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Examining the G20 Summit; Best Car Deals

Aired March 14, 2009 - 11:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ACHOR: Well, hello there everybody, you are in the CNN NEWSROOM on this 14th day of March. I'm T.J. Holmes, so glad you could be with us today.

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, because we're not going to twitter today.

HOLMES: We are, we might.

ROESGEN: Any way, I'm Susie Roesgen I'm just filling in for Betty Nguyen today. We're going to be talking about the economy of course, and the global economic crisis is topic number one as the world's financial policymakers gather in Great Britain.

HOLMES: And listen to this, how about adding insult to injury here. An unemployed man is forced to pay bank fees so he can access his unemployment benefits.

ROESGEN: It's true. And you'll find out what's going on.

Plus, you know with zero interest rates these days and just about giving away anything to get you to buy a car, maybe you're thinking about buying a car. If you are, wait until you hear our report on the best car deals. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

HOLMES: Yes, we will start with the economic crisis on a global scale, the treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, he is outside of London today meeting with finance ministers from the group of 20. They're looking for the best way to handle the global economic crisis. Meanwhile, the president back here in the U.S. in D.C., he'll be meeting with Brazil's president. They'll be talking about the economy among other things at the White House today. The president of course met earlier as always with his economic advisers.

The last couple of days the president has been sounding decidedly more upbeat about the economy, meanwhile republicans, they're not so convinced just yet. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa put it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY, (R) IOWA: The president's programs don't connect all the dots. His plans fail to recognize that Americans are not an endless source of tax dollars to pay for government spending. Somebody has to pay. If not the middle class now, eventually the middle class gets hit.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: Let's turn to our Elaine Quijano at the White House. Elaine, we knew the president was going to be welcoming another president, has he made it yet?

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. In fact just moments ago, T.J., we should tell you President Lula Da Silva of Brazil pulled up here at the west wing portico and walked in for his meeting with President Obama in the oval office. That's a lot certainly on these two leaders' agenda, things like energy, the environment and climate change, but also the economy.

But what's interesting surrounding this meeting there's another topic that's certainly been getting a lot of attention and that is this heart wrenching custody battle. An American father David Goldman is trying to bring his son, 8-year-old Shawn Goldman back to the United States. The boy's Brazilian relatives have really fought that. President Obama we should tell you is certainly aware of this issue, whether or not he raises it publicly or privately we'll have to wait and see.

There are a couple of reasons why it might actually not come up publicly and that's because secretary of state Hillary Clinton already raised this issue with her counterpart, the foreign minister of Brazil just recently. And also, there's really not any daylight between Brazil and the United States on this issue. Both basically saying look, this boy should be with his father. The issue right now though is that this situation is stuck in the Brazilian courts. So, again, T.J., we'll wait to see if President Obama says something about it today.

HOLMES: If he says something publicly about it. Elaine Quijano for us from the White House, we appreciate you as always. Later this morning we're going to be hearing from David Goldman about his fight for his 8-year-old son as you just heard Elaine mention. CNN's Jill Dougherty examines this international custody battle.

ROESGEN: And as we mentioned earlier this morning Treasury Secretary Geithner is meeting with finance ministers from the G-20, that's the name for the 20 top economies of the world. They're laying the ground work for next month's summit of the world's 20 richest and emerging economies. The G-20 by the way was formed 10 years ago to promote financial stability in the wake of the Asian and Russian financial crises. Now of course everybody's got one. The G-20 includes the eight richest countries, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and of course the U.S. The G20 accounts for 80 percent of the world's trade and represents two thirds of the world's population.

Investors around the world are cheering Wall Street. At last a break, some up days, keep it going. These people were cheering at the annual rodeo in Houston for the Dow closing the week with another rally. Four days in a row, can you believe it, the best stretch since November? One financial analyst calls it a relief rally. Others say it's a confidence builder, but just about everybody says we have got to see a lot more of it. HOLMES: All right, a job fair. You're trying to find work, you show up and you're told you can't come in. That happened this week in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. This is a picture here from one of our i- Reporters, Miguel Spivey. Apparently several thousand people showed up to this particular job fair. And there was a whole lot more than the job fair could handle. So crowded that hundreds of people were told that they could not come in.

