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Best Employers, Biggest Paychecks; Middle Class in Need of Help; What to do With the Bodies in Haiti
Aired January 25, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Is that really right, 5,000 openings at PricewaterhouseCoopers? We tell you so much about jobs that are being lost. I saw a survey that says two-thirds of American workers want to get out of their job as soon as this recession comes back and they can get another job.
Believe it or not, there are actually good places to work. "Fortune" magazine is out with its annual list of the best 100 companies to work for.
And Leigh Gallagher is the assistant managing editor at "Fortune." She joins me now with this.
Leigh, what did you use? What makes a company good to work for?
LEIGH GALLAGHER, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR, "FORTUNE": Well, we actually do a couple of different things. We have a company that helps us do the research, and this is based on a survey that's two- thirds based on actually an employee survey. So it's mostly a ranking of what employees are saying about their managers, about their companies, how happy they are, and then the extra one-third is sort of culture audit, we call it. And it just looks at more numerical figures like salary, benefits, diversity, hiring, that sort of thing.
So, it's kind of a comprehensive look.
VELSHI: All right. So it doesn't mean that those 100 companies are all hiring, but it's worth looking at the article because some of them are.
GALLAGHER: No.
VELSHI: Number one on your list, SAS. Tell us about this company and why it's number one.
GALLAGHER: Well, SAS is a fascinating story. This is a software company. It's privately held. It's based in based in Cary, North Carolina, and it is just literally unbelievable, the perks that this company offers its employees.
It's everything from a 66,000 square foot gym with an Olympic- sized swimming pool, intramural soccer, basketball, summer camp, a meditation garden, a hair cutting salon on campus, dry cleaning, tax preparation. I mean, it's over the top, and it's all because the CEO, Jim Goodnight, when he founded the company, he really founded it with this mission of give to your employees and they will give back to you. And that's actually true.
I mean, there are numbers that show that this company has less turnover than its competitors in this industry. So it's really amazing. And they are hiring. They have at least 50 openings and maybe more than that. So it's really interesting.
VELSHI: All right. Well, the next one I want to talk about, number 84 on the list, it's got a lot of openings. Back in the day, when accounting firms were spinning off their consulting arms, Arthur Andersen spun off Andersen Consulting. It became Accenture, and this is one of the companies that you've got on your list.
GALLAGHER: Yes. Accenture actually has 45,000 job openings right now.
VELSHI: Wow.
GALLAGHER: We were shocked when we heard this. You know, of course, Accenture is a consulting company. And like any consulting company, the people are really its biggest asset. I mean, that tends to be a cliche, but that is really literally true with consulting companies.
And these are positions that are across the board. But if you look at the sectors that they are looking to place these consultants in, it sort of follows the economy -- health care, banking, public service, network engineering. So it's sort of the growth places in this economy are where this company is looking to fill spots.
But 45,000? I mean, really.
VELSHI: And very close to Accenture on your list is number 82, Marriott. Lots of openings.
What makes them a great company to work for?
GALLAGHER: Well, one of the thing that's interesting with Marriott is they have good compensation, great benefits, great 401(k) matching like a lot of the companies on our list. But they sort of go above and beyond.
One interesting perk that Marriott offers all of its employees is that if you're looking to buy or sell your home -- you or any of your adult family members, for that matter -- they will help you facilitate the move, they will help you with buying and selling and closing costs. They'll help you find a mortgage.
They really go above and beyond when it comes to moving. And sometimes it's because employees are moving around, but sometimes it's just because if you want to -- if you're just buying or selling your home for any reason.
VELSHI: Those openings are mostly hotel operations positions.
Let's look at Scripps. GALLAGHER: Scripps is a southern California hospital chain. And it has about 500 openings right now in all sorts of clinical positions like registered nurses and technicians, but also in the billing, finance, administrative side.
And this is a company that, again, goes above and beyond when it comes to matching. It actually matches two for one to the dollar for any employee that's been there more than 20 years, which is actually a high percentage of employees have been there that long. And that's always a good indicator that this is a place that people obviously like to work, because they don't leave.
So that's an interesting company there.
VELSHI: I want to get to one more, and that's Nordstrom. It's a company that always ranks at the top of customer service. Nordstrom is renowned for its customer service. It's also ranking very high in terms of a place to work.
GALLAGHER: It is. And what's interesting in particular about Nordstrom is if you think what has been hardest hit by the recession, of course retail is right up there. And yet, this is a company that not only has showed up on our list again, but it emerged from the recession without having any layoffs, which is really something to say.
