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Your Credit Score: What's in There; Death Video Debate; New Energy, New Jobs
Aired March 24, 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: OK. I was talking about secret sauce on the other side of the break. I'm talking about your credit score, because I happen to think credit scores are like secret sauce. They're a snapshot of your creditworthiness, or at least that's what they are supposed to be.
What I think they are is the source of a lot of confusion, but like any sort of secret sauce, you do actually have to have it involved in your life. There's so much confusion about it, there's a hearing about to get under way on Capitol Hill to discuss the very topic, what goes into a score.
Here are the basics.
Your FICO score -- you may have referred to as that -- is a numerical measure of your creditworthiness. It ranges from 300 to 850.
There are, upsettingly, a few different credit scoring systems available. The FICO score created by the Fair Isaac Corporation is the one that most lenders look at when they check your credit. However, when you go to get one of those, the credit reporting agencies might actually steer you toward a different type of score. But guess what? The banks always not usually interested in the other kind of score.
FICO focuses on five categories when calculating your score -- how much debt you have; your payment history; your debt utilization ratio, which is how much debt you're using versus how much is available; how much you owe in relation to your credit limit; how far back your credit history goes; and your mix of various types of credit.
Sounds simple enough. The confusion comes in when you look at how certain factors affect your credit score, like paying off accounts, closing lines of credit.
To help us figure out exactly what is in the credit score secret sauce, Scott Scredon. He's from Consumer Credit Counseling Services of greater Atlanta. Been a good friend to us over the years.
Scott, thank you very much for being with us.
This may not be as confusing to you as it is to me. And let me just be clear. I'm the chief business correspondent for this network. I generally understand this stuff.
SCOTT SCREDON, CONSUMER CREDIT COUNSELING SERVICES OF GREATER ATLANTA: I understand.
VELSHI: But this is more complicated than most mere mortals can get their head around.
SCREDON: Well, it is, and it probably shouldn't be.
VELSHI: Right.
SCREDON: The fact of the matter is, out of all of those things that you just mentioned, there's two things that make up about two- thirds of the FICO score, and that is the amount that you owe and your credit payment history. So, you really want to be paying attention to those two things.
You want to be paying your bills on time. And if at all possible, you want to be paying more than the amount owed on the credit cards. You also don't want to be using more than 15 percent of your available credit, if at all possible.
VELSHI: OK.
SCREDON: If you have three credit cards and you're using 80 percent, 85 percent, 90 percent of the limit, then you're in trouble. Then your score is going to affected, it's going to be low, it's going to hurt you.
VELSHI: Well, what are most people's scores?
SCREDON: Most people are in about the 710 to 712 range.
VELSHI: That's good. That's not bad.
SCREDON: It is. It is. And you've got 35 percent, 40 percent of the population that's about 750 and above. Everybody else is below that.
VELSHI: Only about 13 percent, 800 and above?
SCREDON: Correct.
VELSHI: I have had people come to me who have gone to get their credit score, and it is lower than 800, and yet they can document that they have never had issues with their credit, they've never used too much of it, they've never had late payments. It seems arbitrary to some people.
SCREDON: Well, what you need to do in that case is go to one of the three credit bureaus, go get your credit report there. And in each case online you can go dispute the credit report.
Each credit bureau will have a dispute button. You can go click on that button and fill that information out and begin to dispute any information that is wrong. VELSHI: When you start the dispute, you will have a head of air like Scott's. And when you finish the dispute, you may have a head of hair like mine.
Let's talk for a second about what you need to get a mortgage. Where does your credit score need to be to get a mortgage?
SCREDON: Sure. To get the very best rate, you want to be at now the 760 level, and that's a lot higher than it used to be. It used to be around a 680.
VELSHI: Yes.
SCREDON: And I think around a 580 used to be able to get you a mortgage. Now that's not the case. You want to really be looking at -- actually about a 640 will be what your --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Just to qualify.
SCREDON: Just to qualify.
VELSHI: Just to get something, and you're --
SCREDON: Correct.
VELSHI: -- going to be paying a lot more for that.
SCREDON: That's correct. Correct. With the 760 giving you the best rates, but the 640 qualifying you.
VELSHI: So, if I'm looking at a five percent mortgage rate on a conforming mortgage, a 30-year fixed mortgage, we often tell you that's the rate. You've got to be in that 760 range to be getting that?
SCREDON: That is correct.
VELSHI: I know there's some main line banks that won't even look at you with less than a 740.
