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Economy Loses 125,000 Jobs; Out of Work, Out of Benefits; Giant Oil Skimmer Standing By
Aired July 02, 2010 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again, everyone. I'm Tony Harris.
Top of the hour in the CNN NEWSROOOM where anything can happen. And here are some of people behind today's top stories.
New jobless numbers are out. Numbers are one thing, right? The lives they reflect quite another.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESLEY PINK, UNEMPLOYED: I can get through the summer, July/August, and then I'm really going to have to think about my next step, whether that's leaving my apartment, whether that's leaving New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: And it is being called "A Whale" of a solution to the Gulf oil disaster. But is it too big to work?
You're online right now. We are, too.
Ines Ferre is following top stories trending on the Internet -- Ines.
INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tony, a lot of sports. This one from CNN.com and "Sports Illustrated": The Dutch defeat a World Cup favorite, Brazil.
Also, check this out -- what celebrities and dancers and singers will do to lure LeBron James.
HARRIS: Oh, my.
FERRE: Oh, my.
HARRIS: All right. Let's get started with our lead story here.
For the first time since December, the economy is showing a monthly net loss of jobs. Employers cut 125,000 workers loose in June. Many of those positions were temporary census jobs. If there is a silver lining -- and we had to look for it -- the provide sector created an anemic 83,000 jobs. Enough people gave up their job search to push the overall unemployment rate down to 9.5 percent.
Here's the president's assessment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, make no mistake: We are headed in the right direction.
But as I was reminded on a trip to Racine, Wisconsin, earlier this week, we're not headed there fast enough for a lot of Americans. We're not headed there fast enough for me, either. The recession dug us a hole of about 8 million jobs deep. And we continue to fight head winds from volatile global markets. So, we still have a great deal of work to do to repair the economy and get the American people back to work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Congress is leaving town for an Independence Day break, without extended unemployment benefits. That leaves almost 2 million Americans without a check.
CNN's Mary Snow talks with one worker whose benefits are about to run out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thirty-nine-year- old Leslie Pink has been hitting the pavement since January, sending outs an estimated 800 resumes, but still no job. She's even documented her search on a blog site since being laid off in January from her marketing job. Her unemployment checks are running out in a few weeks, and she's hoping for an extension.
LESLEY PINK, UNEMPLOYED: I can get through summer, July/August, and then I'm really going have to think about my next step, whether that's leaving my apartment, whether that's leaving New York, moving in with family, I don't know what I'm going to do.
SNOW: Pink's fears are shared by many. Without Congress approving extensions that allow some states to provide benefits for up to 99 weeks, an estimated 1.6 million Americans will be cut off from unemployment checks come Saturday.
But some critics like Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle in it Nevada say extensions shouldn't be granted. In an interview on Nevada's "Face-to-Face" program, Angle says people are being encouraged not to work.
SHARRON ANGLE (R), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: The truth of that is that they keep extending these unemployment benefits to the point where people are afraid to go out and get a job, because the job doesn't pay as much as the unemployment benefit does.
SNOW: Andrew Stettner couldn't disagree more. He's the deputy direction tore of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for lower wage workers. He says unemployment checks cover about 40 percent of what people had been making.
ANDREW STETTNER, NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT LAW PROJECT: You know, the average paycheck in America is, you know, close to $1,000 a week. And most people are going to prefer that to an unemployment check. Unemployment benefits are low. You can't survive on them. So people are looking for a job. They're desperate for a job.
SNOW: Average weekly unemployment benefits range from Hawaii's $419 a week to Mississippi, at $190 a week. In New York, Lesley Pink's weekly check is just over $400.
PINK: I paid my taxes. I've done everything a responsible citizen is supposed to do, and they're going to cut me off, and they bailed the banks out. It's infuriating to me.
SNOW (on camera): The next step comes with the Senate where many Republicans say they would have voted for the $30 billion bill if Democrats came up with ways to offset the costs. Lawmakers are taking a week-long break. By the time they reconvene, it's estimated that 2 million Americans will have lost their jobless benefits.
Mary Snow, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: So I have a lot of questions about this economy and how it's impacting you, your life, your family. I want to hear from you. What are your questions, what are your frustrations with the current state of the economy? If you would, share your stories with me -- CNN.com/Tony.
Taliban militants launched a deadly attack on a U.S. aid agency compound in Afghanistan. Government officials say at least four people were killed and 20 others wounded. They say suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gate and gunmen then stormed the compound firing machine guns -- you could hear some of the gunfire -- and tossing grenades. The attack comes as General David Petraeus arrived to take over U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.
Day 74 of the Gulf oil disaster. Now that Hurricane Alex is essentially history, crews are hoping to get back to cleaning up oil. The storm shut down skimming operations. And BP says high winds may have affected the cap on the busted well. It appears to be bouncing in the water. And that could mean less oil is being captured.
Hurricane Alex also postponed a benefit concert by Jimmy Buffett until July 11th. Buffett talked with our Anderson Cooper about the oil disaster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": When you first heard about the disaster, did you think it would last this long?
JIMMY BUFFETT, MUSICIAN: I knew -- you know what? I just thought, you know -- I've been in show business a long time, and I know liars when I hear 'em, you know? And I, you know, that thing couldn't have blown up without, you know -- I thought they were lying in the beginning. That was just me personally.
COOPER: So, when you -- when you heard 1,000 barrels.