And, of course, as you mentioned, customer service is how Nordstrom has made its mark and distinguished itself. But the fact that it's hiring more than 4,000 employees was -- again, that was surprising even to us.
So there are jobs out there. And they are mostly on the sales team, in sales and customer service.
VELSHI: In the sales side, yes. And they train you well in sales, although they are looking for experienced people.
GALLAGHER: Yes, they do. Especially in shoes.
VELSHI: In shoes. That's right.
Leigh, good to talk to you again, as always. Thanks very much for joining us.
GALLAGHER: Good to be here, Ali. Thanks.
VELSHI: Assistant managing editor at "Fortune."
Now, President Obama has come out and set up a task force for the middle class, ways to keep the middle class afloat. He has got some specific ideas which we're going to tell you about when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. As I just told you, President Obama is designing a task force to help keep the middle class in this country afloat. He announced this, this morning.
Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Creating good, sustainable jobs is the single-most important thing we can do to rebuild the middle class. And I won't rest until we are doing just that.
But we also need to reverse the overall erosion in middle class security so that when this economy does come back, working Americans are free to pursue their dreams again. There are a variety of immediate steps we can take to do just that, steps we're poised to be taking in the budget I'll put forward next week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Not a lot of specifics this morning, but there will be a task force that looks at this. And I want to show you sort of the five top things that this task force is looking at.
First of all, they're going to help with child care. They're going to help to make college and college loans more affordable. They're going to help you save for retirement with IRAs, particularly for those Americans who don't have 401(k)s. They're going to help protect retirement savings and they're going to help with the care for the elderly.
Let's take a quick look at a few of those.
First of all, helping with child care, what the administration is proposing is that they are going to nearly double the child care credit for families that are earning less than $85,000. So, let's say, for example, a family with two kids making $80,000 a year, the maximum credit for those children would increase from $1,200 a year to $2,100 a year. That's one example of what they are doing in child care.
Let's take a look at -- by the way, families earning up to $115,000 will see that bonus.
Let's take a look at college affordability. This is another big deal that the president has been looking at. He's been talking about that, including in the stimulus bill.
They're going to limit loan payments to 10 percent of your discretionary income. So, let met give you an example of that.
If you are a borrower, you've got a student loan, and you earn $30,000 a year, let's say you owed $20,000 in student loans. Right now you would be paying $228 a month. Under the program the president is proposing, you would lower that payment to $115 a month.
They're going to forgive -- and this one is interesting -- they're going to forgive all your remaining debt, all your remaining student debt, after 10 years for people who work in the public service. So, if you go into public service, you work for 10 years, your college loan will be wiped out.
It will eliminate all of your debt after 20 years for anybody who's not working in the public service. So, again, a very big deal in terms of making college much more affordable.
There are other points to this plan, and I want to discuss some of those with you in detail, particularly how to save for retirement under this plan, helping your retirement savings and helping the elderly.
We're going to take a look at those other three task force initiatives as soon as we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. We're covering the stimulus bill. That's Josh Levs right there. He's staffing it right now. I will take over for him at 3:00.
But we are calling recipients of stimulus money. We're calling agencies that oversee that stimulus money to see exactly where that money is going.
We're going to visit in with Josh in just a few minutes to find out what they are learning about.
I'm telling you about the initiatives that the president announced this morning to help the middle class, specifically designed to help the middle class. Let's take a look at the five points that they wanted to discuss this morning -- helping with child care; helping make college affordable; saving for retirement using IRAs for those Americans who don't have an employer-based system; protecting retirement savings; and helping with elderly care.
We talked about these two, help with child care and making college affordable, particularly college loans. Let's go to this third one, saving for retirement with IRAs.
It will establish -- what the president wants to do is establish automatic IRAs. Seventy-eight million workers -- and that is half of the American workforce -- does not have an employer-based retirement system. So this would help to do that, to be able to create a system whereby people can save for retirement and get a tax advantage as a result.
As you know, when you invest in a 401(k), there is a tax advantage to that. He wants to create a tax a advantage for all Americans.
The other thing is that the president wants to talk about retirement security. He wants to deal with retirement security in the middle class.
By the way, with respect to retirement security, he wants to expand your ability to save money, matching 50 percent of the first $1,000 in contributions for some income earners. After you get passed a certain level of income, that won't apply to you.