Well bank fees, you probably don't even know what you're paying out there sometimes. But you know, banks charge those fees when you use your debit card or maybe another bank's ATM or if you want to check your balance, all kinds of things. But fees like that are now taking a real bite out of jobless benefits for millions of unemployed people. And as our Drew Griffin of our special investigations unit reports, banks that got billions in bailout funds, yep, they're doing it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT (on camera): Where are we?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is west Philadelphia.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Steve Lippe didn't mind taking us on a little tour of his neighborhood. The salesman has plenty of time on his hands after being laid off in January. He also has plenty of time to read the fine print on his bills. And when he read this fine print, he became livid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's $1.50 here.

GRIFFIN: These are the fees attached to his unemployment benefits, actually to a debit card he got from the state. When he filed for unemployment, Pennsylvania gave him the option, wait 10 days for a check or get this card immediately.

STEVE LIPPE, UNEMPLOYED SALESMAN: When you have no choice but to accept the debit card. I was livid that this situation existed. I just couldn't believe it. You know, it's an outrage is too weak a word.

GRIFFIN: Thirty states run similar programs, contracting with a dozen big banks to distribute unemployment benefits on debit cards and allowing banks to charge fees to the unemployed. The contracts do allow a limited number of free transactions, but that's not good enough says New York Congressman Carolyn Maloney.

REP. CAROLYN MALONEY, (D) NEW YORK: Fees should not be attached to unemployment benefits. It's what the taxpayers are paying for to help Americans. Particularly these fees should not be attached by banks that are getting T.A.R.P. money or are being supported by the taxpayer's dollars.

GRIFFIN: Keeping them honest we went to JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Wachovia, who all referred us to state governments including Pennsylvania where Steve Lippe is being charged. Pennsylvania's acting secretary of labor is Sandy Vito. Her staff invited us to Allentown where Vito was participating in this public meeting. Afterwards we were promised she would answer our questions about debit fees. But when the meeting was over, Vito was running from our camera, suddenly too busy her staff said to talk to us.

Hi, Ms. Vito, Drew Griffin with CNN, do you have just a second?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't I'm sorry, I can't.

GRIFFIN: We just have one question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't.

GRIFFIN: As she dashed out the door, her press secretary tried to explain why unemployed workers in Pennsylvania were being charged fees to get their unemployment benefits.

TROY A. THOMPSON, PENNSYLVANIA LABOR DEPT.: The distribution system for getting individuals their benefits has been improved by the use of debit cards.

GRIFFIN: Lippe says he's learned to be careful when getting his money, trying to limit his activity. But on the day we met, he was charged 40 cents just to check his balance.

You're not getting much, are you?

LIPPE: No, I'm not getting much. But the banks are getting $1.50, $3.50 here times how many thousands of people are unemployed and receiving benefits, over 30 states as it turns out?

GRIFFIN: He says he's already being taxed on his unemployment benefits, charging him additional fees just to access the money is just one more insult, he says, to people who can afford it the least. Drew Griffin, CNN, Philadelphia.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: And here's another banking controversy. Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters is saying that she didn't do anything wrong when she tried to get federal help for a minority-owned bank in which her husband owned stock. Congresswoman Waters is a senior member of the house financial services committee. And she set up a meeting last year with the treasury department to talk about concerns from minority owned banks. A bank called One United which her husband owned stock in eventually got $12 million in bailout funds. But again Waters insists that her actions were intended to benefit all minority owned banks.

The economy is issue number one for you, for all of us. So next week we're going to focus CNN's vast resources on the road to rescue. We call it a CNN survival guide. We'll help you, next week. What do the numbers really mean and where are the jobs? That's all next week, Monday through Friday. HOLMES: Another audio tape purportedly by Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden calling Israel's recent offensive in Gaza a holocaust. Arabic language news network Al Jazeera aired the message this morning. The authenticity of the tape not yet confirmed. The last time we heard from bin Laden was in January when he called for a holy war to stop Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

ROESGEN: A silver lining in the recession has been the lower oil and gas prices, a barrel of crude oil is less than a third of what it cost last summer. But then you know oil producers want to change that. OPEC, the OPEC guys are meeting tomorrow to talk about cutting production up to half a million barrels a day to raise the prices. And Iran's oil minister is pushing for production cuts saying too much oil on the market drives down prices. Yeah, it does. Critics say if OPEC does raise prices and does cut production that will worsen the global recession.