BUFFETT: Total lie. That's what I thought.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Tomorrow, crews plan to test a giant tanker described as the world's largest oil skimmer. If the technology works, it could dramatically speed up the skimming process.
CNN's Ed Lavandera takes us on a tour of the massive ship.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is how you get on the world's largest oil skimmer -- quite a feat, and quite an adventure.
So now we're on board a massive vessel called "A Whale." And this is a giant cargo ship that has been retrofitted to skim oil in the Gulf of Mexico. This kind of technology, retrofitting, has never been done before. So, right now, the Coast Guard hasn't given this ship permission to go out and skim oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
We're on the navigation deck of this vessel, and from this perch, you can really get a sense of the magnitude of this ship. It is almost four football fields long, one football field wide. And as you look at those other massive ships out there on the water, they look small from this vantage point.
But underneath this massive deck that you see right here below us, underneath there is where the crucial work will take place -- if indeed the technology aboard this vessel does work. Underneath there is where the containers and where the oil could be skimmed into, is being held right now. So, we're going to go check that out.
Those slits you see on the side of the ship are called the jaws, and that is the critical component that has been retrofitted to help this ship collect oil.
So the oil is going to come through here, into these valves, and then into a series of five tanks --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
LAVANDERA: -- and that's separating the oil from the water.
And what you see here is called the jaws. And essentially, when this ship gets the clearance to go out and start skimming oil, the oil will come into here, and then get brought into these valves, and get processed where they will begin the process of separating the water from the oil.
Right now, the crew of this ship is waiting on final permission from the unified command to start skimming oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
There's a couple issues that are being looked at right now: First of all, one of them is a safety issue. A ship this big out on the Gulf of Mexico needs about a half mile radius all the way around to operate safely. So they're trying to figure out if that's possible.
There's also some environmental concerns. Part of the way this ship works is that it brings in oil and water. It separates that, and the water gets thrown back out into the Gulf of Mexico, and they keep the oil.
They're also looking at into whether or not that oil that's going to be discharged, what would be the environmental impact of that, so that's one of the things slowing it down. But everyone aboard here thinks that it's just a matter of time before this vessel is put in to fight the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: That was our Ed Lavandera reporting.
Stimulating the economy, President Obama says his plan to wire rural America for broadband will create thousands of jobs.
But, first, our "Random Moment" in 90 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Let me understand this here. Today's "Random Moment" involves me. It involves Josh and George Washington. How did this happen, Josh?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sounds random just on the face of it.
HARRIS: On the face of it, yes, yes, yes. What does this have to do with me?
LEVS: Speaking of faces, check it out. Thanks to jib jab, it's a Happy July 4th card that they have sent along. You can pretty much in any face at all. Listen to this.
(VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: Basically, they stuck in our face and right behind George Washington, we're the back-up singers for the nation's first president. And you've got to hear how this rap goes. Listen in.
(VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: (INAUDIBLE)
HARRIS: And there you have it.
LEVS: You're a natural. Look at that. Look at his moves, people.
HARRIS: Get to the break. Get to the commercial, please.
(VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Oh, man.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: OK. Almost $800 million to build broadband around the country. That's what the president announced today. Now, the question is: how many jobs will that bring? The promise is that it could lead to thousands of jobs.
And Josh is tracking the stimulus for us.
And what's the impact here, Josh?
LEVS: It's interesting, Tony, because this is a big announcement from the president that everyone is talking about jobs, anyway, as we know. This is a big concern to a lot of people.
What I have behind me is a map that shows where broadband is missing in this country. Basically, all you need to know is that where it's a lot of blue, it's good. Where there's a lot of red or pink, it's not so good. So what today's plan is about is helping extend broadband to more places around this country. And that can help a lot of people get access to jobs, get access to information, education, even medical information.
So that could be really important.
But let's look at the big picture here. I want to take a look at some of the numbers of what the president is saying it will do. This is a $795 million plan, that's why you said almost $800 million from the stimulus, matched by a couple of a hundred million, that will be private, so it's about $1 billion dollar project.
But this is what you, us, the public, is paying for and paying debt on. Always keep in mind, stimulus, we'll pay debt on all of it.
So by $800 million here -- and it will create 5,000 jobs directly. Now, we've been looking into how this will be. We've called some of the places that will get money. Actually, Tony, you'll be interested in this. One place that we contacted today to ask how they would feel about it --
HARRIS: Yes?
LEVS: -- they didn't know they had gotten any money. They didn't know. Somehow the announcement came out but not all the agencies out there that are actually getting this funding have heard about it.
HARRIS: Surprise.
LEVS: So, we've been asking what will happen with these jobs, because that's what we all want to know about: the jobs. A lot of these are construction jobs. But the idea that the government says, what the administration says, is that's just the beginning. It extends outward from there.
And I want to show everyone how the government thinks about the jobs created by stimulus. A direct job is something like this, someone doing construction right there. And then they say there are indirect jobs, like they had to get the wood from somewhere, they had to get cement from somewhere. So someone at the cement company gets a job.
And then they say this person who has this job can now go to the grocery store and buy food, and the guy at the grocery store gets. It's called induced jobs. And when you put them all together, that's why the government says big picture. They believe, White House Council of Economic Advisers, they believe that the stimulus has created 2.2 million to 2.8 million jobs.
