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G-8 Meets to Discuss World Economy; GOP Critics: Where are Jobs from Stimulus Bill?

Aired July 08, 2009 - 13:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We are pushing forward now with the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM with Ali Velshi!

ALI VELSHI, HOST: All right, pushing forward on the Group of Eight, Tony. Thank you very much. We'll talk about the Group of Eight, its agenda and why it's relevant. Every year these world leaders get together, and every year you probably wonder why. If anyone can explain it, Richard Quest can.

Even Richard might have trouble explaining the Sarah Palin saga. Why she has hung out the "gone fishing" sign in Juneau. We'll wade into all of that with our crack political panel.

Governor Palin, Michael Jackson, Honduras, Iran. It has been a very big few weeks for social networking and the news cycle. We are going to talk with a member of Facebook's first family.

Hello, I'm Ali Velshi, filling in for Kyra Phillips today, and you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

All right. Let's face it, government intervention hasn't exactly shocked the economy back to life in the United States or abroad. What do you think? Should governments do more? Should they do less? Should they do it over? Those are some of the questions for eight world leaders right now at a summit in Italy. Movers and shakers wondering, well, how to move and what to shake.

We've got lots of questions. Richard Quest will answer a blunt one. Is there any point to this fancy summit? I can't wait to hear that question or that answer, Quest.

Paula Newton is in Italy with what's actually getting done. And Kate Bolduan's in D.C., where the American stimulus package has some people asking, "Where are the jobs?"

Well, G-8, it's a gaggle of eight industrialized countries, some of the biggest in the world. Here they are, the U.S. And Canada, Japan, last year's host, Germany, France, Britain, and Russia. And, of course, this year's host is Italy. That's where we're going to be going into a little while. Paula Newton is there, and our Ed Henry is there. The town of L'Aquila, to be specific, still recovering from a devastating earthquake a few months ago.

Last year the G-8 didn't exactly hit the nail on the head as far as the global economic crisis. Here they are a year later and things haven't changed necessarily for the better, so what can they actually get done at this meeting besides eat well and pose for some killer photo-ops?

Well, let's take that question to somebody who would know very well, because he is a maestro of summits. He's with us from London. Not sure what happened. The budget might have been cut. But Richard Quest is right there in London.

Richard, tell us a little bit about G-8: why it's relevant, what's actually going to be done. For people who are watching us, what can they hope good comes out of this?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If there was one summit meeting that they could probably all have stayed away from, it's probably this current G-8, Ali. I'm not going to try and flimflam this one into something that it really isn't. Because since last year's G-8, we've had two G-20s, and we've had some serious, major summits on this very subject.

What this G-8 really is going to be about is not so much whether or not -- it's about the climate issues. It's about the environment. It's about how to get to basically look after planet earth. But also on the economics, this is the only reason I think this G-8 is interesting. You are familiar with the phrase known as the exit strategy.

VELSHI: Right.

QUEST: What that basically means is, how does the Fed start raising interest rates again? How does the U.S. Treasury and the administration start thinking about raising taxes again to start clawing back?

VELSHI: And there you've hit it on the head. For Americans, for everybody around the world, if those are topics, that means that, for those people who are thinking of borrowing money, those people who are thinking of buying a house, those people who work, the issue of taxes and interest rates going up may be one that is very real in the next few years because there are deficits and someone's got to pay for them.

QUEST: Yes. But you're missing one crucial point in that. How can you talk about an exit strategy when the thing is still in full flood?

VELSHI: Right.

QUEST: There's no question, that because the only thing that's keeping this global economic patient alive is exactly the painkillers of, for example, low interest rates, high deficit spending and stimulus packages.

VELSHI: Right.

QUEST: Now, they cannot agree on whether more needs to be done. They certainly can't agree now on when it's time to start clawing back. I think this particular G-8 will go down as one of the least interesting, the most boring, and probably the most irrelevant in... VELSHI: But you are -- you are an aficionado of these remarkable, high-level world meetings. The fact is, is there some benefit, Richard, to the optics of showing the world leaders getting together, to deal with the biggest issues that we're facing? Or should they drop it and let the people who actually get the work done, which tend to be ministers and bureaucrats and lower-level people, just get it done? Is there something about them all being together?

QUEST: Look, this is -- the ingredients for this recovery have been put into the cake. It now has to bake. There's nothing that they can do at this G-8 that's going to make really a bit of difference. They can start to plan for the future, but we have the London G-20 back earlier this year.

VELSHI: Right.

QUEST: Just in January. We've had -- we've got another G-20 in Pittsburgh...