He also wants to promote annuities and other forms of lifetime guaranteed income. Unlike 401(k)s and things that involve stocks and equities, which go up and down with the market, annuities are a way of investing where you put your money in and you get a guaranteed return. He wants to figure out a way to try and expand that for people. Also, improved disclosure of 401(k) fees, how much you're actually paying to invest.
Another initiative of the president's is to provide greater elder care assistance, greater assistance for the elder, increasing funding for caregiver support programs, something that is so important to people who are getting older and don't have enough money for their own care. Also, to provide more funds for adult day care, in-home services and transportation for the elderly.
So these are the tasks that the task force has been assigned to look at and find out ways to implement them. These five initiatives will all be included in the president's upcoming budget which should be laid out next week. And that means these initiatives are going to have to go through Congress and get congressional approval.
All right. Back to another big story that we are continuing to follow in Haiti. So many bodies, so few resources for proper burial. Just ahead, we're going to show you how people who survived the Haitian earthquake are dealing with those who didn't.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: According to the Haitian government, more than 150,000 people are now confirmed dead in Haiti after the big earthquake. And now, two weeks later, those bodies are starting to decompose.
Now, I need to warn you, this next story is graphic and disturbing.
Karl Penhaul joins us again from Port-au-Prince to discuss the problem of these decomposing bodies -- Karl.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly the rescue effort, the search for survivors has now almost lost hope. The focus now is shifting away to what they call recovery, and that means recovering dead bodies from the thousands of buildings that there are here in Port-au-Prince that have been completely destroyed.
Once those bodies have been pulled out of those buildings, there is nothing to do with them. They are being put on the sides of the street, including just out here a short while ago this morning, bodies being put on the sidewalk, doused with gasoline and burned.
Now, that is gruesome, but I do think it says something about just how broken Haiti is right now. In normal times, in a normal functioning nation, if there were dead bodies on the streets, you would pick up a telephone, you would phone a government officer. The government officer would send some ambulance or funeral wagon down, and that body would be taken to a morgue, they would be counted, and then they would be taken to a cemetery for a decent burial.
But here, follow me through this chain.
The phones still don't work properly. The Haitian government has not stood up and shown any leadership throughout this crisis at all. There are no ambulances. They are too busy taking care of the living.
There are no morgues. Those are not functioning. So it simply means that people are not counting the total number of victims from this earthquake. And even if they were, once all that is done there is simply nowhere left to bury the dead.
The 150,000, the figure that you mentioned that the government has counted of bodies that have simply been put into dump trucks and dumped in mass pits, these are not mass graves, because in those pits we have also seen furniture and other debris also being dumped. And simply, the real figure of this -- the real death toll may from this earthquake may never be known because a huge number of people, a huge number of victims, are simply not being counted. They are being buried on waste ground or, as we saw this morning, doused with diesel and torched on a sidewalk -- Ali.
VELSHI: Karl, when people are doused with diesel and torched, is this something done by officials, is it done by their families? Is it done by anybody in any official capacity?
PENHAUL: No. Generally, on the whole -- and we have seen this scene repeated over a number of days in the past -- simply, somebody who lives nearby or is camping out nearly, who can no longer stand the stench of death, will go up and find some fuel and douse on those bodies, or maybe some debris, wood, and put it around those bodies and start their own bonfire to burn those bodies.
In this case this morning, I do believe it may have been the men who were driving the backhoes and the bulldozers, but those bodies had been lying on the street since the previous evening. And they were pulled out of a car that was crushed by a falling wall. And it just seems to be an expedient measure there. More to do with the stench, but certainly here, Ali, there is no dignity in death.
VELSHI: Right. And no identification in many of these cases.
PENHAUL: No identification and no counting as well. The 150,000 bodies that the government is referring to are the ones that have been dumped in those mass pits that they have more or less counted. But there are many, many more here.
And talking to some of the international aid workers who have experience in figuring up death tolls, first of all, they say there will be no final toll, no accurate final toll from this made over the coming months and years. The only real way to find out a much more accurate number is to do a census of the population and say, who did you lose? Have you lost friends, neighbors and such like? But because the population is now a floating population, a displaced population, it will be very difficult to tally those results.
VELSHI: And a number of aid agencies have said before anybody gets too angry about the lack of accountability for who has died, a lot of aid agencies have said they would rather at this stage that not be the priority. Saving people, treating people needs to be the priority at the moment.
