mark Twain once said it could probably be shown by facts and figures that there's no distinctively native American criminal class except for Congress, Ali Velshi. That was Mark Twain. So, Americans think that people, the men and women, most of men under the capital dol (ph) mark really pretty stupid. They're not listening to us.
VELSHI: Isn't it sad, Pete? Isn't that sad? We have freedom. We can vote. We have liberties. We have a market. Why does that have to be the case?
DOMINICK: I think it's because they're not doing the bidding of the American people, but they're doing the bidding of the people who pay them to write the rules and regulations that help their industries. I think that a lot of Americans would probably answer that they want to see the money taken out of politics. They want to see the money taken out of campaigns. And so, we'll see what happens. I don't think anything is going to change anytime soon, Ali Velshi.
VELSHI: Yes. Well, I think a lot of people wonder what's going to change. How are Republicans and Democrats going to fair in 2012 because of this economic -- I don't want to call it crisis, but this economic pickle that we continue to be in.
DOMINICK: Well, Americans are going to blame Congress, and they're mostly going to blame Republicans according to this poll for what happened with this debt ceiling crisis for being this word that -- Ali, who would've thought we would heard the word intransigent so many times in a few weeks period.
VELSHI: Yes.
DOMINICK: But they'll blame, I think, Republicans for that. But they could blame the president, who knows? It depends. We're going to be seeing these job numbers coming out today. They're supposed to be probably pretty bad. It all matters what the unemployment rate is come November of 2012.
Can I just tell you this, Ali Velshi? This may be inappropriate for CNN, but I like to wake up with you.
VELSHI: That's excellent, Pete.
Well, you know what, in honor of how similar we look and in honor of the fact that it is National Twins Day, let's go to commercial break with these great pictures of twins. Pete, take a look at this.
DOMINICK: I love it. Thanks, pal.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Forty-one minutes after the hour. Here's today's "Get Smart" question. Do you think more people increase or decrease their 401(k) contributions in 2010? You know what? Either you should know this or you don't. I'm not going to give you the break to figure it out. The answer surprised even me. Despite the economy, the majority of people increased their contributions to 401(k) plans according to a report by Fidelity, who would know, because they are the biggest.
A Texas jury will return today to decide the punishment for polygamist sect leader, Warren Jeffs. Jurors convicted him yesterday of sexual assaulting a 12 and 15-year-old girls. He took as his spiritual wives. The former member of the sect has reacted to the verdict.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FLORA JESSOP, FORMER FLDS MEMBER: He' used to having 10,000 people do his bidding and bow at his feet. And I think that he kind of maybe thought that with his sermonizing and reading of his scriptures and his witness on the stand, that he maybe was -- thinking, maybe, he had convinced these people that he was just doing his sacred, religious beliefs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Jeffs could get life in prison.
All right. The only thing worse than salmonella is salmonella that's hard to treat. The CDC says the bacteria traced to the current ground turkey recall it more resistant than usual to antibiotics. That's causing more people to be hospitalized. Nearly 80 people have been diagnosed with salmonella. One has died from eating ground turkey produced by Cargill Meats.
A group of psychologists is calling on state and federal officials to legalize same-sex marriage. The American Psychological Association says new research shows marriage provides the same sense of security, support, and validation to same sex couples as it does to heterosexual ones. The National Organization for Marriage says there's no evidence to support the group's findings.
Today, the DNA profile of notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, will be entered into the FBI's database. That's going to allow investigators across the country to possibly link Bundy to multiple unsolved murders. Some of the cold cases date back as far as 1961. Bundy confessed to more than 30 murders before dying in Florida's electric chair in 1989.
A Philadelphia judge is ordered four people to stand trial for attempted murder after a dispute on a public bus ended in gun fire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI (voice-over): Here's the video played in court. You got to watch this. Look at the guys on the corner. They're shooting at a bus. Two men spraying the bus with bullets back in June. Apparently, the friends of a young woman who was on the bus who accused of calling them after another passenger chastised her for spanking her son. Believe it or not, nobody was hit by those flying bullets, and the buses had cameras inside and outside, so they were able to figure out who did it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI (on-camera): OK. What could exist on Mars? You're not going to believe what NASA just found. I'll tell you after the break.
But first, this day in history, back in 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her L.A. home. In honor of her life, let's take a look at Marilyn in "Gentlemen Prefer Blonds." It's 43 minutes after the hour.