But that's also why it's impossible to nail down a figure because this very broad estimate. So when we look at today and what this announcement is about here, which is $800 million for broadband, what we are seeing is an example of that. The latest spending in the hopes of getting some more stuff moving, getting more jobs out there, Tony. But obviously, it's not everything that the country wants to see. And clearly, like we talked about last hour, it has not been enough to turn around this country or to make a substantial drop in unemployment in America.
HARRIS: No. You make a good point there.
All right, Josh, appreciate it. Thank you.
You have heard of super size me, right? The documentary. Now meet the young man behind portion size me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: The Gulf oil disaster on day 74, the containment cap on the gushing BP oil well is wobbling around today, and that suggests it may be capturing less oil. Experts say high winds and rough seas from Hurricane Alex probably jarred the cap loose.
Mexican police have arrested a suspect in the March deaths of three people associated with the U.S. consulate. A reputed drug gangster known as "The Camel" is alleged to be the leader of a band of hit man.
And General David Petraeus is now with a job in Afghanistan. President Obama's new war commander arrived at NATO headquarters in Kabul a short time ago.
Taking a private battle against obesity very public. Oh, yes, and he is only 12 years old, but CNN iReporter Marshall Reid is far wiser than his age might suggest. Just watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARSHALL REID, CNN IREPORTER: Some of you may be saying that, wow, this is really unhealthy. But it isn't. These are turkey filets, full of protein. These are grilled sweet potato for carbohydrates, and this is pineapple, grilled pineapple with some fruit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Love it. Marshall and his mom Alex, and his big sister, Jordan, are joining us live from North Carolina's capital of Raleigh.
Good to see you all. And, Alex, we're going to get to the star here, Marshall, in just a second, but let me start with you. Was your son a heavy baby?
ALEX REID, MARSHALL'S MOM: Actually, he was born very average weight. But within two weeks, he blew up and his nickname was Winston Churchill.
HARRIS: That is so wrong. That is so wrong.
A. REID: I know.
HARRIS: So, when did you become seriously concerned about his weight?
A. REID: His pediatricians were not concerned most of his childhood, but around 7, 8 years old, we started noticing that he was starting to sneak food. And, I mean, we don't keep Twinkies and ice cream in the house, but a couple of string cheese in a row, you know, the pounds started packing on. And so we started trying to tackle it a couple years ago.
HARRIS: Yes. Marshall, how did you feel about your weight? Were you unhappy with your weight? What were your thoughts about it?
M. REID: Well, at the time, I didn't really care. But now I'm starting to really think about it. I'm thinking, if I gain too much weight, I'll get too -- type 2 diabetes.
HARRIS: Yes.
M. REID: And my uncle actually has it. And I'm just -- I don't want to end up like him.
HARRIS: Yes, gotcha. But, Marshall, what motivated you? There's one thing to be concerned, and then there's what flips the switch and says, you know, what I've got to do something about that. Was there a moment? For example, were you being, I don't know, teased, picked on by classmates?
M. REID: Yes. Kids actually started making fun of me.
HARRIS: Oh. And how did you feel about that? Well, I guess I know how you felt about that. It feels pretty awful, right?
M. REID: Yes.
HARRIS: OK. How much weight are you trying to lose?
M. REID: Really, it's -- I'm not -- I'm trying to lose weight, but still be healthy. And I'm not -- I have a goal to try to get out of the obese section, and I'm only about a half a point in there. I used to be two points in there. So I've been losing weight, and I've been trying to lose and get out of this obese category.
HARRIS: Now, how difficult is it to stay on track? I mean, what foods, maybe disserts, or snacks are you having to give up and perhaps that you miss the most here?
M. REID: Well, I mean -- sorry. Can you please re-ask the question?
HARRIS: Yes, yes, I sure can. I mean, what foods are you having to give up that you miss the most?
M. REID: OK. Well, for breakfast, every once in a while, I'd have canned beef hash. And I really love that.
HARRIS: Yes, I do too, man.
M. REID: And right now, I just had to give that up. And we looked at all the fat and calories, and it was really gross.
HARRIS: Oh, boy.
A. REID: This is a -- this is a big learning process for our family, to actually, you know, read the ingredients, read the fat, read the calories. Figure out what some of these words mean that we can't even pronounce. It's -- even though you buy everything from the grocery store, you don't realize actually how much of it is not real food.
HARRIS: Right. Go ahead.
M. REID: My mom has actually been saying, if you can't pronounce at least three of the ingredients in there, don't eat it.
HARRIS: That's good stuff.
Hey, Alex, who's helping you with this project? Do you have a doctor working with you on this, and what are the recommendations from the doctor?
A. REID: We don't have a doctor working with us. This actually is his project or the family project. And everything that you see that he's posted on YouTube is stuff that he's learning that we're just having conversations about in the house. And hopefully by, you know, kind of teaching others, it becomes more ingrained in if ourselves and we end up making better choices.
HARRIS: Well, Marshall, what's been the reaction to the videos?
A. REID: Well, my dad, he is in Kuwait right now, he has been inspired to start running. And we've had about five or six subscriptions. And they're all leaving very good comments.
HARRIS: Man, congratulations. Keep up the good work. Mom, this is terrific.
A. REID: Thank you.
HARRIS: And Jordan, we'll get you miked up next time and get you out of the shadows there. Have a great holiday weekend. Thanks for being with us.