SCREDON: Well, that is right. And the other thing is, is if you're married, they're going to take your three scores, they're going to go with your middle score as the score that counts, and then if your partner has a lower score, that's the one they're going to go with. So, you could even have a 760 as your middle score, but if your wife would have a 690, that's what they're going to go with.
VELSHI: So, you marry your credit score. You're marrying your credit score.
All right, Scott. Great to see you. There are a lot of questions that we have for you, so hopefully you'll come back and we'll discuss this more with our viewers.
SCREDON: Absolutely. Thank you.
VELSHI: Scott Scredon is with the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Atlanta, which, by the way, I use to get a lot of information, so you should think about that, too.
All right. It's a new hour. We ran a little late, but it's a new hour, and I've got new stuff "On the Rundown."
A killer whale trainer's final violent moments caught on videotape. We know her death is tragic. We know the video is disturbing.
But here's the question -- should the videotape be released to the public? This topic is heating up my Facebook page. If you want to add more comments to it, please go there now.
We're going to talk about it on air. Should it be released? Don't worry, I'm not releasing it to you. I'm just asking whether it should.
Plus, there's no question here. If you're black in America, you know things are tougher for you when it comes to finding a job. We've got some brand new numbers from the Urban League and some solutions that could help not only African-Americans, but all Americans.
And two surveillance videos that exist in the case of the SeaWorld trainer attacked and killed by the killer whale, this is what I was just talking to you about. One camera shows an underwater shot of the attack after she was pulled under. The other is a tower camera that was turned toward the Dine with Shamu pool right after the attack.
And just to be perfectly clear, the video we're showing as part of the segment is not the surveillance video in question. The video we're showing is home video and pictures that were shot right before the trainer was pulled under.
Now, let's get back to this surveillance video discussion.
Attorneys for both the family and SeaWorld argued in court today to keep the video sealed. Dawn Brancheau's husband, mother and brother were also in court.
Attorney for the Orange County Sheriff's Office, the Medical Examiner's Office and local news organization would like to participate in mediation to hammer out the details of releasing the video. The attorney for the family, John Mills, spoke to reporters about what is shown in the video itself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN MILLS, DAWN BRANCHEAU'S FAMILY ATTORNEY: It is a depiction of a human being dying. And I believe that's probably illegal in some places. So, I don't think anybody wants to see that. And I don't think that it adds anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was the question.
MILLS: It doesn't add anything. We know Dawn Brancheau died in a tragic accident. It doesn't add anything to that.
QUESTION: Does it explain at all how it happened initially?
MILLS: No. It does not.
QUESTION: Because that's why I think some people want to know, just, how did it happen so it doesn't happen again. And you're saying it doesn't answer that?
MILLS: It doesn't depict that at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: John Mills, the attorney for Dawn Brancheau's family, is live on the phone with me now.
John, thank you for joining us.
What happened today in court?
MILLS: Had a hearing on continuing the temporary injunction. The judge took no final action, so the temporary injunction is still in place. And probably what's important is all those parties agreed that the universal display of this on the Internet is a bad idea.
VELSHI: John, obviously, it's the other side's argument, but what is the instructive value, if any, of releasing this video? What is the argument in favor of releasing it?
MILLS: The only argument I could think of is if there was some conduct of a public officer like the medical examiner in question, and there isn't. What you do in these cases and what the judge is asked to do is to weigh, what is the benefit in terms of information to the public versus the intrusion on the family? And in this case, as I said, this is a video of someone's death, and I can't imagine anything that would be more horrifying and more intrusive on the family.
VELSHI: We understand Dawn's family was in court today. Her mother was very upset.
How's the family doing?
MILLS: They're doing better. And the fact that there were some very reasonable people in the media who don't feel this should be universally displayed is very comforting. And so I think that that there are positive signs here.
VELSHI: John, do you always take the view that a video of this nature which shows somebody being killed has no place being distributed? I know you say universal distribution on the Internet. Are you saying there are places where it can be selectively distributed if there is some value? MILLS: There's a separate question if there's value. There are examples of cases where autopsy photographs would display misconduct of a medical examiner. In other words, there was a case where a medical examiner said a prisoner died of an accident where, in fact, the photos show he was beaten. That should be public.
So, there are instances where depictions are of great public value and -- but this just isn't one of them.
VELSHI: You have seen this, obviously. You have seen the video we're talking about?
MILLS: I have.
VELSHI: And you say there's nothing there that can be of value. There's nothing we can learn from, from that video?