HOLMES: Money to rebuild schools was included in that multibillion dollar stimulus package. But one girl in South Carolina is worried her school may miss out on that help.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROESGEN: As you eat your morning breakfast or your afternoon lunch, President Obama is saying that the nation's food safety system is outdated and it's a hazard to your health. So he is creating a food safety working group he says to coordinate food safety laws nationwide. The president made that comment during his weekly national address.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: A system of inspection and enforcement is spread out so widely among so many people that it's difficult for different parts of our government to share information, work together and solve problems.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

ROESGEN: And the president also announced the nomination of this woman, former New York City health commissioner Margaret Hamburg to be the Food and Drug Administration commissioner.

HOLMES: A pork-laden boondoggle that is how South Carolina's governor is describing it. He may now reject part of the money from the president's economic stimulus plan. Disappointing news for a particular teenager in his state who rose to national attention when she asked for financial help to fix her crumbling school. She's not the only one upset either. Jessica Yellin with the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ty'Sheoma Bethea felt she had to speak up. Her school was crumbling and congress was not going to approve money that could be used to rebuild it. She wrote a letter to lawmakers begging for help. TY'SHEOMA BETHEA, STUDENT: I said that we're not quitters and we as students from Dillon can make a change and that we're just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen and also presidents.

YELLIN: The letter made its way to the oval office and brought an extraordinary invitation, the White House sat Ty'Sheoma right next to Michelle Obama at the president's address to congress. It seemed help was on the way, new stimulus money was coming from Washington and Ty'Sheoma thought her school JV. Martin would finally be rebuilt. Now she doesn't know what to think. Her governor Mark Sanford just announced he won't use his share of the stimulus money on projects like rebuilding Ty'Sheoma's school.

GOV. MARK SANFORD, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: It's easy to fall in the trap of we need to fix this one school. The hat that I wear is to look as best I can and it will be imperfect at the state in its entirety.

YELLIN: Taking a stand against government spending, Sanford says he would only be willing to use the $700 million to pay down the state debt. That means Ty'Sheoma's community is left with its crumbling school. She gave us a tour, it's astonishing. The auditorium has been condemned. They use the stage for storage.

BETHEA: It has been condemned for a while. And the walls are starting to peel off and stuff is starting to fall out of the ceiling.

YELLIN: She says the coach cancels basketball games when it rains.

BETHEA: The roof leaks water through the small cracks on the top of the roof.

YELLIN: And the old trailers have walls so thin the teacher has to pause whenever a train rolls by.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The train is coming so I have to stop.

YELLIN: That happens about five times a day.

(On camera): The school is in an area that's been called the corridor of shame. A stretch of highway with neighborhoods that are enormously poor and largely African-American. Some critics say that quite simply, the state does not want to spend money educating black kids.

(Voice-over): South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn is outraged the governor won't spend stimulus money in this community.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN, (D) SOUTH CAROLINA: It is a slap in the face of the people who live in those counties. Now if the majority of people who live in those counties happen to be African-American, it's a slap in their faces as well.

YELLIN: Sanford flatly rejects the charge.

SANFORD: Spending money that you don't have I think is a horrible idea.

YELLIN: His office points out state lawmakers could rebuild J.V. Martin with their own funds. Ty'Sheoma says she just wants the squabbling to end.

BETHEA: The politicians should be giving advice to me as a student instead of me giving advice to a politician as just a little girl from Dillon.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: We'll be watching to see what happens in that one. In the meantime, the spring forecast calls for record flooding, the kind that we haven't seen in years. That's what we're predicting along the red river basin in North Dakota. If you remember the record 1997 flood in Grand Forks that wiped out the town, emergency officials there are saying it could happen again. So they are ordering pumps and planting dikes and the governor has issued a statewide disaster declaration to go ahead and activate resources and pave the way for federal aid.

(WEATHER REPORT)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH LEVS: This used car may be more reliable than some of the newer ones. We have the list, the best, the worst and why coming up.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROESGEN: Well, you know, unless you walk or take the bus, a car is probably the one purchase that you rely on every single day no matter what the economy is, no matter where you're going.