PENHAUL: It really shows how tough this kind of a disaster is, Ali, because when you have to fix priorities like that, do you help the living and give no dignity in death? Our culture, and even the Haitian culture -- I mean, this is not part of Haitian culture. Haitian culture would much prefer to give these people a decent burial, be it under Christian rites, Catholic rites, or even voodoo rites, but there is a death rite here in Haiti, as anywhere else. It's a key passage from life to death, and the Haitian people are missing out on this because so much focus has to be given to those who are injured, perhaps survived, helping them get through the next days and assure their continued survivor.
VELSHI: Karl Penhaul in Port-au-Prince with yet another continuing sad story about the disaster in Haiti.
Karl, thank you very much.
Let's check on top stories now.
In Baghdad, at least 36 people have been killed in a string of car bombings. All of the bombs went off near hotels that are popular with journalists and businesspeople. The blasts came shortly before state TV announced the execution of "Chemical Ali," a cousin of Saddam Hussein.
To Lebanon, where an Ethiopian Airlines plane carrying 90 people crashed into the sea just after taking off from Beirut. At least 34 bodies have been recovered, reportedly, but the cause of the crash is still unclear.
AND in Texas, a big oil spill means a big cleanup. An Exxon chartered tanker collided with a towing vessel on Saturday, spilling about 462,000 gallons of oil off Port Arthur, Texas. The Coast Guard now says nearly half the spill has evaporated, dispersed or been recovered.
All right. When we come back, we are going to take a closer look -- you're looking now at our Stimulus Desk, ,where we are continuing to check on a whole lot of programs that received stimulus money. We're going to have a look at one program that has kept hundreds of Florida families from homelessness.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT) VELSHI: Let's tell you a little about what we're doing this week. It's called "The Stimulus Project" at CNN, and I want to give you some overarching sense of this, because I know it all blends together in your head -- TARP, the bank bailouts, other money that's gone in. But let's tell you a little bit about the stimulus.
By the way, this has been designed by CNNMoney.com. You can go to CNNMoney.com/stimulus and take a look at it.
$4.7 trillion is the amount of money throughout this recession that has been put in by the government, by the Fed, by the federal government through stimulus bills. That goes out into different areas.
$3.9 trillion is what we're calling the stealth stimulus. We'll talk about that later in the week, even though it is a huge part of that money.
A very small amount of money by comparison, $45 billion, has gone into sort of stimulus two. I'll talk about that later in the week.
What we're concentrating on is stimulus one. That is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was passed a year ago, $787 billion divided up into different areas.
Some of them that we are looking at is $288 billion in tax relief; $66 billion in green stimulus; $104 billion in science and education; $34 billion in other stimulus; $129 billion in health; $48 billion in highways and transportation; and $115 billion in what we call helping the vulnerable, things like unemployment insurance and help for COBRA.
Let me show you where some of these are going.
Under health, $129 billion went to health; $19.6 billion is going toward hospitals and physicians trying to automate their systems. There are, in fact, savings, very real savings, and jobs that can be associated with that.
Under highways and transportation, we have heard a lot about that, about highway construction. $27.5 billion going toward highway construction. These are these shovel-ready infrastructure projects that were planned but were held up due to the lack of funding.
And under helping the vulnerable, we talked a little earlier about COBRA extensions. $57.3 billion in extended unemployment insurance providing extra federal benefit, a little extra money and longer benefits to those people who have been unemployed.
That's the big picture on stimulus. We're going to be looking at the very little picture in just a moment.
We're going to be talking to Josh Levs about some very, very specific projects. He's over there at the Stimulus Desk. He's working on specific projects. We're going to be going up and talking to him about that very shortly. In fact, we can do it now or we can take a break.
What are we -- let's take a break and we'll come back and talk to Josh and his staff here at the Stimulus Desk about what they're working on and what they're finding.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. One of the things we're doing now is -- this is Jeff Kepnis (ph) by the way, he's helping be in charge of the Stimulus Desk and obviously he's running around making sure things are working well. Jeff, good job you guys are doing tracking all the money on stimulus.
One of our all-platform journalists in Florida is covering a story about stimulus which is helping to keep roofs over people's heads. This is John Cowles, take a look at what he's got from Orlando.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN COWLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): United Way caseworker Mercedes Bigelow is visiting two clients...
MERCEDES BIGELOW, UNITED WAY CASEWORKER: Hi, Maria! It's Mercedes.
MARIA TEAL, STIMULUS FUND RECIPIENT: How are you?
COWLES: ... who are overjoyed just to have a roof over their heads.