MILLS: There's nothing you can learn from the video other than what a tragic, horrible, traumatic attack it was.
VELSHI: Is there an argument to be made that you can learn something from the video which can instruct SeaWorld or other places or other trainers as to how to conduct themselves?
MILLS: I think SeaWorld and other places already have that. And the issue would be, how would you prevent that? And this video itself doesn't indicate or depict how the accident actually happened. So, how it actually started and happened will be part of the sheriff's report and separate evidence and would be important.
VELSHI: OK. John Mills, thank you for talking to us.
John Mills is the attorney for the family of Dawn Brancheau, joining us live on the phone.
There have been several other cases where families have objected to videos and photos of their dead relatives being released. We're going to talk about Gianni Versace, Dale Earnhardt and the Meredith Emerson cases after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Continuing our conversation about whether the surveillance video of the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau should be released to the public.
Now, there have been several other cases where the family objects to photos and videos being released. In the case of race car driver Dale Earnhardt, the autopsy photos were not released after his fatal crash at the Daytona 500. Fashion designer Gianni Versace was shot and killed back in 1997. His family was able to keep the autopsy photos sealed.
And the family of slain hiker Meredith Emerson asked a Georgia judge to issue an order preventing the release of crime scene photos depicting her nude and dismembered body. A reporter on assignment for "Hustler" requested the photos for a story that he was doing.
I want to continue this conversation. I want to bring in Kelly McBride. She's a media ethics instructor for The Poynter Institute. She's joining us live via Skype from St. Petersburg, Florida. And Thad Lacinak, he's a former head of animal training for SeaWorld Orlando. He actually helped train Dawn Brancheau and is joining us from Orlando, Florida.
Thank you, both of you, for being with us.
This is an emotional, tough conversation, but there are valid points that we want to discuss.
I'm going to start with you, Kelly. Tell me why there is value, in your view, in having these -- this video released?
KELLY MCBRIDE, POYNTER INSTITUTE: You know, I can't even talk about the value of the video as much as I can talk about the value of the right to see the video. Because I agree that most likely, it doesn't have the journalistic purpose.
But it's part of the public record right now, and it's really hard to judge what the journalistic purpose is until you see it. And so we're in a really tough spot as a society now, because it used to be that only journalists would get to see this type of --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: But you know exactly what will happen here, right? If it gets released, as John Mills, the attorney, said, it's going to be all over the place in minutes.
MCBRIDE: Right. I mean, I don't think that journalists would inappropriately use the video, but I can guarantee you that somebody would if it's released to the general public. But that said, it's still a very important part of our democracy, that documents in a criminal investigation or in any type of death investigation are released to the public, because that's how we hold our authorities accountable.
VELSHI: Thad, what's your view on this?
THAD LACINAK, FMR. HEAD OF ANIMAL TRAINING, SEAWORLD ATLANTA: Well, my view is the opposite of that. I would never release that video.
I think we have to have some respect for the family, just like the attorney said. We have real human lives affected with this. And to release this video I think would be an atrocity for the family.
VELSHI: Now, Thad, I take it you haven't seen the video, right?
LACINAK: No, I have not seen the video.
VELSHI: Right.
LACINAK: But I can tell you right now that there is going to be nothing gained out of that video.
SeaWorld and the authorities are going to do everything they can to make sure that this doesn't happen again, and to make sure the safety precautions are in place in the future. The people that need to see the video have seen the video and will see the video in the future to help them make it safer for the trainers.
VELSHI: Kelly --
LACINAK: And that's all that -- that's all that really needs to take place.
VELSHI: I guess we all sort of agree that somebody needs to see the video to determine whether or not there's anything in there that can be useful or instructive.
But, Kelly, your point is that unless it's released to the journalistic world, we don't know that the people who need to see it will see it.
MCBRIDE: Yes. And I'm wondering if there's some sort of limited release that they could do.
The way they do autopsy photos now, in some places is, they release them, but in a form that they can't be reproduced at all, so that people who want to inspect autopsy photos to hold death investigators accountable can do that, but they can't republish them on the Internet or in any other form. And I wonder if there's a way to release it but not allow it to be republished.
VELSHI: Thad, what do you think about that? Because I get where you're coming from.
You, out of respect for the family, and basically as a decent human being, don't, you know, see why we need to see gruesome pictures of somebody being killed, particularly if it's simply gratuitous. But how do we know that people who do need to see it, how can we just take someone's word for it, whether it be a lawyer or SeaWorld, that the people who need to see it have seen it and no one else needs to?