A. REID: Thank you very much.
HARRIS: OK. Got to tell you, America's battle against the bulge doesn't really come cheap, that's for sure.
Earlier today on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING," our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, broke down the costs of the nation's burgeoning waistline.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: If you look at the cost of obesity overall, as things stabbed now, $147 billion a year. You break that down specifically in childhood obesity, just per year, $14 billion associated with chronic disease associated with childhood obesity. What's projected to happen over the next eight years, just in eight years, not even in a decade, $344 billion will be the cost of taking care of diseases associated with obesity and specifically if you want to break that down overall into health care expenditures as a country, almost a quarter, 21 percent of total medical costs are used to treat these sort of diseases much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: And, Chad Myers, I don't know about you, but I'm fighting, fighting, fighting, every day to try to do something about this doggone spare tire.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, you know what, they don't think they use this anymore, because it has bad self esteem. But there was slim, regular and husky.
HARRIS: And husky.
MYERS: And I was always the 14 husky.
HARRIS: It's worked, man. It really is.
MYERS: I don't think you can put that on anything, anymore. I don't know that they actually have that anymore.
I had my first and probably last bratwurst of the Fourth of July season yesterday.
HARRIS: There you go.
MYERS: So, you just got to be careful.
Look at this satellite, Tony. Let's get right in on this. This is like four days worth of satellite. Start over here. This is where this Alex was. It came across Belize. Then it kind of died off over the Yucatan.
Here it comes back again, it's getting more purple. And then you see the eye right there, come on shore at 105 miles per hour and really tore up some things up there.
We talked about Monterrey, Mexico, being in the crosshairs of the rainfall, and they picked up an awful lot of flooding. We're trying to pick up pictures there, as well.
I have pictures, though, of Texas, parts of Brownsville, Texas, where the winds were only 40 to 50 miles per hour.
Now, that bridge was not knocked down. But you can see that that power pole was knocked over. Red surf flags -- it was not a hurricane warning flag, that was the red surf flag and things are still getting back to normal.
An awful lot of people still without power. And there you see the power company trying to put things back up. I remember Anderson Cooper and I back on a bridge, this must have been either Jean or Francis and it was the bridge from Melbourne to Indialantic Beach. And we were sitting there on this bridge, just like they were and we said, why are they closing this bridge down, because the winds were only 40?
All of a sudden, these lights that were -- these light poles that were lining the bridge, they were falling over one at a time, falling into the bay or falling on to the street. So that's why they closed these things down. That's what they did yesterday.
Still some spots there across parts of Florida and Texas not out of the woods here, all this rainfall and thunderstorm activity coming down. Houston, you could also see a little bit of flooding coming down with this, too, as the rest of the day comes in.
And if you're going to the D.C., if you're going to the nation's capital for the weekend, boy, you better take some extra water with you, rather than paying a couple extra bucks a bottle -- because look at that: Saturday, Sunday, 98, and Monday, almost 100 degrees, and I can imagine it will feel like 110 on the nation's Mall.
HARRIS: Oh, my.
MYERS: Yes. Make sure you're not out there without the proper high duration, Tony.
HARRIS: Yes. That will knock some pounds off. Carefully, carefully. Have a great weekend.
MYERS: I will.
HARRIS: All right. Remembering West Virginia's favorite son, a memorial service for late Senator Robert C. Byrd is under way in Charleston, West Virginia. The nation's longest-serving senator died Monday at the age of 92. Among the dignitaries turning out for today's service is President Obama.
And Byrd was affectionately known as the "King of Pork." In his 51 years of public service, he was thoroughly unabashed in it bringing the bacon in the form of federal money and projects back to his home state. He's also known as a stickler for procedure and never shy of a good debate.
Here is the late senator a few years back, discussing war appropriations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, SEPTEMBER 2007)
SEN. ROBERT C. BYRD (D), WEST VIRGINIA: We cannot create a democracy at the point of a gun. Sending more guns does not change that reality. And this committee will not -- N-O-T -- not rubber stamp every request that is submitted by the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: So one of the hottest tickets in New Orleans this weekend takes you to the 16th Annual Essence Music Festival. This is year marking "Essence" magazine's 40th anniversary.
CNN's Richelle Carey in New Orleans right now with "Essence" editor in chief Angela Burt-Murray. And let's start with this year's amazing headliners.
Richelle, great to see you.
RICHELLE CAREY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Great to see you, Tony, as well. Absolutely.
You can tell by the music, it is the Essence Music Festival. That is a huge part of what this is about. And we'll get to the headliner in just a moment.
But the festival has always been about more than music. It's about family, it's about relationships, it's about helping the economy of New Orleans, which this year and has for years as has mattered more than ever.
And you mentioned the editor of "Essence" magazine, Angela Burt-Murray. I have her to my left. She's a -- she's a rock star, as well. She's a real headliner, Tony. She really is.
Angela, thank you so much. Tony is laughing. He's happy to see you. He's very happy to see you.
ANGELA BURT-MURRAY, ESSENSE MAGAZINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Thank you so much. I'm so happy that you all joined us this weekend. And as you said, it's a big party down in New Orleans this weekend. It's a really exciting time.
But it's also about more than the music. It is about empowering the community, talking about relationships. And on Saturday, we're going to have the African-American education summit. So, during the day, we're going to talk about the issues that are affecting our community, help motivate parents, empower students, close the achievement gap, and fulfill the dream.