VELSHI: Pittsburgh, yes.

QUEST: ... coming up on September, I think, the 24th. So, this G-8 is really just a -- well, let's tick this box. Let's cross that box, and let's all get together for some more nice photos.

VELSHI: All right, am I going to see you at that one, the fancy one in Pittsburgh, in September 24? Because I'll make plans; if you're going to be there, then you can show me ropes.

QUEST: Hey, I am politicking big-time internally to be there.

VELSHI: All right, anything I can do to help you out, Richard, let me know. Richard Quest, always the fellow who knows all about this kind of thing. This is new to me, by the way. Sorry, Richard, hate to do that to you.

All right. Let's find out about the nuts and bolts. Let's find out what is happening. Let's go to L'Aquila and see just what these eight men and women have accomplished today. Our Paula Newton is there.

Paula, let's talk about, now that Richard has told us that he doesn't think they're -- they necessarily will get a lot done, the bottom line is they're all there, and we've sent you there. So tell us what's actually happening, Paula.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, there's nothing I hate more than having to admit that Richard is right, but hey, he is.

Already today, on climate change, you were supposed to have some real targets: concrete numbers on the table. What happened? China had to pull out early. No numbers on the table. More wishy-washy language on the declaration. Let's move on and talk about it again at a climate change conference at the end of the year.

This is a photo opportunity. What's important here, too, is you heard Richard talking about exit strategy. Here they're talking about more stimulus. And you know, the -- Britain, most forcefully, and the U.S. kind of looking at it again, saying maybe that first stimulus wasn't big enough.

But other countries -- Canada, France, Germany -- saying, "Look, let's give the first stimulus a chance and see what's going on." Because if you guys hadn't noticed, the bill on these things is getting quite large.

VELSHI: Right.

NEWTON: What's going on, now, Ali, is they're actually touring behind me, a few miles from here, the city center of L'Aquila. This conference is a lot about optics, and it's about trying to show people around the world that these leaders understand that they're facing adversity of all kinds.

The earthquake here devastating to so many families, Ali. I was here for it. On this ground that we're standing on right now, I mean, we had the mass funeral, almost 300 caskets.

President Obama now getting a firsthand look at some of the destruction. Thousands of people still living in tents. And again, they're telling their prime minister, they're telling President Obama, "We want some permanent housing by the fall."

This is the design of the Italian prime minister. He wanted the leaders to come here and draw attention to this region -- Ali.

VELSHI: The Italian prime minister is not one who tends to have a problem drawing attention to himself. What's his latest outing that he got in trouble for?

NEWTON: Well, Ali, you know, this has been going on for years. But it was triggered in the last few months by his wife saying basically, "I'm going to divorce you, because you're not fit to be my husband, and you're not fit to lead the country." She said that quite publicly, and ever since then, it's been one scandal after another.

VELSHI: Yes.

NEWTON: Allegations about whether or not he had paid for sex. Berlusconi denies everything.

And to boot, throughout this conference he's been able to really hold his head high, he tells me. And because his approval ratings have basically held pretty steady. Italians saying, "Look, this is the best leader we have to turn to right now, and he does get us."

And so I think in terms of this summit, so far on day one, in terms of the optics of it, he's doing not so bad.

VELSHI: Paula, good to see you. Thank you for -- for talking to us. And I'll talk to you soon. Paula Newton in L'Aquila, Italy. I've been pronouncing that a little incorrectly.

Now, back here, GOP critics are lashing out at the Obama administration's stimulus plan. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), MINORITY LEADER: I found it also interesting over the last couple days to hear the vice president, Vice President Biden, and the president mention the fact they didn't realize how difficult an economic circumstance we were in.

Now, this is the greatest fabrication I've seen since I've been in Congress. I sat through those meetings at the White House with the president and the vice president. Trust me: there's not one person that sat in those rooms that didn't know how serious our economic crisis was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: All right, there's a growing cry among frustrated, laid- off workers, "Where is my job, what has the stimulus done to get my job back," because frankly, jobs have been eliminated months and months at a time.

Let's go to Kate Bolduan, in Washington, where a House oversight committee is hearing testimony about how the states are handling the stimulus money.

And for so many people, Kate, what that means, stimulus money, it's supposed to translate into people working, jobs being created. What do you know about this?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sure is. Well, Ali, Chairman Edolphus Towns, the chairman of this committee, said very clearly at the top of this hearing, what they want to learn today: is the recovery act working? Well, it seems there's good news and bad news there coming out of this hearing.

The comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office who's kind of tracking and analyzing how the money is being spent, where it is going, says the money has helped to stabilize state and local government budgets, which all are under great stress right now. But the chairman of the committee also says there seems to be a significant shortfall in the ability of tracking the funding.

Now, listen here to a pretty heated exchange over job creation or, rather, slowing job loss, between Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz and the OMB deputy director, Rob Nabors. Chaffetz you'll hear from off camera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: How do you justify saying that you're slowing the free-fall?

ROB NABORS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OMB: Well, I think that what we would do is we would look back at the job loss that we saw in the first quarter, which was approaching 700,000 jobs a month, and look at where we are right now. We're not happy with the job loss that we're seeing right now.

CHAFFETZ: I know you're not happy. We're not happy either, but the projections that the administration put forward and what would happen and not happen if we did or didn't do the stimulus are dramatic. They're unacceptable.

NABORS: We believe that the job loss is unacceptable, as well. And...

CHAFFETZ: Now, the president's quoted as saying that the stimulus has, quote, "done its job." Is that true or not true?

NABORS: We believe that the stimulus has had the impact that we -- that we had predicted, which is job creation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now, the hearing is going on. It's picked back up after a short break. It's going on right now. They are hearing, the committee is hearing from some governors. I believe right now, they're hearing from, yes, Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland.

So, so far the administration, Ali, has said the recovery act has created or saved 150,000 jobs. Now Republicans, they jumped right on it, criticizing that number, saying, look, the government's measure is impossible to verify, they say. They say how do you verify the jobs created or saved? They can't. And that, they say, is a big problem.

And we were talking about this.

VELSHI: Yes.

BOLDUAN: I'm sure you've already alluded to it. This hearing follows Republican criticism already saying there's mixed messages coming out from the administration, Vice President Biden telling ABC there was a misread on how bad the economy was. And President Obama clarifying that to NBC while in Russia, saying they received incomplete information on the state of the economy.

VELSHI: And, yet, there are a lot of people who are saying, look, the unemployment, 9.5 percent now, is almost certain to go over 10 percent at this point. We still are going to lose many, many jobs. So, we might be splitting hairs at this point as to how much information we had or didn't have.

This is a bad economy, but it will be interesting to see what sort of answers they get. Kate, thank you very much for that.

BOLDUAN: Of course.

VELSHI: Kate Bolduan in Washington.

Well, a lot of people -- see, this is new to me. I like Kate so much, I don't really now how to get rid -- there we go. See you, Kate. All right. Maybe she might be back tomorrow. All right. With millions of people out of work, a lot of people on this topic that Kate was talking about, are doing double duty in jobs that they don't even like. But a new survey shows that Americans are making big plans.

And if you work in a federal building or visit one on business, we've got a story that should make you very, very concerned.

Plainclothes investigators sent out to test security at federal buildings in four U.S. cities were able to smuggle bomb components through guard posts at all ten sites that they visited. They assembled the bombs in the buildings' restrooms, then took them into various offices in briefcases. They were later taken offsite and detonated, like you see here, to show the kind of damage that they could have done, had they been detonated inside the government buildings.

The Government Accountability Office conducted the test, and its report was presented to the Senate Homeland Security Committee today. We're going to have much more on that story in our next hour in the NEWSROOM.

And we are going to talk to T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire oilman, who just over a year ago had a big conversion, deciding that he was all about wind power. He was set to build the world's biggest wind farm in Texas. Now he says those plans are on hold. We'll hear why, and his estimate about where oil prices are going. That could hurt you in the pocketbook.

Stay with us. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. We're back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Well, everyone from citizen journalists to concerned citizens weighing in on world news on the Web. We're going to do a little rewind and look at social media's big month. And then a fast- forward on social media's future.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: An FYI, out of L.A., the king of all memorials didn't come cheap. They're still crunching the numbers, but the city says yesterday's big send-off for Michael Jackson cost L.A. between $1.5 million and $4 million. That's for police overtime, street cleaners, stuff like that.

You may have heard, Los Angeles, and much of the state of California, is broke, so the mayor is now asking for donations. Not from M.J.'s celebrity friends, but from you and me.

Check out this Web site. There's even a PayPal link, if you've got some cash -- well, there is a Web site. We'll show it to you in a bit. If you've got some cash to kick in, go ahead right now. On the plus side, any donations you make toward the city of Los Angeles for this purpose are tax deductible. Meanwhile, Michael Jackson still making money for his family. His "Number Ones" collection -- that's "Number Ones" collection -- is the top-selling album in the United States, according to Sound Scan charts out this morning; 339,000 units sold. "Number Ones" is also No. 1 on "Billboard's" top comprehensive album charts.