BIGELOW: This looks very, very nice in here. Let's come inside and see what you've done.
TEAL: He lost his job and I lost mine. It was difficult.
MICHAEL JOHNSON, STIMULUS FUNDS RECIPIENT: We ended up moving into a house that ended up becoming foreclosured on.
COWLES: And so they were 24 hours from living in their car.
TEAL: We just didn't have any money. We had nothing to back us up. No employment. Only thing we had was the car which is paid for. We just -- you know, it was humiliating.
But it was really stressful. As it happened, we told the girls, you know, that...
JOHNSON: It was hard keeping it from them.
TEAL: Yes. They knew, but they...
JOHNSON: I think they sensed it.
TEAL: Exactly. They figured, we'll be OK. Mom and dad say we're OK, but it wasn't OK.
JOHNSON: Just thinking about my family being in the street, we had to find some kind of assistance.
COWLES: The Rapid Rehousing funds in the stimulus bill helps people with rental accommodations and paying utility bills. It's called HPRP.
LARRY OLMASS, UNITED WAY: We're talking about the Homeless Prevention Rapid Rehousing Program, it's part of the federal stimulus program. And the criteria in Orange County is that you be an Orange County resident for the last 12 months, that you are at risk of or have recently become homeless, and that you have not previously received federal help.
UNIDENTIFIED OPERATOR: Good afternoon, United Way 2-1-1 crisis hotline.
JOHNSON: Jewish Family Services.
TEAL: Jewish Family Services is the one -- yes -- that told us to call 211.
JOHNSON: Once we found the program it was like, wow, there is hope out there.
TEAK: I wonder what those guys are doing.
JOHNSON: They helped us get into the house. They helped with our electricity.
OLMASS: We helped close to 900 individuals, about 270 families.
COWLES: But the need remains. In Orange County, one in every 113 homes was slapped with a foreclosure in December alone.
OLMASS: We'd like some more money from the federal government to keep the program going because it truly is an impactful program.
JOHNSON: It was special Christmas.
TEAL: It was special.
JOHNSON: That my kids can wake up in their own rooms on Christmas morning and walk out to the Christmas tree. We never even thought we'd have a place to put a Christmas tree.
COWLES: John Cowles, CNN, Orlando.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: We're continuing on the stimulus project this week. We really are using all the resources of CNN to drill down on where this money has gone and how it's being used. And Josh Levs is on the beat now, I'm going to be taking over for him in a little while. But right now you've been immersed in this. JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we have. And you can see the map that we have set up here. Yellow dots represent some projects around the country under the stimulus plan that we are looking into. Green means we have gotten a bunch of information.
And one thing that we're going to get to right now that you are seeing on the screen is about fish food. Take a look at this, one thing we noticed today, $63,000 -- this is inside Ohio -- the Department of Agriculture got $63,000 for 15 fish farmers to reimburse them for fish food. The reason was they run farms, they were struggling in the economy. So it's one microcosmic example of where some of this is going. We don't know if the 15 would have lost jobs without it. But this is one example of where some the money has gone to.
And it's just one of many. Take a look at how many projects we're looking at, Ali. And you know this, 57,000 basically projects funded within that $787 billion.
And one reason we looked at the fish thing is Ohio -- because President Obama was just in Ohio. He was citing Ohio as what he said was a great example of how this works. Let's look at what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We gave aid directly to states to help them through tough times. Ted can testify the help it provided to the Ohio budget so we wouldn't have to lay off teachers and firefighters and police officers all across this state. And we made the largest investment in infrastructure since the creation of the Interstate Highway System putting Americans to work rebuilding our roads, bridges, waterways, doing the work that America needs to be done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: And one of the things we noticed when we looked into what he was talking about in Ohio -- in fact, the specific area he was in -- is there's this $1.8 million project that was funded by the stimulus and Emily Rust, who is one of our producers right here, is taking a look at it for us.
Hey there, Emily.
EMILY RUST, CNN STIMULUS DESK PRODUCER: I talked to Scott Varner at the Ohio Department of Transportation and he told me...
LEVS: You know, we're not getting you. The mic is on. I apologize for not getting. Here, use mine.
RUST: That's OK.
What he told me was that the $1.8 million is going towards funding the resurfacing of East River Street which is actually the street in Elyria where the community college that Obama spoke at -- that President Obama spoke at. LEVS: And we pulled up images of it. Let's take a look at it right here. This is one of the places that's getting $1.8 million inside Ohio. And I know you pulled it up on Google Earth and there are places the road needs repair.