CAREY: As we were standing here waiting to go on air, there were so many people, Angela, that stopped to speak to you. They want pictures with you, they want autographs, and I know that you know that that's about what "Essence" magazine means to people. I mean, you were talking about letters from people. Talk about "Essence" magazine.
BURT-MURRAY: Well, this is our 40th anniversary, and for 40 years, four decades, "Essence" has been the voice of black women. It was founded in 1970, when black women didn't necessarily have a platform to express their views, their style, their interests, their passions. But for 40 years, we've had the privilege and honor to tell the story of black women's lives. And that's why they come to New Orleans Fourth of July weekend every year because they want to talk about what's going on with black women.
But they also want to be supportive of New Orleans. America fell in love with New Orleans five years ago after Hurricane Katrina and they want to come here and be supportive. And I'm proud to say, last year we had over 400,000 people come to New Orleans for the festival. It was $190 million economic impact to the city and the state of Louisiana. So we're happy to be here, particularly considering they're going through new challenges right now.
RICHELLE CAREY, HLN: Absolutely. The challenges of Katrina, the challenges of the oil spill. Absolutely. And when I talk to Miss Janet Jackson a few days ago, she mentioned that those were the kinds of things that brought her here. Talk about getting Janet Jackson here.
BURT-MURRAY: I know. We are so excited to have Janet here at the Essence Music Festival for the very first time. Her only North American performance. So it's going to be really exciting.
And what she said to you about this being so important for her is that it's real, it's honest and it's true. And we're so excited to see her, not only care about her performance, but care about the city and the residents of New Orleans.
CAREY: Angela Burt-Murray, editor of "Essence" magazine, we appreciate it.
You can see my entire interview on HLN later on today at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.
Back to you, Tony.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, that is terrific. Two fabulous women there. That's Richelle Carey of our sister network, HLN, and Angela Burt-Murray, editor-in-chief of "Essence" magazine.
Richelle, great to see you. Can't wait to see that interview this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. on HLN.
CAREY: Thanks, Tony.
HARRIS: To read more stories that matter to all of us, pick up the latest issue of "Essence" magazine on newsstands now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: You know, I'm just looking over the lead page at cnnmoney.com, the best financial website on the web, and our terrific Money team and the work it does here. And this is the section right here, jobs, recovery hits a wall. Got to pay attention to this today. Stocks drop on jobs jitters. OK. Stimulus. The big bang is over. A better way to measure jobs. How about this right here, this page here, this tab, freelancers, America's new work force. Really? Freelancers? That's crazy.
All right. Let's get to the Dow, the big board, just about three hours -- better than three hours into the trading day and we're selling off here -- selling, selling, selling -- down 72 points. The Nasdaq is down as well, down 12.
Today's government unemployment report shows a net loss. We've been talking about it all morning, $125,000 jobs in June. That is the first monthly net loss of the year. Many of the jobs advantaged were temporary census positions. Looking at the private sector, in just the private sector, companies created 83,000 jobs. Not nearly enough to fuel a strong recovery. So I talked about this last hour with Georgia Tech Economics Professor Danny Boston, and he says there's not much to be excited about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PROF. DANNY BOSTON, GEORGIA TECH: And you can look beneath the surface and look beneath the surface and, you know, you go from one number to another number and it -- the numbers just don't look good.
HARRIS: Eighty-three thousand jobs created in the private sector. That's tepid at best, isn't it, when you need, what, 110,000 or 120,000 jobs a month for growth?
BOSTON: Right. Right. We need about twice that. We need about twice that number.
HARRIS: Twice that.
BOSTON: Twice that.
HARRIS: OK. So give me your short-term, long-term analysis on what is going on with the American employment picture right now.
BOSTON: All right. And it is divided into two parts. The short and the long-term. And in part what we're struggling with is these long-term consequences of the globalization of the economy. And a lot of the unemployment that we see right now would actually even be there, even if we did not have this financial meltdown upon (ph) us (ph).
HARRIS: So minus the financial meltdown, we would still see a lot of the employment issues that we're seeing now?
BOSTON: Right. Absolutely. What the employment -- what the financial meltdown did was just simply put us in a kind of a shock therapy. But corporations -- major corporations, mid and small size businesses, they are in need of an adjustment. And what they did is took the opportunity of the financial meltdown to make the adjustment to displace millions of workers that they have no intention of bringing back on board. So that's the way that they can compare (ph).
HARRIS: That they have no intention of bringing back on board.
BOSTON: Most of those businesses, and I've interviewed many of the CEOs, they say that even when things turn around, they're still going to go with the work force that they have and supplement that with new forms of technology that can allow them to produce --
HARRIS: Permer -- and what are we calling them, permalancers (ph) and part-time workers who are just getting more hours and they don't come with the benefit costs?
BOSTON: Right. Absolutely. Right. Right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Man. All right. So the jobs report, we've been talking about it all morning, gives us a pretty good snapshot of how things are going on main street. What about Wall Street? Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange.
And what's the street's reaction to this report, Alison?
ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know what, Tony, the early reaction was pretty tame, but no such luck in keeping it quiet. Because in the last hour, we've seen the Dow tank a bit. It even went down over 100 points. It's now down about 90. You know, it's really just sinking in that this report is just a reminder of this slowing recovery. And that's really the biggest fear that's weighing on the markets.