"Thriller" is No. 2. Overall this country snapped up 800,000 copies of Jackson's different solo albums in the first full week after his death.

Well, what's Sarah Palin up to? Why is she quitting her job as Alaska governor? We're going to check out what a couple of our political experts are saying about Palin's decision and her possible plans for the future.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. There's some big storms rumbling across parts of the southeast and upper Midwest. Chad Myers is tracking what's happening right now.

Chad, what have you got?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Ali, potential for tornadoes today, especially across the upper Midwest, but in a place where we've had so much rainfall here, from Orlando through Tampa. Six inches of rain in Tampa over the weekend alone. We have the potential for more weather today.

Airports getting affected right now, Atlanta. Thunderstorm very near the airport. Within about the last 15 minutes. Planes at this point in time are not on time.

(AUDIO GAP)

VELSHI: Chad, talking about the potential for tornadoes in the upper Midwest.

Let's just change gears for a second. Maybe you hate your job. But with this economy, you are right to be too worried to quit. And guess what? You're not alone about this. We're going to talk about this in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. We have an unemployment rate of about 9.5 percent. We've lost millions of jobs since this recession began. None of that is news to you; it's not news to our good friend, Susan Lisovicz. But there is news about how Americans who are employed are thinking about their jobs.

And needless to say, Susan, there are a lot of people who aren't happy, even though they have jobs right now.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, you think there'd be something called survivor's guilt. VELSHI: Right.

LISOVICZ: You'd think that people would be kissing their computer screen every day that they arrived, because 6.5 million people have lost their jobs. That is the official count since this recession began. And we know if you count in underemployment with employment, it's far higher than 9.5 percent.

Yet this new survey from Adecco Group, which is a company that does staffing, certainly follows these kinds of things. Says 54 percent of the people it talked to planned to look for a new job once the economy rebounds. As soon as that happens, they are going to be looking and looking hard.

And the number is even higher -- that's a pretty high number to begin with -- but the 18 to 29-year-olds in that survey said 71 percent of them will be looking for a new job -- Ali.

VELSHI: OK. Nothing wrong with that. I'm glad that people feel that there's a future in which they will be looking for a new job. But we're some time away from that economic recovery, even if the recession ends, as some people predict, in the next few months. It's some time away from the fact that we'll actually have a whole lot of jobs out there. So I guess that's why people aren't going out and getting those jobs right now.

I'm assuming that people who said they're unsatisfied with their jobs aren't out there looking for jobs right now, because there isn't work for them.

LISOVICZ: Well, it's kind of telling. You know, yes, I mean, on the one hand, yes, you do the most sensible thing: you hunker down. On the other hand, the dissatisfaction is so great, so it's telling you a couple things.

One is the fact that we know, the Labor Department's told us, basically, for every job opening, there are six applicants. So, I mean, trying to find that rare job opening, it's like standing in line to addition for "American Idol." There's just a lot of demand there.

And what a lot of folks are saying is that when they are going for jobs, who are they going up against? They're going up against people who are unemployed.

VELSHI: Yes.

LISOVICZ: Those people are hungry, and they're willing to accept less, that is, whether it's a demotion...

VELSHI: And frankly, this is not a great...

LISOVICZ: Yes.

VELSHI: It's not a great environment to have any sort of attitude about it. You may have very good reasons for being frustrated in your job. You're going more. You may be doing more for less. But the bottom line in this environment, I would think, Susan, it's not -- you should come in and kiss your computer screen and look happy, right? How do you keep your job if you're in it right now?

LISOVICZ: Well, I mean, yes. Adjust. I mean, accept it. It's far better than not being able to make the rent every month.

You know, look, the fact is that millions of us are taking on more responsibility. There are fewer benefits. Fewer companies are matching 401(k)s and many other things: paying more for your health benefits and less pay. Your pay is frozen. Maybe -- maybe you're even making less. Maybe you're taking unpaid leave.

VELSHI: Yes.

LISOVICZ: All of these things. The fact is you still have a job.

VELSHI: Yes.

LISOVICZ: It's time to make, maybe, lemons -- lemonade out of lemons.

VELSHI: Yes. It makes you feel like you're taking a step backward, but boy, the stories we've seen of people taking such a big step backward, because they've lost their jobs. I hate to have to tell people that it's time to be happy that you've got work. But for a little while, I guess that's what it is.

Susan, great story. Thank you for being with us on this.