RUST: Right, well you see right here is East River Street, and you can see down on the street there are some cracks here when this photo was taken. What they pointed out was while we get a lot of construction jobs, there's a lot of ancillary benefits that we may not think about. Like here, this is Elyria Memorial Hospital on East River Street, and they say by improving East River Street you're also going to improve access to the hospital and that could bring in more patients, expand there and that goes for all the businesses along the street.
LEVS: Thank you.
I really like that example. I really like that example -- and Ali's joining me here -- because the reason what's so good about that is sometimes we hear, OK, paving a road, but that shows us in a bigger way what is does for a community. If you get better access to a hospital, that hospital gets more patients, the community can get more. Plus you've got the community college there. So obviously you can see in some places they target specific areas that seem to work well economically.
VELSHI: And it's important that we are looking for things that didn't make sense and haven't created jobs. We are looking for things that might make sense and work. And when we have a resolution to it, we make it green on our map.
Have you ever broken anything at somebody's house when you go over?
LEVS: Me? Never. I'm perfect at all times.
VELSHI: You ever break a plate or glass? Have you ever ruined somebody's valuables or art or anything like that?
LEVS: Not yet. Give me time.
VELSHI: Somebody ruined somebody's Picasso accidentally.
LEVS: What? How did they not have it covered?
VELSHI: If I had a Picasso, it would not be anywhere where you could ruin it.
LEVS: What do you mean?
VELSHI: I will tell you about that. That's going to be in our top stories when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: You can take the boy out of New York, but you can't take the stock market out of the boy. I have been paying a lot of attention to this Dow all last week. The Dow lost about 5 percent all with this talk of President Obama getting tough again on insurance companies and on banks and things like that. It's got a bit of a gain today, up about 57 points to 10,230. Remember, these things go up and down. Everybody likes to make a big deal out of why they go down but it does seem like the Dow is stabilizing at least today.
Let's look at some top stories.
An Amber alert for a missing 7-year-old girl in Oklahoma. Asia Johnson was reported missing after her mother was found dead inside a home in Geronimo. The girl is believed to be with her mother's estranged husband Lester Hobbs (ph), he's wanted for questioning in the mother's death.
To the Haiti quake. Still a huge story we're following for you. A one-day Friends of Haiti conference is under way in Montreal. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a dozen or so foreign ministers are getting the ball rolling on rebuilding Haiti. A big reconstruction conference is planned for the next few months.
And in New York, this story. Wow, something else. An art lover falls for a Picasso, literally. She tripped and tore a painting called "The Actor" during a class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This rare piece, "The Actor," said to be worth $130 million by some estimates. It might be worth slightly a little bit less now that there is a six-inch rip in it. It's being repaired right now. If you own things like that, keep them away from people.
When we come back, Ed Henry with the -- hold on. Before we do that, let me tell you about this. We told you about following the box the other day. So many of you have asked how aid gets to Haiti. We wanted to follow a box. We started in Cornwall, England where the box was packed. It's a shelter box, in fact the company is called Shelter Box. That box made its way from the UK -- you can see the stops here -- it went to Ireland; it went to Canada; then it went to Jacksonville, Florida; Santa Domingo and finally, has made it to Port- au-Prince.
It is now with a Haitian family. It's got items like tents -- small box. We have been tracking it specifically. It has tents, water purification system and blankets. This is the plane that was flying it. That's the actual box we were tracking. The recipients are Orike Idal (ph) and her newborn son, Edwige Idal (ph). And we're actually going to get new video of them using the things in the box sometime later today or tomorrow. We'll bring that right to you. We're following that box. It got there quickly.
Listen, when we come back, I almost couldn't wait to get to it. It's "The Ed Henry Segment." The White House, the confusion about the stimulus jobs that are out there. We're also going to talk about a new White House iPhone app, and we're definitely going to talk about Ed Henry's tie.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: It is time for "The Ed Henry Segment." We're going to try to get past the tie and just listen to what he has to say cause he's such a smart guy. He's our senior White House correspondent, joining us now from the White House.
Don't even get started on that, because we're talking about...
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hold on a second. Do you have a checked shirt with pinstripes and then some other sort of polka-dot tie and you're actually talking about me?
VELSHI: I come by this naturally.
We're talking about stimulus, Ed. The White House -- it's stimulus week here at CNN. We are talking about the stimulus project and one of the biggest things out there that the president has been talking about, the big thing affecting him is jobs out there.