HOLMES: You got to get to work. Our research group that's all about reliability says some used cars may be better than the newer models. Josh Levs looks into it for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEVS: In this economy, you still need to get around, right? As you can imagine, more and more people are looking for used cars. Got to save where you can. So which used car do you get? How do you know if it's going to be a good one, how do you know you're getting a good deal, how do you know it's going to last for you? We have the answers because there's one place in America that knows better than any where else, Consumer Reports and the man is right here. John Linkov with Consumer Reports, thanks for doing this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you Josh for having us down.

LEVS: I want everyone to see how incredibly specific you guys get with these. This is their section on used cars here, but as you go through it, what you see is they start to look at every single model, even within in that, which years are good, which years are bad, ultra specifics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right here we have a Nissan Maxima, this is one of the vehicles that we recommended throughout because it's had really good reliability. So you can pretty much pick up a Nissan Maxima that's within the last eight to 10 years.

LEVS: Even 10 years old?

JOHN LINKOV, CONSUMER REPORTS: Yes, a 10-year-old car really can be good, but what you need to know is the history of the vehicle. This is called the vehicle identification number. If you're buying a car from a private individual, you can take that VIN number, go to the dealership of that brand, so you go to a Nissan dealer and say I'm looking to buy this car, can you at least tell me what the service history is?

LEVS: That's good advice, I didn't realize you could take the VIN number to the dealer.

LINKOV: You can, they may not feel comfortable doing it. It's a hit and miss type of thing, but it's better than nothing.

LEVS: It's worth a shot.

LINKOV: It's definitely worth a shot.

LEVS: What is the biggest mistake people make when going to buy a new car?

LINKOV: They go out to the dealership and they get in the car and they do a test drive, they really don't pay attention to the vehicle, they kind of get taken in by what the salesperson wants. They're lowering the windows, they're talking a lot and they make a really short test drive. Instead of taking it on the roads that they're used to doing, they take it on a loop that the dealer likes, because it really shows off the attributes of the car but it hides all the negative aspects.

LEVS: If you're buying a used car should you be looking at the doors for something. Should you be looking at this section?

LINKOV: If you're really looking at it, you want to wonder why a car that might be three or four years old is going to have four brand new tires on it because that might hide an alignment problem.

LEVS: It's a little bit of CSI?

LINKOV: Well that's how it is. It's doing your investigation. It's taking that weekend of doing research and thinking about what you want to ask. And actually on our website, we have a checklist for used and new vehicles. You want to go through and look at certain things. You actually want to bring your iPod or bring your MP3 player with you, plug it in and try the stereo out. Because you don't want to get home and find out the jack doesn't work.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE) ROESGEN: And Josh Levs is here with us now. So where do we see this full list of the best deals and the worst deals?

LEVS: It is on Consumer Reports dot com as one of the kind of sub sections. I'll show it to you right here because I want everyone to understand how contextual it is. Zoom in here, they are saying one of the best deals in the used car market is the Honda CR-V, it's so specific. They say they like the 2006 model, if you get it around that range. And if you look at their website, it's pretty incredible what they have done. Looked at all these different cars, specific numbers of mileage it could have and how much money it would be worth. They're telling you if it's at that, then it's a good rate. Really great website.

We also, if you want to look at it from the other side, take a look at this, from CNNmoney.com. This is the top 10 resale values cars. Maybe you want to sell a car to someone looking for a used car. Interesting way to look at it. So there are a couple of spreads and you can see what we have at cnn.com/autos that should get you to all the good stuff. And everything I just showed you, if you're on Facebook, I have posted here on my Facebook page, Joshlevscnn, you should be able to see all of it there. And guys, check this out, we just heard about buying a car, right? Some people also have problems when they bring a car to a mechanic. Well next hour I'm going to tell you how to avoid the biggest scandal about that.

HOLMES: That's the scariest thing because you're at their mercy. Here's my car.

ROESGEN: You have no idea.

HOLMES: You have no idea.

LEVS: Exactly. You have no idea and I have learned a lot from doing this and we have taken all that information and boiled it down to 90 seconds for you, so be with us next hour.

HOLMES: All right, Josh we appreciate you. We'll see you next hour, thanks buddy.

An 8-year-old American boy caught in a custody battle is the subject of talks at the highest levels between the U.S. and Brazil. How did we get here? We'll explain the story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well it's half past the hour now and here's a look at what's happening around the world. U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in England today, he's talking to his counterparts among the 20 richest and emerging economies of the world.