LISOVICZ: Pleasure, Ali.

VELSHI: Susan Lisovicz talking to us from the New York Stock Exchange.

If you need some inspiration for your job search, we've actually found it in Marleen Graham. She did our "30-Second Pitch" on air back in March. She had lost her job in Atlanta. She was a victim of downsizing. But all her networking, class-taking, and volunteering paid off. This week she is starting her new job as an information technology analyst.

Here's her best advice for job seekers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARLEEN GRAHAM, FOUND A JOB: The best advice is pretty much to -- to stay focused, to be positive. Not to depend on any one job search tactic. Don't just go to job boards. Don't sit back and wait for jobs to come to you. And the best advice is that network. Networking, networking, networking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: That's fantastic. One more success story. Another "30 Second Pitcher," Contessa Tucksen (ph) is on the job thanks to a contact who saw her here on CNN. She's working for a major company as an operational audit manager.

Now, if you want to be part of our pitch, go to our web site CNN.com/kyra or tweet us at kyracnn. It's a great idea being able to get out there and use all the networking you can to get a new job.

All right. A rather -- let's go back to Chad Myers. We were talking to him and he was telling us about tornadoes. Unfortunately we had a technical problem.

Chad, we've got you back now.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, it's the upper Midwest, Ali. And so I'm not talking about New York City, I'm not talking about a big, populated area. But we have significant weather that's rolling down through Oklahoma City, that's about Midwest City, right along the Turner Turnpike. And then some showers that will be moving into Kansas City from St. Joe, especially west of the city. And then rain showers into Chicago.

But the biggest threat hasn't even happened yet. The biggest threat today will be the threat of severe weather up here into parts of the upper Midwest. There's Minnesota, the Dakotas, back up here into parts of Nebraska. And then along and deep south here, parts of the deep south, into places like Jacksonville, Florida. You can certainly see some strong weather right now.

It's all because of the heat. The heat clashing with some cooler weather across parts of the upper Midwest. 91, Denver; 77, Billings. There's a front there. That front causing severe weather to happen to us today.

We are also going to see here in Atlanta, Georgia, right there in the middle of the screen, airplanes, 166 of them, trying to get to Atlanta, Georgia, right now. And there are thunderstorms in the flight path. So that's slowing people down, as well. In fact, the flights now in Atlanta, at about 30-minute delay. Tampa at 30 minutes.

But, Ali, compared to what we've had on Friday --

VELSHI: Yes.

MYERS: -- and over the weekend, 15 to 30 minutes is a piece of cake.

VELSHI: Not bad. Yes, I got stuck near two hours late on Monday because of the delays. Hey, you're way better than steering that board than I am.

MYERS: There's a button here -- right here Ali. This is the "Oh, my gosh, I've really messed up button." You push that and everything goes back to where it belongs. VELSHI: Chad, you've been helping me all day. We've had a few technical gremlins. At one point I couldn't hear my producer, Chad gave me the little box on his waist.

Always great to see you, Chad. Thanks a million.

MYERS: Good to see you.

VELSHI: All right. A rather unusual tool is helping restore vision for the blind. Gou got to listen to this one. I still can't get over this one. It's a human tooth, helping to restore vision for the blind. This is an important news story for your health.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is counting down the days until she leaves office. In a political shocker, she abruptly announced on Friday, that she's giving up the governorship of Alaska on July the 26th. The big question everyone is asking is why.

Our Drew Griffin caught up with the former Republican vice presidential candidate on Monday while she and her family were on a fishing trip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SARAH PALIN (R), ALAKSA: I'm certainly not a quitter. I'm a fighter. And that's why I'm doing this. To go out there and fight for what is right, without the constraints that have been surrounding me in these final months. I can't see me being totally out of public service, because that is within me. It is the way that I am wired.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: All right. You can read between the lines on that one.

Joining me now from Washington, our senior political correspondent Candy Crowley and in Arlington, Virginia, Politico's chief political columnist Roger Simon.

Candy, first of all, anything out there that surprises you? I can't see myself out of political office, it's in me. Did you get the impression she has quit to pursue bigger jobs in the future?

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think there's a difference between being involved in the public policy arena and politics and being elected to something. And she certainly left that a little mushy.

I think that a lot depends -- so much depends -- on what she does with this time, between now, the next 18 months, the time when we begin to see how the 2012 race is shaping up. Is she going to go out there and campaign for those 2010 Republicans that want her to be there? Is she going to build on her political support? Is she going to take the time, which we know she will, because she has a contract, to write a book and to sort of become a, quote, "more serious person," if that's what Republicans seem to think she isn't at this point, at least some of them.