HENRY: Sure.
VELSHI: So you would think that knowing that the White House would have a consistent message and jobs and how many have been saved or created by the stimulus program or by the money that they put into the system. Not so.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VALERIE JARRETT, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: The Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We finally saw the first positive economic job growth in more than a year, largely as a result of the recovery plan that's put money back into our economy that saved or created a million and a half jobs.
HENRY: We finally saw the first positive economic job growth in more than a year, largely as a result of the recovery plan that's put money back into our economy, that saved or created a million and a half jobs.
DAVID AXELROD, SENIOR ADVISER OT THE PRESIDENT: The Recovery Act the president passed has created more than -- or saved more than 2 million jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Al right. So we have Valerie Jarrett with thousands and thousands, you got Robert Gibbs with a bigger number, and then David Axelrod with two million.
HENRY: I just asked Robert Gibbs that very question. I think Valerie Jarrett was the most cautious of all saying thousands and thousands because it's not going to be wrong. But then Robert Gibbs says 1.5 million, David Axelrod says at least 2 million. I just asked Robert Gibbs about that at the briefing. He said, look, the White House says a report that they put out about a week ago that claims that 1.5 million to 2 million jobs were either saved or created by the stimulus program. That's why he and Axelrod were trying to stay within that range.
But I think the bottom line is, at a time when the White House is struggling on health care message, if they can't quite come up with a coherent message on exactly jobs we're saving or creating, it's going to be that much harder for them to make the case to the American people that the stimulus is actually working.
And as you have been pointing out with the Stimulus Desk, there are parts of the country that are feeling this money where it's having a real impact. But if the White House doesn't have a clear message on it, it's going to be that much harder to sell.
VELSHI: I want to just show you -- we don't all get to see where you work. I think we have a drawing of -- sort of a bird's eye view of the White House to give you a sense of it. You can see on top above the Rose Garden. Here, I can show you here. The press corps offices, this press briefing room, the Rose Garden where you see ceremonies, the cabinet room, this is the Oval Office and then over here is -- you know, this is Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs will be here. It's not like the biggest place in the world that they wouldn't have their messages sort of coordinated.
HENRY: And I hope in the future for this segment that you will have a little X there that says, "Ed Henry is here." Because if you can put the North Lawn on there as well...
VELSHI: I can show where you are.
HENRY: Yes, you can explain where everybody is.
VELSHI: Put that back up if we can, Michael. I have to show exactly where Ed Henry is standing on the North Lawn. You are over here somewhere. Yes, you are over here somewhere. That's where Ed is.
And by the way, if you're walking by the White House and you're looking for Ed, what you can't see are to the left and right there are other reporters and other cameras, so you may be confused. Look for the guy with the crazy tie. That'll be Ed Henry. Tell him that I miss him.
HENRY: You know, I'm going to start wearing a vest just to match this program because I think you rock it really well, Ali.
VELSHI: Well, you're pretty cutting edge with stuff and you're working at a place that has an iPhone app now.
HENRY: That's true. And if you go -- right now there is a brand new White House iPhone app. They are trying to put out what the president says, what he's up to and whatnot. And if you go there right now, it's funny cause Robert Gibbs did a funny little video about how to use the iPhone app. He's not known as the most tech savvy guy -- neither am I, I should say. So that's kind of funny. But the other thing that's going on right now that you can't see behind me is that Kobe Bryant may be poking out his head in a few minutes. The Lakers are here for winning the NBA championship. We're hoping they'll come out to stake out. One of my best memories in covering the White House amid all the history is a funnier moment when Shaq O'Neal actually came out to stake out, where our cameras are. And imagine a seven-foot guy coming out there amid all of us tiny. Little reporters. It was kind of funny. And we were peppering him with questions about national policy. You know how Shaq has that ability to just sort of mumbles really low to diffuse controversy after a game in a locker room? And so he'd talk like this about the team. I was asking about Iraq policy or something. It's fun to interact with some of these stars. We hoping Kobe comes out. If so, we'll give you an update.
VELSHI: I would love a picture with you and the Lakers with you right in the middle.
HENRY: What about the Laker girls?
VELSHI: First a picture with the Lakers. We'll worry about the rest later. Ed Henry, good to see you. And I got to tell you, the tie is growing on me.
That's "The Ed Henry Segment." We're going to have this every day right here on our show.