The international community is trying to find an answer to the global financial crisis. The economy, energy and the environment three topics that President Obama and Brazilian President Lula da Silva are discussing today at the White House. One topic is getting the United States, this is what Brazil would like, getting the United States to drop its long running trade embargo against Cuba.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Another topic the two leaders are expected to hit on is the plight of an eight year old American boy who is stuck in Brazil and caught in an international tug of war. Our CNN foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For more than four years David Goldman has been fighting to get his son Shawn back from Brazil. Now this family tragedy has exploded into an international custody battle, just as President Barack Obama meets at the White House Saturday with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva. David Goldman's Brazilian wife took Shawn then four years old to Rio for a vacation but never returned. She filed for divorce, remarried but died in child birth, leaving Shawn with his Brazilian stepfather.

DAVID GOLDMAN, FATHER IN CUSTODY BATTLE: I believed that he would be coming home and we'd finally be able to reunite.

DOUGHERTY: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken a personal interest in the case, pursuing it with her Brazilian counterpart. Thursday night she phoned David Goldman.

THOMAS SHANNON, ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE: And underscored how important this case is to the United States and how hopeful we are of a positive resolution as quickly as possible.

DOUGHERTY: A Brazilian judge granted custody to the stepfather, Goldman is appealing. But both the U.S. and Brazilian governments agree Shawn Goldman should be returned to his biological father. But a senior Brazilian diplomat tells CNN, "We have an independent judiciary in Brazil and we cannot interfere." Goldman is in Rio this week, able to visit with Shawn. His last visit, he says broke his heart.

GOLDMAN: He asked me, where have I been for this amount of time, how come I never came to visit him.

DOUGHERTY (on camera): The state department says 3,000 American children have been abducted by a parent to another country. Most never become public. This case fueled by media attention, and lobbying by a U.S. senator shows how America's relations with other countries can be overshadowed by the fate of an 8-year-old boy. Jill Dougherty, the State Department.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: And now to a criminal with deep pockets, $823 million, that's the estimated net worth of admitted scam artist Bernard Madoff and his wife Ruth. Madoff's attorneys listed the couple's holdings on Friday as they're trying to get a court to approve bail for Madoff. He has said after one night in jail he wants out after just one night. He did plead guilty to 11 counts of securities fraud last week. According to the court filing, the Madoff's own $22 million in real estate in the U.S. and Europe. Nearly $9 million in furnishings in their four homes and more than $9 million in boats. Madoff is set to be sentenced in June, his bail appeal will be heard this week.

HOLMES: As part of his plea agreement, Madoff is supposed to make restitution, but some victims of his ponzi scheme are paying a far higher price. CNN's Mary Snow explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really just one of our baby pictures, it really captures the true essence of who Alexander Schindler was with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Elisa Schindler says she's focusing on the legacy of her late father, the Rabbi Alexander Schindler and not on anger towards Bernard Madoff. But she says she's relieved her father didn't live to see the destruction Madoff has caused.

ELISA SCHINDLER, FATHER INVESTED WITH MADOFF: Here's a man who spent his entire life making the world a better place and then you contrast that with a man who didn't do that.

SNOW: Schindler who died in 2000 was a leader of reformed Judaism in the U.S., who fought for civil rights and reached out to world leaders, seen here photographed at the White House and with the pope. When he retired, his daughter says he invested his life savings with Madoff but never met him. Now Schindler's widow Reah has to sell the home where they raised their five children, along with two sacred pieces of (INAUDIBLE) given to the Rabbi as retirement gifts.

JONATHAN GREENSTEIN, JEWISH ANTIQUES EXPERT: It's extremely rare, extremely, extremely rare.

SNOW: Auctioneer Jonathan Greenstein who specializes in antique judaiga(ph) says this torah pointer dates back to the late 1700s and survived the holocaust. Also being sold, this Torah craft.

GREENSTEIN: It shouldn't be ruined by Bernie Madoff or by any other negative history that could be connected to it. It should be admired because it belonged to Rabbi Schindler.

SNOW: Elisa Schindler also says she doesn't want the items to be tainted by the Madoff scandal. And while she says it's heart breaking, she also reminds herself of other struggles her family has endured.