So, I think a lot really -- I don't think she knows. I'm not inside her head. But I don't -- I just don't get the impression that this is a governor who has said, yep, and then I'm going to run for 2012. I think she's looking at her options. I think one of them is to make money.

VELSHI: You were on TV very quickly on Friday, when the announcement came out trying to sort of parse it and make sense of it. And one of the issues was that it didn't make sense right off the top.

Roger, you've written -- and I just love this line from a column you've written. You said, "I think she's quit her job, is doing what she wants to do and is reserving judgment about her future. In doing so, she has made herself an outcast to the mandarins, the (INAUDIBLE) and the elite."

Your point is that she's just annoyed everybody she shouldn't have annoyed but maybe she's doing it the way she should be.

ROGER SIMON, POLITICO.COM: The reaction to her quitting her job was savage. You would you think the people who don't like her would want her to quit. But instead, they said, no, she's terrible, she's a quitter, this has never been done before.

Well, you know, Bob Dole quit his job as a senator in 1996, to run for president and no one went on and on about how he was letting down the people of Kansas. I think Candy is absolutely right in saying that she doesn't know what she wants to do.

She might run in 2012. She might not run in 2012. I have a feeling that a lot of candidates, Republican candidates, are going to want her to campaign in 2010. And when she goes out on the campaign trail, she's going to find, as many politicians do, that she likes the sound of the crowds. And that may encourage her to run. I think her options are open. She is probably the rarest thing in Republican politics right now -- an interesting person. When you go down the rest of the list --

VELSHI: Yes.

SIMON: -- you don't find a lot of people like that.

VELSHI: Candy, what do you think of that? Do you think she's done that because she's Sarah Palin and wanted to be unconventional and annoy the media? No advanced notice, no gathering of the press, no consultation with the party?

CROWLEY: I think it was more random than saying, let's annoy the press, although she wouldn't be the first politician that used that as a rationale.

I just, again, don't get the sense that she knows where she's headed and has decided what she wants to do. I think she's clearly decided what she doesn't want to do. The only thing I take issue with Roger about -- and it's small -- is that Bob Dole was already running for president when he decided to quit the Senate. And he was the Senate Republican Leader at that time. It wasn't like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton hanging on to their Senate seat and going out and campaigning and coming back every six months to vote. I mean, he had a job that took time, the head of the Republicans, and he already was running.

Sarah Palin seems to have quit without, you know, plan A obvious to anybody and I'm not sure, again, that it is obvious to her at this point. I think she just knows what she doesn't want to do.

VELSHI: Gives us something to talk about.

Candy Crowley, CNN senior political correspondent. Roger Simon, Politico's chief political columnist. Thanks very much to both of you for taking some time to tell us a little bit about this.

All right. Passionate protests being put down in Iran. The passing of perhaps the greatest pop star of all-time. Very, very different stories, of very, very different importance. But believe it or not, they've got something in common. Both of these news stories spurred massive internet interest and clued all of us in -- all of us, even those that were deniers -- on the power of the social networks sites.

Randi Zuckerberg joins me now. She is the marketing director at Facebook, joining me from Palo Alto, California, via Skype.

Randi, great to see you again. Thank you for being with us.

RANDI ZUCKERBERG, MARKETING DIRECTOR, FACEBOOK: Wonderful. Great to see you, too. Thank you for having me.

VELSHI: Randi, tell me about what has happened in the last few weeks starting with Iran, and then into a lot of the other things that happened, but really culminating now with Michael Jackson.

What did you see in terms of trends on Facebook in terms of how people were behaving and using it?

ZUCKERBERG: It's been incredible to see how people have been using Facebook to organize around these global events that are so meaningful.

Immediately after the election in Iran, we saw Mousavi's page go from 2,500 to over 110,000 supporters on Facebook. And likewise, with Michael Jackson, we also saw that his page went from 800,000 fans to over 7.5 million fans making him by far the most popular figure on Facebook.

VELSHI: What is it -- what is it used for in these instances? We saw on Facebook people were posting video, they were posting information about what was going on with respect to Iran. When it came to Michael Jackson, what was it basically being used for, the spread of information or people expressing how they feel? ZUCKERBERG: I think it's a little of everything. People are posting photos and videos. When it comes to Iran, people are spreading messages about how to access proxies, how to help one another. The best way is to do private messaging through Facebook. With Michael Jackson, it was really people sharing their last respects and connecting, surfacing new music and information and sharing their feelings.