LACINAK: Well, it wasn't just the lawyer. It was -- the government saw it, OSHA saw it, the safety committees have seen it.
There are going to be outside representatives that see this video and that have investigated this whole thing. So it's not true that, you know, nobody's seen it.
The people that need to see this will see it, and have seen this video, in my opinion. And they are going to bring in outside experts, outside of SeaWorld. SeaWorld's already mentioned that they're going to be bringing in people to help them with this whole safety review, so it will be done.
And to release this -- you know, you can say you could have limited access, or whatever, but you know how that goes. It will be all over the Internet in no time. I agree with the lawyer, this is something that does not have to happen. And we need to have -- you know, I understand freedom of speech, freedom of press, but we need to have some human quality in this freedom also.
And that's what I think we need to have here. We need to respect the will of the family and respect the will of Dawn Brancheau's husband.
This would be detrimental to everybody. This would bring no good. And everybody's trying to do the right thing here.
VELSHI: Sure.
LACINAK: And I think that's what needs to happen.
VELSHI: Well, I think you're right there. I don't think anybody is trying to be exploitative, but it's not going to be the three of us who are responsible for it getting out beyond where it should.
Kelly, do you know of examples of where it's happened, where there's been some sort of limited release that is governed electronically, where somehow it can't be reproduced? Because that would be an interesting discussion to have.
MCBRIDE: Well, I mean, you can always do it in the physical world. You can say, OK, this video is available, but you have to come in to the sheriff's department to watch it. I mean, that's one way. You know, there is an argument to be made for public inspection.
There was a 911 case here a couple years ago in Florida where a woman had crashed her car into a canal, and the recording of the 911 was released to the media, and the media played it. And you heard this woman dying, but it wasn't until the public heard it that someone asked the question about the 911 operators and whether they were acting responsibly on the call.
So, it was only after the release and after the crowd got involved in that, that people were held accountable, because it didn't occur to the dozens and dozens of people who had already heard it to ask that question. So, I do think that there's an argument to be made for public inspection, but I don't think publishing it on the Internet is justified.
VELSHI: All right. The two of you, thank you very much. This is a difficult conversation, balancing the need for public scrutiny with human dignity, and I respect the way that you both have approached this for our viewers. And I thank you for that.
Kelly McBride, a media ethics instructor for Poynter Institute, and Thad Lacinak, who is the former head animal training at SeaWorld Orlando and helped train Dawn Brancheau.
Thank you, to both of you, for a conversation that really does extend the dignity to Dawn's family and yet addresses the needs that we have. Thank you. All right. I want to tell you about something else we're going to bring you in a few minutes.
In Pennsylvania, former steelworkers are getting new jobs in a brand new field. I think we've given you a big visual clue as to who's hiring.
"Building Up America" coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Factory workers in Pennsylvania are getting paychecks again because of clean energy, and old steel factories are getting new life, now manufacturing parts for wind farms.
Here's Joe Johns on how this industry is building up America.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This used to be steel country USA with its towering pollution machines. But now, new jobs and the clean energy sector, putting people back to work, going green all at the same time.
The U.S. subsidiary of a company based in Spain, Gamesa USA is manufacturing enormous windmill blades at this Pennsylvania plant, shipping them all over the U.S.
Ron Sanders is the plant manager.
(on camera): How many of these do you guys make a week?
RON SANDERS, PLANT MANAGER, GAMESA, USA: We're moving back up to produce more at 11 blades per week.
JOHNS: And at your lowest point during the recession, how many were you putting out?
SANDERS: Just five per week.
JOHNS (voice-over): Sanders got a break from the recession by coming here to work. He used to work for an automotive supply plant that fell on hard times.
SANDERS: I had been in automotive for almost 30 years. As the industry declined, I found myself having to leave the employer that I was working for at the time. So in December of '08, I left. And then in June 2009 I started here with Gamesa.
JOHNS (on camera): Two hundred thirty people work at this plant, 24 hours a day, five days a week. And building just one of these blades is a huge job. They can weigh 15,000 pounds, 45 meters long. It takes almost 24 hours to build just one.
(voice-over): And there are other people here who might have been out of work but for the appearance of these green jobs. Ed Burnat had jobs at three different steel plants before it all dried up. He's grateful to be working here.
(on camera): So what's better? Steel working or this?
ED BURNAT, WIND TURBINE BUILDER: I don't want to say.