Now, we're likely to see a lot of volatility today. We've got light trading ahead of the holiday weekend. And what that can do is cause some big swings in the numbers. The markets are closed on Monday for the July 4th holiday.
But bottom line, Tony, the jobs report today, it's really just another piece in a series of disappointing indicators that came out Wednesday and Thursday that wound up giving investors a clue of what to expect today.
Tony.
HARRIS: Well, Alison, what is it that Wall Street needs to get a rally going here? Something that not just a day rally, something that feels a bit more sustaining than that?
KOSIK: Of course. You know, and what Wall Street wants to see is, they want to see a lot of solid, economic reports. They want to see evidence that things are getting better. But lately we've only been getting the opposite. I mean think about it, this week alone, pending home sales plunged, construction spending down, manufacturing activity dropped, consumer confidence dropping. Stocks had been reacting. You know, dropping since April.
I mean, look at this, stocks are down 14 percent. That's a big deal. It's fueling talk of a double dip recession. But the bottom line, almost everything depends on jobs. We need to see growth in jobs. 14.6 million people, Tony, are unemployed. That's equal to the approximate populations of Georgia and Colorado combined.
I'll tell you what. The only other thing that could give stocks a boost, corporate earnings season begins in about 10 days. We'll see if these companies come out with solid profit reports and we'll see if that can give the markets a boost.
Tony.
HARRIS: We need something going here.
KOSIK: Oh, yes.
HARRIS: All right, Alison, appreciate it. Have a great weekend. Thank you.
KOSIK: Sure.
HARRIS: We want to know what you think about the unemployment rate, the economy. If you're frustrated, we asked you to share some of your thoughts, your questions. A lot of you are weighing in at my blog page. So let's get to work here.
This is from, wow, Hopeless in Rochester. "This is not something any of us should be facing in this country. I am a fully capable and educated human with credentials and abilities, eager to work."
Let's see if we've got a couple more here. This is from Kelly. "The economy has killed the American dream. I followed the rules and received an education. Instead of the white picket fence I was promised, I've receive frustration, heart ache and pain."
We knew this question would get a lot of you responding here. And this is from Trevor who writes, "this financial meltdown is close to the level of the Great Depression. How many years did it take to resolve that? Six? Eight? The American people expect too much, too fast."
So Trevor is preaching patience here. How do you feel about that?
Let's keep the conversation going. Tell us what you think, cnn.com/tony. We're back in a moment. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: You know, we've been talking today about the latest employment numbers, spending a lot of time on it. As tough as it is for grown-ups to find work, it is even tougher for teens. Patricia Wu is joining us from New York now.
Patricia, good to see you.
PATRICIA WU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you.
HARRIS: School is out for summer, but jobs are not for a lot of kids.
WU: Absolutely, Tony. You said it. Fewer than one in four teens has a job. That's the lowest number we've seen in 60 years. The unemployment rate among 16 to 19-year-olds is more than 25 percent. Now, that's down slightly from May, but nearly triple the overall jobless rate. It's even higher for minority teens. More than 35 percent unemployment for Latinos and nearly 40 percent for African- Americans.
So why is it so tough for kids to get a job now? Well, they're competing against all those out of work adults and recent college grads for the small pool of available jobs. And here's what some 16 and 17-year-olds told us this week on their last day of school.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm really frustrated. I really want a job because I don't really have anything to do this summer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've sent out applications to a lot of stores, but it's been hard, though, because they're usually looking for more skilled employees.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because they want so much experience and kids don't really have that much experience.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just feel like as kids we're like looked at last as far as jobs a lot of the time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes you just give up because you realize there aren't that many places that are hiring.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WU: And out of work teens are missing out on so much more than just a paycheck. Economists say that summer jobs can be a stepping stone to future employment and can have long-term impact on career and wages. Iconic businessmen, including Warren Buffett, Ross Perot, and Steve Jobs have one thing in common, early work experience, Tony.
HARRIS: Yes. And, Patricia, this is obviously a problem that has much broader implications than just those numbers.
WU: Yes, exactly. If fewer teens are working, they're spending less, and that can hurt the overall economy. Also, studies have found that teens without jobs, especially those who are economically disadvantaged, are more likely to drop out of high school, become involved with the criminal justice system, and to get pregnant.
And this year, there's no help from the federal government. Just last week, the Senate blocked a $1 billion teen summer jobs program. And a Northeastern University economist says, quote, "this is a crisis for our young. Congress and the president have let the kids down."
Tony.
HARRIS: Boy. All right, Patricia, appreciate it. Thank you.
A CNN oil alert on day 74 of the disaster in the Gulf. The cap on BP's gushing oil well appears to be wobbling, raising the possibility less oil is being contained. A BP spokesman suggests high winds are to blame and notes forecasters expect rough seas to calm a bit this weekend.
In other top stories now, job recovery hits a wall, a real wall, a brick wall. The Labor Department reports a loss of 125,000 jobs in June. Modest hiring by businesses only partly offset the end of census jobs.
And General David Petraeus takes over command in Afghanistan in the middle of a surge of violence. The Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack overnight on a U.S. aid agency in northern Afghanistan which killed at least four people.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS: So here's the deal. You met a match made in heaven, but they have atrocious credit. And Christine Romans is here to help answer your difficult financial questions with "The Help Desk" team.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Time now for "The Help Desk," where we get answers to your financial questions. Joining me this hour, Ryan Mack is the president of Optimum Capital Management, and Laura Rowley is from Yahoo! Finance.