VELSHI: What do you do? How do you handle that? Obviously with Michael Jackson, less complicated than it is with something like Iran. But what is Facebook's role there, because clearly you must have had some pressure, possibly from the government of Iran, to say, stop facilitating this?

ZUCKERBERG: It's a great question. And I think it's really important that Facebook is a neutral platform here. We really want people, whatever their beliefs are, whatever their feelings are, about the situation in Iran, or Michael Jackson, that they can see Facebook as a place to organize and share and really have a global conversation with people all over the world. So, you're right, it's an interesting position to be in, and we're definitely a neutral platform in that respect.

VELSHI: Randi, we'll have to have the discussion another time about what the future is. But I think there are a lot of people who have taken to seeing social media differently in the last few weeks than they did before. They've seen different applications for it.

So, thanks so much for being with us.

Randi Zuckerberg, joining us from Palo Alto, California, and Facebook.

ZUCKERBERG: Thank you.

VELSHI: OK. I was telling you about this one earlier. A human tooth used to help a blind man see. I'm not making this up. We'll have the story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. I'm going to talk to T. Boone Pickens now. He's what some people have described as a billionaire oil man. Made a lot of money out of oil. Made a lot of ways with a lot of his own money, deciding that he was going to invest in the biggest wind farm in the world in a place called Pampa, Texas. That's been affected by a lot of things.

Now Boone has got himself a whole lot of those turbines that he's got to accept on delivery, and we want to know what he wants to do about them.

Boone, there's been a lot of information out there. Thank you for joining us. Set the record straight. What's going on with your plan to get America on to wind energy and natural gas? What's changed? T. BOONE PICKENS, CHMN., BP CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: Well, nothing's changed, other than you've got a bad economy, so financing has been very slow. You don't receive the turbines until the first quarter of 2011. And so, we'll be right on schedule. We may not build the wind farm at Pampa, Texas, you may find it in Wisconsin or Nebraska or someplace else. But we'll -- we'll be actively building a wind farm someplace with the turbines. My garage is not big enough to take all of this.

VELSHI: To take all of those.

What's the problem with Texas? Why did you decide that that wasn't going to work?

PICKENS: Well, we need the transmission in there and we won't have transmission until about 2013. So, we'll go ahead in 2011, we'll go to work someplace on wind. That's all the whole story has been kind of blown out of proportion. It's -- we're still going to do a project in Pampa.

VELSHI: You are in Washington now because there's been a bill that's been introduced to encourage greater use of natural gas in cars. This is something that you have been all about for a long time. Tell me what's happened today and how that's going to change things for us.

PICKENS: OK. That's the bill introduced. It's called Senate Bill 1408. It was introduced by Senator Menendez from New Jersey, and Senator Hatch from Utah. I was up there with them. Fabulous turnout. Great amount of coverage on it.

The reason is, is because this is the bill that will go with 1835 House bill, and those bills will come together as the bill that's going to solve the dependency on foreign oil, because you're going to go to natural gas as a transportation fuel. It's going to work. There's no question it is going to work. And I think it's a monumental day for the United States.

VELSHI: Boone, we've are getting a lot of input about the changes that are going on to the Pickens Plan, which is what you've called it. I want to put one up on the screen that a viewer sent to us about -- about wind farms. Let me just read this to you.

He writes, "T. Boone Pickens is not stupid. He knows the government isn't committed to wind, so he's investing in oil again. We want to be addicted to oil in this country."

Boone, your response to that?

PICKENS: I didn't hear the last part of it.

VELSHI: He said, we want to be addicted to oil in this country. He's sort of making a criticism that we can't get ourselves off of oil.

PICKENS: Sure, we can get ourselves off of oil. We have 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the United States. That is greater than the other two largest countries with natural gas -- Russia and Iran. So, we have plenty of natural gas to get on to transportation fuel with natural gas. No, we can get ourselves out of this ourselves out of the spot. The addiction to foreign oil has to be fixed. Because it directly affecting the security of the United States.

VELSHI: You're still invested in oil. You still make money out of it. You made a comment that you thought oil was going to go back to $147 a barrel, which it was last summer.

When do you think that is going to happen?

PICKENS: Oh -- tell me what the global economy is going to do. If you get a big pickup in the global economy and grows at -- I don't know -- three of four percent next year, you'll be coming up to 100. And after that, growth will depend on it. But demand will go up with growth.

You have 675 million vehicles in the world today. 675 millions. Projected for 10 years is 1,500,000,000 vehicles. That's two and a half times as many as we have now. Do you think there is going to be a greater demand for oil? Of course there is.