JOHNS: You go where the work is?
BURNAT: Sure, you have a family. You have to feed your family. You do what you have to do.
JOHNS (voice-over): It took about three months to figure out the new job and less time to see one of the upsides.
BURNAT: Most of the guys that work here like the idea of it being green. We like the idea of this, cleaning our environment up. A lot of people here are, you know, like that idea.
JOHNS: Creating green jobs is something the president talks a lot about, but to tell the truth, the U.S. lags behind Western Europe in windmill production and use. So in the end, the real job may be standing up the windmill industry in the U.S. so it can create more jobs, more energy, and compete in the global market.
Joe Johns, CNN, Ebensburg, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Well, it's one of the most dominant brands in America, and its costs are dominated by employee health care. Some coffee talk with the CEO of Starbucks coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: A lot of you know Starbucks. Everybody knows Starbucks. Some of you spend a lot of time there. A very interesting story when it comes to how Starbucks provides health care for its workers.
Poppy Harlow, anchor with CNNMoney.com, is on this story.
Poppy, you talked to the CEO of Starbucks. I was surprised to learn that they spend more on health care than they do on coffee beans.
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: Yes, I mean, let's just say it again, more on health care than coffee beans. For a coffee company, that's unbelievable almost. But they spend, Ali, $300 million a year on health insurance for their employees.
Why do they do that? Well, they offer it even to their part- timers. It's estimated more than 40 percent of the employees there, we can't get the exact number, get this health insurance, but all you have to work three months and work at least 20 hours a week.
Now this costs the company, as I said, a lot of money. But we sat down with the CEO, I'll show you in here, Howard Schultz, and we asked him and really focused on why do you do this even if it costs the company a lot of money? And what we found out, you have go to back to his childhood to see why he has done this at Starbucks.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD SCHULTZ, CEO, STARBUCKS: I grew up in Brooklyn in the projects, with is subsidized housing. My parents were great working class people. But at the same time, you know, as we grew up, I think realized that we were not the privileged few. We were on the other side of the tracks.
And I think what I felt as a kid and what stayed with me as I was trying to build Starbucks is to ensure the fact that any insecurity or lack of respect that someone would feel as a result of where they came from should somehow be refined on how the company would treat its employees. And I just felt very strongly that we couldn't bring the company to where it needed to go if we did it on the backs of our people if.
Now given the fact that we're in the middle of the health care debate, what I feel really proud of is that we didn't turn our back on our people. We kept the benefit. And it will cost us almost $300 million this year.
HARLOW: So what do you think then, Howard, when you look at the debate going on in Washington right now over health care for more Americans?
SCHULTZ: The fact that between 40 million and 50 million Americans don't have health insurance, in my view, is the -- it's kind of the fracturing of the humanity of our country. It doesn't feel like. There's no reason why we should be so far behind.
HARLOW: And you spoke with the president.
SCHULTZ: And I have spoken to the president. This is a run-away train. And we're on a collision course with time if something doesn't happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: So, Ali, you heard him say there he has spoke with President Obama about this. That interview was just a few days before health care reform passed in the House. The question is now, for businesses like Starbucks and for small businesses, even as importantly, does it go far enough.
VELSHI: All right, Poppy, thank you very much for that great conversation.
Poppy Harlow, you can watch her on CNNMoney.com all the time.
The National Urban League is focused on getting the unemployed back to work. The latest on the state of Black America coming up with these two guys who you are going to want to hear from on the other side of this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Sorry, I just dropped my pen.
In just a few minutes, President Obama is due to sign an executive order -- hopefully, he's got his pen -- underscoring the continued ban on federal funds for abortion. Now that was part of a deal that helped anti-abortion democrats sign on to the health care overhaul.
Each year the National Urban League releases "The State of Black America Report," which takes a detailed look at the issues facing African-Americans. This year, the focus is on jobs and the lack of them. Take a look at the unemployment numbers by race for last month. We are always a month behind when it comes to unemployment numbers.
The national average is 9.7 percent, that's down from the high. But for blacks the rate of unemployment is 15.8 percent, for Hispanics it's 12.4 percent and for whites it's 8.8 percent. So you can see the unemployment rate for blacks almost double that for whites.
According to "The State of Black America Report," blacks are 1.8 times more likely to be unemployed than whites, that's according to employment numbers for 2009.
Let's talk more about it with Ryan Mack, he's the president of Optimum Capital Management, and Alfred Edmond from BlackEnterprise.com.