SCHINDLER: My father came out of Nazi Germany, his mother once told me when she came out of Germany that, what's in your mind, and what's in your heart, they can never take away from you. That was a lesson that's always stuck with me. Nobody can take that from you and the rest of it is just things.

SNOW: Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES: The Madoff case at the top of the docket in our legal briefs with Attorneys Avery Friedman and Richard Herman, that's next hour here in the CNN NEWSROOM with Fredericka Whitfield.

ROESGEN: Home foreclosures is a nightmare for most people, but for some people it's an opportunity.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROESGEN: Losing a home to foreclosure is the end of a dream for most families but in their tragedy some other people are realizing the dreams of home ownership by picking up houses cheap. Tom Foreman has the story of how foreclosure auctions are booming.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the port town of Portsmouth, a few hundred souls are searching the ship wrecked economy for gold. Lining up to bid at auction on scores of foreclosed houses. Bad news for some. Good news for others. Like Darlene Shelton, a government worker who rents but wants to buy a place to share with her two grown daughters, one in college and one laid off from a teaching job. What do you like up here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well the porch is nice, with some renovation, I can just turn this into a sit out screened porch. It needs a lot of work, but it's nice.

FOREMAN: Realty Trac says more than 5,000 homes in Virginia went into foreclosure in January. And here, just as it is all over the country, that is bringing out investors, developers, hopeful families, Trent Ferris sees them all.

TRENT FERRIS, REAL ESTATE DISPOSITION, LLC: The fact that they're here, they see an opportunity, that's really what this is, a phenomenal opportunity.

FOREMAN: This is a big house. Darlene divorced, but recently remarried, spends most of her time at her husband's place in D.C. But having a house in her hometown for her girls matters. So she's picked out two possibilities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have done some work in here to it.

FOREMAN: It's tricky, she's not been inside, she's hoping they'll go for $25,000 to $50,000 each. And she's failed before. The two times you have tried this, you haven't gotten a home yet?

DARLENE SHELTON: No, nothing that would fit my budget and something that I feel like I can really fix up and put together.

FOREMAN: Do you feel lucky today?

SHELTON: Well, yes I do, yes I do.

FOREMAN: At the auction the big bidders hit hard, snatching the best properties. Darlene waits, watches and then her houses are up. And for Darlene, the third time -- is still not charmed. Each goes for twice as much as she can afford.

SHELTON: The bids, they said it starts off at like $1,000 then they jump to 50,000. So you don't get a chance in between to go --

FOREMAN: You are out almost as soon as it started.

SHELTON: Yes.

FOREMAN: But she vows to be back, like many of the others who are rebuilding the real estate market one bid at a time.

SHELTON: I have faith, I feel the economy, I know it's going to come back up.

FOREMAN: Tom Foreman, CNN, Portsmouth, Virginia.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: We should know today whether we will see a shuttle launch tomorrow. NASA holding a briefing this afternoon to give us an update. Well they're not updating us on the weather, which sometimes hold these things up. This time it's been delayed so engineers could fix a hydrogen gas leak. That sounds pretty darned important if you're going into space. Launch directors say they'll know if it works when they fill up the external fuel tank. Right now liftoff set for 7:43 Eastern Time tomorrow night.

ROESGEN: And then of course, they might worry about the weather.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HOLMES: Coming up here, you don't want to miss this, the first television interview with Charles Barkley since he got out of jail after serving his sentence for that DUI. I sat down with him this week and talked about his recent brush with the law. Find out why he says that DUI, maybe the best thing that's ever happened to him.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right, Sir Charles, you might have heard, he had a recent run in with the law that landed him in the big house, not the big house but the big tents. Out there in Arizona, tent city, you know they have the tent jail there, you see the video of him. He went to jail, had kind of a strange press conference going in, a lot of people were talking about. But he was serving last weekend for a DWI arrest. Well this week I sat down with Chuck here in Atlanta to talk about that mishap, his first sit down television interview since he got out of jail. Some of the things you might hear here will surprise you and why he says the DUI is one of the best things that has ever happened to him. Listen to him now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: I don't want to relive and go through everything that happened the night of the arrest. What I want you to --

CHARLES BARKLEY, FORMER NBA STAR: Can I say something? The arrest was 100 percent my fault. It's unacceptable for me to get a DUI and I can't ever do that again. That's the bottom line on that.