OK, I've got an e-mail for you from Mary in Florida. She says, "my son and his girlfriend are considering marriage, but she has awful credit. If they marry, will he be affected by her poor credit?"
Laura, I smell a mother-in-law who's worried about the family finances.
LAURA ROWLEY, YAHOO! FINANCE: I know. The daughter might want to check out the mother-in-law, while the son checks out the daughter-in- law's credit. You know, it's not as if they're scores will merge. Everyone has an individual credit score. So technically, no, it's not going to affect him.
But, poor credit scores are usually caused by things like paying bills late or not paying them at all or maxing out your credit. So they need to have an honest discussion about why her score is low. Maybe she was unemployed or she had an illness and she got behind on the bills. But if that's not it, talk about how much do we earn, how much do we spend, what kind of budget can we do together, and what are our financial goals when we get married? And how are we going to manage mother-in-law?
ROMANS: Yes. I know. Savers and spenders sometimes are attracted to each other, that means you have to figure out exactly how to have harmony in the financial part of the relationship.
Here's one from Lori. "Can you put your retirement account on hold when you become unemployed? Do you have any advice regarding retirement accounts for people who haven't had a job for a while?"
Ryan.
RYAN MACK, PRESIDENT, OPTIMUM CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: Well, obviously, if you still have a retirement account, or 401(k), that you haven't rolled over yet, I'm a big advocate of rolling that money over into a rollover IRA. You have more control over it. You avoid that 10 percent penalty fees you get to retain. They have more options that you can invest from, as opposed to traditionally your 401(k) program.
But there are a few options if you want to start taking that money out. And if you're over 55 years of age and you have a 401(k), you can actually start taking that money out penalty free. If you have an IRA, you can start making withdrawals, essentially called set withdrawals. Substantially equal periodic payments. Essentially that means that if -- from over - between 59 1/2 or five years, you're allowed to take that money out as long as you make equal payments every single year and you keep that for the longer value between 59 1/2 or five years worth of time.
ROMANS: All right, Ryan Mack, Laura Rowley, thank you, both of you.
"The Help Desk" is all about getting you answers. Send us an e- mail at cnnhelpdesk@cnn.com or log on to cnn.com/helpdesk to see more of our financial solutions. You can also pick up the latest issue of "Money" magazine on newsstands now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Let's see here what we've got. We've got a hot World Cup match, a record number of tweets per second, right, and luring Lebron through song. Ines Ferre with what's hot on the Internet right now.
INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And this is really trending right now because, you know, you've got so many stars and celebrities that are saying, Lebron James, come over to -
HARRIS: Yes, yes, yes.
FERRE: Well, these are some Broadway singers from New York singing "Promises Promises."
HARRIS: OK. OK.
FERRE: And they are singing to Lebron James. We actually want to play you -
HARRIS: Can we hear it?
FERRE: Yes, we want to play you a little bit of it.
HARRIS: Perfect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lebron James.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want him to play for the Knicks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Lebron James, please? Yes, this is Barbara. Oh!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Sharon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Patsy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Cathy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're from promises, promises on Broadway. I'm calling to give him the ABC's of (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-six reasons why he'll love New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: OK. We actually have to jump out of this. I apologize, Ines. We had a great segment lined up for you, but we've got to get to former President Clinton. He is speaking at the memorial for the late Senator Robert Byrd.
BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I'll never forget it. It was a beautiful spring night. And he gave one of those stem-winding speeches. And then he got up and he played the fiddle, and the crowd went crazy. And you know, in 1974, in a place like Arkansas or West Virginia, playing the fiddle was a whole lot better for your politics than playing the saxophone. So I am completely intimidated.
And then all the candidates get to speak. They're all limited to four or five minutes. Some went over. All the candidates for governor and every state officer. And then the members of the -- people running for the House of Representatives, there were five of us. We were dead last. And I drew the short straw. I was dead last among them.
By the time I got up to speak, it had been so long since Robert Byrd spoke, he was hungry again. And I realized, in my awed state, I couldn't do that well. So I decided the only chance I had to be remembered was to give the shortest speech. I spoke for 80 seconds. And I won the primary. And I owed it to Robert Byrd.
Now, when I was elected president, I knew that one of the things I needed to do before I took the oath of office was go to the Senate and pay my respects to Senator Byrd. In 1974, when I first met him, he had already been the leading authority on the institutional history of the Senate and the Senate rules for some years and he certainly was by the time I was about to become president. So I did that. And I got a copy of his history of the Senate, and his history of the Roman Senate. And I read them. And they're, I'm proud to say, still on my bookshelf in my office in Harlem in New York City today because I was so profoundly impressed.
Now, Robert Byrd was not without a sense of humor. For example, I was once ragging him about all the federal money he was hauling down to West Virginia. And it was bad for - I mean, I was from Arkansas. We weren't much better off than you. We weren't any better off than you. And every friend I had in Arkansas said, he's just a senator. You're sitting in the White House. We don't get squat compared to what they get. What is the matter with you? I was getting the living daylights beat out of me about once a week.
So I said to him, early in my first term, I said, you know, senator, if you pave every single inch of West Virginia, it's going to be much harder to mine coal. And he smiled, and he said, the Constitution does not prohibit humble servants from delivering whatever they can to their constituents.