Guys, good to see you again. Thanks for being with us.
RYAN MACK, PRESIDENT, OPTIMUM CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: Thank you.
ALFRED EDMOND JR., EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, BLACKENTERPRISE.COM: My pleasure, Ali.
VELSHI: The two of you, our audience, we know this. We know that the unemployment is higher for African-Americans than for whites. We know generally that that's always been the case, except during this recession the spread has increased a little bit. But I don't think there's no one watching us who doesn't know this.
The one thing I like talking to you guys about is that we need solutions. And it strikes me that if we can get to solutions on levels of unemployment for African-Americans, there's some takeaway for all of our viewers.
So, I'm going to start with you, Ryan. Solutions to dealing with what is really becoming a crisis for African-Americans, particularly for African-American men.
MACK: Well, we're talking about solutions. One of the solutions is additional funding for job creation, as was outlined in the bill or the proposal for the state of Black America.
However, another solution is making sure that individuals are being created and driven to these programs in our communities that actually put these individuals through training, through job creation. I'm on the board of an organization called Rebuild, and over the past two years, we've actually assisted over 1,500 people get placed and 500 individuals retain those jobs for six months or more. Most of them are formerly incarcerated, most of -- all of them are African- American.
And we do this because -- with no funding, by just assisting individuals to go to the local community centers, going to local community organizations, municipal organizations that provide these things, local community colleges that are providing free training, free job training education.
But it's going to have to be a community effort. Government funding only goes so far, it's up to the individual to see what we can do to try and take that stick and baton and carry it a little bit further.
VELSHI: OK, you're a big believer in civil society, community organizations, almost nongovernmental sort of intervention to help people out in the communities in which they come from.
Alfred, I know that you are also a believer in community stuff, but what is the -- what is the silver bullet or a bronze bullet or any kind of bullet to solve this problem?
EDMOND: Well, there's no silver bullet. But I was very pleased that the Urban League report recommended getting the Small Business Administration to make finances available to small businesses and urban communities, most likely to hire a black and Latino and urban citizens who are suffering disproportionately from unemployment.
There's no way around this employment problem or unemployment problem without stimulating hiring among small and midsized emerging businesses and communities.
VELSHI: Guys, stay right there. I want to establish a little bit more about what can be done, what some solutions are, and what the National Urban League is actually talking about in terms of their proposals that Alfred just talked about.
Alfred Edmond from BlackEnterprise.com, Ryan Mack from Optimum Capital Management on the other side of this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. We're talking about "The State of Black America Report" with Ryan Mack, the president of Optimum Capital Management, Alfred Edmond from BlackEnterprise.com.
And, guys, while this is interesting to everybody in the country because we all want to know about how to deal with these challenges, the challenge for African-Americans is so great that perhaps the solutions for African-Americans can be used elsewhere. The National Urban League is suggesting a two-year job creation plan, $168 billion spent over two years and the creation of 3 million jobs.
Alfred was just touching on how some of those jobs might be created. Ryan, let's go to you on this one. Boy, if we knew how to create 3 million jobs, Wednesday like to be not only applying that but multiplying it many times so that we could get everybody back to work.
MACK: Definitely. I mean, the bottom line is that, you know, I like to focus on that almost 85 percent of African-Americans who are employed, and really start looking to those individuals to start. To say, what can we do as individuals who do have jobs to go out into the community to help other individuals.
Actually, in Detroit, in the middle of April, about 50 of us, individuals who worked on Wall Street, who have jobs. We want to go to Detroit, as you know is very ravaged by unemployment. And we're going to be reaching out to young professionals, reaching out to local schools that have troubled teens and spending time networking trying to give our ideas and strategies.
I teach financial literacy. I'm working with other financial professionals to teach them how they can get out to the schools so they can teach financial literacy to students exposing them to various careers and exposing them to just different industries.
And again, it will have to come from the ground up. And I definitely think the government has a strong place in making sure the funding does try to get to the communities, but what if the funding doesn't come? That's what I always try to make sure community are focused on.
VELSHI: And I guess the question is, government can do things that create an environment to create jobs, Alfred, but the reality is where does the rubber meet the road? Where do the programs match the people and the responsibility that Ryan talks about, the ability to get the training that Ryan talks about? Where -- how does it all connect?
EDMOND: Well, again, it goes back to execution on the ground. Government can do short-term, booster shot-type of things by creating federal job programs, but the bottom line is that sustain job creation you need a healthy, robust, local and national economy.