HOLMES: You actually said to me that that might have been one of the best things that ever happened to you was to get a DUI.

BARKLEY: It was. Well, ok you think about this, I have been in the NBA since 1984. And everybody wanted to make a big deal out of me going to jail and everything. That was the best thing ever happened to me. Because I got lucky, I just got a weekend in jail. I could be a hypocrite and tell people not to drink and drive, but most people when they go out, they drink and drive. But I want them to really think hard about it. Now clearly it attracts a lot of attention if it's me. But I really do think I'm lucky. I mean I could have killed somebody or myself.

HOLMES: You'll never do it again?

BARKLEY: Never do it again. Never, I'm going to get a taxi or a car. Never go and do that again. And think about it. You know, everybody says, oh, Charles Barkley is going to jail. I'm like, first of all, when you go to jail, that's serious stuff. But you know when you're in jail, you sit there and you're like, wow, this is the penance I have got to pay.

HOLMES: You are finishing up, I know you got to go to a few classes, I mean you have done the jail sentence.

BARKLEY: The classes have been great.

HOLMES: The classes have been great. And now you have to go through these, would you say at any point have you had, do you have now a drinking problem?

BARKLEY: You know T.J., that's a great question, I'm trying to figure out the answer. Because you ask yourself, I drink a lot, I probably drink too much. But then you, but then you're like, well, I don't drink every day. That's why the classes have been helpful for me.

HOLMES: When you got pulled over that night. A bunch of things could have gone through your mind, your daughter, your family, TNT, T- Mobile, your future career, all kinds of things. What was actually the first thing, when you knew it was getting real and you were in trouble, what was the first thing would you say that went through your mind, honestly?

BARKLEY: This is going to embarrass a lot of people because I understand now we live in -- if you're famous now and you do anything wrong it's going to explode. I mean, that's just the thing we live in now. I just felt bad for my family and friends. I never feel bad for myself to be honest with you.

HOLMES: What was the conversation like with your daughter? BARKLEY: She understands that anything dad does is going to be local, national, and I said, hey, she said dad, you made a mistake, you really screwed up and I said you're right.

HOLMES: What did you learn about fans, about friends, about your bosses through this whole thing?

BARKLEY: When complete strangers come up to you and say hey, man, hang in there, I can't tell you what it meant to me. I mean, I really want to get emotional for complete strangers to walk up to me and say, hey, hang in there you'll get through this. It was the best thing in the world.

HOLMES: Let's move on to talk about role models. Let's talk about first Alex Rodriguez and Michael Phelps. These were two guys around the same time, or not too long ago had things out in public they had to come out and apologize for publicly, they did it a lot differently from the way you did it.

BARKLEY: Kids are not smoking dope because Michael Phelps do it, that's one of the biggest myths in the world. Kids are not getting DUIs because Charles Barkley did it. Kids aren't doing steroids because A-Rod did it. That's what the public wants you to believe.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And talking about role models there, everybody remembers famously or infamously that whole campaign he had saying I'm not a role model. He said that's been taken out of context all these years because he was trying to send out a message to parents -- he knows he's a role model, he absolutely knows he sets an example, but he was trying to send a message to parents that you need to be setting the example. It should not be up to me to raise as he put it your bad "a" kids.

ROESGEN: But you didn't have that part in your little interview.

HOLMES: We thought we'd leave that out.

FREDERICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: It's morning television, after all.

HOLMES: Go to cnn.com, on the front page you can see the rest and some more of that interview if you'd like to, but hey.

WHITFIELD: It was very fascinating. I want to see more of it. I like that you all are on a Chuck, T.J., first-name basis like that.

HOLMES: It kind of comes out like that sometimes. Some people call you Fred.

WHITFIELD: That's true. I think more people call me Fred now than they actually call me Fredericka.

HOLMES: I prefer Fredericka. That kills my mother, but anyway let's talk about what's in the news rundown -- we are going to be delving into a legal segment and once again reuniting Avery Friedman and our Richard Herman he's back. So the trio is back in action in our noon hour. We'll be talking about Bernie Madoff, still a lot of folks very irate about what's going on with him and guess what? His attorneys want to appeal. He doesn't want to be in jail anymore and we're also going to be delving into Anna Nicole Smith and that investigation now reopened. This time targeting her boyfriend as well as her doctors all charged now or facing charges in her death.