Listen, we're going back to the Stimulus Desk. We are following the money. Steve Brusk (ph) there on our desk going through a book with a whole lot of stimulus projects. There's Josh Levs, he's working through it. We've got that group looking at stuff. We're going to get back and find out what new information they found about how your tax dollars are being spent when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: In a minute I'll take over for Josh Levs. He's taking a look -- he's handling the Stimulus Desk right now.
What have you found?
LEVS: We got something else that's interesting, one thing that caught our eye. Here's a graphic for you here. There is a $400,000 for primate research at Tulane University, which is just one thing that's interesting. And when we look at how much various places -- we're looking at thousands of projects all over the country that have gotten stimulus funding. We're looking that you often find in the hundreds of thousands is what you get. There aren't many projects we're finding that are more than a million. So that's one good example.
We have calls out to Tulane now to look at what came of it. What was it? And I have on this computer behind me the website open for the primate research center at Tulane. We can take a look at it here. This is it, this is the Tulane National Primate Research Center. They got $400,000 out of that big stimulus pile, that $787 billion pile. So we have calls to them. We're interested what kind of jobs it created, what it led to.
VELSHI: The information we have in the book here doesn't give that sort of detail about how many jobs it was. So that's what we are checking.
LEVS: Exactly. What does it lead to? And you can see the books right here. In case you haven't seen them yet, we have a dozen behind or more.
VELSHI: These are these 56,000 projects that we're looking at.
LEVS: Literally, every single project -- 56,000 projects a little more, out of the $787 billion pile of what's been awarded there.
Before we go, quickly, take it to the computer again because I want everyone to check out the websites that we have. CNN.com/stimulus -- zoom back in for me and I'm going to open it here -- CNN.com/stimulus packed with information.
One thing I want to push you to do if you can is go here to see the link -- iReport, because we are getting your stories about how the stimulus is or is not affecting you. Did it get you a job? Did it hurt you in some way? Did it help your community? Have you not seen results at all? Let us know what you think.
I know you're about to tie up the show, but we do get to update that board now.
VELSHI: Oh, let's take a look.
LEVS: Let's take a look at that.
We'll zoom into the board. This is how many dollars basically we here at CNN have now looked into within the stimulus. So of the project we are examining, we are updating it now to $1.761 billion -- actually $1.762 billion to round it right. And that's where we're at right now.
VELSHI: All right, very good. We will continue with this and I'm going to be taking over for the afternoon from you. Great job you've done all afternoon.
LEVS: Thank you.
VELSHI: Now, if you didn't think the president of the United States was busy enough he was just called for jury duty. We're going to tell you if he's going up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Rick is standing by with "RICK'S LIST" which is coming at the top of the hour. Rick, what have you got?
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Here to serve. Listen, there is a remarkable story that I will be sharing with you. This is a story of a woman whose being raped in broad daylight. You with me?
VELSHI: Yep.
SANCHEZ: Because it's happening with broad daylight and it's because it's so close to a road, motorists are driving by and honking their horns to get the guy to stop. People don't know what to do. It doesn't stop. It continues on and on and on.
VELSHI: There's a 9-1-1 call involved.
SANCHEZ: More than one 9-1-1 calls involved, and we have now gotten our hands on it. We've got exclusive access to these 9-1-1 calls. It took place in Toledo, Ohio. The community is appalled that something like this could happen, no less in broad daylight. But the fact of the matter is the fellow who was involved in this, he's a juvie, so there is a problem with that. We're going to take you through the story. It's really remarkable. You know, remember Kitty Genovese (ph), it's part of the American lexicon. The woman murdered and no one heard? Kind of reminds you of that.
VELSHI: All right, we'll be tuning in for that, Rick. Thanks very much. "RICK'S LIST" is coming up in just a few minutes.
Listen, when you have a right to a jury of your peers, wouldn't it kind of freak you out if the president of the United States were on the jury? Well, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, was summoned for jury duty in Cook County for a trial that was supposed to start on Monday.
The White House contacted the court system there to say he was kind of unavailable to serve. As you know he's a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, he was the president of the law review, he was a professor at the university law school. He doesn't have to serve. He got out of it.
Just so you know, this has happened in the past. George W. Bush was called in 2006 to serve. He got out of it. Bill Clinton tried to serve in 2003 but he was dismissed by the judge. And Ronald Reagan was called in the '80s but the call got deferred until he was out of office.
So the president is going to be able to go on with his business of governing the country and not doing jury duty. Who knows what happens once he's out of office.
That's it for us. As promised, "RICK'S LIST" starts right now.