Black Enterprise will be convening the largest gathering of black entrepreneurs in country in May at the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference, and the goal there is pull together the private sector in the black community, partner with larger corporate partners and say how do we create business opportunities that will not only create jobs but also stimulate the economy which will have a larger ripple effect. And that's what's got to be happening over the long run. The government can only do short-term solutions.
VELSHI: You are looking at a screen there that shows you disparities between blacks and whites in America in terms of unemployment, the chance of being under the poverty line, home ownership. Look at that -- for African-Americans 47.4 percent, for whites 75 percent. College education -- 45 percent for blacks, 73 percent with whites.
Look at that bottom one, Ryan, households with a computer under 50 percent for blacks, 64.6 percent for whites. Both of those numbers actually shocked me. But you talk about financial literacy, it's just sort of literacy in general. The idea that you have the right tools to be able to retrain, find out where the jobs are, access community resources and get out there and do something.
MACK: I remember I was doing a workshop and we were working with some individuals who were formerly incarcerated. And one of them held me behind the workshop and he pulled me into a room with a computer in it, and he actually sat me down and said how do I use it. He didn't know hardly even how to turn it on. And it was just the basic level of literacy in using computers that we have to start educating and training ourselves with. But after about 20 minutes, he was pretty much literate in the computer.
So, it's the smallest things that help individuals. And there's another stat that actually disturbed me, 5.2 percent of all businesses are black owned, but again, of stimulus funding we've only received about 1.1 percent of businesses.
And again, I do think that we have to have a lot of -- in terms of making sure our businesses are in a better position to be able to create them to be able to receive this stimulus funding. Do we have the network and relationships? Do we have the bonding capacity, insurance capacity so we can start receiving this funding and start operating effectively?
VELSHI: Always great that you guys can get down to brass tacks and we can actually start to find some solutions. Pleasure to have you both here.
Ryan Mack with Optimum Capital Management, he's a financial planner and he's from Detroit, joining us from New York. Alfred Edmond with BlackEnterprise.com.
Great to see you guys, again. We'll keep working at this. We'll come up with more solutions. Thanks, guys.
EDMOND: No doubt.
VELSHI: All right, when we come back, there he is, there he is, Ed Henry, senior White House correspondent. We'll check in with him to see what is going on at the White House with health care and anything else he might have. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: "When You're Talking In Your Sleep."
You know, one of the things that is interesting is when people tweet. If you follow Ed Henry, @EdHenryCNN, or you follow me, @AliVelshi, you might get some sense if you're active on Twitter as to when we sleep. I saw some application that came out. Ed, I don't know if you've seen this. It -- you could put anybody's name in on Twitter and it figures out when that person sleeps based on sort of when they tweet. It sort of figures if there's a large chunk of time between when you tweet and when you next tweet, you're sleeping.
Now you sleep later than I do, apparently. It says that you probably sleep between 12:00 and 6:00 a.m., midnight and 6:00 a.m., and it shows that I probably sleep between 11:00 and 5:00. I don't sleep nearly that much, I wish I did. But if I did sleep, those are the hours I'd be in bed.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's pretty creepy, first of all, that they're tracking this.
VELSHI: That is creepy.
HENRY: Second of all, I really don't want to know too much about your sleep.
Third of all, I actually have a source close to the Ali Velshi show telling me that that's not really true that you sleep at all. Basically that there's one case where you sent 26 e-mails between something like 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. -- 26 e-mails to your staff. I don't want to give away my source, but I'm told you sent these e- mails to your staff. So I'm not sure if these stats are correct, sir.
VELSHI: Yes, I'm not a huge sleeper. I guess the point is between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., if I were a better sleeper than I am, is when I would be having my milk and being in my Snuggie and trying to sleep.
HENRY: TMI -- Snuggie, Ali, milk, cookies, I don't want to know.
VELSHI: OK, well, let's find out about what you're doing there. There's some reporters around you.
HENRY: Yes, well, you know, at that stakeout right behind me we've got some photographers and reporters. They're waiting to see if anyone comes out of this meeting in the Oval Office in which the president just signed the executive order that was promised over the weekend to kind of get the health care reform deal done, which is basically it restates federal policy that there cannot be federal funding for abortion.