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VELSHI: Good morning. It is Friday, August 5th. This is your A.M. WAKEUP CALL. I'm Ali Velshi joining you live this morning from New York. It's 46 minutes after the hour. TGIF. It's a new day. And TG, it's not Thursday. Yesterday, the Dow posted the steepest one-day drop since the financial crisis three years ago. Asia has felt the effects of that 512-point thud. Today, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong, the Nikkei in Tokyo and the Shanghai Composite all closing with losses.
European markets are also down, although, not as much as they were yesterday. Not as much as the U.S. or Asia. However, U.S. stock futures are down as well. All of that selling on Thursday. Erase the year's gains for all three major indices in the United States. This is how CNN reported that diving Dow throughout the trading day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're watching stocks drop right now. The Dow down 72 points.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Another breathtaking plunge on Wall Street.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're watching the fall of the U.S. market --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From big banks from Apple to Google, every single one is lower.
VELSHI: People are taking their money out of the stock market, out of gold, out of oil.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The ugly picture. The Dow now down about 300 points.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 370 points plunging here as we are an hour away from the closing bell.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of the Dow 30 blue chips stocks are down today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: All right. My other hat, by the way, around here is that I'm the chief business correspondent for the network. So, let me tell you. A lot of the problem yesterday with Italy's debt and the European Central Bank buying a bank, buying back bonds to prop up the euro. It was supposed to help investors feel better. Now, today, the U.S. could only X-factor that influences global markets.
We seem to be taking turns on this. At 8:30 a.m. eastern, the labor department releases the jobs numbers. Take a look at this chart. This is the number of jobs added or lost over the course of the last 12 months. You can see that a year ago, we were losing a lot of jobs, and then, we started gaining them. Things were improving nicely for a while, but look what happened in May, on the right side of your screen, we sort of fell off a cliff. Now, later this morning, we expect to learn that the U.S. economy added between 70,000 and 80,000 jobs in July. Now, if that is true, it's bad news. If fewer jobs were added, that's really bad news. The national unemployment rate in the United States, 9.2 percent right now. That's the official rate. Now, come close to the TV screen for a second. It's time for a little Kumbaya with Ali.
Let's put this in perspective. It could have been a lot worse. Consider this. It was the ninth biggest one-day point loss on Wall Street, but your investments are gauged in percentages. Percentages are more important. And as the percentage loss, it was the 116th worse. That's not very historic. And here's some more perspective. Take a look at the Dow since 1900. I'm going to show you a chart. There've been a lot of steep valleys, but they're usually followed by sure and steady recoveries. Here's Ben Stein with some more words on this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN STEIN, ECONOMIST: It's a large point drop. It's not a particularly enormous percentage drop. We've had a fantastic stock market recovery from the lows. We may very well be headed for a double-dip recession, but so far, things are not that terrible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: All right. There's a big picture for you. Let's go to London right now. Nina Dos Santos has been looking at the details of why this happened, what triggered this, and whether we see more of it today. Nina, good morning.
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Ali. Yes, the European stock markets really suffering after the kind of heavy losses that you saw on Wall Street. And at the moment, we've really woken up to a new reality, Ali, one in which cash for the moment, it seems, is king everywhere around the world. You mentioned a little earlier on that the ECB, the European Central Bank, intervened yesterday trying to prop up the market (INAUDIBLE).
Now, what was crucial about what it did there was that it only decided to buy back bonds of Portugal and Ireland. Two of the countries that are being bailed out, but not the two countries, the larger economies that have everybody worried. Those two are, of course, Italy and also Spain. And today, we did get some economic growth figures that, to a certain extent, injected a little bit of optimism.
We found out that Italy in the second call (ph) did grow by about a third of one percent. Spain's economy also greeting the same period about.2 percent, but for the moment, it's not enough to allay those kind of fears that the U.S. prices isn't sorted out. And if it isn't sorted out, it is going to effect market well beyond this week in same (ph) borders, Ali.
VELSHI: Italy is the eighth largest economy in the world, and the fear is that European Central Bank just doesn't have enough money if Italy and Spain get in to these problems, but it goes back to the too big to fail problem that we remember from three years ago. Nina, thanks for your work on this. We'll keep checking in with you through the course of the morning.
Let's go to Rob Marciano live from Atlanta. At least 15 states are under heat advisories right now. Rob, what are you looking at?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Same states that have been enduring this heat, Ali, for quite sometime, and the most that are suffering are Oklahoma and Northern Texas. And there's where the records were sent yesterday. Wichita falls, 111, Dallas seeing 108, Oklahoma City, 108. So, highly populated areas seeing temperatures that are dangerously hot. We'll see them again today, 110, Oklahoma city, 108 in Dallas.