And when you have a greater demand, you're going to have a greater price is the way it is. And supplies capped off. And if supplies are capped at 85 billion barrels a day; demand goes about 85 million, the only way you can control it is with price. So price goes up, kills demand and the price can go to anywhere.

VELSHI: Boone, good to talk to you. Thank you for being with us. And we'll continue to follow your efforts in terms of getting wind and natural gas viable energy sources, particularly for driving and for using in our homes.

T. Boone Pickens joining me from Washington, D.C.

All right. Few people would believe that a human tooth could play a role in helping a blind person see. A new procedure is showing that it actually works. Well, how does it work and who qualifies? Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here to explain.

Elizabeth, I don't know what to ask you to start this conversation. How does a tooth help you see?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is pretty wacky. What it does is helps repair a damaged cornea. For example, if someone has had a chemical splash into their eye.

And the University of Miami is now the first U.S. hospital to try this. They're in the middle of the procedure so we don't know exactly if it's been successful or not.

But let's take a look at how it works. What happens is that dentists go in and actually remove a person's tooth -- their canine tooth to be specific. They then take a part of that together and turn it into an implant, which then goes on the top of the eye to help -- you can see it there, sort of that backwards C-shaped thing -- to help repair the damaged cornea.

Now, this is done in Europe and Asia. In fact, it has been done hundreds of times.

VELSHI: What's it about a tooth that does that?

COHEN: There's something about the material in the tooth that can actually act to kind of protect and kind of -- they have to grind it down.

VELSHI: Right, right, right.

COHEN: But to actually to cover up and sort of help repair that damage.

VELSHI: Is this is a viable cure for all types of blindness?

COHEN: It is not. It is only a viable cure for people who have corneal damage. It's not a viable cure for everyone. There are loss of reasons why people are blind. That isn't the only one.

VELSHI: Is there likelihood that we're going to see more of this in the United States?

COHEN: You know, it is possible. Right now, doctors instead use a form of plastic kind of how a tooth might be a used. They use a form of plastic instead. But there is some thought that a together might last longer. So, you know, these folks in Miami are the first ones to try it. We'll see if it takes off.

VELSHI: You truly the most fascinating stories.

COHEN: It's amazing.

VELSHI: Elizabeth, thank you so much for bringing that. COHEN: Thanks.

VELSHI: That's great. I am fascinated. I'm going to brush my teeth more often.

All right. A lingering strike is giving my home town a bit of a black eye, it's trashing Toronto's pristine reputation. What residents are doing to stem the stench.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. My home town has got some problems. 24,000 city workers, including garbage workers, have been on strike since June 22nd in summer. Toronto residents are hauling bags to 19 temporary dump sites and garbage is piling up. All sorts of problems associated with that.

My old friend Austin Delaney, with Toronto's CTV looks at the mess.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AUSTIN DELANEY, CTV REPORTER (voice-over): Take a drive and it won't be long before you'll see something's not quite right in T.O. Maps in hand, tourists eager to discover Toronto, are quite quickly discovering, there's a garbage strike in the middle of their holiday.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The trash is all over the place and it is kind of messy, really. We come from Montreal and it is perfect there. But here, sort of dirty and it's seedy.

DELANEY: Dirty and seedy says Xui Chi Ho (ph), visiting from San Francisco. Not the kind of picture we'd like friends back home to see.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it doesn't make it very attractive for us tourists to come in and look at Toronto.

DELANEY: So we boarded a double-decker to get a look from a tourists point of view.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am missing an awful lot on the bus tour. But (INAUDIBLE) can really (INAUIBLE:. You do see a lot of garbage bins, not picked up.

DELANEY: What does it make you think of the city?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I still love it. I still love it.

DELANEY: That's what tourism Toronto is hoping, that visitors will ignore the bad and see the good. With any luck, the strike will end soon.

I think it has the potential to affect people's perceptions of Toronto. Right now, most visitors walking around aren't really experiencing any great hardship by it.

DELANEY: In the meantime, local business improvement association like this one here in Chinatown clean up themselves in the hopes that tourists like Sarah from London England, will enjoy the sights, not see the effects of the strike.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I haven't noticed it. In the streets or anything.

DELANEY: Tourism Toronto says the city and its citizens are doing a good job keeping things tidy for our guests.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

All right it was Austin Delaney at C-TV. Austin was actually with me on my fist breaking news story as a reporter many, many years ago and he walked me through the whole thing.

Let's hope the problems in Toronto end quickly.