Significant about this, number one, is that at the briefing today Robert Gibbs was basically saying that the president doesn't believe this was really necessary. He doesn't believe this changes any kind of policy because he does not believe the original health care bill funded -- you know, would provide for federal funding of abortions. So some colleagues were pressing him, what's the point of this? The point really in the end was they wanted to bring along some of those conservative democrats who don't support abortion rights. So even though the president doesn't believe this really creates any new policy, it's essentially kind of a worthless piece of paper in that sense, only because he wanted to get their votes. The other significant part of this, secondly, is the fact that it's closed to media coverage, and this is something I pressed Robert Gibbs about. There's been kind of an increasing number of events around here, like this one, significant national policy in which they close it to all media coverage. So we don't have cameras in there, we don't have any video of it, and this is the president signing this executive order, it's important national business you would you think. And Robert Gibbs' response was that the official White House photographer, Pete Souza, will be providing coverage. Well, in the U.S. we don't --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: We don't sort of hand it over to the White House.
HENRY: -- have people on the White House payroll providing coverage.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Pete's I'm sure is a good guy. Listen, talking about good pictures --
HENRY: Yes.
VELSHI: When we come back, we're going to talk about that adorable little kid, Marcellus Owen. Eleven-year-old kid from Seattle whose got some remarkable sartorial taste and involved in the health care debate.
When we come back, more with Ed. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Ed Henry, senior White House correspondent, at the White House right now.
Ed, you spoke to Marcelas Owens, is that his name?
HENRY: That's right. He's from Seattle, 11 years old. You saw him yesterday right next to the president of the United States when he was signing the bill. A young kid, just really mature for his age. He's got a very difficult story, as you know. His mother lost her job several years ago, then lost her health coverage, got sick and she died of pulmonary hypertension. And so the president was saying this is sort of one of the people that he was signing the legislation for.
I caught up with him because after the signing, many hours later, he was called back to the White House for a private meeting with the president. I got to talk to him. Just take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCELAS OWENS, FOUGHT FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM: I was thinking that my mom would have been proud and that her dreams that would have come true today. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: So, you know, obviously we're trying to put a face on this story. Who are some of the people that would be affected? His mother would have been someone who would have gotten this coverage and, you know, obviously maybe it wouldn't have turned out the way it did. And so, given the gravity of the situation for him and how it's changed his life, I thought it was really remarkable how well poised he was.
And you'll remember as well, you were talking about this sartorial stuff, because we joke about neckties and stuff on this program, is that yesterday the president called out that he was wearing -- Marcelas was wearing the same color tie as the president, that he looked good, and he was wearing the vest. And so, you'll see in this video that I was showing him this picture of you, Ali, and I was saying, you know, you wear this vest so well, Marcelas, just sort of like Ali Velshi of CNN, you know, he's got this thing. And I'm sorry to tell you, he didn't know who you are.
VELSHI: What?
HENRY: He -- and this may be why you're behind me on the Twitter account. I think the young people in America who do Twitter and people like Marcellus, they don't know who you are yet, Ali. You have got to work on that.
VELSHI: All right, well then I'm going to just sort of attach myself to you a little bit cause they clearly know who you are.
HENRY: He said he loves "The Ed Henry Segment." He just didn't know --
VELSHI: He just didn't know who the bald guy was who talks to you every day on it.
HENRY: Yes, I guess.
VELSHI: Ed, good to see you.
Ed Henry, our senior White House correspondent and pop culture maven.
All right, listen, when we come back, we've been getting a lot of your comments on Facebook about whether or not the video that was taken after Dawn Brancheau was killed by that killer whale should be released to the public. I've got some thoughts on it when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Time now for "The X-Y-Z of It."
This morning, a Florida court heard the emotional debate over whether to release a video showing a SeaWorld trainer being killed by a killer whale. The family and SeaWorld want the video of Dawn Brancheau's death kept sealed for obvious reasons. No one wants to see the death of a loved one plastered across the world. Some news organizations want the video made public so they can investigate SeaWorld and government agencies involved in the case.
There's a very real struggle here. If SeaWorld did something wrong, we need to know about it. If the judge denies the release of the video, what does it mean for other evidence in death investigations? There's a valid argument for transparency among companies and government organizations. Or of greater concern to journalists, the plain right to the release of public information.
But there's also a gut-wrenching argument for the poor family who already relives this in their mind every day. Do they really need to see Dawn being attacked and drowned in real-live color? Do we as a society need to see it? Does the benefit outweigh the family's need for dignity? I don't have the answer to that, maybe you do. It's an open conversation and I hope to hear from you on Facebook.
For now, that's "The X-Y-Z of It." Next up, Rick Sanchez on "RICK'S LIST."