But let me say something, seriously. He knew people who were elected to represent states and regions and political philosophies. We're flesh and blood people, which means they would never be perfect. He knew they were subject to passion and anger. And when you make a decision, that's important when you're mad, there's about an 80 percent chance you'll make a mistake. And that's why he thought the rules and the institution and the Constitution were so important. And he put them before everything, even what he wanted.
I'll never forget when we were trying to pass health care reform, in 1993 and '94. Senator Byrd was a passionate supporter of the efforts we were making, just as he was of the efforts that President Obama has made. But we only had 55 votes, and we could not defeat a filibuster. And so I said, "Well, Senator, why don't you just let me stick this on the budget, because that's the only thing you can't filibuster." That violated something called the Byrd rule. They knew he was running the Senate. They just go ahead and named the rule for him. So the -- and I said, "You know, you really ought to suspect suspend this, because the budget is going to be bankrupt if we don't quit spending so much money on health care, and we can't do it if we offer health care to everybody."
And he looked at me and he said, "That argument might have worked when you were a professor in law school. But you know as well as I do, it is substantively wrong." He wouldn't do it.
Then in his defense, he turned right around, and he worked his heart out to break that filibuster, and he was trying till the very end not to get me to give up the fight, because he thought if we just tried, we could find some errant Republican who would make a mistake and vote with us. He would never give it up.
The point I want to make is, he made a decision against his own interests, his own conviction, his own fight. And that's one reason I thank God that he could go in his wheelchair in his most significant vote at the end of his service in the Senate and vote for health care reform and make it real law.
Now, I will say this. If you want to get along with Senator Byrd, and you were having one of those constitutional differences, it was better for your long-term health if you lost the battle. I won the battle over the line item veto. Oh, he hated the line item veto. He hated the line item veto with a passion that most people in West Virginia reserve for blood feuds, like the Hatfields and the McCoys.
You would have thought the line item veto had been killing members of the Byrd family for 100 years. It made his blood boil. You've never been lectured by anybody, Nick Rayhall (ph) said that. Till Bob Byrd has lectured you, you have never known a lecture. I regret that every new president and every new member of Congress will never have the experience of being dressed down by Senator Robert Byrd.
And I'll be darned if he wasn't right about that to the Supreme Court rule for him instead of me on the climb (ph) -- on the line item veto. All right?
The point I want to make here is a serious one. He did as good a job for you as he could. As he -- as far as he was concerned, there was no such thing as too much for West Virginia. But the one thing he would not do, even for you, is violate his sense of what was required to maintain the integrity of the Constitution and the integrity of the United States' Senate so that America could go on when we were wrong, as well as right. So we would never be dependent on always being right.
Let me just say, finally, it is common place to say that he was a self-made man, that he set an example of lifetime learning. He was the first, and as far as I know, maybe the only member of Congress to get a law degree while serving in the Congress. But he did more learning than that. And all you've got to do is look around this crowd today and listen to that music to remember.
There are a lot of people who wrote these eulogies for Senator Byrd, and the newspapers, and I read a bunch of them. And they mentioned that he once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan. And what does that mean?
I'll tell what you it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollers of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected. And maybe he did something he shouldn't have done, and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that's what a good person does.
There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians. And so, yes, I'm glad he got a law degree. But by the time he got a law degree, he already knew more than 99 percent of the lawyers in America, anyway. The degree he got in human nature and human wisdom, the understanding that came to him by serving you and serving in the Senate, that's the people from the hills and hollers of West Virginia, in their patriotism, they provided a disproportionate newspaper of the soldiers who fought for our independence from England. And they have provided a disproportionate number of the soldiers in every single solitary conflict since that time, whether they agreed or disagreed with the policy.
The family feeling, the clan loyalty, the fanatic independence. The desire for a hand up, not a hand out. The willingness to fight when put into a corner. That has often got the people from whom Senator Byrd and I sprang in trouble. Because we didn't keep learning and growing and understanding that all the African-Americans who have been left out and left down and lived for going to church and lived to see their kids get a better deal, and have their children sign up for the military when they're needed. They're just like we are.
That all the Irish Catholics, the Scotch Irish used to fight. Everybody. The Italian immigrants, the people from Latin America who have come to our shores. The people from all over the world. Everybody who's ever been let down and left out and ignored, and abused, or who's got a terrible family story. We are all alike. That is the real education Robert Byrd got, and he lived it every day of his life in the United States Senate to make America a better, stronger place.
So not long after, maybe right before Senator Byrd lost Erma, I said in a fleeting world of instant food and attention deficit disorder, he had proved, and so had she, that some people really do love each other till death do them part.
I've been thinking about that today, thinking maybe we ought to amend the marriage vows and say that till death to us part and till death do bring us back together.
I -- I admired Senator Byrd; I liked him; I was grateful to him. I loved our arguments, and I loved our common causes. But most of all, I loved it that he had had the wisdom to believe that America was more important than any one individual, any one president, any one senator. That the rules, the institutions, the system had to enable us to keep forming a more perfect union through ups and downs and good times and bad.
He has left us a precious gift. He fought a good fight. He kept the faith. He has finished his course, but not ours. If we really would honor him today and every day, we must remember his lessons, and live by them. Thank you.