Will we see these temperatures start to wane? Well, you cool off a degree or two on Saturday, maybe another degree on Sunday, and then, maybe, get down to about 100, maybe 99 come Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Until then, it's still kind of warm.
Kansas City, thunderstorms in the afternoon if you're traveling there. San Francisco, some morning fog. Atlanta, some afternoon thunderstorms possible as well. A quick check on what was Emily dissipated, just a slight circulation trying to get over Hispaniola. It may regenerate in the Southern Bahamas, but until then, don't worry too much about it.
Water on Mars. Cool pics, Ali. Love showing you some space stuff. Here we go. The orbiter that's swirling around Mars have some cool pictures, and NASA just released these. It shows the possibility of salt water kind of ebbing and flowing depending on the time of year. Those dark streaks that you see there --
VELSHI: Yes.
MARCIANO: They've been kind of measuring them, and they can tell -- not fluid, but they ebb and flow, depending on the time of year. So, that tells the scientist that there may be indications of salt water on Mars. One more sign that there could have been life on Mars at one point.
VELSHI: Rob, good to see you, my friend. We'll keep checking in with you through course of the morning. Rob Marciano at the weather center.
Hey, look, with the stock market tanking yesterday in global markets overnight, how do you think gold did? Usually, gold does well when markets do as badly. You're going to be surprised by this. But first, take a look at the word of the day, it's Keynesian. Politicians, economists, analysts, you heard them using the term a lot lately. Find out what Keynesian means and why you need to know it right after the short break. It is 53 minutes after the hour.
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VELSHI: The word of the day, Keynesian, named after economist, John Maynard Keynes. It's an economic theory that says active government intervention in the marketplace is the best way to ensure economic growth instability. Let me just feel (ph) that a little more for you. Keynes said that when the economy slows down, government should run deficits.
That's because private companies won't invest setting in motion of vicious cycle. Less investment, fewer jobs, fewer people consuming. So, this theory says the government should proactively pick up the slack. You can hear that term a lot in the coming months.
All right. Here are three things to put on your radar today.
We will, of course, be watching the global markets today for you. Plus, the Senate is expected to vote this morning at 10:00 on the FAA budget. And coming up at 11:34 this morning, eastern time, NASA will launch the spacecraft, Juno, to the planet, Jupiter. It's expected to take five years to get to the red planet.
Well, cake, candles, and presence, that's the way most people celebrate their birthday, but comedian Jon Stewart got President Obama a gift for his 50th birthday, and I'm sure he would like to give back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, HOST, THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART: A special day. It's our president's 50th birthday, and I am no -- I'm no ingrate. I've got him a little something that I think he's going to really enjoy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Massive 500-point selloff, dousing Wall Street, and sea of red.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the bears are mauling Wall Street.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Washington is falling now like a rock in a swimming pool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The 14th worst point decline for the S&P 500.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Extreme fear and panic. I don't know what happened.
(LAUGHTER)
(SINGING) happy birthday to you.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: All right. Let's go to our Carter Evans for a look at your money this morning. He joins us live from the NASDAQ market site right here in New York. You tried yesterday morning. Carter, you tried to put a silver lining around what was going to be the worst cloud we've seen in a long time. Talk to me today. CARTER EVANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, I think we need a little comic relief today, because these numbers are ugly. They're not fun to look at. They're, in fact, scary to look at. But, you know, analysts are saying, hey, -- and what Christine said earlier, it's really, really tough to time the market. So, let's take a look at futures today, and right now, they're down ahead of these jobs report. Dow futures down 46 point this morning.
Our jobs report is going to come out at 8:30 eastern this morning. We're expecting to see an additional 70,000 to 80,000 jobs added in the economy. However, these reports have been off, analysts estimate, for the last couple of months. So, keep that in mind. This is what everybody is going to be focusing on today.
Also, Ali, you know, I wanted to talk a little bit more about gold, because gold fell almost 40 bucks an ounce yesterday. And that doesn't happen generally when stocks are selling off. When stocks are selling off lately, people had been going to the perceive safety of gold, but I say perceived safety, because when gold moves $40, $60 an ounce in one day?
It really isn't that safe after all. People were scared yesterday. Cash is king. Gold is back up again today. It's currently trading at about $16.70 an ounce right now. It's going to be a very interesting day.
VELSHI: That is one way to put it. Carter, good to see you this morning. Thanks very much, and we'll see you again Monday morning on WAKE-UP CALL.
And that's it for us, but "AMERICAN MORNING" continues right now.