And we're also going to be talking about Michelle Obama in her first sit down interview, talking about her role, talking about policy and overall we'll be delving into women's roles in policy as well as breadwinning. We're seeing a bit of a role reversal these days, particularly as you are looking at this wave of joblessness. More men are losing their jobs than women. A lot more women who are the breadwinners of the family. All that in the noon eastern hour. You like that, don't you? I saw a little smile like, I like that.

ROESGEN: Mr. Mom -- WHITFIELD: A lady bringing home the bacon.

HOLMES: Mr. Mom, yes.

ROESGEN: So far ahead of his time.

HOLMES: Now here we are.

WHITFIELD: Remember the Charlie commercials? I can bring home the bacon?

ROESGEN: Right.

WHITFIELD: Ok, well, whatever.

ROESGEN: We'll have that.

WHITFIELD: T.J. is like, I don't know.

ROESGEN: Ok.

HOLMES: He was just saying wrap. We'll move on. We'll see you shortly

WHITFIELD: All right. Have a good day.

ROESGEN: Thanks, Fred. Also ahead, how about instant coupons on your phone? It sounds like a great idea, but you might think twice when you see what's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROESGEN: Well you know just about everybody has a cell phone and advertisers want to get you just about everywhere you are. They do, they really do. What if they could send you like a sales order or a coupon on your phone, would you want it?

HOLMES: I'm sure they'd like to. I don't know if I'd want it though. Some folks say the idea sounds great. Privacy advocates say it amounts to spying and Susan Candiotti is breaking this down for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the kind of space-age technology the Jetsons would love and it's coming to your cell phone.

(On camera): Say you go grocery shopping and you have your cell phone with you, it's equipped with GPS so a satellite can track exactly where you are. Well, that same snazzy technology can also tell advertisers where you are. So when you get near the store or even in it, all of a sudden your phone lights up, you flip it open and it tells you everything that's on sale inside the store. Shows you coupons, for example. Here you get a $1 off milk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is way cool.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): So cool we asked mobile technology developer Allan Sulton to set up that demonstration. Consumers are expected to see it for real this summer. Companies call them location-based services, using GPS or Wi-Fi wireless technology that can even track you down a shopping aisle. How about this? You're about to go to a restaurant and you get a phone alert.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It pops up an offer for a restaurant two blocks down that's going to give you a free steak dinner. Who would not like that?

CANDIOTTI: This man would.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd like that. If it pops up enough and say, hey, check out this product that's on sale or something like that, that would be great.

CANDIOTTI: But not everyone likes the idea of an eye in the sky tracking your every move.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's a scary line there that I wouldn't want to be crossed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want people to know what I'm doing and where I'm going and what I buy, you know?

CANDIOTTI: Privacy advocates are worried about what conclusions advertisers might draw from that consumer information.

LILLIE CONEY, ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER: It's the lack of transparency. It's the ability of the consumer to decide do I really want you to know where I am at any particular point in the day or is that something that I want to have control over?

CANDIOTTI: Mobile technology experts insist consumers will have control. They'll have to specifically opt in and they can always opt out of the service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think it's ever going to be thrust upon the general public. I don't think anyone will put up with that.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): For now the mobile tech industry is policing itself. However the Federal Trade Commission may weigh in because there are privacy issues involved. For now the mobile industry's advice to consumers, be smart, don't opt in for services unless it's a company you trust. Susan Candiotti, CNN, New York.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: Opt in for anything. I mean, telemarketers are next, you know?

HOLMES: I'm still not on the do not call list, I need to do that when I get home.

ROESGEN: Yes, you do.

HOLMES: All right, Fredericka Whitfield.

WHITFIELD: You'd better get on that do not call list.

HOLMES: I need to.

WHITFIELD: If you're not on it already.

HOLMES: I get the calls and I sometimes answer them and just have the conversation.

WHITFIELD: Everybody is trying to call T.J.

HOLMES: Oh, ok.

WHITFIELD: It's so sad you're so popular.

HOLMES: Fredericka stop it.

WHITFIELD: All right you guys have a great day.

HOLMES: We'll see you.